ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF MODERN

CHINESE LITERATURE

The Routledge Handbook of Modern Chinese Literature presents a comprehensive overview of Chi-
nese literature from the 1910s to the present day. Featuring detailed studies of selected mas-
terpieces, it adopts a thematic-comparative approach. By developing an innovative conceptual
framework predicated on a new theory of periodization, it thus situates Chinese literature in the
context of world literature, and the forces of globalization.
Each section consists of a series of contributions examining the major literary genres, includ-
ing fiction, poetry, essay, drama and film. Offering an exciting account of the century-long
process of literary modernization in China, the handbook’s themes include:

• Modernization of people and writing

• Realism, romanticism and modernist aesthetics
• Chinese literature on the stage and screen
• Patriotism, war and revolution
• Feminism, liberalism and socialism
• Literature of reform, reflection and experimentation
• Literature of Taiwan, Hong Kong and new media

This handbook provides an integration of biographical narrative with textual analysis, maintain-
ing a subtle balance between comprehensive overview and in-depth examination. As such, it is
an essential reference guide for all students and scholars of Chinese literature.

Ming Dong Gu is Distinguished Professor of Foreign Studies at Shenzhen University, China

and Professor of Chinese and Comparative Literature at the University of Texas at Dallas, USA.
His recent publications include Sinologism: An Alternative to Orientalism and Postcolonialism (2013),
Translating China for Western Readers (editor, 2014) and Why Traditional Chinese Philosophy Still
Matters (editor, 2018).
ADVISORY BOARD
(IN ALPHABETIC ORDER)

Tani Barlow, Professor (Rice University)

Kang-I Sun Chang, Professor (Yale University)
Sihe Chen, Professor (Fudan University)
Xiaoming Chen, Professor (Peking University)
Gloria Davies, Professor (Monash University)
Fan Ding, Professor (Nanjing University)
Liangyan Ge, Professor (University of Notre Dame)
Eric Hayot, Professor (Pennsylvania State University)
Theodore Huters, Professor Emeritus (University of California-LA)
Dennis M. Kratz, Professor (University of Texas at Dallas)
Kam Louie, Professor Emeritus (University of Hong Kong)
J. Hillis Miller, Professor Emeritus (University of California-Irvine)
Andrea M. Riemenschnitter, Professor (University of Zurich)
Lena Rydholm, Professor (Uppsala University)
Ban Wang, Professor (Stanford University)
David Der-wei Wang, Professor (Harvard University)
Xudong Zhang, Professor (New York University)
Xian Zhou, Professor (Nanjing University)
ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK
OF MODERN CHINESE
LITERATURE

Edited by Ming Dong Gu

with Assistance from Tao Feng
 First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 selection and editorial matter, Ming Dong Gu; individual chapters,
the contributors
The right of Ming Dong Gu to be identified as the author of the editorial
material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted
in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Gu, Ming Dong, 1955- editor.
Title: Routledge handbook of modern Chinese literature/edited by
Ming Dong Gu.
Description: London; New York, NY: Routledge, 2018.| Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018009658| ISBN 9781138647541 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781315626994 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Chinese literature – 20th century – History and criticism.|
Chinese literature – 21st century – History and criticism.
Classification: LCC PL2302. R68 2018 | DDC 895.109/005 – dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018009658
ISBN: 978-1-138-64754-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-62699-4 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders for their
permission to reprint material in this book. The publishers would be
grateful to hear from any copyright holder who is not here acknowledged
and will undertake to rectify any errors or omissions in future editions
of this book.
To David Der-Wei Wang, Dennis M. Kratz, and Xudong Zhang,
With deep appreciation for their encouragement and support
 CONTENTS

Notes on contributors xiii

Acknowledgementsxxi
Prefacexxiii
Chronology of major events in modern Chinese literature by Tao Feng xxv

General introduction: writing modern Chinese literature in English 1

Ming Dong Gu

PART I
Early modern literature (c. 1910s–1942) 19

Introduction: national salvation and human enlightenment  19

SECTION I
Realism and the anatomy of Chineseness 21

  1 Lu Xun’s writings: modernizing Chinese language and consciousness 23

Ming Dong Gu

  2 Mao Dun and his masterpieces 36

Theodore Huters

  3 Ba Jin’s fiction and The Family48

Kristin Stapleton

  4 Lao She’s fiction and Camel Xiangzi59

Lena Rydholm

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 Contents

  5 Li Jieren’s fiction and Ripples on Dead Water72

Kenny K. K. Ng

  6 Fiction of left-wing writers: between ideological commitment

and aesthetic dedication 84
Nicoletta Pesaro

SECTION II
Romanticism and the new people 97

  7 Imagining new Chinese in Guo Moruo’s poetry 99

Paolo Magagnin

  8 Romanticizing new Chinese in poetry: Zhu Ziqing, Wen Yiduo,

Xu Zhimo 111
Frederik H. Green

  9 Yu Dafu’s romantic fiction: youth consciousness in crisis 128

Tong He

SECTION III
Modernist aesthetics and sensibilities 141

10 Modern consciousness and symbolist poetry: Fei Ming, Li Jinfa

and others 143
Gang Zhou

11 The poetry of Dai Wangshu: where tradition meets modernism 155

Yaohua Shi

12 The new sensationists: Shi Zhecun, Mu Shiying, Liu Na’ou 168

Christopher Rosenmeier

SECTION IV
Old and new Chinese on stage and screen 181

13 Early modern drama: Hong Shen, Ouyang Yuqian, Xia Yan 183
Xiaowen Xu

14 Cao Yu’s plays and Thunderstorm194

Liangyan Ge

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 Contents

15 Masterpieces of early cinema 205

Corrado Neri

PART II
Middle modern literature (late 1930s–1977) 217

Introduction: war, revolution, and the individual  217

SECTION V
Poetry and patriotism 219

16 Zang Kejia and Tian Jian’s poetry: a clarion for national salvation 221
Bingfeng Yang

17 Ai Qing’s poetry and Dayanhe, My Nurse235

Victor Vuilleumier

18 Feng Zhi, Mu Dan and the Nine Leaves 247

Gloria Davies

SECTION VI
Topical plays and modern essays 263

19 Historical plays of Guo Moruo and Tian Han 265

Ning Ma

20 Plays of Chen Baichen and Yang Hansheng 278

Letizia Fusini

21 Modern Chinese essays: Zhou Zuoren, Lin Yutang and others 290
Tonglu Li

SECTION VII
Literature of revolutionary realism 303

22 Novels of Zhao Shuli and Sun Li: chronicles of new peasantry 305
Tonglu Li

23 Zhou Libo’s fiction and The Hurricane318

Marco Fumian

ix
 Contents

24 Fiction of Yang Mo and Ouyang Shan: from new youth to

revolutionary youth 329
Yuehong Chen

SECTION VIII
Proto-feminism and liberal realism 341

25 Ding Ling’s feminist writings: new women in crisis of subjectivity 343

Géraldine Fiss

26 Eileen Chang’s fiction: a study of alienated human nature 356

Ming Dong Gu

27 Independent writers: Shen Congwen, Xu Dishan, Qian Zhongshu 369

Philip F. Williams

SECTION IX
Literature of socialist realism 383

28 Fiction of new China (1949–1966) 385

Xiangshu Fang and Lijun Bi

29 Poetry of new China (1949–1966) 397

Lijun Bi and Xiangshu Fang

30 Dramas of new China (1949–1966) 410

Weijie Song

31 Literature of the Cultural Revolution 423

Lena Henningsen

PART III
Late modern literature (late 1970s–early 1990s) 435

Introduction: humanist revival and literary renaissance  435

SECTION X
Literature of trauma, memory, reflection 437

32 Literature of trauma and reflection 439

Meng Li and King-fai Tam

x
 Contents

33 Literature of reform and root-seeking 450

Meng Li and King-fai Tam

34 Films of reflection and nativity 462

Yanjie Wang

SECTION XI
Literature of experiments and innovation 475

35 Avant-garde fiction: Can Xue, Ma Yuan,Yu Hua and others 477

Irmy Schweiger

36 Experimental and opaque poetry: Bei Dao, Shu Ting, Gu Cheng,

and others 491
Cosima Bruno

37 Plays of late modern period 502

Liang Luo

PART IV
Postmodern literature (late 1980s–present) 515

Introduction: multiplicity of themes and forms  515

SECTION XII
Literature of new realism 517

38 Fiction of Wang Meng and Alai: new approaches to historical fiction 519
Mei-Hsuan Chiang

39 Yu Hua’s and Su Tong’s fiction 530

Anne Wedell-Wedellsborg

40 Masterworks of Jia Pingwa and Chen Zhongshi: temporalities

of modernity 542
Yiju Huang

41 Female neo-realism: masterworks of Zhang Jie, Wang Anyi, and Chi Li 553
Hui Faye Xiao

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 Contents

SECTION XIII
Postmodern realism 567

42 Mo Yan’s fiction: human existence beyond good and evil 569

Tonglu Li

43 Gao Xingjian and Soul Mountain580

Carolyn FitzGerald

44 Ge Fei and his South of   Yangtse Trilogy592

Andrea M. Riemenschnitter

45 Bi Feiyu’s fiction: portraits of the disadvantaged 603

Xiuyin Peng

SECTION XIV
Literature of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and new media 615

46 Postwar Taiwan literature: an overview 617

Christopher Lupke

47 Masterpieces of Taiwan fiction: Chen Yingzhen and Bai Xianyong 631

Pei-yin Lin

48 Masterpieces of Taiwan poetry: Ji Xian and Yu Guangzhong 643

Pei-yin Lin

49 Hong Kong literature: an overview 656

Paul B. Foster

50 Chinese internet literature: digital literary genres and new writing

subjects669
Guozhong Duan

Conclusion: a review of Chinese literature since the 1980s 682

Chen Xiaoming

Chinese glossary: selected names, terms, and work titles 697

Index725

xii
 CONTRIBUTORS

Bi, Lijun lectures at the School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Monash
University, Australia. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Melbourne in 2011. Her
main research interest focuses on poetry and children’s literature in China.

Bruno, Cosima is Senior Lecturer in China Studies at the School of Oriental and African
Studies, University of London. Her publications include Between the Lines: Yang Lian’s Poetry
Through Translation (2012), translations, and articles in Target, Intervention, Shi tansuo, In forma
di parole, Life Writing, and in the collected volumes Translating Others (2006), China and Its
Others (2012). Her main research interest covers contemporary Chinese, Sinophone and bilin-
gual poetry, poetry performativity, and the theoretical issues related to its translation; visual and
sound poetry; language art.

Chen, Xiaoming, Changjiang Chair Professor of Chinese Literature and chairman of the
Department of Chinese at Peking University, is Deputy President of the Association of Modern
Chinese Literature Studies and Vice President of the Chinese Association of Literary Theory.
His major scholarly writings include these books in Chinese: Limitless Challenges: Postmodernity
of Chinese Avant-garde Literature; Main Literary Trends in Present-Day Chinese Literature; Traces of
Deconstruction: History, Discourse, Subject, The Undying Pure Literature; Derrida’s Bottom-line: Essen-
tials of Deconstruction and the Coming of Neo-Humanist Literature; and Guarding Remnant Literariness,
and numerous journal articles and book chapters.

Chen,Yuehong is currently Associate Professor of English and Associate Dean of Foreign Stud-
ies at China Three Gorges University. She received her Ph.D. in Studies of Literature from the
University of Texas at Dallas. Her research interest focuses on comparative literature and transla-
tion studies. In recent years, she has published scholarly works in the field of eco-critical studies
and eco-translatology in addition to journal articles and book chapters.

Chiang, Mei-Hsuan is Assistant Professor in the Department of Filmmaking, Taipei National

University of the Arts. She has taught and researched on Chinese cinema, modern Chinese lit-
erature and critical theories. Her research interests include the representation of history in film
and literature, ethnicity and identity formation, and gender and sexuality. Her current project

xiii
 Contributors

explores the intersection between gender and the construction of Cold War narrative in Taiwan
cinema from 1964 to 1982. She has published in journals such as Asian Cinema and Chung-Wai
Literary Monthly.

Davies, Gloria is Professor of Chinese Studies at Monash University and an Adjunct Director
of the Australian Centre on China in the World (CIW) at the Australian National University
where she is a regular contributor to the CIW’s China Story Yearbook project. She has pub-
lished widely on modern Chinese intellectual politics and on Chinese literary and cultural top-
ics. She is the author of Worrying About China: On Chinese Critical Inquiry (2007) and Lu Xun’s
Revolution:Writing in a Time of Violence (2013). She co-edited Pollution: China Story Yearbook 2015
with Jeremy Goldkorn and Luigi Tomba.

Duan, Guozhong graduated from the School of Arts and Humanities at the University of
Texas at Dallas with a Ph.D. in the studies of literature and is currently an associate professor
of English at Yangzhou University. His research interests include comparative literature, visual
culture, and internet literature. He has published scholarly articles in the fields of literary studies,
history of ideas, and education.

Fang, Xiangshu is a senior lecturer in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin
University, Australia. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Melbourne in 2002. His
research interest covers political and moral indoctrination in China, Confucianism, and Chinese
intellectual history.

Feng, Tao graduated from the School of Arts and Humanities at the University of Texas at
Dallas with a Ph.D. in the studies of literature. He is currently a lecturer of foreign studies at
Yangzhou University, China. Having published scholarly articles in the fields of literary studies,
history of ideas, and Buddhism, he is completing a book length study on old age and senior
subjectivity in Chinese and Western literature and thought.

Fiss, Géraldine teaches modern Chinese literature and film at the University of Southern Cali-
fornia. Her research focuses on transcultural practice and innovation in modern and contempo-
rary Chinese fiction and poetry, especially Chinese-German literary and poetic encounters. She
also works on Chinese literary and cinematic modernisms, Chinese women’s fiction and film, and
East Asian eco-criticism. She is currently working on a book that traces Chinese poets’ encounters
with the German modernist poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s (1875–1926) oeuvre and poetic thought.

FitzGerald, Carolyn is Associate Professor of Chinese Language and Literature at Auburn

University. She has published a study on late Chinese modernism, titled Fragmenting Modern-
isms: Chinese Wartime Literature, Art, and Film, 1937–49 (2013). Her articles on modern Chinese
literature, film, and drama have appeared in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, Chinese Films
in Focus II, and CHINOPERL Papers.

Foster, Paul B. is Associate Professor of Chinese at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He

specializes in the study of Lu Xun, the icon of Modern Chinese Literature, and is the author of
Ah Q Archaeology: Lu Xun, Ah Q, Ah Q Progeny and the National Character Discourse in Twentieth
Century China (2006). His current manuscript, The Kungfu Industrial Complex: Jin Yong’s Martial
Arts Fiction and Chinese Popular Culture, explores the discourse of martial arts fiction, film, and
popular culture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

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 Contributors

Fumian, Marco is Associate Professor of Chinese Studies at the Oriental University of Naples,
Italy, where he teaches Mandarin language and modern Chinese literature. His main interests
are in the area of modern Chinese literature and popular culture, with a focus on their role in
the production of mainstream ideological discourses in the PRC. He is the author of a number
of articles on contemporary popular literature and a book-length study in Italian, which analy-
ses the emergence and development of writings by writers born after the 1980s. He is also an
occasional translator of modern Chinese literature into Italian.

Fusini, Letizia (Ph.D., SOAS) is currently Associate Lecturer in History of Chinese The-
atre at Goldsmiths College, University of London. Her doctoral thesis (2016) examines the
tragic aspects of a selection of pre- and post-exile plays by Sino-French writer Gao Xingjian.
Her research interests and publications to date fall in the realm of Sino-Western intercultural
exchanges with a focus on literature and drama. Her scholarship has appeared in CLCWeb:
Comparative Literature and Culture, Neohelicon, and edited books. She has collaborated with the
University of Venice for the publication of a handbook of modern Chinese literature in Italian.

Ge, Liangyan is Professor of Chinese Literature at the University of Notre Dame. His research
interests lie in the fields of premodern Chinese fiction, the interplay between the oral and the
written in Chinese popular culture and literature, comparative literature, and cultural studies. In
addition to his many articles and essays, he is the author of Out of the Margins:The Rise of Chinese
Vernacular Fiction (Honolulu: 2001) and The Scholar and the State: Late Imperial Chinese Fiction
as Political Discourse (Seattle: 2014). With Vibeke Børdahl, Liangyan Ge coedited Western Han:
A Yangzhou Storyteller’s Script (Copenhagen: 2017). He is also a coauthor of Integrated Chinese,
a multivolume college language textbook series.

Green, Frederik H. is Associate Professor of Chinese Language and Literature at San Francisco
State University. A native of northern Germany, he received his BA in Chinese Studies from
Cambridge University and a Ph.D. in Chinese Literature from Yale University. His research
interests include Republican period literature and visual culture, Sino-Japanese relations, and
post-socialist Chinese cinema. His articles have appeared in journals such as Modern Chinese
Literature and Culture, Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese, Frontiers of Literary Studies in China,
and Journal of East-Asian Popular Culture.

Gu, Ming Dong is Distinguished Professor of Foreign Studies at Shenzhen University, China
and Professor of Chinese and Comparative Literature at the University of Texas at Dallas. He is
the author of Sinologism: An Alternative to Orientalism and Post-colonialism, Chinese Theories of Read-
ing and Writing, and Chinese Theories of Fiction; and editor of Translating China for Western Readers
and Why Traditional Chinese Philosophy Still Matters (2018). He has also published more than 120
articles in journals including Journal of Asian Studies, CLEAR, Asian Philosophy, Philosophy East &
West, Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy, Journal of Chinese Philosophy, Journal of Oriental
Studies, Monumenta Serica, New Literary History, Poetics Today, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism,
Diacritics, Narrative, Journal of Narrative Theory, Psychoanalytic Quarterly, Modern Language Quarterly,
Journal of Aesthetic Education, Comparative Literature, Comparative Literature Studies, and many others.

He, Tong received her bachelor’s degree from Beijing Foreign Studies University, China, major-
ing in Chinese Language and Literature. She continued her studies in the English department
and acquired her master’s degree in English literature. She studied at Lancaster University in the
UK for one year and received her second master’s degree in English Literary Studies. Currently,

xv
 Contributors

she is a Ph.D. student of comparative literature in the School of Arts and Humanities, University
of Texas at Dallas.

Henningsen, Lena is a junior professor at Freiburg University. Her current research focuses on
reading practices in China’s 1970s and handwritten entertainment literature circulating during
the Cultural Revolution. She has published scholarly works on popular literature of the twenti-
eth and twenty-first centuries, with topics ranging from Socialist Realist fiction to the current
bestseller market.

Huang, Yiju is Assistant Professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at
Fordham University. Her research interests include twentieth and twenty-first century Chinese
literature, film, and visual culture, with a special emphasis on trauma studies and cultural mem-
ory of deep social transformations. Her book, Tapestry of Light: Aesthetic Afterlives of the Cultural
Revolution (2014), offers an account of the psychic, intellectual, and cultural aftermath of the
Chinese Cultural Revolution.

Huters, Theodore is Professor Emeritus of Chinese Literature at University of California–Los

Angeles and editor of the translation journal Renditions. His primary interest is in the literature
and cultural history of China in the period between 1840 and 1920, his latest book being Bring-
ing the World Home: Appropriating the West in Late Qing and Early Republican China. He is currently
completing a book on the uses of modernity in the same period.

Li, Meng received her Ph.D. from the University of Sydney and is currently teaching in the Con-
fucius Institute of Hong Kong at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She has published journal
articles and presented her research in the areas of Chinese intellectual men and women, female-
authored Chinese literature, subaltern women, Chinese diasporic cinema, and women’s cinema.

Li, Tonglu is Associate Professor of Chinese at Iowa State University. He received his Ph.D.
from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 2009. His primary research area is
twentieth-century Chinese literature and intellectual history. He has published articles on Zhou
Zuoren and Mo Yan in Asia Major, Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews, Concentric: Literary
and Cultural Studies, Frontiers of Literary Studies in China, Frontiers of Literary Theory, Modern Chi-
nese Literature and Culture, Modern Language Quarterly, and Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Literature.
Recently, he has been conducting research on religion and literature in modern China.

Lin, Pei-yin obtained her Ph.D. from SOAS, University of London and is currently Associate
Professor at the School of Chinese, the University of Hong Kong. She also taught in Singapore
and England, and was a visiting scholar at Harvard Yen-ching Institute (2015–2016). A specialist
on modern Chinese literature and culture, she has published one monograph, Colonial Taiwan:
Negotiating Identities and Modernity Through Literature (2017), and two edited volumes – Print,
Profit and Perception: Ideas, Information and Knowledge in Chinese Societies, 1895–1949 (Brill, 2014)
and Border-crossing and In-betweenness (2016).

Luo, Liang is Associate Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Kentucky. She is the
author of The Avant-Garde and the Popular in Modern China (2014). Her recent writings on inter-
mediality, the politics of performance, and the dialectics of dancing and writing are published in
Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, Trans-Humanities, and Frontiers of Literary Studies in China.

xvi
 Contributors

She is working on two projects, The Humanity of the Nonhuman: Gender, Media, and Politics in
The White Snake (book and digital project) and The International Avant-Garde and Modern China
(book and documentary film project).

Lupke, Christopher received his Ph. D. from Cornell University and is Professor of Chinese
Cultural Studies and Chair of East Asian Studies at the University of Alberta. Most recently, he
has published The Sinophone Cinema of Hou Hsiao-hsien and translations of the poetry of Xiao
Kaiyu. Lupke has worked extensively on literature from Taiwan and is particularly interested in
the theme of filiality in modern Chinese literature and cinema.

Ma, Ning is Associate Professor of Chinese in the Department of Asian Languages and Lit-
eratures at University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She has taught at Tufts University and is the
author of The Age of Silver: The Rise of the Novel East and West (2016). Her research interests
include Ming-Qing vernacular literature, comparative early modernity, Confucianism and mod-
ern China, and world literature.

Magagnin, Paolo is Assistant Professor of Chinese and Translation Studies at the Ca’ Foscari
University of Venice. His current research focuses on Republican literature, contemporary Chi-
nese fiction, translation studies, didactics of Chinese literature and culture, and contemporary
Chinese political discourse. He has translated a number of works by contemporary Chinese
writers including Zhu Wen, Xiao Bai, Xu Zechen, Cao Wenxuan, Chen He, and A Yi.

Neri, Corrado is Associate Professor at the Jean Moulin University, Lyon 3. He has conducted
extensive research on Chinese cinema in Beijing and Taipei and published many articles in
English, French, and Italian. His book Tsai Ming-liang on the Taiwanese film director appeared
in 2004 (Venezia, Cafoscarina). Ages Inquiets. Cinémas chinois: une representation de la jeunesse was
printed in 2009 (Lyon, Tigre de Papier). His third book, Retro Taiwan, has recently been pub-
lished for l’Asiathèque (Paris, 2016). He co-edited (with Kirstie Gormley) a bilingual (French/
English) book on Taiwan cinema (Taiwan cinema/Le Cinéma taiwanais, Asiexpo, 2009) and Global
Fences (with Florent Villard, 2011).

Ng, Kenny K. K. is currently teaching at the Academy of Film in Hong Kong Baptist Uni-
versity. He has taught a variety of subjects in Chinese humanities, comparative literature, film
culture, photography, and cultural studies. His book, Li Jieren, Geopoetic Memory, and the Crisis
of Writing Chengdu in Revolutionary China (2015), seeks to challenge official historiography and
rewrite Chinese literary history from the ground up by highlighting the importance of cultural
geography and historical memory. His ongoing book projects concern censorship and visual
cultural politics in Cold War China and Asia, and a critical history of Cantonese cinema.

Peng, Xiuyin teaches in the School of Foreign Studies at Yangzhou University, China and is a
researcher in the Center for Bi Feiyu Studies. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the School
of Humanities, working on a doctoral thesis on Bi Feiyu’s life and literary works. In addition to
the focus on Bi Feiyu, her research interest broadly covers modern and contemporary Chinese
literature, comparative literature, and literary translation.

Pesaro, Nicoletta is Associate Professor of Chinese Language and Literature at Ca’ Foscari
University of Venice, where she coordinates the MA program in Interpreting and Translation.

xvii
 Contributors

Her field of research includes modern and contemporary Chinese literature, theory of narra-
tive, and translation studies. The author of several articles on Chinese literature and of transla-
tions of contemporary Chinese novels, she is presently preparing a new Italian translation of Lu
Xun’s short stories. She has edited The Ways of Translation: Constraints and Liberties of Translating
Chinese (2013), and will soon be publishing a history of modern Chinese fiction (Carocci).

Riemenschnitter, Andrea M. is Chair Professor of Modern Chinese Language and Literature

and Deputy Director at the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies, University of Zurich. Her
research is focused on literary and cultural negotiations of sinophone modernities. Recent book
publications include The Visible and the Invisible: Poems by Leung Ping-kwan (tr. and ed., 2012);
Carnival of the Gods: Mythology, Modernity and the Nation in China’s 20th Century (in German,
2011); Entangled Landscapes: Early Modern China and Europe (ed. with Zhuang Yue, 2017). She
serves on the executive boards of the European Association of Chinese Studies and the Swiss
Asia Society, the advisory board of CETRAS Freiburg, and is honorary fellow of Lingnan
University, Hong Kong.Visiting professorships and fellowships brought her to Beijing, Berkeley,
Freiburg, Shanghai, Singapore, and Vienna.

Rosenmeier, Christopher has a BA and MA from the University of Copenhagen and a Ph.D.
from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). After postdoctoral studies at the Uni-
versity of Cambridge, he went to the University of Edinburgh where he is now a lecturer. His
research includes journal articles on Shi Zhecun and Mu Shiying as well as a book on popular
Chinese fiction in the 1940s, On the Margins of Modernism: Xu Xu,Wumingshi and Popular Chinese
Literature in the 1940s (2017), which studies the influence of the New Sensationist writers upon
popular fiction.

Rydholm, Lena is Professor of Chinese at the Department of Linguistics and Philology at

Uppsala University, Sweden. Rydholm’s research focuses on ancient and modern Chinese lit-
erary theory, especially theories of genre and style, classical poetry, and fiction. Her publica-
tions include True Lies Worldwide: Fictionality in Global Contexts (co-edited with A.Cullhed, De
Gruyter, 2014), “Theories of genre and style in China in the late 20th century,” in Orientalia
Suecana LIX (2010), and “The theory of ancient Chinese genres,” in G. Lindberg-Wada (ed.).
Literary History:Towards a global perspective (2006) vol. 2.

Schweiger, Irmy studied at Heidelberg, Leiden (NL), Taipei, Tianjin, and received her Ph.D.
from Heidelberg University (Germany). She is currently Professor of Chinese Language and
Cultures at the Department for Asian, Middle Eastern and Turkish Studies at Stockholm Uni-
versity. Her research interests are situated in the realm of modern and contemporary Chinese
literature and culture. Among other things she is interested in historical trauma and cultural
memory, cosmopolitan and vernacular dynamics in literature and literary history, literature as
counter narrative to official discourse, and cultures in contact.

Shi, Yaohua received his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Indiana University. He is Asso-
ciate Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Wake Forest Uni-
versity where he teaches Chinese, Chinese literature, East Asian culture, and East–West cultural
relations. Yaohua Shi’s research interests include pre-modern Chinese vernacular fiction and
Republican modernism. He has published articles on The Scholars, Dream of the Red Chamber,
contemporary Chinese film, and twentieth-century Chinese architecture. With Judith Amory,
he has translated the fictional works of Yang Jiang and Lin Huiyin.

xviii
 Contributors

Song, Weijie is Associate Professor of modern Chinese literature and culture at Rutgers Uni-
versity, New Brunswick. He is the author of one monograph in English, Mapping Modern Bei-
jing: Space, Emotion, Literary Topography, and two books in Chinese: From Entertainment Activity
to Utopian Impulse: Rereading Jin Yong’s Martial Arts Novels and China, Literature, and the United
States: Images of China in American and Chinese-American Novels and Dramas, in addition to other
publications and translations.

Stapleton, Kristin is Professor of History at the University at Buffalo, SUNY, and editor of
the journal Twentieth-Century China. Her research interests include twentieth-century urban
history, how history is represented in works of fiction, and the history of Chinese humor. She is
the author of Fact in Fiction: 1920s China and Ba Jin’s Family (2016) and other works. She serves
on the international advisory committee of the Urban China Research Network and on the
editorial board of Education About Asia, the teaching journal of the Association for Asian Studies.

Tam, King-fai received his Ph.D. from Princeton University and is Associate Professor Emeri-
tus of the Department of Chinese Culture at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. A special-
ist in modern Chinese literature and culture, he has published on the modern Chinese essay
(xiaopinwen), detective fiction, and war memories in Chinese as well as Japanese film and politi-
cal humor. He is currently working on a project on Chinese spy fiction.

Vuilleumier, Victor is Associate Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and
Civilizations, University Paris 7 – Paris Diderot, and a member of the East Asian Civilizations
Research Center (Paris). He also teaches in the Department of East Asian Studies, University
of Geneva. He has published papers on Chinese literature and thought of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. His research interest covers comparative literature, cross-cultural studies, and
gender and representations of the body. He received his education in Geneva and has studied in
various Chinese and American universities.

Wang, Yanjie is Associate Professor of Chinese Literature and Cinema in the Asian and Asian
American Studies Department at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles. Her research
interests are displacement, internal migration, trauma, violence, and gender and sexuality. Her
articles have appeared in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, Journal of Chinese Cinemas, Ameri-
can Journal of Chinese Studies, Asian Cinema, Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies, Situations:
Cultural Studies in the Asian Context, among others. She is currently working on a book project
which explores the discursive cultural politics of representing rural migrant workers in contem-
porary Chinese literature and cinema.

Wedell-Wedellsborg, Anne is Professor Emeritus of China Studies at Aarhus University, Den-

mark. She specializes in modern and contemporary Chinese literature and has published exten-
sively in this field. Publications include Modernism and Postmodernism in Chinese Literary Culture
(1991 co-ed.), Cultural Encounters: China, Japan and the West (1995 co-ed.), “Between Self and
Community: The Individual in Contemporary Chinese Literature,” (iChina 2010), “Contextu­
alizing Cai Guoqiang” (2010), and “Alone in the Text: Solitary Individuals in Chinese Lit-
erature” (Zhongguo Xueshu 2015). Other research interests include the contemporary Chinese
cultural scene, Søren Kierkegaard in Chinese and Sino-European cultural relations.

Williams, Philip F. has held the position of Professor of Chinese Language and Literature at
a number of research universities in the United States and Australasia, and is currently teaching

xix
 Contributors

at Montana State University. Along with over two hundred shorter publications such as journal
articles and book chapters, he has authored or edited more than ten books, including Village
Echoes:The Fiction of Wu Zuxiang (1993), The Great Wall of Confinement (2004), and Asian Literary
Voices (2010).

Xiao, Hui Faye is Associate Professor of Modem Chinese Literature and Culture at the Uni-
versity of Kansas. She has published a book, Family Revolution: Marital Strife in Contemporary Chi-
nese Literature and Visual Culture (2014), and articles in Chinese Literature Today, Modern Chinese
Literature and Culture (MCLC), Journal of Chinese Cinemas, Journal of Contemporary China, Chinese
Films in Focus II, and Gender and Modernity in Global Youth Cultures. Currently she is working on
a new book project about youth culture in contemporary China.

Xu, Xiaowen teaches Applied Chinese Linguistics at the University of British Columbia. She
holds a Ph.D. in East Asian Studies from the University of Toronto (2014) and another Ph.D.
in English from the Beijing Foreign Studies University (1997). Her current research interests
include the idea of the “fantastic” in Chinese classical tales, vernacular stories and modern Chi-
nese fiction, and its adaptation in modern Chinese drama and film. She has published numerous
Chinese translations, among which are Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce and
Linda Hutcheon’s Irony’s Edge:The Theory and Politics of Irony.

Yang, Bingfeng is currently a lecturer in the School of Foreign Languges, China Three Gorges
University. He holds a Ph.D. in Literary Studies from the University of Texas at Dallas. His aca-
demic interests include comparative literature and cultural studies. He has published articles in
the area of the English novel and poetry.

Zhou, Gang is Associate Professor of Chinese and Comparative Literature at Louisiana State
University. She is the author of Placing the Modern Chinese Vernacular in Transnational Literature
(2011) and co-editor of Other Renaissances: A New Approach to World Literature (2006) and Shen
Congwen at a Global Perspective (in Chinese, 2017). Her articles have appeared in PMLA, MLN,
and other journals.

xx
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The completion of the Routledge Handbook has brought an enormous sense of relief. At the same
time, it has given me an opportunity to pay my indebtedness to numerous scholars around the
world who have contributed to the completion of the project. For space reasons, I will only
express my thanks to those who deserve special recognition. First of all, I wish to thank all the
contributors to the handbook who come from institutions of higher learning in numerous
countries and regions around the world, including China, the US, Britain, Canada, Germany,
France, Switzerland, Sweden, Italy, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Taiwan and Hong Kong. With-
out their participation and cooperation, the handbook would not have been possible in the first
place. A detailed list of their names and institutional affiliations is presented in the Contributors
pages, which show a diverse array of talents ranging from senior luminaries in Chinese literature
through seasoned mid-career specialists to budding young scholars. Second, I wish to express
my thanks to members of the Advisory Board: Chen Xiaoming, Changjiang Scholar Chair
Professor of Chinese Literature at Peking University; Tani Barlow, T.T. and W.F. Chao Profes-
sor of History at Rice University; Kang-I Sun Chang, Malcolm G. Chace ’56 Professor of East
Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale University; Chen Sihe, Professor and chair of Chinese
Department at Fudan University; Gloria Davies, Professor of Chinese Studies at Monash Uni-
versity; Ding Fan, Professor of Modern Chinese Literature at Nanjing University; Liangyan Ge,
Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Notre Dame; Eric Hayot,
Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature and Asian Studies at Pennsylvania State Uni-
versity; Theodore Huters, Professor Emeritus of Asian Languages and Cultures at University of
California-Los Angeles; Kam Louie, MB Lee Professor Emeritus at the University of Hong Kong;
Andrea M. Riemenschnitter, Chair Professor of Modern Chinese Language and Literature at the
University of Zurich; Lena Rydholm, Professor of Sinology at Uppsala University; Ban Wang,
William Haas Professor in Chinese Studies at Stanford University; Xudong Zhang, Professor of
Comparative Literature and East Asian Studies at New York University; Zhou Xian, Changjiang
Scholar Chair Professor at Nanjing University; and David Wang, Edward C. Henderson Profes-
sor of Chinese Literature at Harvard University. In the process of completing the project, they
have provided their expertise and guidance in various ways and recommended suitable scholars
as contributors to the handbook. Third, I am obliged to thank my former doctoral students
Yuehong Chen, Bingfeng Yang and Guozhong Duan, and my current doctoral student Tong
He, who graciously accepted my invitation to write the few chapters left by those scholars who

xxi
 Acknowledgements

had their last-minute withdrawal after the deadline of submission was long overdue because of
their ill health or tight schedule. Their timely participation in the project not only saved me
from despondence and despair but also spared the project from indefinite postponement. Fourth,
I want to express my special gratitude to Professor David Der-Wei Wang, Professor Dennis M.
Kratz and Professor Xudong Zhang for their encouragement when I was initially hesitating
to accept Routledge’s invitation to edit the handbook. Without their encouragement, I might
have declined the invitation. I am especially grateful to Professor David Der-Wei Wang who
not only encouraged me to undertake the project but also took his precious time to read and
comment on the overall plan and introduction. Fifth, I need to thank Dr.Tao Feng for preparing
a chronology of major events in modern Chinese literary history, compiling the book’s index,
and assisting in other matters. Last but not least, The General Introduction has appeared as an
article in Modern Chinese Literature Studies (Zhongguo xiandai wenxue yanjiu congkan), (2018),
vol.7, pp. 101–122. I acknowledge my indebtedness to that prestigious journal for publishing a
Chinese version of my introduction. I am deeply grateful to Routledge for having confidence
in me, and to the press’s editorial staff, Stephanie Rogers and Georgina Bishop, for their profes-
sional guidance and editorial work.Without their assistance, the book may not have appeared in
its current form. Needless to say, any errors and imperfections are my sole responsibility.
Ming Dong Gu

xxii
 PREFACE

The Routledge Handbook of Modern Chinese Literature consists of a chronology, a general introduc-
tion, four part-introductions, fifty chapters, a conclusion, a glossary of Chinese characters, and
an index of names, terms, and work titles. In combining historical narrative with thematic and
aesthetic explorations, the handbook has organized a series of thematic groups into an overlap-
ping chronological structure, and each thematic group is composed of several topical essays in
terms of major genres of literature: fiction, poetry, drama, essay and film. Altogether, there are
four parts, each covering a rough historical period, and fourteen theme groups arranged in a
chronological order, each group having three to six chapters. The overall plan aims to integrate
sketchy overviews of a period or a form of writings or a writer’s works with detailed analyses
focusing on one or more commonly accepted masterpieces. The conceptual frame is designed
with these specific points in mind: (1) each part is headed by an overview of the materials cov-
ered in that period; (2) each theme group in a part collectively contributes to a general view of
the topics covered in that part; (3) each chapter in a theme group is devoted to a focused study
of one or more chosen authors; and (4) each chapter seeks as much as possible to offer new
readings of chosen masterpieces from a fresh perspective so as to stimulate thinking and further
discussions on the topic.
In the actual writing of individual chapters, all single-author chapters are organized in a
three-tier structure which consists of (a) the author’s life and career, (b) the author’s literary
achievements, and (c) an in-depth analysis or a new reading of the author’s masterpieces against
the large background of modern Chinese and world literature. For chapters with two or more
authors, each begins with an overview of the chosen authors’ writings in terms of the theme or
genre that holds them together, and then allocates the remaining space to each author accord-
ing to their importance and literary achievements. For chapters focusing on the literature of a
period or a genre, though they enjoy a relative autonomy in conception and organization, their
structural organization remains in line with the overall conception and adheres to the overarch-
ing theme of the book. As a whole, the book seeks to achieve a balance between overview of a
topic and in-depth analysis of chosen masterpieces, and hopes to satisfy the double demand for
known knowledge and new scholarship.
For stylistic matters, this handbook uses stylistic guidelines as stated in the Chicago Manual
of Style (2010 edition). For quotations from a literary work under discussion, endnotes are used
to provide publication information for the first quotation and more quotations from the same

xxiii
 Preface

work will have page numbers in a bracket after the citation. No reference lists are used, but lists
of “Further Readings” are provided. The chosen items are meant as an aid for further studies
on the topic and observe these requisites: informative, authoritative and influential. For Chinese
names, the pinyin spelling is adopted with family names before given names (e.g. Mao Zedong,
Lu Xun, Guo Moruo). However, if a Chinese person has a widely accepted English name, the
well-known English name (e.g. Sun Yat-sen; Chiang Kai-shek) is used. For Chinese proper
nouns, the pinyin system of Romanization is also adopted with exceptions for some well-
known terms, such as “Kuomintang” instead of “Guomingdang.” For the titles of literary works,
English versions are listed first and then the pinyin spelling is put in a bracket following it, i.e.,
Call to Arms (Nahan), Wandering (Panghuang), and The True Story of Ah Q (A Q Zhengzhuan).
Unless in exceptional circumstances, no Chinese characters are used, but at the end of the hand-
book, a glossary of selected pinyin items in the texts is provided for the reader’s convenience.

xxiv
 CHRONOLOGY OF MAJOR
EVENTS IN MODERN CHINESE
LITERATURE

1911: The Republican Revolution

1912.1: The Republic of China founded
1913: First Chinese feature film, A Difficult Couple
1914.6: The inaugural issue of Saturday, a journal of the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School
1915.9: The founding of New Youth by Chen Duxiu
1917.1: Hu Shi’s “Tentative Proposal for Literary Reform”
1917.2: Chen Duxiu’s “On Literary Revolution”
1918.5: Lu Xun’s first vernacular story “The Diary of a Madman”
1918: Hu Shi’s article on “Ibsenism”
1919.5: The May Fourth Student Movement
1920.3: Hu Shi’s Experiments, a collection of vernacular poems
1920.8: Chinese translation of the Communist Manifesto published
1921.1: The founding of Literary Research Association, the first modern literary society in
China; founders including Mao Dun, Zheng Zhenduo and Zhou Zuoren; literary journals
sponsored by the Association including Poetry and Drama, the first of their kind in China
1921.5 The founding of the People’s Drama Society
1921.7: The Creation Society; founders including Guo Moruo,Yu Dafu and Tian Han; Publica-
tion of Creation Quarterly
1921.7: The Chinese Communist Party founded
1921.8: Guo Moruo’s first collection of poetry The Goddesses
1921.10:Yu Dafu’s Sinking, the first collection of modern vernacular short stories in China
1921.12: Lu Xun’s most influential story, “The True Story of Ah Q”
1921.12: Shanghai Drama Association founded
1922.1: The Xue Heng School founded in Nanjing
1923: Ye Shengtao’s The Scarecrow, the earliest collection of fairy tales in China
1923.3: The Crescent Society founded in Beijing
1924.11: The Thread of Talk Society founded in Beijing; publication of Thread of Talk
1924.12: The inaugural issue of Contemporary Review
1925: Xu Zhimo’s first collection, Poetry of Zimo; Li Jinfa’s first collection of poetry Light Rain
1926.5: Guo Moruo’s “Revolution and Literature” published in Creation Monthly
1927: The first Civil War between Nationalists and Communists starts

xxv
 Chronology of major events in modern Chinese literature

1927: The Sun Society; founders including Jiang Guangci and Meng Chao
1927: Dai Wangshu’s poem “Rain Alley” published
1929.8:Ye Shengtao’s Ni Huanzhi serialized
1930.3: The League of Left-wing Writers formed
1931: The founding of the League of Left-wing Dramatists
1931: Ba Jin’s novel The Family published
1933: Mao Dun’s novel Midnight published
1934: Shen Congwen’s novel Border Town published
1934: Cao Yu’s play Thunderstorm published and staged
1934.10: Zhou Yang’s article “National Defense Literature”
1936: Lao She’s novel Camel Xiangzi published
1937: The first Chinese Civil War ends
1937.7: Japan’s all-out invasion of China
1938.3: Chinese National Federation of Anti-Japanese Writers and Artists founded in Wuhan
1942: Mao Zedong’s “Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art”
1943: Zhao Shuli’s “Little Blacky’s Wedding” and “The Rhymes of Li Youcai”
1943: Zhang Ailing’s Golden Cangue published
1945.8: Japan’s surrender in World War II
1946: The second Chinese Civil War starts
1947: The epic film, Spring River Flows East
1947: Qian Zhongshu’s novel Fortress Besieged published
1947.2: The February 28th Incident in Taiwan
1947.7: The inaugural issue of Poetry Creation; contributors including a group of poets later
called the Nine Leaves group
1949: Ding Ling’s The Sun Shines over the Sanggan River published
1949.5: The Chinese People’s Literature and Art Series starts to be published
1949.7:The Congress of Chinese National Literature and Art Workers held in Beijing;The Chi-
nese National Literature and Art Federation founded; Guo Moruo elected president of the
Literature Federation, with Mao Dun and Zhou Yang as vice presidents
1949.9: The inaugural edition of the Literary Gazette, the official publication of the National
Literature Federation
1949.10: The Founding of the People’s Republic of China
1949.10: The inaugural edition of People’s Literature, the official publication of the Chinese
National Literature Workers Association
1950.4: The inaugural issue of People’s Theatre
1951: Lao She’s play Dragon Beard Ditch
1952.3: Chinese writers and artists winning Stalin Prizes for 1951: Ding Ling’s novel The Sun
Shines over the Sanggan River (second prize), the opera The White-Haired Girl by He Jingzhi
and Ding Yi (second prize), and Zhou Libo’s novel Hurricane (third prize)
1952.10: Cai Yi’s Lectures on the History of China’s New Literature
1953.2: The Beijing University Literature Research Institute established with Zheng Zhenduo
as director
1956.1: Socialist Transformation in the realm of literature and arts
1956.4: Liu Shousong’s Draft History of China’s New Literature
1956.9: The inaugural issue of Literary Review in Taiwan
1956: The Hundred Flowers campaign, a policy of supporting diversity in literature and arts
1956: Wang Meng’s “The Young Newcomer in the Organization Department,” a representative
work of the Hundred Flowers campaign

xxvi
 Chronology of major events in modern Chinese literature

1956: Manifesto of Taiwan Modernist School of Poetry published

1957.1: The inaugural edition of Poetry Monthly, including a letter to Poetry Monthly and 18
poems by Mao Zedong
1957.6: The editorial “Why Is This?” published in People’s Daily; the onset of Anti-Rightist
campaign
1958.3: Publication of Literary Writings of Mao Dun, Literary Writings of Ba Jin, and Literary Writ-
ings of Ye Shengtao
1958.5: The beginning of the Great Leap Forward
1958.12: Mao Zedong on Literature and the Arts published
1960.3: The inaugural issue of Modern Literature in Taiwan
1960s: Bai Xianyong’s Tales of Taipei Characters
1964.6: The National Modern Beijing Opera Festival held in Beijing
1965.11:Yao Wenyuan’s critique of Hai Rui Dismissed from Office
1966: The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution starts
1966: Hao Ran’s novel Bright Sunny Skies completed
1967.5: Eight works of Model Operas designated
1971:Yu Guangzhong’s poem “Homesickness” published
1972: Hao Ran’s novel The Golden Road (Book One)
1974: Hao Ran’s novel The Golden Road (Book Two)
1976: The end of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
1976.1: Poetry Monthly and People’s Literature resumes publication
1976.4: The April Fifth Movement
1977.11: Liu Xinwu’s story “Class Teacher”
1977–1978: The Debate of Nativist Literature in Taiwan
1978: “Practice Is the Sole Criterion of Truth” published
1978: The reform policy announced
1978.8: Lu Xinhua’s story “The Scar” marks the start of “scar literature”
1979.2: Ru Zhijuan’s “A Story out of Sequence” marks the start of “reflection literature”
1979.3: Brecht’s Das Leben des Galilei performed in Beijing marks the returning of Western
theatre
1979.4: The commentary “Rectifying the Name of Literature and Art – Refuting the Theory
That Literature and Art Are Tools” published in Shanghai Literature
1979.10: The Fourth Congress of Writers and Artists convened
1980: Qian Gurong’s article, “Literature Is the Study of Humanity”
1980.11: Dai Houying’s Ah, Humanity
1981.3: Sun Shaozhen’s essay “New Aesthetic Principles Are on the Rise”
1982: Xu Chi’s essay “Modernization and Modernism”
1982: The first Mao Dun Literature Prize awarded
1985: Essays on “root-seeking literature”: Han Shaogong’s “The ‘Roots’ of Literature,” Li
Hangyu’s “Tend Our Roots” and Zheng Wanlong’s “My Roots”
1985.5: Publication of “On the Twentieth Century Literature in China” by Huang Ziping,
Chen Pingyuan and Qian Liqun
1985.11: Liu Zaifu’s treatise “On the Subjectivity of Literature”
1986.3: Mo Yan’s novella “Red sorghum” published
1986.10: The Major Exhibition of Modernist Poems in China
1987: Works of avant-garde writers published in Harvest
1988: A column “Rewriting Literary History” in Shanghai Journal of Literary Criticism
1989: The Tiananmen Square Incident

xxvii
 Chronology of major events in modern Chinese literature

1989.10: Deng Xiaoping on Literature and Art published

1992:The rise of the Belated Generation; representative writers including Bi Feiyu, Lu Yang, He
Dun, Zhu Wen, Han Dong, Chen Ran, et al.
1993.6: The Avant-garde Novel Series published by the Flower City Publishing House
1997: Chen Zhongshi’s novel White Deer Plain awarded the fourth Mao Dun Literature Prize
1998: The first Lu Xun Literature Prize awarded
1998.7:Yu Hua’s novel To Live awarded the Premio Grinzane Cavour in Italy
2000: Gao Xingjian awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature
2001: China joins the World Trade Organization
2008: The Beijing Olympic Games
2011: Bi Feiyu’s novel Massage published
2012: Mo Yan awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature
2015: Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem awarded the 73rd Hugo Award for Best Novel
(Prepared by Tao Feng)

xxviii
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Writing modern Chinese literature in English
Ming Dong Gu

The Routledge Handbook of Modern Chinese Literature attempts to meet the general demands
for specialized knowledge of Chinese literature by providing a comprehensive overview of
Chinese literature in the modern period (1910s–2017) and in-depth studies of some mod-
ern masterpieces for English-speaking readers and students as well as scholars. With a dual
emphasis on coverage and depth, it seeks to survey the state and development of modern
Chinese literature in the past century, redefine existing areas of modern Chinese literature in
the context of world literature, highlight emerging areas in the field, and offer new insights
and inspirations for future research agendas. In addition, it is intended to serve as a handy
guide for further studies and a useful reference work for undergraduate and graduate stu-
dents of literary and humanistic studies. For a clear view of the multiple purposes, this intro-
ductory chapter will address the core issues in the writing of the handbook in English: the
overall conception, content, structure, organization, approaches, and format of presentation,
and locate an underlying theme that provides unity and coherence to the multiple issues in
this handbook.
The editor suggests that the historical development of modern Chinese literature in the
past century is essentially a continuous development dedicated to modernizing the Chinese
consciousness and the Chinese literary tradition in the larger context of worldwide globaliza-
tion and aesthetic internationalization of national literatures. This continuous process of mod-
ernization constitutes two main dimensions: the modernization of the Chinese people and the
Chinese writings. In the encounter with Western thought and literature, the Chinese literary
tradition sought to rejuvenate itself by producing literary writings that collectively present a
panoramic picture of the Chinese people in terms of the modern conceptions of human nature,
human condition, human freedom, human dignity, and human values, using the modern literary
modes of realism, critical realism, romanticism, modernism, avant-gardism, and postmodern-
ism while drawing resources from the traditional concerns with the relationship between the
individual and society, and from traditional modes of representation and narration in linguistic,
thematic, and aesthetic considerations.

1
 Ming Dong Gu

Part I: conceptual issues

The rise of modern Chinese literature as part of world literature

The conception of the handbook takes into account the rise, development, and maturity of
Chinese literature in the modern times in the context of what Goethe envisioned as “world
literature.” From its outset, modern Chinese literature came into the world as a result of the
influence of foreign literature and intellectual thought, as most of the early writers received
education in Europe, America, Russia, or Japan and were exposed to literary thought and works
of those countries and regions. After digesting the nutrients of foreign literary works, they inte-
grated newly acquired themes, formal styles, and writing techniques with the Chinese counter-
parts and inaugurated modern Chinese literature. Needless to say, without the foreign nutrients,
modern Chinese literature would not have been what it is, and one may even say that Chinese
literature would have remained largely traditional in most of its basic aspects for the simple
reason that as a tradition of several thousand years, Chinese literature has a deeply entrenched
system of themes, forms, and aesthetic mechanisms, sustained by enduring moral values and
tenacious literary unconscious.
Since Goethe first proposed the idea of “world literature” in the eighteenth century, litera-
tures of the world have moved towards this direction and the worldwide globalization in the last
quarter of the twentieth century has ensured the periodic completion of the movement. Mod-
ern Chinese literature, which arose in the second decade of the twentieth century, reached its
maturity in the international movement towards world literature, and has continued to develop
as a branch of world literature. Accompanying China’s opening to the outside world and moving
towards worldwide transformations, traditional Chinese literary tradition reflected on its past,
warmly embraced other traditions, and avidly digested thematic, stylistic, and aesthetic nutrients
of Western literary traditions. In the process of active engagement, dialogues, and assiduous
assimilations, Chinese literary tradition self-consciously initiated its own new birth and com-
pleted its own creative transformation, while retaining its distinctively Chinese features. Now,
after a century-long development, modern Chinese literature has undoubtedly become part of
world literature, which has gradually matured as a result of its opening to the world.
The influence of foreign literature is all around, but this handbook focuses on two key
issues responsible for traditional literature to be transformed into modern literature: the mod-
ern conceptions of Man and writing. Traditional Chinese literature arose, came to maturity,
and developed into a distinct literary tradition in a geo-cultural environment dominated by
dynastic history, feudal politics, and aesthetic sensibilities compatible to the agricultural mode
of life, and only in the intellectual domain was it influenced by the introduction of Buddhism.
By contrast, modern Chinese literature (including contemporary literature) came into being
as a result of the introduction, translation, and critical appreciation and emulation of foreign,
mostly Western literature. Towards the end of the last dynasty, imperialist aggression and colo-
nial expansion by Western powers forcefully opened the closed door of China and brought
with them foreign literary trends and works which were fantastically new, excitingly lively,
and extremely provocative to the Chinese literary imagination. Moreover, the coming of the
West also brought what could be subsumed under the rubric of theory and, by extension,
ideological, philosophical, and intellectual discourses of modernity, which in effect constituted
the conceptual and aesthetical foundation for the rise of modern Chinese literature. Because
of the infusion of Western ideas, ways of life, and techniques of literary composition, Chinese
literary tradition started to rejuvenate itself, resulting in its renaissance amidst the drastic social
upheavals of the twentieth century.

2
 General introduction

Having emphasized the impact of Western literature and the ontological condition of mod-
ern Chinese literature as part of world literature, we must not lose sight of a less discern-
able dimension in modern literature, which is evidenced in the repeated resurgence of ancient
themes and forms imparting traditional ideas, values, visions, and sensibilities in every nook and
cranny of modern literature. Because of the tenacity of the time-honored tradition to resist total
westernization, it is reasonable to state that radically different as it is from traditional literature,
modern Chinese literature has NOT rejected its indigenous origin and roots, and is NOT
a transplanted form of Western literature. By integrating the imported modernities and the
repressed modernities inherent in linguistic, generic, and conceptual aspects of the literary tradi-
tion, Chinese literature in the modern periods has undergone a process of clash and mingling
between the foreign and domestic, the elite and the popular, the traditional and avant-gardist
elements and eventually evolved into a distinctly new literary tradition which is both traditional
and modern, national and international, local and global in themes, forms, and aesthetic agendas.

Overall conception: balance of multiple demands

Although comprehensive surveys of modern Chinese literature can be counted by thousands
in China, there are only a handful of such works in the English-speaking world. A review of
these surveys (both Chinese and Western) informs us that they can be classified into two large
categories: (1) literary histories and surveys; (2) companions to literature. In the first category,
an overwhelming majority of them take the form of literary history, and most of them adopt a
chronological approach to the subject while only a few adopt a genre approach. This situation
is evident in the available English surveys, History of Modern Chinese Literature (Chinese 1979;
English translation 1998) by Tang Tao, A History of Contemporary Chinese Literature (Chinese
1993; English translation 2007) by Hong Zicheng, The Literature of China in the Twentieth Century
(1998) by Bonnie S. McDougall and Kam Louie, and A New Literary History of Modern China
(2017), edited by David Der-wei Wang. In the literary history category, two comprehensive
histories of Chinese literature also cover the modern part of Chinese literature: The Cambridge
History of Chinese Literature (2010, 2 Volumes), edited by Kang-i Sun Chang and Stephen Owen,
and The Columbia History of Chinese Literature (2002), edited by Victor Mair. As historical sur-
veys of modern Chinese literature in English, they share the common feature of chronologic
organization, though each may adopt a slightly different method which divides Chinese litera-
ture in the twentieth century into various historical periods. The chronological organization is
accompanied by a treatment of major literary works in terms of the major genres of literature:
poetry, fiction, drama, and prose. David Der-wei Wang’s New Literary History of Modern China,
based on an innovative conception, offers a new chronological way of writing modern Chinese
literature. The book, written by a widely diverse group of scholars, writers, and thinkers from
around the world, is composed of nearly 150 mini-articles, each having approximately 2,000
English words. With a conception determined to break away from the conventional ways of
writing Chinese literary history by pushing the boundaries of modern Chinese literature fur-
ther back to its precursors before the nineteenth century, it includes both time-honored literary
genres and unconventional writing forms such as pop song lyrics, presidential speeches, political
treatises, and even prison-house notes. Inspired by the New Historicist emphasis on the contin-
gencies of history through a variety of artifacts and discourses, it adopts a more radical chrono-
logical order by matching each article with a year in structural organization.
The second category of modern Chinese literature consists of two related sub-categories:
companions and handbooks: A Companion to Modern Chinese Literature (Wiley-Blackwell 2015),
edited by Yingjin Zhang; The Columbia Companion to Modern Chinese Literature (2016), edited by

3
 Ming Dong Gu

Kirk A. Denton, and The Oxford Handbook of Modern Chinese Literatures, edited by Carlos Rojas
and Andrea Bachner. Although these innovative volumes feature a comprehensive overview in
the beginning, they only adopt a loose chronological structure, which organizes the compo-
nent parts and chapters around a thematic approach in terms of categories as diverse as genre,
modernity, geography, media, ethics, cannon formation, language reform, structure, taxonomy,
and methodology, etc. Clearly, the editorial emphasis is not on panoramic overview, but on
how to present modern Chinese literature in depth and with fresh insights. While this approach
gains strengths in innovativeness and critical depth, it downplays historical comprehensiveness
in comparison with the chronological approach. Having examined the conceptual framework
and structural organization of the two approaches to the writing of modern Chinese literature,
I have come to the realization that both approaches are struggling to maintain a balance between
historical comprehensiveness and critical depths, and attempt to generate a dual appeal to both
common readers and specialists, an essential requisite expected of such surveys as guides and
references. In planning the conceptual framework of the Routledge Handbook of Modern Chinese
Literature, we have encountered the same thorny issues confronted by previous surveys. In this
introduction, we have devised some strategies to cope with them.
Like previous works of similar nature, the Routledge Handbook of Modern Chinese Literature
seeks to find a satisfactory way to maintain a balance among multiple demands. Rather than
taking a purely chronological approach to this field or using an exclusively thematic approach,
as most Chinese and Western language books of similar content have done, this book adopts
a historico-thematic-aesthetic approach to the subject and integrates history, themes, genres,
styles, and aesthetic concerns into a conceptual framework which aims to present modern Chi-
nese literature as the outcome of modern development of Chinese literary tradition under the
impact of the coming of the West and as part of the formation of world literature in the process
of globalization. The aim of this book is thus to provide a comprehensive account of modern
Chinese literature by situating it within the larger context of comparative and world literature,
which has made Chinese literature a component of world literature today, and to offer in-depth
analyses of selected masterpieces broadly recognized by specialists in the field.

Principle of organization: “Overlapping Indeterminism” 模糊重叠说

Modern Chinese literature in this handbook includes contemporary literature. It covers a liter-
ary tradition of over a century from the second decade of the twentieth century to the pre-
sent. Although scholars do not have a unanimous opinion on periodization, a widely accepted
consensus divides Chinese literature in the past century roughly into these phases in terms of
historical development of Chinese society: (1) modern literature (1917–1949); (2) contempo-
rary literature (1950–1978), new-period literature (1979–1989); and (4) present-day literature
(1990–present). There are other ways of periodization, which either extends the beginning of
modern literature back into the last dynasty or simply divide modern literature into two large
periods: the modern and contemporary. Although this handbook professes to be thematically
oriented in its conceptual framework, it does not abandon the chronological organization alto-
gether. For historical chronology to play a role in structural organization, we have adopted a way
of periodization grounded in the notion of “overlapping indeterminism.” This notion grows
out of observations of the internal logic which drives the development of Chinese literature in
the historical period of modern times.
Historical periodization of modern Chinese literature is a controversial topic for scholarly
debates both in and outside China. It centers on these key issues: When did modern Chinese
literature begin? How can we divide literature in modern times into viable periods? For the

4
 General introduction

first question, the answers can be very different. The commonly accepted beginning of modern
Chinese literature is the year of 1917, when the January issue of the New Youth published Hu
Shi’s “Suggestions for a Literary Reform” and Chen Duxiu’s “On Literary Revolution.”1 An
overwhelming majority of histories of modern Chinese literature in mainland China follows
this dating. But some scholars do not agree, arguing that incipient ideas of modern Chinese lit-
erature had appeared as early as the late Qing Dynasty. In mainland China,Yan Jiayan suggested
as early as in the 1980s that incipient modernities in Chinese literature appeared after 1895.2
Before him, Chen Zizhan in his Chinese History of Literature of the Recent Thirty Years published
in 1930 cited the abolition of Civil Service Examination system, imitation of Western literature,
elevation of fiction and drama, language reform, and secularization of literature, etc., as evidence
to argue for the identification of the late Qing period as the beginning of modern Chinese lit-
erature.3 With the publication of David Der-wei Wang’s influential book Fin-de-Siècle Splendor:
Repressed Modernities of Late Qing Fiction, 1848–1911, the idea that the origins of modern Chi-
nese literature can be traced back to literature in the late Qing period seems to have become an
accepted view.4 Some other scholars have gone even further, arguing that the process of qualita-
tive transformation of traditional Chinese literature into modern literature started as early as the
late Ming Dynasty.5 In his most recently edited volume, David Der-wei Wang has put this idea
into A New Literary History of Modern China, tracing the beginning of modern literature back
into the seventeenth century. The first three dozen short essays6 in the history cover a period
from 1635 to 1916, and the first essay has this title: “1635; 1932, 1934: The Multiple Beginnings
of Modern Chinese ‘Literature’ ” [Sher-shiueh Li]. Ding Fan, President of the Chinese Associa-
tion of Modern Literature, argues against this kind of efforts to push back the rise of modern
literature to the late Qing or late Ming, criticizing this kind of periodization as based on a shaky
ground, and insists on adopting a political periodization which sets the beginning of modern
literature in 1912, right after the Republic of China was established. My few cited examples
suffice to illustrate the complexity and diversity of opinions pertaining to the start of modern
Chinese literature. Obviously, each scholar determines the beginning of modern literature by
his own conception of history and literature; all have some reasonable grounds. How can we
reconcile all the different opinions?
Just as a journey has a starting point, so does the beginning of modern literature require a
landmark(s) in its rise and development. Scholars who propose different opinions have iden-
tified their own landmarks, but I suggest that a commonly acceptable landmark must meet
these requirements: linguistic, formal, thematic, and aesthetic. A literary work or treatise cannot
be considered a landmark in the beginning of modern literature if it only meets one or two
requirements. Otherwise, scholars will continue to push back the beginning of modern litera-
ture. It is therefore reasonable to establish this rule: for a literary work or treatise to be viewed
as the beginning of modern literature, it must meet all of the four above-mentioned require-
ments. Linguistically, some literary works in the late Ming and Qing dynasties use vernacular
language and display incipient modernities, but they cannot be viewed as beginnings of modern
literature because of these reasons: (1) the vernacular language they use is still dominated by
the classical language; (2) the incipient modernities do not rise to the level of modern themes;
(3) their form and style are still heavily traditional in nature; (4) their aesthetic sensibilities are
largely incompatible with the spirit of modern times. They therefore are, strictly speaking, not
qualified for being viewed as landmarks of modern literature. The same rule applies to literary
works composed by modern writers. Li Jieren, one of the great modern fiction writers, wrote
fictional works in vernacular language before Chen Duxiu called for a “Literary Revolution” in
1915. He published a vernacular story “Garden Party” (Youyuan hui) in 1912, five years before
Hu Shi wrote his vernacular verse, and six years before Lu Xun published his “A Madman’s

5
 Ming Dong Gu

Diary” in 1918. Despite its vernacular language and its theme of common people’s life, it cannot
be regarded as a bone fide modern story because it has the characteristic features of a traditional
story and lacks sensibilities and narrative methods of recognized modern stories.
In terms of the four requisites that I have proposed, it is fully understandable why the major-
ity of scholars have adhered to the notion that modern Chinese literature began in the 1910s.
The reason is simply because they agree to some widely accepted landmarks for the beginning.
What are those landmarks likely to be acceptable by most, if not all the scholars? A glance at
the early period of modern literature shows that a number of works qualify as landmarks. Hu
Shi’s “Suggestions for a Literary Reform” and Chen Duxiu’s “On Literary Revolution” can cer-
tainly be viewed as landmarks simply by their titles and contents. This opinion, however, entails
another view: the beginning of modern Chinese literature does not have a single landmark
but multiple landmarks. But one may retort by saying that their two works are but treatises on
literature, not literary works per se. The beginning of a new literary tradition must be inaugu-
rated by some representative literary works. Although we should not overlook the treatises as
manifestos for modern literature, the retort certainly makes some good sense. We are therefore
obliged to re-conduct the search for literary works as landmarks. On this account, we also have
a few qualified candidates. Lu Xun’s “A Madman’s Diary” (1918) is generally accepted as the first
literary work of modern literature because it fulfills all the four requisites of a modern work. For
this reason, Lu Xun has been regarded as the father of modern Chinese literature. But can it be
viewed as the sole landmark for the beginning of modern literature? One may express a differ-
ent opinion, for before Lu Xun’s story, Hu Shi was experimenting with Chinese poetry in 1916
while he was still an overseas student at Columbia University in New York, and even had eight
vernacular poems published in the New Youth. Although those poems are not great specimens of
literature by aesthetic standard, they were composed in vernacular language, expressing modern
sensibilities for freedom and individualism, rejecting the rigid forms of traditional poetry, and
displaying aesthetic sensibilities compatible with modern times. In chronology, they appeared
earlier than the new poems by Liu Bannong, Shen Yinmo, Zhou Zuoren, and others, and even
earlier than Lu Xun’s “A Madman’s Diary” by one year. Guo Moruo is regarded as the father of
modern Chinese poetry, but Hu Shi’s Changshi Ji (Poetic Experiments, 1920), the first collec-
tion of new vernacular poems in Chinese history anticipated Guo Moruo’s monumental poetic
work Nüshen (Goddesses, 1921) by one year. For these reasons, one may well argue that Hu Shi’s
experimental poems should be regarded as the first landmark of modern Chinese literature. But
although those poems may serve as a landmark in modern literature, they are rather crude in
poetic form, and cannot be regarded as the true beginning for aesthetic reasons. If we note the
fact that some of Guo Moruo’s poems in The Goddesses were composed in 1916, the situation
would become even more complicated. Having identified multiple landmarks in the treatises on
literature by Hu Shi and Chen Duxiu, Hu Shi’s experimental poems, Lu Xun’s “A Madman’s
Diary,” and Guo Moruo’s early poems, we have good reasons to adopt an ambiguous approach
to the birth of modern Chinese literature and set the beginning roughly in the 1910s, rather
than pinning it down to a specific year, be it 1916, 1917, or 1918.
The concept of “indeterminism” should work in tandem with another in the periodization,
which is “overlapping.” While the former is useful for reconciling different opinions on literary
landmarks, the latter is useful for the division of larger historical periods, and for identifying
developmental trends driven by the internal logic of literary history. It is well recognized by
scholars of literature around the world that literary history does not go hand in hand with social
history, and literature has a logic of development related to but independent of social develop-
ment. It is most common to see that when a society has entered a new epoch, the literary trend
and style of writing continues into the new era and lingers for a considerable period of time.

6
 General introduction

This is true of the development of modern Chinese literature. In the beginning of modern
literature, literary works using classical language and representing traditional themes did not
disappear from the literary scene for a considerably long while. Moreover, literary trends and
writing style tend to lag behind social changes. While a new social period gives rise to new
literary themes and styles, old themes and styles linger into the new period, thereby generating
literary phenomena that can only be explained by the concept of overlapping vagueness. Unlike
social history, which can be delimited by clear-cut demarcation lines, literary history cannot be
separated into distinct periods. This is not only because of the incommensurability of history
and literature, but also because a writer’s career may extend for a long time and cover several
historical eras. Just as literary periods overlap, a writer’s literary career also stretches over several
periods, thus making writers and their works overlap in the chronological organization. Take
Ba Jin (1904–2005) for example. He lived for over a century, going through the last dynasty,
warlord period, Republican period, the Anti-Japanese War period, the Civil War period, early
period of New China, the Cultural Revolution, and the Period of Openness and Reform. All
through these periods, he continued to write until very late in his life. Although his writings
are marked by distinct historical traits, there is certainly overlapping in his themes, style, and
writing techniques. His writing career may be said to illustrate well the concept of “overlapping
indeterminism.”

Grounds of periodization: inner logic of literary development

Employing the concept of “overlapping indeterminism,” the Routledge Handbook does not fol-
low the accepted division or adopt a neat periodization. Instead of dividing Chinese literature
according to a clearly demarcated historical timeline, this book adopts four terms: “early mod-
ern,” “middle modern,” “late modern,” and “postmodern,” and divides the history of modern
Chinese literature into four overlapping phases with ambiguous beginnings in terms of the
internal logic of literary development:

1 Early modern literature (mid 1910s–1942);

2 Middle modern literature (late 1930s–1977);
3 Late modern literature (late 1970s–early 1990s);
4 Postmodern literature (late 1980s–present).

The overlapping timeline is meant to describe as close as possible the internal movements
of modern Chinese literature in the historical periods. According to the above periodization,
early modern literature starts in the 1910s and ends in 1942. In this period, Chinese literature
follows a logic determined by the New Culture Movement, which is characterized by what Li
Zehou calls the “double tune of national salvation and enlightenment.” I have already explained
why the ambiguous 1910s are used for the beginning. It is necessary to explain why 1942 is
chosen as the end of the first period. In 1942, Mao Zedong delivered his famous Talks at the
Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art, which serves as the ideological guidelines for the majority
of Chinese writers from 1942 to 1979. In the middle modern period, Japan’s all-out invasion
of China in 1937 exerted a profound impact upon the literary creativity of Chinese writers.
With the establishment of the Anti-Japanese United Front of All Workers of Literature and Art
in 1938, the mainstream of Chinese literature gradually channeled its creativity in the direction
initiated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for national salvation and later systematically
charted by Mao Zedong in his Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art (1942). Literary
creation with the anti-Japanese invasion themes appeared as early as 1931 when Japan forcefully

7
 Ming Dong Gu

occupied Manchuria and started to conquer China by a piecemeal strategy. It is therefore reason-
able to identify the late 1930s as the rough beginning of the second phase, which overlaps with
the first phase by a few years. The driving force for literary creation motivated by Mao’s Talks
exerted its impact not only in the late Anti-Japanese War period, but also continued through the
period of New China from 1949 until 1978, when the Cultural Revolution ended two years
earlier. The late modern period did not begin with the ending of the Cultural Revolution in
1976, but in fact started in 1978 when Lu Xinhua’s story “Scar” initiated the so-called “Scar
Literature.” But the beginning of the late modern period is also an ambiguous issue because Liu
Xinwu published his story “the Class Teacher” in 1977, which many scholars of modern litera-
ture take as the inauguration of “Scar Literature.” It is thus necessary to designate the beginning
of the late modern period in an ambiguous way. In the late modern period, the internal logic of
development was shaped by the social movement of Openness and Reform, and nurtured by a
return of the realist aesthetics in the first period and tragic vision of modernism in the second
period, re-energized by the influx of Western thought and literary trend after 1979. In a short
period of time, a few centuries of Western thought and literature were either re-introduced or
newly introduced into Chinese literary circles. The biggest impact was exerted by the inunda-
tion of the modernist thought and literature, which deeply penetrated into the literary mind
and imagination of Chinese writers. Western modes of literary representation like stream of
consciousness, surrealism, symbolism, imagism, absurdist drama, and Western writers like Ezra
Pound, T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust, Franz Kafka,
William Faulkner, Eugène Ionesco, and other modernist writers were on the lips of Chinese
writers so much so that if one has not heard of these names, he or she will be dismissed as an
ignoramus. The beginning of the fourth phase is also vague. Most scholars accept 1990 as the
beginning of a new phase of modern literature influenced by globalization and pressurized by
commercialization and telecommunication. But they will invariably go back to the late 1980s to
discuss the burgeoning ideas of the new phase. Chen Xiaoming, who has written an authorita-
tive overview for this period, follows this practice. It is therefore sensible to employ a vague “late
1980s” as the beginning of the period.
To describe the fourth phase of modern Chinese literature as “postmodern literature”
requires a little more argument. I employ the epithet “postmodern literature” for several rea-
sons. First, the term “postmodern” is used for its literal sense, meaning “after the modern.” This
epithet is meant to sidetrack the controversy over a series of terms such as modern literature,
contemporary literature, New Period literature, present-day literature, and New Century litera-
ture, etc. Second, literary works produced in this period indeed follow the postmodern logic in
its content and subject matter. Thematically, they show a clear tendency to distrust any forms of
“metanarratives” or “grand narratives,” the cardinal idea used by Lyotard to define postmodern-
ism,7 but at the same time they attempt to think through historical issues at a time when it is
unable to think historically, a feature identified by Fredric Jameson in his study of postmodern-
ism. Third, aesthetically, nearly all the formal and technical features of Western postmodernism
such as extended irony, parody, pastiche, playfulness, temporal distortion, intertexuality, meta-
fiction, magical realism, etc., appeared in literary works of this period. Fourth, literature of this
period is marked by its multiplicity and diversity. Different kinds of literary writings struggle
to find their voices and expressions in different cultural forms, ideological positions, and styles.
Fifth, even literary works composed in the style of nativity and root seeking display postmodern
features so much so that they can no longer be viewed as belonging to the old schools of cultural
realism. Last but not least, the postmodern designation is made in terms of Lyotard’s idea that
postmodernism is “not modernism at its end but in the nascent state, and this state is constant.”8
It is in this sense that literature of this period is designated as postmodern. This designation has

8
 General introduction

meaning and significance beyond the current period. In accordance with Lyotard’s argument
that “A work can become modern only if it is first postmodern” (Ibid.), the postmodern epithet
can be used to describe Chinese literature not only up to the present day but also for years to
come.
In the postmodern period, the full-scale reform and complete opening to the world in Chi-
nese society endowed Chinese literature with a logic of unprecedented multiplicity of themes,
styles, and techniques characteristic of postmodernism. Writings of this period display the char-
acteristic features of postmodernism: distrust in grand narrative, depthlessness, weakening of
historicity, waning of affects, use of irony, parody, pastiche, fantasy, magical realism, and reli-
ance on technology.9 Magical Realist writers like Gabriel García Márquez, Jorge Luis Borges,
Miguel Ángel Asturias, and others became writing models for imitation and emulation. While
the fourth phase is dominated by a creative impulse for avant-gardism and postmodern experi-
ments, early forms of literature such as “Nativist Narration” and “Root Seeking” were alive and
kicking, competing with martial art fiction and science fiction for readership, overlapping with
refined literary works in modernist and postmodern forms. It is truly a period of overlapping
indeterminism.

Part II: thematic issues

Modernizing people and writing

Chinese literature in the past century is saturated with a dazzling range of themes and motifs.
As a comprehensive survey, we need to find a unifying theme that may serve as a red thread
going through the whole handbook with multiple periods. What is a viable overarching theme
capable of holding all the periods and themes together? Possible and eligible themes in existing
literary histories and surveys would include: humanity, national salvation, intellectual enlighten-
ment, memory and trauma, democratic revolution, proletarian revolution, cultural reconstruc-
tion, social modernization, etc. But while each of the mentioned themes is pertinent to one or
two periods or one or two schools of literary writings, none of them comprehensively covers the
historical and aesthetic development of all periods. This survey will therefore not adopt any of
the single themes above, but subsume all the mentioned themes under an overarching theme: the
study of historical humanity under specific human conditions. Literature is generally regarded as
a study of people.This is true to Chinese literature as well as any literature.The proposed concept
of “historical humanity” 历史人性 is similar to but different from the Marxist idea that one’s
humanity is the totality of his or her social relations. Rather than examining the formation of
one’s humanity on purely social terms, it focuses on the historico-psychological formation of the
individual’s humanity in terms of the interplay among the individual, self, subjectivity, and inter-
subjectivity of a particular culture in a historical period with its whole way of life, material, emo-
tional, and spiritual. In the historical periods of modern Chinese literature, social humanity may
be reduced to the properties of Chineseness, an idea which has been hotly debated. Since this
handbook views modern Chinese literature as the modern development of the Chinese literary
tradition under Western impact on Chinese culture and aesthetics, and as part of world literature
in the process of globalization, it identifies the totalizing efforts of describing, analyzing,
psychologizing, critiquing, imagining, and transforming the Chinese people in the
past century as the most comprehensive focus of modern Chinese literature. Inspired
by Western ideas of modern individuals as social, political, ethical, and aesthetic beings, tradi-
tional Chinese literature underwent its most fundamental transformation into modern literature
and became part of world literature. The proposed overarching theme for this book is

9
 Ming Dong Gu

therefore the study of the modernization of Chinese people and writing 人与文的现
代化 as represented in the major literary works of the modern periods.

Modernizing people through language

Modernizing people and modernizing writing seem to be two separate issues, but they are inti-
mately related via language. The birth of modern Chinese literature was initiated not by a liter-
ary revolution in terms of theme, form, sensibility, but by a linguistic revolution, which sought
to replace the highly venerated classical language with vernacular language for daily commu-
nication and educational instruction. Of course, the initiators of modern Chinese literature did
plan to start a literary revolution (Chen Duxiu) or literary reform (Hu Shi), but the literary
reform or revolution initially yielded results in the domain of language reform. In C. T. Hsia’s A
History of Modern Chinese Fiction, he documents how the literary revolution called for by Chen
Duxiu, Hu Shi, Lu Xun, and others achieved one of its initial successes in language reform in
the May Fourth New Culture Movement, when in 1920 the Ministry of Education issued the
decree that vernacular Chinese be used as the medium of instruction in elementary schools.10
In describing and analyzing the language reform, scholars tend to adopt a line of thought
which sees the language reform in an instrumental way. For over a century, Chinese scholars
had blamed classical Chinese for the backwardness of Chinese culture, science, and society. The
success in language reform was but the culmination of a long-term effort to modernize Chinese
language for communication and instruction. This is an obvious aspect of the language reform.
The instrumental dimension of the language reform has been extensively explored. But
hardly anyone has paid any attention to another deeper dimension of the language reform: the
linguistic construction of self, human identity, and subjectivity in Chinese society at that time.
Hu Shi’s “Suggestions for Literary Reform” is essentially a call for language reform so that Chi-
nese can serve as an effective medium for literature in modern times. The treatise talks about
the importance of language reform for literary creation and proposes eight practical measures
to carry his proposed language reform. His treatise is a specimen of the instrumental view of
language. Nowhere in the treatise did he hint at the linguistic construction of mentality, self,
and subjectivity of the language user.11 Other scholars who promoted language reform did not
address the constructive function of language either. Chen Duxiu’s “On Literary Revolution”
supported Hu Shi’s proposal and pushed it further into a language revolution, but did not go
beyond Hu Shi’s ideas in substance. Only in a largely unconscious manner did some writers
become aware of the hidden but profound function of language and go beyond the instrumental
view of language reform. Lu Xun is one of them.
Lu Xun’s awareness is evidenced in his first story, “A Madman’s Diary,” which marked the
beginning of modern Chinese fiction. The story employs two registers of language: vernacular
narrative in the story proper and classical narrative in the preface.The use of two registers of lan-
guage in “A Madman’s Diary” has aroused some interest among scholars who have raised a few
thoughtful questions. Since “A Madman’s Diary” is supposed to be a vernacular story meant to
initiate a new direction for literary creation using vernacular language as the medium for writ-
ing, why did the author write the opening section in classical Chinese? One possible and inter-
esting answer to this question may be that: there is an opposition between the vernacular story
proper and the classical opening, which in turn represents a disjunction between two narrators,
two narratives, and two ideological views.The conclusion of this answer is that the opening sec-
tion was intended not to lead the reader to identify with the story proper, but to split, subvert,
negate its stated content.12 Along this line of reading, some scholars suggest that though Lu Xun
declared that he “sometimes called out, to encourage those fighters who are galloping on in

10
 General introduction

loneliness, so that they do not lose heart,” in the deep recess of his consciousness, he had already
negated those forerunners and brave warriors because he was quite sure that they would eventu-
ally identify with the old society and old forces against which they had rigorously struggled.13
The reading of the two language registers as a ploy for literary irony certainly makes sense.
But I wish to offer a view by examining the structural function of language in molding human
consciousness. The two language registers give the story a form of presentation, which mimics
the dual structure of the human mind: the preface as the conscious part; the diary proper as
the unconscious part. The conscious nature of the preface lies in the fact that the character is
able to repudiate what he had said and done as a madman’s folly. The unconscious nature of the
story is shown through the irrational, illogical, and disjointed impressions and narration of the
plot. In general, as the preface puts it, “The writing was most confused and incoherent, and he
had made many wild statements.” The narrative mode follows exactly that of a deranged mind.
Precisely because it is illogical and irrational, it is endowed with a capacity that is alien to logical
and rational language. Clearly, there is a reversal of the author’s intention.
The seeming reversal of the authorial intention to promote vernacular writing may not
entirely be a ploy for ironic representation. I suggest that Lu Xun may have gone beyond the
instrumental view of the language reform for literature, culture, and human mind. My argu-
ment can be supported by modern insights into the function of language in formulating human
thought in language philosophy. Lu Xun seemed to have intended the contrast between the
opening and the story proper as a ploy to hint at the necessity to modernize the people’s mind
through a modernization of their language. In contradistinction to the dominant approach to
Lu Xun’s works, which stresses ideology as the soul of his writings, I argue that language carries
a fair share of the profundity of his vision. Language as the material for the discourse carries
and shapes ideas, visions, views, commitment, and tendentiousness. For Lu Xun, language is not
simply the medium of representation; it is also responsible for shaping the people’s perception,
conception, and comprehension of society and reality.
In a psycho-linguistic approach to the mind, Jacques Lacan links Saussure’s linguistic theory
with Freud’s psychoanalytic theory and makes this famous saying, “The unconscious is struc-
tured like a language.” He reverses the positions of the signified and signifier in Saussure’s model
of the sign and makes it conform to Freud’s topographic model of the mind as an opposition
between the conscious and unconscious.14 In terms of the semiotic model of the mind and
the psycholinguistic model of the sign, I argue that just as consciousness is inseparable from
unconsciousness, and the signifier from the signified, so the preface written in classical language
is closely related to the diary written in vernacular. They form a topographic structure not
unlike that between the conscious and unconscious, signifier and signified. And this topographic
model may allow us to see the implied significance in the use of two language registers. The
preface does not simply perform the function of negation or irony. It serves multiple purposes.
Ostensibly, it serves as a narrative frame within which the story of the madman is to be retold.
Actually, it acts as more than a narrative frame. It embodies a number of the author’s concerns.
First and foremost, it may serve the author’s purpose of promoting the vernacular language as a
way to reform people’s mind. In his “The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious or Reason
since Freud,” Lacan shows how language performs the function of constructing human identity
and subjectivity: “language and its structure exist prior to the moment at which each subject at
a certain point in his mental development makes his entry into it.”15 And the discourse using
language establishes the foundations of a tradition, which “lays down the elementary structures
of culture. And these structures reveal an ordering of possible exchanges which, even if uncon-
scious, is inconceivable outside the permutations authorized by language.” He even goes so far
as to argue that a human subject “appear[s] to be the slave of language” (Ibid.). This is another

11
 Ming Dong Gu

way of expressing Heidegger’s notion that it is not Man who speaks language but language that
speaks Man.16 If language has such great formative power in molding human consciousness and
constructing subjectivity, for Lu Xun and other thinkers and writers, the first move to reform
the Chinese mind is to change the form of language. From this perspective, the use of classical
language in the opening and of vernacular language in the story proper was intended, at least
intuitively, as a symbolic gesture to reform the Chinese mind by a transition from classical lan-
guage to vernacular language.
Thus, it is reasonable to argue that the dual language of the story does not simply show a
transition from classical language to vernacular language as a necessary step toward literary revo-
lution; it reveals the underlying logic of the Confucian tradition, which must be undermined
and demolished from its linguistic seat. Ostensibly, the protagonist is able to see the true nature
of the Confucian tradition as a four-thousand-year-long account of cannibalism when he is
mad. It is as though a deranged mind affords him the insight into the deep dimensions of Chi-
nese culture. The use of dual language implicitly conveys a hidden idea: the vernacular language
reveals and tells the truth while the classical language hides and camouflages reality. According
to the story, the protagonist is deemed mad in the vernacular narrative, but he is regarded as
“recovered” from madness and is sensible enough to take an official position. With this opening,
Lu Xun seems to have issued a warning that if we insist on using classical language, we will never
be able to rid our consciousness of the Confucian thought imparted through classical language.
In this sense, language is more than a medium for representation; it becomes an ideology with
hegemonic powers. Indeed, the classical language in Lu Xun’s story plays the role of ideology
in the Marxist and Althusserian sense as the “false consciousness” that distorts and covers up
truth and social reality.17 In his non-literary polemic essays, Lu Xun abhorred classical language
and passed such a harsh judgment on Chinese writing: “China will die if Chinese language and
writing do not die!”18 Lu Xun’s radical view has proven to be wrong, but he seemed to have
recognized the formative function of language and writing for human existence. Otherwise, he
would not have regarded Chinese writing as “latent tuberculosis in the body of the laboring
people”; “If it is not removed, they will die by themselves” (Ibid.). I used to feel baffled by Lu
Xun’s pathological metaphor for Chinese writing. Now in relating his radical judgment to Hei-
degger’s idea that “language belongs to the closest neighborhood of Man’s being”19 and Lacan’s
claim that human beings are slaves to language, I think Lu Xun intuitively understood the power
of subjectivization by language. And the use of two registers of language in his first modern story
is an artistic representation of the need for the replacement of the old language and writing with
new ones in Chinese literature. He was clear that there would not be a clean break from classical
Chinese in particular and from the old tradition in general.

Modernizing people through literature

In his magnum opus The Order of Things, Michel Foucault posits a seemingly preposterous argu-
ment that Man is a recent invention which is less than two hundred years old, and will soon be
extinct: “As the archaeology of our thought easily shows, man is an invention of recent date. And
one perhaps nearing its end.”20 By this argument, he means to say that Man is an epistemological
concept which did not exist during the Classical Age, because during that time, “There was no
epistemological consciousness of man as such.”21 The concept of Man did not appear until the
Age of Enlightenment, when thinkers like Kant conceived Man as the subject that knows and
at the same time as the object of epistemological inquiry. Foucault gives his reason why Man
will be extinct:

12
 General introduction

If those arrangements were to disappear as they appeared . . . as the ground of classical

thought did at the end of the eighteenth century, then one can certainly wager that
man would be erased, like a face drawn in sand at the edge of the sea.22

In terms of Foucault’s thesis, the Chinese concept of Man appeared even later. According to
some scholars, the discovery of Man in the Chinese tradition did not appear until the New Cul-
ture Movement of the 1910s and was closely related to the modernization of Chinese literature.
Zhu Donglin, a renowned Chinese historian, states:

The discovery of Man, Man’s self-conscious recognition, development and descrip-

tion, Man’s objectification of his self-discovery, i.e. the evolution of the conception of
Man, have constituted the inner driving force that has run through and propelled the
development of the twentieth-century Chinese literature.23

Although he does not refer to the Foucauldian sense of Man, his view is without doubt based
on the concept of Man which appeared in the Age of Enlightenment.
The Chinese tradition, however, does not lack conceptions of Man, but its various concep-
tions are based on the cardinal principle of the “unity of heaven and man.” It draws no clear-cut
demarcation line between Man and Nature, and differs radically from the conception of Man
upheld by Western thinkers like Kant and Husserl, who view Man as a unified, independent,
and self-responsible subject with reason. The moralization of the unity of Man and Nature in
dynastic times subordinated individuals to the power of family, society, and the state so much
so that an individual often became a sacrificial object to the social and governmental powers,
which caused Lu Xun to denounce the Chinese civilization as a “four-thousand-year history
of man-eating” in the first modern Chinese fiction, “A Madman’s Diary,” and to call for the
appearance of “Real Man” in Chinese society. Lu Xun’s first modern story not only inaugurated
modern Chinese literature but also initiated the critique of Chinese conception of Man and the
modernization of Man via literature. In many ways, traditional Chinese literature completed its
modernization by modernizing Man in literary representations.
The new concept of Man in modern Chinese literature departs radically from the traditional
concept of Man in history. It received its formative power from Western intellectual thought
and literary works. After China’s door was forced open by the imperialist gun-boats, although
a large number of Western thinkers and writers from the Greek and Roman times down to the
twentieth century were introduced, translated, and assimilated into Chinese literary thought and
imagination, there are a number of thinkers and writers who were favored by the Chinese intel-
lectuals and writers because their thought and writing catered directly to the needs of Chinese
society and literature and were immediately assimilated into Chinese literary thought and works.
Without exception, they are all concerned with Man, Man’s conception, Man’s fate, and Man’s
conditions in society. It is no exaggeration to say that modern Chinese literature was concerned
with an ongoing project which centers on radically transforming the traditional conception of
Man from the very beginning.

Modernizing literature through Western thought

In the process to modernizing people and writing, Western intellectual thought and literature
played a vital role in transforming traditional Chinese literature into modern literature and
in modernizing Chinese conceptions of the individual, society, and literary representation. In

13
 Ming Dong Gu

the century-long process, practically all major Western thinkers and writers have exerted their
influences on the Chinese literary mind in one way or another, as their major ideas and works
have been introduced, translated, and critiqued in the Chinese literary circles. Among them,
six thinkers and writers stand out as having both an immediate appeal and enduring influence
among Chinese men of letters.They are Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
Henrik Johan Ibsen, Sigmund Freud, and Jean-Paul Sartre.
The first Western thinker to exert a lasting influence is Karl Marx. The October Revolu-
tion of Russia in 1917 brought Marxism to China. It coincided with the widely accepted year
of the birth of modern Chinese literature. The translation of the Communist Manifesto by Marx
and Engels in 1920 enabled numerous Chinese intellectuals and writers to have access to Marx-
ism. With the founding of CCP and its eventual victory all over China, Marx’s political and
economic theory became the orthodox ideology of the CCP, and the literary theory growing
out of his scanty critical work on some Western literature was upheld as the dominant guid-
ing principle for literary and artistic creation in the middle modern and late modern periods.
Marx’s aesthetics is the theory of realism. His comrade-in-arms Friedrich Engels elaborated
realism as “the truthful reproduction of typical characters under typical circumstances.”24 This
realist aesthetics was upheld as the sole literary standard for judging the value of literary works
in the middle modern period. For several decades, the idea of “typical character under typical
circumstances” was exalted as the highest principle for characterization in literary creation in the
periods of proletarian revolution and socialist reconstruction.
The second Western thinker is Nietzsche. He seems to have enjoyed an enduring influence
on modern writers. In the early modern period, his fierce attack on idol worship coincided with
the iconoclastic spirit of the New Culture Movement participants, and his advocacy of individu-
alism provided much-needed ammunition to the anti-traditional young intellectuals and writers.
We can see a clear connection between Nietzsche’s famous dictum “God is dead” and the May
Fourth New Culture slogan, “Down with the Old Curiosity Shop of Confucius.” He exerted his
influence on a broad array of Chinese writers in the formative years of modern literature, espe-
cially on Lu Xun whose creative writings as well as his large number of miscellaneous essays are
foregrounded in Nietzsche’s iconoclastic spirit. His influence waned during the middle modern
period, but returned with a vengeance in the late modern and postmodern periods.
Rousseau is the third Western thinker who exerted a profound impact upon the Chinese writ-
ers. His masterwork The Confessions was translated half a dozen times into Chinese and inspired a
literary trend of “confession” style fiction and essays produced by numerous writers in the early
modern period. Among them, we can find Yu Dafu, Guo Moruo, Ye Lingfeng, Zhang Ziping,
Ba Jin, and others, who not only revealed their heart and soul to the world in autobiographical
writings but also exposed the hypocrisy of Chinese morality and social customs.
Sigmund Freud is the fourth Western thinker who had strong influence on Chinese writers
in the New Culture Movement as well as in later times. His psychoanalytic theory captivated
a large number of Chinese writers from the early period of modern literature to the present
day. His ideas such as “libido,” “unconsciousness,” “id,” “ego,” and “superego” were either used
directly or in changed forms in the works of writers, including Lu Xun, Zhou Zuoren,Yu Dafu,
Guo Moruo, Zhang Ziping, Mao Dun, Cao Yu, Shen Congwen, Shi Zhicun, Liu Na’ou, Mu
Shiying, Zhang Xianliang, Jia Pingwa, and others.
The fifth Western intellectual who influenced Chinese writers is the Norwegian dramatist
Ibsen. Though a playwright, he was hailed as an intellectual thinker. His play A Doll’s House was
staged and re-staged in China over different historical periods and played a significant role in
attacking patriarchalism, promoting women’s emancipation, and advancing individual’s rights
both in society and literary works.

14
 General introduction

The sixth Western thinker and writer is Sartre, the French philosopher, novelist, playwright,
and literary critic, whose existentialist philosophy and literary works exerted such a huge impact
on the Chinese intellectuals after the Cultural Revolution that in the 1980s, there appeared
an “Existentialist Fad” and his ideas like “existence before essence” and “the other is hell,” etc.,
find their resonances in the literary works of many late modern period. The impact of these
six Western intellectuals is long lasting and continued intermittently through various historical
periods, as is evidenced in the “Great Debate on Marx’s 1844 Manuscripts,” “Freud Fad,” and
“Existentialist Fad” in the 1980s, and “Nietzsche Fad” in the 1980s and 1990s.
The impact of the Western thought on modern literature is deeply reflected in the new
Chinese conception of Man, to be creatively rendered in literary works in the four periods. In
the first period, the individualist conception of Man constituted the dominant theme of literary
works in the May Fourth literature. Lu Xun’s “A Madman’s Diary” is a literary investigation of
Man’s history, a deep reflection upon his condition, and a prediction for his fate. His masterpiece
The True Story of Ah Q is a literary critique of the Man in Chinese patriarchal society.Yu Dafu’s
novella Sinking is a literary exploration of the dilemma faced by Chinese youth caught in the
conflicts of national salvation, personal humiliation, and emotional devastation. Guo Moruo’s
The Goddesses sings praises of a new generation of Chinese people engaged in rebellion against
the old society and fighting for personal emancipation. Ba Jin’s Family trilogy is a realistic rep-
resentation of the human conditions in a patriarchal society. In the second period, literary rep-
resentations of Man took a turn from individualism to revolutionary collectivism. Inspired by
the Marxist theory of Man, the Left-wing writers like Mao Dun, Jiang Guangci, Rou Shi,Ye Zi,
and others emphasized Man’s social nature and tended in their works to replace abstract human
nature with revolutionary class nature of Man, but in the same period, writers like Ba Jin, Cao
Yu, Shen Congwen, Zhang Ailing, Lu Ling, Lao She, Qian Zhongshu continued to work on
the May Fourth idea of Man as an individual in search physical, emotional, and spiritual free-
dom. In the second period, especially the latter half, the May Fourth individualist conception of
Man was marginalized due to the needs of proletarian revolution and socialist reconstruction.
Incessant criticism of the so-called “bourgeois human nature” and “bourgeois humanitarian-
ism” practically negated the May Fourth conception of Man as a freedom-seeking individual.
Nevertheless, there were still fictional works, plays, and films which continued to focus on the
May Fourth concept of Man, albeit in a subtler and more implicit manner. Even in some revo-
lutionary novels such as The Song of Youth and Three Family Lane, we can find echoes of May
Fourth Man’s voice. The third period of modern literature saw a large-scale return and revival
of the May Fourth conception of Man. All literary trends including “Scar Literature,” “Litera-
ture of Reflection,” “Reform Literature,” “Native Soil Literature,” “Root Seeking Literature,”
and “Avant-garde Literature” center on the theme of Man. There appeared quite a few literary
works with “Man” in their titles. Dai Houying’s novel, Ah, Humanity! is a typical example. In the
investigation of human nature, a considerable number of literary works of this period abandon
the tragic vision of Man and emphasizes the nullity and absurdity of human existence. In the
fourth period, literary works on human nature take another turn. It harks back to a marginalized
form of literature in the first period, which has the slightly derogatory epithet,“Mandarin Ducks
and Butterfly School,” but has gone beyond the limits of its precursor in all ways. It advocates
a secular conception of human nature which defies lofty nobility of idealized human nature,
justifies sensual gratification and popular entertainment, and emphasizes the carthartic function
of literature.This secular conception of human nature gave rise to “personalized writing,” “body
writing,” and “Youth Writing.” Although literary works based on this conception of human
nature has been criticized as catering to the popular desires driven by consumerism and lacking
aesthetic sensibility, they nevertheless serve to reveal a dimension of human nature, which tends

15
 Ming Dong Gu

to be dismissed and neglected in more serious and refined literature. The eventual recognition
of this kind of writings has confirmed from the Chinese perspective the disappearance of the
Great Divide between high culture and popular culture, refined literature and secular literature
in the age of postmodernism and globalization.

Part III: practical issues

This handbook mainly targets students and scholars of the West with English-speaking reader-
ship in mind. Only secondarily is it meant for the benefit of readers, writers, and scholars in
other parts of the world including China. As such, it would make more sense to present the
subject in relation to Western literature and literary thought, and against the larger background
of world literature than simply offering an introductory account of Chinese literature per se.
The Western background would certainly facilitate Western readers familiar with Western liter-
ary tradition in their efforts to understand and appreciate a literary tradition other than their
own. In conceiving the conceptual framework and structural organization of the handbook, we
are aware of several practical difficulties. First, we recognize that no comprehensive survey can
be truly comprehensive, and Chinese literature composed in the past century is so abundant that
it is simply impossible to cover all literary works that deserve at least a mention in the history
of Chinese literature. Even with a single writer, it is impossible to present and study his or her
major works in a chapter with designated word limit. Second, we are aware of a series of issues
troubling the writing of overviews of Chinese literature, which include the demand for “com-
prehensive accounts” which cover all major aspects of modern Chinese literature, the right way
to separate modern and contemporary literature, and competing demands for attention between
elite literature and popular literature, mainland literature and Taiwan literature, Chinese litera-
ture in China proper (including Taiwan) and overseas literature in Chinese, and between history
of literature and literary scholarship. Third, we are aware of the competition between accounts
of existing knowledge and the desire for newly created knowledge of the field.
With these competing demands in mind, the handbook seeks to locate a balanced approach,
which does not claim that all the mentioned issues can be satisfactorily resolved, but attempts
to downgrade the centrality of those issues as the necessary focus of attention for a comprehen-
sive handbook. In the overall design, it adopts an approach which is thematic, comparative, and
aesthetic. Nevertheless, it does not abandon chronology completely. On the contrary, historical
periodization will serve as the diachronic coordinates while aesthetic study of masterpieces of
major generic forms works as the synchronic coordinates, with an overarching theme of mod-
ernizing the Chinese and Chinese writing as the unifying connection between the diachronic
and synchronic coordinates. Thus, the overall structure of the handbook will be based on an
integration of three main factors: history (chronological narrative), people (study of authors
and characterization), and aesthetics (generic forms and modes of representation). The adopted
approach and conceptual framework aim to maintain a balance between another set of com-
peting objectives, demanded by a handbook: comprehensive overview versus in-depth intro-
duction, historical knowledge versus aesthetic appreciation, classroom needs of students versus
research needs of scholars.
To facilitate the use of the handbook as a textbook, each part is headed by a brief introduc-
tion, giving an overview of Chinese literature covered by that part; each theme group is headed
by a subtitle meant to summarize the major theme of the section. Each chapter adopts a three-
tier organization structured on an author’s life and career, his or her literary achievements, and
an in-depth study of his or her masterpieces. All chapters seek to avoid as much as possible the
use of jargon and dense language so as to appeal to as broad a readership as possible. Moreover, to

16
 General introduction

stimulate further research, all chapters strive to present their topics from the perspective of world
literature, relating their discussions as much as possible to these questions: (a) In what ways did
the learning from the West exert positive impact upon the rise and maturity of modern Chinese
literature? (b) In what aspects was the encounter between traditional Chinese literature and
Western literature less fruitful? (c) What lessons can Chinese and Western writers of the future
draw from the introduction, translation, and assimilation of foreign literatures? (d) What possible
inspirations and insights can be offered to students and scholars who wish to pursue further
study of Chinese literature?
With the overarching theme of modernizing people and writing, the handbook hopes to pro-
vide an account of the century-long process of literary modernization.The efforts to situate mod-
ern Chinese literature in the context of world literature, the multiple approaches to history, themes,
and aesthetics,“overlapping indeterminism” in periodization, the integration of brief overview and
in-depth analysis, and the self-conscious efforts to balance various demands, are some of the major
features of this handbook.To what extent are the intended objectives realized to the satisfaction of
the reader and user is an open question that remains to be answered. But at least in one aspect, we
believe that the published volume should come in handy as a reference for scholars, an inspiration
for further studies, and as source materials for courses of Chinese and world literature both at the
undergraduate and graduate levels.To maintain a balance among different demands for a handbook
is an impossible task. This handbook offers only a new attempt to deal with the impossible.

Notes
1 See New Youth (1917), no. 1, reprinted in New Chinese Literature-Volume on Theoretical Construction
(Zhongguo xinwenxue daxi-jianshe lilunji) (Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi chubanshe, 2003), 34–44.
2 See Yan Jiayan, “Preface” to From Late Qing to May the Fourth:The Rise of Modernity in Chinese Literature
(Wan Qing zhi Wusi: Zhongguo wenxue xiandaixing de fasheng) (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe,
2003), 7.
3 See Yang Lianfen, From Late Qing to May the Fourth: The Rise of Modernity in Chinese Literature
(Wan Qing zhi Wusi: Zhongguo wenxue xiandaixing de fasheng) (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe,
2003), 13.
4 See, Yingjing Zhang’s “Introduction,” in A Companion to Modern Chinese Literature (Oxford: Wiley-
Blackwell, 2016).
5 Zhu Donglin, A Refined Volume of Modern Chinese Literature (Zhongguo wenxueshi jingbian) (Beijing:
Gaodeng jiaoyu chubanshe, 2013), 13.
6 Ding Fan, Reasons for the Re-periodization of New Literature (Gei xin wenxue chongxin duandai de liyou),
in Modern Chinese Literature Studies (Zhongguo xiandai wenxue yanjiu congkan), (2011), no. 3, 25–33.
7 Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Minneapolis, MN: University
of Minnesota Press, 1984), xiv.
8 Ibid., 79.
9 See Ibid., 71–82; Friedric Jameson, Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Durham, NC:
Duke University Press. 1991), 1–54.
10 C. T. Hsia, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1961), 5.
11 Hu Shi, “For Literary Reform,” in New Youth (1917), vol. 2, no. 6.
12 See Wen Rumin and Kuang Xinnian, “A Madman’s Diary: The Labryrinth of Irony“ (‘Kuangren riji’:
fanfeng de migong”), in Lu Xun Studies Monthly (Lu Xun yanjiu yuekan) (1990), no. 8, 31–34.
13 Qian Liqun and Wang Dehou, “Preface” to Complete Fictional Works of Lu Xun (Lu Xun xiaoshuo quan-
bian) (Hangzhou: Zhejiang wenyi chubanshe, 1991), 18.
14 Jacques Lacan, “The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious or Reason Since Freud,” in Écrits:
A Selection, translated from the French by Alan Sheridan (New York: Norton, 1977), 147.
15 Ibid., 148.
16 Martin Heidegger, Poetry, Language,Thought (New York: Harper-Row, 1971), 189–210.
17 Louis Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus,” in Lenin and Philosophy (London: New Left
Books, 1971), 162.

17
 Ming Dong Gu

18 Lu Xun, The Complete Works of Lu Xun (Lu Xun quanji) (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2005),
vol. 6, 165–166.
19 Martin Heidegger, Poetry, Language,Thought, 189.
20 Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (New York: Vintage Books,
1994), 387.
21 Ibid., 309.
22 Ibid., 387.
23 Zhu Donglin, “The Discovery of Man and the Constitution of Literary History,” in Academic Monthly
(Xueshu yuekan) (2008), no. 3, 13.
24 Friedrich Engels, “Letter to Margaret Harkness,” in Marxists on Literature: An Anthology (Harmonds-
worth, England: Penguin Books, 1975), 269.

18
 PART I

Early modern literature

(c. 1910s–1942)

Part I: introduction: national salvation and human enlightenment

On October 10, 1911, the new-style army soldiers of the Qing Dynasty in Wuchang, Hubei
Province, started a rebellion to overthrow the Manchus government of the last Chinese dynasty.
In 1912, the three-year-old last emperor abdicated, and the Republic of China was declared to
be established with Dr. Sun Yat-sen as its provisionary president. After the last dynasty was con-
signed to history, China entered a new historical epoch. But literature lagged behind historical
development. For several years, Chinese writers continued to turn out literary works using clas-
sical language and time-honored forms and styles, producing traditional themes and motifs, and
expressing outmoded aesthetic sensibilities. Then in 1917, the New Youth, a journal founded by
Chen Duxiu who was later to become the leader of the CCP, and supported by many scholars
who returned from their studies in Europe, America, and Japan, published two articles: “Sugges-
tions for Literary Reform” by Hu Shi and “On Literary Revolution” by Chen Duxiu himself.
This totally changed the status quo of Chinese literature. As specimens for the literary revolu-
tion, the New Youth first published Hu Shi’s eight poems in vernacular language and free-verse
style in 1917, which, however, did not arouse much attention. Then, it published a story by Lu
Xun, “A Madman’s Diary.” This vernacular story with an iconoclastic theme and modern sen-
sibilities captured the attention of Chinese intellectuals and students instantly and inaugurated
the formal birth of modern Chinese literature.
Following Lu Xun’s lead, other writers created fictional and poetic works with modern
themes and aesthetic forms and jointly laid the foundation of modern Chinese literature. The
fiction writers include Ye Shaojun, Bing Xin, Yu Dafu, Feng Yuanjun, Lu Yin, Fei Ming, Lin
Shuhua, and others. While these fiction writers excelled in stories and novellas, writers who
created long and extended narratives were the novelists in whose rank were Mao Dun, Ba Jin,
Lao She, Shen Congwen, Li Jieren, and others. Mao Dun’s novel Mid-Night, Ba Jin’s The Family,
Lao She’s Camel Xiangzi, Shen Congwen’s Border Town, and Li Jieren’s Stale Water Stirs Ripples
marked the full maturity of the modern novel. In the 1930s, there appeared a group of left-wing
fiction writers, in whose rank we find Jiang Guangci, Rou Shi,Ye Zi, Zhang Tianyi, Sha Ding,
Xiao Hong, and Xiao Jun. Their fictional works are characterized by the Marxist theme of class
struggle and revolutionary aesthetics.
 Early modern literature (c. 1910s–1942)

Modern Chinese poetry started with Hu Shi’s experiments with free verse. The early poets
include Hu Shi, Liu Bannong, Shen Yinmu, Liu Dabai, Zhu Xiang, Xu Zhimo, Feng Zhi, Zhu
Ziqing, Wen Yiduo, and last but not least, Guo Moruo, whose poetic masterpiece Goddesses
pioneered a free-verse style of poetry which displaced the time-honored traditional poetry in
literary language and regulated forms. Younger poets include Bi Zhilin, Li Jinfa, Dai Wangshu,
and others.With the exception of Fei Ming’s poems, their poetic works showed visible influence
of Western modernism in formal representation and techniques of expression. Dai Wangshu’s
“Rainy Lane” is noted for its integration of Western symbolism and traditional Chinese poetic
methods. Influenced by Freudianism and the Japanese school of New Sensationalism, a group
of writers, Liu Na’ou, Mu Shiying, Shi Zhecun, Ye Lingfeng, and others, formed the Chinese
school of New Sensationalism.
Modern literary essay appeared early with the literary revolution. In contradistinction to
traditional essays, writers like Li Dazhao, Lu Xun, Zhou Zuoren, Yu Pingbo, Zhu Ziqing, Xu
Dishan, and others created a modern essay style, which was enriched by later essayists. In the
genre of drama, playwrights like Hong Shen, Tian Han, Ouyang Yuqian, Cao Yu, and others
drew inspirations and sources from the Western opera and pioneered modern Chinese drama.
When Western opera was first introduced to China, its Chinese form often incurred a mild
criticism. But Cao Yu’s two representative plays, Thunderstorm and The Sunrise, drew inspiration
and techniques from the Greek drama and Ibsen’s plays and marked the full maturity of mod-
ern Chinese opera. As a closely related genre, Chinese cinema arose very early in comparison
with other literary forms. The first Chinese film was produced in 1905 and the first feature film
A Difficult Couple appeared in 1913. But the early films only served as a new medium for old
themes and traditional performing art such as Peking Opera. Chinese cinema in its modern
sense of the word did not appear until the early 1920s.
At the founding stage, all the literary genres displayed a distinctive variety of new themes,
new characters, new language, and new styles of writing. Infused with the iconoclastic spirit of
the May Fourth New Culture Movement, literature of this period was motivated by the implicit
and explicit aim to attack the old tradition with Confucianism at its core and to modernize
Chinese people, thoughts, society, and ways of life by introducing Western ideas with democracy
and science at the center. At the same time, it engaged in modernizing Chinese ways of writing
by learning from Western techniques of writing. Of all the themes, the dominant one was that
of national salvation through modernizing the people and writings.This major theme continued
all the way from the 1920s till 1938, when all Chinese writers and artists joined the national
united front against the Japanese invasion. The first part of this handbook will present major
writers of all literary genres including film, and their representative works will be examined in
depth.

20
 SECTION I

Realism and the anatomy

of Chineseness
 1
LU XUN’S WRITINGS
Modernizing Chinese language and
consciousness

Ming Dong Gu

Life and career

Lu Xun (1881–1936), pen name of Zhou Shuren, is widely regarded as father of modern Chinese
literature. Born in a declining scholar-official family, Lu Xun received a traditional education in
his early life and laid a solid foundation of traditional Chinese scholarship. He even half-heartedly
participated in the imperial examination. In his late teen years, he received a modern style edu-
cation in Nanjing, where he passed a government examination for overseas studies in 1902 and
won a government scholarship, which enabled him to study in Japan. Initially, he was studying
medicine and planned to be a physician to save the physically sick like his father. But one incident
changed his planned career. While studying in the Japanese medical school, he watched a docu-
mentary film about the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, fought in northeast China. In the film, a
Chinese man alleged to be a Russian spy was captured and about to be beheaded by the Japanese
military, while a large crowd of physically healthy Chinese watched the execution nonchalantly.
This incident greatly shocked Lu Xun, who was compelled to reconsider his career objective:
“Medicine is not that important. For, the citizens of a weak nation, even if they are strong and
healthy, will only become meaningless materials for the pillory or on-lookers.” He stopped his
pursuit of a medical career and became a writer, hoping to use his writings to enlighten his mud-
dle-headed compatriots and to heal the spiritual sickness of the Chinese nation.
After his return to China in 1909, he was totally disappointed with the social conditions of
his motherland before and after the Republican Revolution and indulged himself in pursuing
traditional literary activities. In 1915, Chen Duxiu and Li Dachao, two founders of the Chinese
Communist Party, initiated the New Culture Movement and called for a literary revolution. Lu
Xun pitched himself into the revolution and published in 1918 the first vernacular Chinese story,
“A Madman’s Diary,” in New Youth. Through the mouth of a madman, the story denounces
the time-honored Chinese civilization as a three-thousand-year history of metaphorical canni-
balism under the façade of Confucian morality and virtue. The story became a call to arms for
people to join the revolution. It also made him nationally famous overnight and prompted him
to the forefront of the New Culture Movement. It was followed by a dozen other stories, which
were collected in 1923 into a book Call to Arms (Nahan). These stories were characterized by
its thorough-going anti-feudal themes and original artistic style and form, which exerted a pro-
found impact on a generation of young intellectuals and laid the foundation for the maturity and

23
 Ming Dong Gu

development of modern Chinese fiction. Lu Xun is a multitalented writer and scholar, but in terms
of his major literary output, he is mainly a writer of stories, old-style poetry, lyric essays, miscellane-
ous essays, social criticism and commentaries, as well as a scholar of traditional fiction. In addition to
his first story collection, he published two more collections of stories, Wandering (Panghuang) and
Old Stories Retold (Gushi xinbian). His new-style lyric essays were collected into two volumes, Wild
Grass (Yecao) and Morning Flowers Collected at Dusk (Zhaohua xishi). Of all literary styles, he was the
most prolific in writing miscellaneous essays, which has a total number of 16 volumes.

Literary achievements
Lu Xun is perhaps the most creative Chinese writer in the twentieth century, but some crit-
ics regret that he did not write a single novel in his life even though he drew a plan for two.
He is a recognized master of short stories, yet his stories read more like lyric essays or literary
vignettes. Although his fictional works are supposed to be realistic representations, they display
clear thematic and stylistic concerns pertaining to symbolism, surrealism, supernatural realism,
magical realism, and other experimental writings. In writing style, his writings show an open
disregard for generic demarcations as they blend different genres and forms. Contemporaneous
with Western modernist writers, he composed literary works which exhibit visible modernist
and even postmodern features. For these reasons, I argue that the dominant critical opinion that
Lu Xun is a writer of critical realism has overlooked a distinctive dimension of Lu Xun’s liter-
ary creativity, which is modernist in nature and exhibits postmodern tendencies, and that his
experimental writings should be viewed as contributions to the international Modernist Move-
ment from a non-Western, third-world country. I also suggest that any history of international
Modernism would be incomplete if it does not incorporate the incipient modernism pioneered
by Lu Xun independent of the modernist influence from the West.1
Greek mythology attributes sources of creativity to the Muses. Lu Xun’s muse was enigmatic,
but far from charming. She takes the form of various demons: social, emotional, moral, and
artistic. An adequate understanding of Lu Xun’s muse should be sought from his ambivalent
approach to his past, his self-identity, his self-positioning in society, and to his artistic tempera-
ment and aspirations formed by his classical training and Western education. First and foremost,
Lu Xun wrote his creative works as his efforts for national salvation and cultural revolution. His
artistic inspiration is demonic or Dionysian in nature. But like many great writers of the world,
he produced his creative writings not only as expressions of political and social ideas but also
as ways to work out his personal, emotional, and artistic problems. By temperament, Lu Xun
is a lyric poet. For various reasons, social, political, and economic, he chose fiction writing as
his literary specialization. In his fictional creation, the poet plays an invisible but decisive role
in shaping his literary works. We can describe his lyric talent either as a demon that haunted
him all his life or as a muse that guides his literary creation. It is this demon or muse that lay in
the deeper stratum of his literary creativity, exerted the most profound impact upon his art, and
accounted for the enigmatic discrepancies and colorful varieties of his artistic career.

The masterpieces

“A Madman’s Diary”: modernizing Chinese language

Lu Xun’s fame was inaugurated by his story, “A Madman’s Diary” (Kuangren riji). It consists of
an opening in classical language and a diary written by a mad protagonist in vernacular. In the

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opening, the narrator tells us that the story proper is an account of the madman’s diary. In the
diary, he becomes mentally sick and suspects that everyone around him including his brother and
doctor attempts to eat him, but he eventually recovers and takes an official position.Thus, through
the madman’s mouth, the story conveys an allegorical theme which condemns traditional Chi-
nese history and society: under the disguise of Confucian virtue and morality, Chinese history is
a full account of cannibalism, and Chinese society is one inhabited by a cannibalistic people who
are both man-eaters and eaten by men. This iconoclastic theme is recognized as having played a
crucial role in remolding the national character, thereby contributing to the modernization of
Chinese people. Scholars have extensively discussed this theme. In this section, I will examine
how Lu Xun’s use of two registers of language reveals the interconnections between conscious-
ness and language, and how linguistic form conveys a subtle message. In dividing the story into
the preface in classical language and the diary proper in the vernacular, Lu Xun has pioneered a
model of writing that builds on the opposition between the conscious and the unconscious, and
the interplay of different registers of language.The preface stands for the conscious aspects of not
just the normal mental state of the characters but also for the conscious perception of Chinese
culture and society. In contrast, the diary proper represents the perception of the mad man and
stands for the true conditions of Chinese culture and society repressed into the unconscious, or
covered up by the Confucian ideology. By opposing the preface against the diary proper, Lu Xun’s
story mimics both the content and form of the mind in its conscious and unconscious discourse.
In the story, the creative impulse follows the logic of free association. It starts with the act
of looking by a dog. The animal’s eyes lead the narrative to the eyes of a conservative old man,
the children of the neighbors, and a woman who beats her son and curses that “I’d like to bite
several mouthfuls out of you to work off my feelings!” Then the woman’s curse leads to a series
of incidents of cannibalism, real and imagined. By this time, the look of the eye and the act of
eating are interconnected: looking for possible victims and then eating them. In the whole story,
the unifying element is the image of eating: eating fish, eating medicine, eating human flesh
as medicine, eating a baby’s flesh as delicacy, eating a bad man’s flesh as revenge, cannibalism
in times of famine, historical references to cannibalism, the eating habits of a hyena, the eating
of a revolutionary’s heart and liver, etc. All these references to eating are subsumed under one
phrase, “eating people,” highlighted in the key passage in the story: “When I flick through the
history books, I find no dates, only those fine Confucian principles ‘benevolence, righteousness,
morality’ snaking their way across each page. As I studied them again, through one of the my
more implacably sleepless night, I finally glimpsed what lay between every line, of every book:
‘Eat people!.’”2 This passage contains the working mechanism of the mind: the interconnection
between the conscious and the unconscious. It not only shows the opposition but also reveals the
overcoming of repression. The passage in question also literally demonstrates a way of reading: to
read between, behind, and beneath the lines in order to get the hidden message.
Thus, the construction of the story on the division between the preface and the diary seems to
suggest that Lu Xun may have understood the function of language in formulating human thought
through his artistic intuition. Moreover, Lu Xun seemed to have intended the contrast between the
opening and the story proper as a ploy to hint at the necessity of modernizing the people’s mind
through a modernization of their language. Since language as the material for discourse carries and
shapes ideas, visions, views, commitment, and preferences, for Lu Xun, language is not simply the
medium of representation and communication; it plays a vital role in shaping people’s perception,
comprehension, conception, and ideological commitments. The story should therefore be read as
an expression of Lu Xun’s commitment to modernizing consciousness through language apart from
its other themes.3

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 Ming Dong Gu

The True Story of Ah Q: modernizing national consciousness4

Although Lu Xun’s literary achievements are many-sided, his greatest achievement is perhaps
the creation of The True Story of Ah Q (A Q zhengzhuan). A novella first serialized in a magazine
and then collected into Call to Arms, it narrates the life story of Ah Q, a hapless tramp without
education or a decent job. He is a bully to the weak and less fortunate but a coward to those who
are physically strong and socially powerful. When he meets misfortunes or is bullied, he resorts
to “psychological victories” and persuades himself to believe that he used to be much better
off and is spiritually superior to his opponents or oppressors even though he succumbs to their
oppression and tyranny. He vows to participate in the Revolution, but joins a gang of thieves in
robbing a wealthy family, and is apprehended by the law-enforcers. After a facetious trial, he is
paraded through the streets and executed. To the last of his life, he continues to delude himself
with his spiritual victory. His name gave rise to Ah Quism, a household word widely regarded
as symptomatic of weaknesses in the Chinese national character.
Since the publication of the novella, Ah Quism has been the focus of scholarly research and
debates both in and outside China. Up to this day, however, it remains a topic of controversy:
Who is Ah Q? Is he an embodiment of the Chinese peasantry or of all Chinese? Is Ah Quism
a representation of the seamy sides of the Chinese national character or of those of all nations?
Is the characterization of Ah Q a typification of a typical character under typical circumstances
or a concretization of an idea? Is Ah Quism an ephemeral social phenomenon or an enduring
existential problem? What significance may the novella have beyond the immediate context of
Chinese society in the first quarter of the twentieth century? In my view, we will be unable to
find satisfactory answers to these questions unless we first find apt answers to these questions:
Who is Ah Q? What does he stand for? What is the author’s creative intention? What are the
themes of this story? etc.
The novella has been viewed as a literary work of realism and critical realism.This finds con-
firmation in Lu Xun’s initial intention, which, as he later recalled, was to “bring out the soul of
our present-day country folks” and to “paint the soul of the silent citizens.”5 He also declared,
“I had only to follow my own awareness, and with a lonely voice wrote out these observations,
which serve to represent the Chinese life that I had seen with my own eyes” (Ibid., 84). At the
same time, Lu Xun vigorously denied some critics’ speculation that Ah Q was based on this or
that person in real life. This dovetails with Mao Dun’s initial reading of the novella: “One can-
not find such a character as Ah Q among real persons in modern society, but when I read this
story, I always feel that this character is so familiar. Indeed, he is the crystallization of the Chinese
character.”6 Ah Q’s characterization cannot be simply explained by recourse to critical realism
predicated on imitation and the theory of typification. Behind the façade of realism, Ah Q was
created in a mode of representation that has affinity to modernist representation in art, especially
the technique of collage and multiplicity of voices.

What’s in a name?
Ah Q is the name of the main character. In his naming, the novella exemplifies a tendency in
contemporary writing: language is not a mere vehicle of ideas; the materiality of language itself
carries ideas that are often hidden and subvert the surface ideas.The first chapter, “Introduction,”
wholly focuses on Ah Q’s naming. Its significance has been neglected to a certain extent. Indeed,
in an early English translation, the translator simply omitted it. C. T. Hsia regards it as incongru-
ous with the overall design of the novella due to its genesis as a humorous serial.7 In my view,
the introduction is not only an integral part of the overall design but may also shed new light on

26
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the conception of the novella.The integrity of the introduction can be seen by both textual and
extratextual evidence. It opens with these words: “For several years now I have been meaning to
write the true story of Ah Q.” This is confirmed by Lu Xun’s words from extratextual sources.
In “How ‘The True Story of Ah Q’Was Written,” Lu Xun’s account of the genesis of the novella
confirms the long gestation of this work and its protagonist: “Ah Q seems to have figured in
my imagination for several years, but I had never felt the slightest urge to write about him. This
request made me remember him, so I wrote the first chapter that evening, ‘Introduction.’ ”8
Another piece of internal evidence suggests that the tragic destiny of Ah Q was conceived by
the author when he first started the novella: “As a last resort, I asked someone from my district
to go and look up the legal documents recording Ah Q’s case, but after eight months he sent me
a letter saying that there was no name anything like Ah Quei in those records” (68).9 Thus, both
internal and external evidence proves the integrity of the overall design.
In a way, the introduction may be viewed as a treatise on fiction writing. One of Lu Xun’s
concerns is with the deconstructive tendencies in writing as a result of textual signification.The
opening sentence suggests that the author intends to use an omniscient narrator to tell A Q’s
story, but the rest of the introduction totally cancels out the omniscient point of view, and then
the story proper again reverts to omniscient narration. On the one hand, the narrator claims not
to know Ah Q’s name, nor his origin, but on the other, he goes on to tell the latter’s whole life.
The word game of knowing and not knowing and then full knowing again goes beyond the
explanatory power of irony. I argue that this flip-and-flop pattern is a way to deny the existence
of a unified speaking subject and thereby deliberately to rule out a unified perspective from
which to read the story. This pattern of alternation underlies the entire introduction and sets up
an open framework for the whole story. In the second paragraph, the narrator declares that he
wants to write a literary work that he hopes will go into oblivion no sooner than it has been
finished. But what has gone before the second paragraph contradicts this proclaimed intention:

But while wanting to write, I kept on thinking back, which is sufficient to show that
I am not one of those who achieve glory by establishing words; for an immortal pen
has always been required to transmit the deeds of an immortal person so that the
person becomes known to posterity through the writing and the writing known to
posterity through the person until finally it is not clear who is making whom known.
But finally, as though possessed by some fiend, I ended up deciding to transmit the
story of Ah Q.10

Here the narrator seems concerned with a series of issues which cancel each other out. As
a result, we do not know what his exact intentions are. First, he seems concerned with the
mortality and immortality of his writing and any other forms of writing. The mention of liyan
(establishing words) and buxiu (immortality) suggest that he must have had in mind the three
immortalities in the Chinese tradition: “establishing virtue,” “establishing meritorious deeds,”
and “establishing words.” In this connection, the passage reveals Lu Xun’s intention to write
something that may have lasting value. The playful tone of this concern may be interpreted as
his making light of his own writing, but it may also be read as his anxiety over its possible liter-
ary value.
Second, this passage reveals Lu Xun’s paradoxical stance towards his protagonist. All scholars
agree that one of Lu Xun’s intentions in creating Ah Q was to hasten his disappearance from
Chinese society. Thus, as a social type, Lu Xun wished to see his demise as soon as possible. But
as a literary creation, Lu Xun wanted it to have a lasting value and to procure an immortal place
for himself in the gallery of literary characters in the Chinese Pantheon. In this sense, Lu Xun

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 Ming Dong Gu

may be said to have secretly nursed the idea of emulating Sima Qian (145–c. 90 B.C.) who
is known to posterity for his Shiji (The Grand Scribe’s Records). The discussion of different
forms of biography in the later passages reinforces this impression. For the salvation of Chinese
culture, Lu Xun wants to get rid of this character, but a great literary work is supposed to write
on something that has lasting value. If Ah Q and Ah Quism should fall into oblivion no sooner
than it was written, then Lu Xun’s work would not have a place in the literary canon. Certainly,
it would not make him known. Fortunately, Lu Xun seems quite unsure whether this type of
person will easily depart from the historical stage. The playful meditation on the question of
who makes whom known offers us a meaningful glimpse into the creative mind of Lu Xun at
the time of composition, especially his uncertainty about the future of his work, the future of
his created character, and the future of Chinese culture, and even his own literary fame. The
introduction then enumerates four difficulties involved in transmitting the story of Ah Q:

The first [difficulty] was the question of what to call it. Confucius said, “If the
name is not correct, the words will not ring true”; and this axiom should be most
scrupulously observed. There are many types of biographies: official biographies,
autobiographies, unauthorized biographies, legends, supplementary biographies,
family histories, sketches . . . but unfortunately none of these suited my purpose.
(65)

The narrator now ponders on the form of his writing. He examines many possible types of
biographies and finds them inadequate. Although he dismisses all of them, the playful tone and
the not-so-sure attitude suggest to the reader that all these forms might have been appropriate
for his purpose, thereby giving what he is going to write a universal quality. By declaring all
these forms of biographies to be unfit for Ah Q, the author implies that Ah Q is meant to repre-
sent every man. The mention of Confucius’s notion of rectification of names shows the author’s
concern with language and forms of writing. There may be several implications. First, we may
read it as a critique of the Confucian scholars’ rigid adherence to superficial formalities. Second,
it points to the author’s awareness of the impossibility of rectifying names owing to the unstable
nature of language signification. Third, it may embody the author’s promotion of fiction as a
proper form of literature as is further seen from the tongue-in-cheek self-belittlement of his
writing, “since I write in vulgar vein using the language of hucksters and peddlers, I dare not
presume to give it so high-sounding a title” (66). Fourth, it paves the way for the hesitation over
the naming of Ah Q. Last but not least, it reveals Lu Xun’s attitude towards biographical writ-
ing and criticism: his reaction against the common type of biographical writing whose subject
matter is an individual’s “life” related to a particular work, and against the old-style biographical
criticism the object of which is the discovery in the appropriate source materials of the model
or original of this or that character, event, or situation.
Through the playful examination of various types of biographies and their inappropriate-
ness, Lu Xun implies that the form of biography for Ah Q which he calls “zhengzhuan” (lit-
erally, “proper story”) is neither a set of empirical facts, nor a textual system of characteristic
behavior, but rather the crystallization of images, traces, and symptoms of many typical charac-
ters under many typical circumstances filtered through a creative mind. To borrow an insight
from Jameson, it is

an unstable or contradictory structure, whose persistent actantial functions and events

(which are in life restaged again and again with different actors and on different levels)

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 Lu Xun’s writings

demand repetition, permutation, and the ceaseless generation of various structural

‘resolutions’ which are never satisfactory.11

In my opinion, the narrator’s hesitation over the naming of Ah Q should not be understood as
merely the author’s playful pretending not to know his protagonist for comic effect but should
be read as an indication of his awareness of the difficulty of capturing the crystallization of an
array of persons with diverse features and of his deliberate ploy to tackle the difficulty. In the
process of hesitation, the author finds his coping strategy which is not meant to produce a uni-
fied system. Lao Zi’s The Way and Its Virtue opens with the famous statement: “The way that can
be spoken of / Is not the constant way; / The name that can be named / Is not the constant
name.”12 If a name that can be named is not the common name, then by reverse logic, a name
that cannot be named is the common name. Lu Xun’s naming of Ah Q may be said to be a Taoist
one. Since no available names are suitable for Ah Q, the most suitable name is a nameless name.
To spare Ah Q a regular name, Lu Xun makes him eligible for all names. In this sense, I would
coin a phrase for Ah Q’s name: a great name is no name. Lu Xun’s own statement supports my
Taoist interpretation. In “A Reply to the Editor of the Theatre,” Lu Xun discloses one of his
methods in characterization:

My method is to make the reader unable to tell who this character can be apart from
himself, so that he cannot back away to become a bystander but is bound to suspect
that this may be a portrait of himself if not of every man, and that may start him
thinking.13

This may be an explanation of why the narrator in the introduction spends so much time on
naming Ah Q, but ends up giving him no proper Chinese name. Thus, the naming process
becomes one of the ways with which Lu Xun devises an open frame of reference, depriving
the reader of a privileged position from which to view Ah Q in a disinterested way. The varied
responses of readers, as the story was first serialized, were precisely the effect that the author had
wanted to generate.
A detailed analysis of Ah Q’s naming will partially explain why the readers’ responses were so
colorful.The narrator confesses that he does not know Ah Q’s surname but perhaps his surname
is Zhao. Again the ambiguity was meant to hint at the universal character of Ah Q. Lu Xun
once said that the reason he chose Zhao as Ah Q’s surname is that no one would mistake it for a
personal attack:“In order to spare talented scholars’ vain soul-searching and to avoid unnecessary
troubles, I named two characters in my story ‘Master Zhao’ and “Master Jian,” since zhao and
jian are the first two surnames in Hundred Family Names. As for Ah Q’s surname, no one knows
for sure.”14 But precisely because zhao is the first name in the Hundred Family Names, the choice
itself carries a universal connotation. The incident in which Ah Q is deprived of the right to
bear the surname Zhao has always been read to mean the oppression of the poor and lowly by
the rich and powerful. I may read it differently. I suggest that by making Ah Q have no family
name, the author allows him the potential privilege to use every family name.The indeterminate
choice of Ah Q’s given name reveals the universal quality of Ah Q even more clearly:

I have given the question careful thought: Ah Quei – would that be the “Quei”
meaning cassia or the “Quei” meaning nobility? If this other name had been Moon
Pavilion, or if he had celebrated his birthday in the month of the Moon Festival, then
it would certainly be the “Quei” for cassia. But since he had no other name – or if he

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 Ming Dong Gu

has, no one knew it – and since he never sent out invitations on his birthday to secure
complimentary verses, it would be arbitrary to write Ah Quei (cassia). Again, if he had
had an elder or younger brother called Ah Fu (prosperity), then he would certainly be
called Ah Quei (nobility). But he was all on his own: thus there is no justification for
writing Ah Quei (nobility). All the other, unusual characters with the sound Quei are
even less suitable.
(68)

In China, fu (prosperity), gui (cassia), and gui (nobility) are popular names like the English
counterparts of Tom, Dick, and Harry.The narrator’s hesitation over which fits Ah Q is a ploy to
hint at the universality of his name. Here, the name of Ah Q may associate with other persons
and other concerns through its sound and shape. By its shape, Q looks like the drawing of a
head with a pigtail dangling, a vivid pictogram of a male person before the fall of the Manchu
dynasty. According to Zhou Zuoren (Lu Xun’s brother), this frivolity was deliberately invented
by Lu Xun because Ah Q was started as a comic character.15 By its sound, the narrator has
himself associated it with other popular names. Maruo Tsuneki, a Japanese scholar of Lu Xun,
examines the sound association in an interesting way: Quei is a homophone of gui (ghost, phan-
tom). In this reading, the word has a two-fold meaning: (1) it is the phantom of the disease in
the national character inherited from traditional culture; (2) it is the superstitious idea of the soul
of a dead person. Through meticulous investigation into the novella itself and correlation with
Lu Xun’s other writings, Maruo argues that Lu Xun seems to have intended Ah Q to symbolize
the phantom with its literal and metaphorical implications in his conception.16 From a differ-
ent angle, I may suggest that Q has other associations: it may be an abbreviation of the English
words “Quest” or “Question.” Both English words might have been on the mind of Lu Xun at
the time of composition. For the narrator says: “Since I am afraid the new system of phonetics
has not yet come into common use, there is nothing for it but to use the Western alphabet, writ-
ing the name according to the English spelling as Ah Quei and abbreviating it to Ah Q” (68).
If we take Q to be an abbreviation of a “quest,” then the character of Ah Q may be construed
to represent the author’s search for the root cause of the disease in the national character. If we
take it to be an abbreviation of a capitalized “question,” then Ah Q may be understood as the big
question that the author poses to the reader. It makes sense either way. At any rate, the author’s
choice of the English letter “Q” leaves the associations open.
The use of Western alphabet endows Ah Quism with a capacity for transcending national
boundaries in linguistic terms. My suggestion is further augmented by another piece of evi-
dence in the introduction. In choosing an appropriate form of biography, the narrator for some
time considers the English official history: “It is true that although there are no ‘lives of gam-
blers’ in official English history, the famous author Dickens wrote Supplementary Biographies of
the Gamblers.” Here the author seems to have had a slip of memory. Supplementary Biographies
of the Gamblers is the English novel Rodney Stone by Conan Doyle (1839–1930). The transla-
tor of the novella corrects the slip in the English translation. I, however, think that the slip of
memory might have been deliberately committed to blur the boundaries between Chinese and
foreign, truth and fiction, universality and particularity. The number of difficulties the narrator
has encountered in the introduction may sound funny to a casual reader, but a thoughtful reader
would ask: if the author does not even know the surname and given name of the protagonist,
why is he obsessed with writing a biography of this nameless person? Thus, the playful igno-
rance becomes food for thought for the reader, forcing him/her to think hard about the author’s
intention and the story’s implications. But the answers are left completely open. The reader may

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devise a number of answers. The miscellaneous readings I have examined or invented are just
some possible readings.
The open reference of Ah Q is also attested by the choice of his place of origin. The place
where Ah Q lives is called Weizhang (Wei Village). Wei in Chinese means “non-existent” (mei-
you).17 Coupled with “village,” weizhuang literally means “non-existent village,” or “no village.”
Lu Xun’s own words confirm this. In a letter to the editor of the journal Theatre, which pub-
lished a dramatic version of the novella, Lu Xun provides a direct answer to the question:
“Where is Weizhuang?” He understands why the dramatic version places Weizhuang as a village
in his hometown Shaoxing, but he unequivocally states: “in all my fictional works, rarely do
I clearly identify a place.”18 He goes on to explain why he made the setting vague: to prevent
readers from associating the places in his fictional works with real places in society.Thus, his des-
ignation of the setting as “no village” is similar in narrative function to “nowhere” or its inverted
form “erewhon” in the English satirical novelist Samuel Butler’s (1835–1902) masterpiece,
Erewhon. Butler’s novel attacks contemporary attitudes in social morals, religion, and science.
It was immensely popular in late nineteenth century. I suspect that Lu Xun might have had a
chance to read the novel. The “no village” or the village that has never existed is another piece
of evidence for the idea that the author might have intended his novella to refer to the universal
conditions of human existence.
The universality of intention and implications is further supported by the narrator’s claim:
“The only thing that consoles me is the fact that the character ‘Ah’ is absolutely correct. This is
definitely not the result of false analogy, and is well able to stand the test of scholarly criticism”
(69). “Ah” is an endearing but meaningless word attached to a given name in China. It can be
added to any person’s given name. In this sense, it is another way of implying that Ah Q is a
nameless everyman. The ending of the introduction alluding to the unknown origin of Ah Q is
often read as a satirical jab at scholars like Hu Shi and his students, but it may also be understood
to be the author’s invitation to the reader to ponder on who Ah Q is and what he stands for. In
this connection, my and other scholars’ readings of Ah Q’s name in terms of the name’s sound,
shape, and meaning are largely justified.

Ah Quism: a private religion for all

Ah Quism is an open verbal construct with a universal significance. Its wide appeal does not
simply come from the author’s self-conscious use of the free play of language signification. Its
universal appeal emanates from the author’s profound understanding of human psyche and its
operations in relation to social reality. The author’s psychological insight finds its concentrated
expression in his artistic representation of “spiritual victory.” I suggest that Ah Q is not mentally
sick and his spiritual victory is not the warped consequence of a perverted mind. Lu Xun’s crea-
tion of Ah Quism reveals a profound insight into the deep recess of the human soul and repre-
sents a complex form of psychological coping that has affinity to the psychological definition
of “character” in a person’s identity. In its social function, it may be viewed as an unrecognized
private religion.
Let us return to two questions: How can Ah Q represent all classes if he possesses the typi-
cal character of a peasant? Does Ah Quism possess international significance and lasting liter-
ary value? From the perspective of everyman, we may say that Ah Q is a typical peasant, but
at the same time he is also a man like everyone else with the same need for self-preservation
and self-fulfillment. For self-preservation, he needs food, shelter, and freedom from harm; for
self-fulfillment, he needs love, respect, esteem, etc. Like everyone else, he has his life trajectory

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from birth to death. The only difference is that Ah Q’s existence remains on the lowest level
of self-preservation and self-fulfillment; indeed, he can hardly keep himself from falling below
the lowest level. Although he tries to improve his existence, he never succeeds in obtaining his
objective. A look at the major actions of Ah Q tells us that throughout his life span, he is engaged
in a struggle for survival. What makes his miserable life a little more bearable is none other than
his sense of spiritual victory.
Ah Q’s strange strategies of coping with overwhelmingly adverse circumstances have caused
some scholars to regard him either as an animal-like person almost completely driven by animal
instinct and without an inner self19 or a “typical representative of a vagabond peasant with a
serious psychological disease.”20 Both views are only partially correct. The symptoms of Ah Q’s
disease are of course the actions related to his sense of spiritual victory. His need for spiritual vic-
tory is not a psychological disease, because all his seemingly perverted actions are the results of
rational calculations. At most, it amounts to a neurosis and never reaches the level of psychosis. In
fact, I wish to argue that it is precisely the sense of spiritual victory that prevents him from going
mad in circumstances that would make a person with less mental endurance go crazy or commit
suicide. In psychological terms, Ah Q’s spiritual victory is a compulsive repetition of an imagina-
tive solution to problems that provides false satisfaction to the mind so that he, though inflicted
with unbearable mental pains, finds his existence less painful. It is not that Ah Q was born with
this obsessional neurosis but that circumstances force him to develop this coping strategy.
Through Ah Q’s series of conflicts with the external world, Lu Xun describes vividly how a
sense of spiritual victory becomes the only solution to the demands made by external circum-
stances and internal pressures. And his sense of spiritual victory consists of different strategies to
cope with different defeats and frustrations. Without exception, all coping strategies function
according to the psychological principles of the mind. For example, Ah Q’s self-belittlement
has been viewed as an abnormal behavior. In fact, it is only an adaptive strategy to cope with
overwhelming odds. According to ego psychology, a person’s ego, which is the executive branch
of the mental apparatus, has to cope with pressures from several directions: the id, the superego,
reality, and the compulsion to repeat.21 In resolving the different kinds of pressures, one forms
his character or identity. As one psychoanalytic theorist states, “The mode of reconciling various
tasks to one another is characteristic for a given personality. Thus the ego’s habitual modes of
adjustment to the external world, the id, and the superego, and the characteristic types of com-
bining these modes with one another, constitute character.”22
Ah Q’s character or his sense of spiritual victory is formed in his various frustrated encoun-
ters with adverse forces. In his fight with an idler, he is defeated. He consoles himself by saying
to himself, “It is as if I were beaten by my son.” In so saying, he neutralizes the aggressive drive
of the id for revenge, which would lead to greater humiliation and suffering, and at the same
time satisfies the demand of the superego for self-esteem, giving the ego the illusion that it has
successfully negotiated a solution to the conflict. In another fight, the tormentor takes a preemp-
tive move to prevent Ah Q from winning a spiritual victory by forcing him to say that “This is
not a son beating his father, it is a man beating a beast.” Faced with this situation, Ah Q would
devise another strategy, calling himself the “No. One belittler.” The coinage of this epithet does
not simply attest to Lu Xun’s keen observation; it shows his profound insight into the func-
tion of language in Ah Q’s psyche. The superlative degree of “No. One” is a move to fool the
superego that demands the safeguarding of one’s self-esteem. When his conscious ego subtracts
the “belittler,” what remains is the “No. One.” Then he relates the “No. One” with the highest
successful candidate in the imperial examinations and thereby satisfies demands from both the
superego and reality.

32
 Lu Xun’s writings

In the psychological framework of Ah Q’s character, reality is a formidable force against

which he is helpless. In order to restore his psychological equilibrium, he has to capitulate to
the adverse force in reality at the expense of id, ego, or superego. In another episode, Ah Q wins
a lot of money at a gambling table but loses it all because of the trickery of the gambling table
owner. He tries to console himself with the old strategy of spiritual victory but to no avail. This
time the id in his psyche is full of uncontrollable aggressive drives and on the point of explosion.
Finally, he devises a new way to console himself: “Raising his right hand he slapped his own face
hard twice, so that it tingled with pain. After this slapping his heart felt lighter, for it seemed as if
the one who had given the slap was himself, the one slapped some other self, and soon it was just
as if he had beaten someone else” (74). With this new strategy, Ah Q has incidentally used the
technique of displacement: he displaces his pent-up anger within his psyche onto an imaginary
other person, thereby preventing his ego from losing control. Ah Q’s coping strategies show him
to have an inner self, but it is not a consistent self.
Spiritual victory, as C. T. Hsia adequately characterizes it, is in the final analysis a form of
self-deception.23 The sense of spiritual victory is Ah Q’s only comfort that sustains him through
his miserable existence. Without it he would either commit suicide or murder or go mad. Marx
once said that religion is the opiate of the people. Here, I suggest, the sense of spiritual victory
may be said to be Ah Q’s personal religion since he, like most male Chinese peasants, does not
believe in any established religion. The idea of spiritual victory as a personal religion endows
Ah Quism with a universal meaning that transcends time, space, class, gender, nationality, and
culture. In the past, scholars have already talked a good deal about the universal significance of
Ah Quism, but little has been said about its source. In my opinion, the core of this universal sig-
nificance is its capacity of appeasing the superego, and of performing a quasi-religious function.
In a study of the resemblances between obsessional neurotic actions and ceremonies of reli-
gious believers, Freud comes to the conclusion that obsessional neurosis is an individual’s reli-
gion while religion is a universal form of obsessional neurosis.24 Ah Q’s repeated use of spiritual
victory to cope with his problems may be considered a form of obsessional neurosis. This may
provide a new insight into why Ah Q’s behavior is a mixture of comic and tragic elements.
Having argued for the resemblances between obsessional neurosis and religious practices, Freud
points out their differences: “[W]hile the minutiae of religious ceremonial are full of significance
and have a symbolic meaning, those of neurotics seem foolish and senseless. In this respect an
obsessional neurosis presents a travesty, half comic and half tragic, of a private religion.”25 To
other persons, Ah Q’s resort to spiritual victory is a perverted behavior, symptoms of a mental
disease. To Ah Q, it is his personal religion that can suppress his instinctive aggressivity and fend
off the unbearable bitterness of frustration. To many Chinese men who have no religious beliefs
and therefore have no recourse to religious consolation, Ah Quism plays the role of a personal
religion.

The enduring value of Ah Quism

Ah Q is not merely a typical character under typical circumstances. He is an artistic representa-
tion of an existential problem. By ingeniously blurring Ah Q’s naming, family background, and
social identity, Lu Xun meant to allow Ah Q’s characteristic way of dealing with external and
internal pressures in the face of disappointment, setbacks, and frustrations to assume an existen-
tialist significance. Ah Quism is, in the final analysis, an artistic representation of a private “reli-
gion” for life. As such, it is endowed with a universality irrespective of class, gender, nationality,
and culture. Scholars and writers of third world countries have already testified to the existence

33
 Ming Dong Gu

of the Ah Q phenomena in their countries.26 One Indian writer also said:“Ah Q is Chinese only
by name. We have seen this character in India, too.”27 In the first world and second world, there
are Ah Q phenomena too. As early as the 1920s, Romain Rolland, after reading The True Story
of Ah Q, pointed out that before the French Revolution, there were French peasants who acted
like Ah Q. Pierre Bourdieu, a French sociologist of culture, observes in his study how members
of the working class, unable to afford certain commodities and tastes because of their economic
disadvantage, console themselves by saying that they did not like them anyway. In Britain and the
US we can identify numerous instances of Ah Quism, but because of space constraint, I will only
cite one example: a British statesman’s declaration of the Dunkirk retreat in WWII as a defeat
turned into victory. Despite its intention to boost the morale of the British people, the rationale
was essentially an English version of Ah Quism. Thus, Ah Q’s experiences and his devices for
coping with them are not limited to China. Indeed, “Ah Q is an international everyman.”28 Like
Don Quixote and Hamlet, he “is a mirror that satirizes the world.”29
Of course, not many people would resort to turning actual defeat into psychological vic-
tory to the same obsessive extent as Ah Q. But how many people can live in the same helpless
and humiliating circumstances and go through similar traumatic experiences without going
mad or committing suicide or murder? Carried to an extreme, Ah Quism becomes obsessional
neurosis. With moderation and common sense, it is an individual’s source of solace, capable of
providing emotional consolation to and restoring mental equilibrium for anyone in distress and
disappointment, irrespective of age, gender, race, nationality, and social status. This is where Lu
Xun’s novella transcends the immediate context of Chinese culture and the local achievement
of Chinese literature and is endowed with lasting literary value in Chinese and world literature.

Notes
1 Ming Dong Gu, “Lu Xun and Modernism/Postmodernism,” Modern Language Quarterly (2008), vol. 69,
no. 1, 29–44.
2 Lu Xun, The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China: The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun, tr. Julia Lovell
(London: Penguin Books, 2009), 21–31.
3 For an interesting study of other themes, see Wen Rumin and Kuang Xinnian, “ ‘A Madman’s Diary’:
The Labyrinth of Irony,” Lu Xun Studies Monthly (Lu Xun yanjiu yuekan) (1990), no. 8, 31–34.
4 This part is a reworked version of an earlier article published in International Communication of Chinese
Culture (2015), vol. 3, no. 2. I acknowledged my indebtedness to the journal.
5 “Preface to the Russian Translation of The True Story of Ah Q,” in the Complete Works of Lu Xun (Beijing:
Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2005), vol. 7, 83 and 84.
6 Fiction Monthly (Xiaoshuo yuebao) (February 1922), vol. 13, no. 2.
7 C. T. Hsia, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1961), 37.
8 Lu Xun: Selected Works, translated by Yang Hsienyi and Gladys Yang (Peking: Foreign Languages Press,
1957), vol. 2, 315.
9 Unless indicated otherwise, English quotations are taken from Lu Hsun: Selected Stories (New York:
Norton, 1971), 65–112.
10 I have made some modifications to the English version translated by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang to
emphasize certain points in this passage.
11 Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1981), 180.
12 Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, trans. D.C. Lau (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1961), 57.
13 Lu Xun: Selected Works, vol. 4, 141.
14 Complete Works of Lu Xun (Lu Xun quanji) (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2005), vol. 6, 149.
15 See Zhou Xiashou, Characters in Lu Xun’s Fiction (Lu Xun xiaoshuo li de renwu) (Shanghai: Shanghai
chuban gongsi, 1954), 64.
16 Maruo Tsuneki, “Investigating the Name of Ah Q: Shadows and Images of Ghosts,” Lu Xun Studies
(Lu Xun yanjiu) (1986), no. 6, 135–153.

34
 Lu Xun’s writings

17 See Origins of Words (Ciyuan) (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1988), 810.

18 Complete Works of Lu Xun, vol. 6, 149.
19 Yu-sheng Lin, The Crisis of Chinese Consciousness: Radical Antitradtionalism in the May Fourth Era (Madi-
son: University of Wisconsin Press, 1979), 129.
20 Yan Jiayan, “Notes on Reading The True Story of Ah Q,” in Lu Xun Studies (1983), no. 4, 52.
21 See Robert Waelder, “The Principle of Multiple Function: Observations on Over-Determination,”
Psychoanalytic Quarterly (1936), vol. 5, 45–62.
22 Otto Finichel, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis (New York: Norton, 1945), 466–467.
23 C. T. Hsia, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction, 37.
24 See The Freud Reader, edited by Peter Gay (New York: Norton, 1989), 435.
25 The Freud Reader, edited by Peter Gay (New York: Norton, 1990), 431.
26 At an international conference commemorating Lu Xun, writers and scholars from a number of third
world countries pointed out that Ah Quism is a common phenomenon in their countries. See the
Supplement to Literary Gazette (Wenyi bao) (1956), no. 20.
27 See Literary Gazette (1956), no. 20, supplementary volume.
28 William Lyell, Lu Hsün’s Vision of Reality (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 244.
29 Zhang Mengyang, A General History of Lu Xun Studies (Zhongguo Lu Xun Xue Tongshi) (Guangzhou:
Guangdong jiaoyu chubanshe, 2002), vol. 2, 268.

Further readings
Button, Peter. “Lu Xun’s Ah Q as ‘Gruesome Hybrid.’ ” In P. Button, ed., Configurations of the Real in Chinese
Literary and Aesthetic Modernity. Leiden: Brill, 2009, 85–117.
Chou, Eva Shan. Memory, Violence, Queues: Lu Xun Interprets China. Ann Arbor: Association for Asian Stud-
ies, 2012.
Davies, Gloria. Lu Xun’s Revolution:Writing in a Time of Violence. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2013.
Foster, Paul B. Ah Q Archaeology: Lu Xun, Ah Q, Ah Q’s Progeny, and the National Character Discourse in Twen-
tieth Century China. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2005.
Gu, Ming Dong. “Lu Xun’s Ah Quism: A Study of Its Intrinsic Nature and Transcultural Value.” International
Communication of Chinese Culture 3.2 (2015): 207–228.
Huters,Theodore. “The Stories of Lu Xun.” In B. S. Miller, ed., Masterworks of Asian Literature in Comparative
Perspective: A Guide for Teaching. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1994, 309–320.
Lee, Leo Ou-fan. Voices from the Iron House: A Study of Lu Xun. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.
Wang, Hui. “Intuition, Repetition, and Revolution: Six Moments in the Life of Ah Q.” In C. Rojas and
A. Bachner, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Modern Chinese Literatures. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2016, 702–721.

35
 2
MAO DUN AND HIS
MASTERPIECES
Theodore Huters

Of all modern Chinese writers, perhaps Mao Dun (pen name of Shen Yanbing, 1896–1981) was
most heavily invested in the bringing of Western ideas about literature, and particularly about
the novel, to China. Born into a highly educated although somewhat down at heel family in
Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province – just outside Shanghai – in 1896, he was able to attend the Beijing
University Preparatory School in that city for two years beginning in 1914. Forced to with-
draw owing to financial difficulties, he secured employment in 1916, at the tender age of 20, at
the Shanghai Commercial Press, China’s largest publishing enterprise and probably the leading
intellectual institution in the country at the time, even though it had only been founded twenty
years earlier. Beginning in the English Correspondence Division, he quickly moved on to take
on greater editorial and translating responsibilities, eventually in 1920 assuming responsibility for
the revamping of one of the Press’s most important publications, Fiction Monthly (Xiaoshuo yue-
bao). This renovation entailed changing the journal from being an eclectic collection of various
sorts of fiction to a specific focus on publishing the work of the “new literature” being written
in response to the reform entreaties emanating from the “New Culture Movement” springing
from the “May Fourth” movement that had begun at Peking University in 1919. At the center
of this effort was extensive attention paid to Western literary theory, generally centering around
notions of literary realism. At the same time Mao Dun was invited to join the new “Society for
Literary Research,” a group originating in Beijing devoted to the new literature, of which Mao
Dun was initially the only member from Shanghai. Within a short time, the revamped Fiction
Monthly had become closely associated with the Society, so much so that it was often assumed to
be its official organ. During this entire period Mao Dun continued to write a great many critical
articles for the magazine, mostly introducing modern Western ideas about literature.
Mao Dun had all along been committed to radical politics, and was one of the early mem-
bers of the Chinese Communist Party, which was officially founded in Shanghai in July of
1921. Because of political pressures he was obliged to step down as editor of Fiction Monthly at
the end of 1922, although he continued to publish his critical articles there. He also became
increasingly immersed in political work, helping to facilitate the new alliance between the
Communist and Nationalist parties that got underway in 1923. He was eventually sent to
Canton in early 1926 to join in the preparatory work for the Northern Expedition, the joint
effort of the CCP and KMT to bring all of China under Kuomintang rule led by Chiang Kai-
shek. He soon became the Secretary of the KMT Central Propaganda Department, working

36
 Mao Dun and his masterpieces

directly under Mao Tse-tung. When the Northern Expedition reached Wuhan in late 1926,
Mao Tun followed it there, becoming editor of the new government’s official newspaper, the
Republican Daily (Guomin ribao), in April 1927. With the suppression of the CCP in Wuhan
that summer, Mao Dun fled that city for Shanghai, with a stop in the mountain resort of Gul-
ing, arriving in Shanghai in late August with a price on his head and thus being obliged to
go into hiding.
It was during these difficult days in seclusion that Mao Dun moved from being a critic and
theorist of fiction to being a creator of it. He chose as his subject the events he had witnessed
in 1926 and 1927, the tumultuous years of the revolution that saw at once the birth of a new
KMT government and the purging of the communist members from its ranks. While in hiding
in Shanghai he quickly produced three novellas, Disillusion (Huanmie), Waverings (Dongyao) –
the subject of detailed analysis below – and Pursuit (Zhuiqiu), which together form the Eclipse
(Shi) trilogy. They were rapidly serialized in Short Story Monthly, with the author using for the
first time the pen name Mao Dun, a thinly disguised reference to the Chinese term for “con-
tradiction.” After completing the work, the author fled to Japan in the summer of 1928, where
he remained for almost two years, meanwhile completing another novel, Rainbow (Hong), a
narrative of the personal and political growth of a young woman from the interior province of
Sichuan that followed her from her home to the modern metropolis of Shanghai. Even as he
was writing his first novels he also begins writing a number of short stories, all of which illu-
minate the social problems, both urban and rural, of the times. “Spring Silkworms” (Chun can)
and “The Lin Family Store” (Lin jia puzi), both first published in 1932, are prominent examples
of stories candidly illustrating problems facing rural China, even the prosperous areas close to
Shanghai.
Soon after his return to Shanghai in April of 1930, he, along with the prominent writer Lu
Xun, played a major role in convening the League of Left-Wing Writers (Zuoyi zuojia lian-
meng), essentially a front group through which the CCP quite successfully sought to exercise
significant influence on the writers of the time and the work they created. Afflicted with eye
problems soon thereafter, he slowed his writing endeavors and devoted himself to social research
in Shanghai, intending to write a novel that encapsulated the Chinese situation at the time. The
result was Midnight (Ziye), his longest novel, completed at the end of 1932 and first published in
January of the following year. In spite of encountering problems with government censorship in
1934, the novel was an immediate and enduring success, and has come to be regarded in China
as Mao Dun’s “representative work.” (The novel will be analyzed below).
In the years that followed Mao Dun continued his involvement in politics even as he contin-
ued to write short stories. As the war with Japan drew near, after having participated in a sharp
debate essentially over the extent of political dictate over literature in support of the Chinese
defense, in which he defended the realist style to which he had long committed, he joined in a
united front group of writers in late 1936. During the war he moved numerous times among
various cities in free areas, even as he was able to complete two important novels, Putrefaction
(Fushi, 1941), an exposé of KMT perfidy even during the bleakest parts of the war, and Maple
Leaves as Red as February Flowers (Shuang ye hong si eryue hua, 1943), a tale of the choices fac-
ing young people set in the early years of the century. After spending time in Hong Kong after
the war, he went to Beijing soon after the communists took the city in 1949, becoming Minister
of Culture in the new People’s Republic shortly thereafter. His novel, The Tempering (Duanlian),
his final work of fiction, began serialization in 1948, but was published as a book only in 1981.
During the entire time between 1949 and his death in 1981 he published no more creative writ-
ing, although he continued to write literary criticism and take an active role in governmental
literary policy.

37
 Theodore Huters

Waverings
First serialized in Fiction Monthly in its first three issues of 1928, Waverings is the second of three
novellas detailing events in the crucial years of 1926 and 1927. Disillusion, the first and short-
est, is set in Shanghai before the revolution actually begins, and offers a panorama of educated
youth in that tension-filled time. Pursuit, the final work of the three, returns to Shanghai to
show the sense of depression and futility among the same class of young men and women after
the revolution’s failure. For its part, Waverings presents an in-depth perspective on key moments
of the 1927 revolution itself, being the first work to make the attempt. Remarkably enough, it
remains even today the only fictional narrative of the crucial events of that time, although the
convoluted course of how things developed as represented in Mao Dun’s text perhaps makes it
understandable why other writers have been chary of taking on such a difficult task. The work
was written in a short time in the autumn of 1927, and is remarkably well crafted, especially
given the speed with which it was produced, not to mention as part of a first attempt at writing
a novel, and many of the issues it raises retain their relevance even today.
The text is multifaceted, conveying both important political micro-history, literary medita-
tions on vital social issues of the day – notably gender relations in a time when traditional social
roles were in flux – as well as sharply realized and highly memorable characters, particularly
Fang Luolan, the conflicted man through whom the author focalizes the story. One of the
things that renders the work particularly noteworthy is that Mao Dun was an actual eyewitness
to events much like those he describes, as editor of Republican Daily based in the great central
Chinese city of Wuhan, the revolutionary capital for the period represented in the text. At that
point in early 1927, “the Party” refers to the Kuomintang or Nationalist Party, which was for
a few years in the mid-1920s an uneasy coalition of conservative, moderate and radical forces
united briefly with the Communist Party under the sign of bringing into being a modern and
united national government. One of the prominent features of the novel is the depiction of
how the various forces temporarily aligned finally fall out of solution as a result of the pressures
brought to bear by the rightist purge of April 1927, although, probably to avoid censorship, the
purge itself is barely mentioned in the novel.
As Mao Dun was to write somewhat later, many of the events depicted in Waverings are based
on reports that came to him from the field during that period of social upheaval.The novel offers
an intriguing contrast to the editorials he wrote while working for the newspaper in Wuhan,
which were generally upbeat propaganda in support of the revolutionary cause; the novel, by
contrast, is characterized by frank uncertainty about the wisdom of various radical policies of
the period and even from time to time seems to entertain doubts about the nature of revolution
itself and the chaos unleashed by it. While Mao Dun was later to claim that the “waverings”
depicted in the novel were those of the characters rather than the author, the fact remains that
the rendition of these doubts is replete with a vivid sense of how difficult and unnerving it was
to have to make decisions in the midst of total and unprecedented social tumult. It is perhaps
Mao Dun’s commitment to literary realism that enables this neutrality: in a later defense of his
method written a few years later, the author notes that, while he would have liked to be able
to paint an optimistic portrait of the times, he also felt obliged to try to do justice to what he
understood to have actually taken place while he was in Hubei. The implosion of the left front
over the course of the narrative is portrayed in great detail, and it is of particular interest that
this melt-down is represented as more the result of internal imbalances and poor judgment than
as anything imposed from a more powerful political center. Again, events as depicted in the text
render it an open question whether the success of the progressive forces as they were constituted
at the time was possible or even desirable.

38
 Mao Dun and his masterpieces

Perhaps the most striking feature of Waverings is its depiction of the 1927 revolution in the
central Chinese countryside, away from the coastal cities that are the most common settings
for the new literature of the 1920s and ’30s. It is, however, important to note that what we are
presented with are events at the level of a rural county seat, not in the actual countryside per
se, and such enduring issues of modern Chinese history as land-holding and landlord-tenant
relations are thus conspicuously absent. Instead social issues like concubinage, labor relations
in commercial establishments and the rights of women take center stage. And in its discussion
of these pivotal issues, the rhetoric of the novel is remarkably even-handed – the problems are
acknowledged as serious, but finding genuinely practical solutions to them is invariably shown
to be where the really intractable issues lie. We also get a striking picture of crucial facets of the
social structure of the county-town: At the top is situated the elite level represented by Fang
Luolan and his wife and their social peers, the Lus, heirs to the grand tradition of graduates of
the imperial examinations who had access to office in the old imperial government. By the
1920s, however, the younger generation of this elite is shown as having adeptly transformed
itself to having become graduates of modern universities and now exercising their traditional
leadership roles through the new revolutionary party, albeit with a fatally imperfect grasp of the
rough-and-tumble of politics at the grass roots.
The novel’s most compelling characterization, however, is that of the level immediately below
this hereditary elite. Although also a player in local politics, the amazingly tawdry Hu Guoguang,
a character so full of menace that he makes Dickens’s Uriah Heap seem like a choir-boy, made
all the more repellent by the stark naturalism by which he is represented, is depicted as being
culturally completely removed from his immediate superiors in the social hierarchy: the scene
in which Hu first visits the Fang household reveals him as being in complete awe and incom-
prehension at its grace and elegance, and that of Mrs. Fang in particular – they might as well be
from different planets. In other words, for all that Hu and his father have been local notables for
at least two generations, the social distance between him and Fang Luolan could not be greater,
and that distance has only increased via the “modernization” that has transformed the highest
level local elite into a group whose values and basic orientations are closer to the Westernized
inhabitants of the coastal cities than to people like Hu, who have essentially never left home,
and is accordingly regarded with complete disdain by his more cosmopolitan social betters. It
is also of note that Hu presents a figure utterly without the moral scruples that appear to have
been instilled through elite education in those like Fang, making it all that much easier for Hu
to successfully manipulate the murky world of local politics; Fang’s very disdain, in fact, allows
him to disastrously underestimate the danger Hu represents to him and his cause. Hu is pre-
sented throughout as the complete opportunist, leaning left or right as circumstances decree or
as his immediate personal interests dictate, with no conscience or moral standards to guide him.
Political operatives who have by implication moved to the country from the city in pursuit
of their revolutionary aims constitute the third set of characters. The femme fatale Sun Wuyang,
who seems acquainted with all the visiting political figures who come through the county-
town, is the resplendent representative of this group as a whole. For all the differences between
Hu Guoguang and Fang Luolan, it is ironic that the two of them respond to her in a similar fash-
ion, being basically bedazzled by her sophistication and romantic allure and at a loss as to how
to respond. A number of the newly installed officials who come to briefly involve themselves in
the affairs of the town had appeared as characters in the first novel of the trilogy, Disillusion, set
in Shanghai during the period immediately preceding the revolution. In the earlier text they had
been portrayed as basically callow and intemperate, hardly the type of character that one would
imagine being entrusted with vital matters of state. As one might expect, then, several of these
men make significant errors of judgment when matters become exigent and the capacity for

39
 Theodore Huters

mature reflection would presumably have at least made solutions possible. The resulting fiascos
only lend weight to the impression that at least at this stage the revolution lacked the sort of
talent and experience that would have seen it through the various crises that eventually came to
swamp it, at least at this microcosmic level.
A quieter, if equally significant, part of the story is the depiction of the ambiguity of gender
relations in a transitional China, where those born into one order of social existence are strug-
gling to find new means of being and expression. This is represented with startling clarity in
the three-cornered relationship among Fang Luolan, his wife and the “liberated woman” Sun
Wuyang, who also represents the free-floating sexuality that provides an omnipresent continuo
to the whole text. While both Fang and his wife are university graduates and have thus gained
exposure to the wider world, Sun seems to be an entirely different sort of person, apparently
completely unrooted in the partly traditional matrix of morality the other two had taken for
granted.While in the first part of the novel, Fang is secure in his political leadership position, he
is completely thrown off balance by the image of Sun, which seems to constantly bedevil him,
with his wife inescapably aware of this, however much Fang tries to cover it up. The personal
and the political meet here, with Sun representing in her attitudes and behavior all the quanda-
ries that Fang faces in coming to grips with the new. This all comes to a head in Chapter 9, in
which Fang and his wife engage in a series of remarkably searing interchanges over the nature
of their relationship and the possibilities for the future, with Sun holding herself tantalizingly
aloof; there are few such scenes in modern Chinese literature and it throws into high relief the
complexities of the new life choices presented to China in the early twentieth century, which is
one of the definitive qualities of “modernity.”
At the lowest social level, where the local people have not had the benefit of prolonged
exposure to new ideas, gender relations take on a positively nightmarish cast in this period of
social upheaval, when new concepts are fit into decidedly traditional ways of understanding. As
the passage cited below indicates, the local farmers cannot make any sense of new ideas con-
cerning property, the place of women in society and social mobilization in general, resulting in
a scene that would be darkly amusing if the fates of actual people were not at stake:

From the tail-end of the previous year, the peasants in the area to the south had formed
a Peasant Association. It had been organized and rumors had sprung up in its wake.
Because the Association was assessing the land held by the peasants, the earliest rumor
was that property would be communized, but this rumor changed into “Men will be
nabbed for soldiers, women seized for public use.” So the peasants in the southern
district had passed the New Year festival in terror. There was also an event that under-
cut the Association: Wang Zhuofan, a special representative from the County Peasant
Association, was tasked with going down to the countryside to make an inspection.
It wasn’t hard to understand what was happening: the rumors were being started
by the small-time tyrants and petty landlords, and the peasants misunderstood. But no
matter how much you insisted there wouldn’t be communization of wives, the peas-
ants wouldn’t believe you. It was obvious: it was a Communist Party, so property had
to be communized. There was no doubting that. Wives were property, so to hold that
they were outside the purview of communization just didn’t make sense to the simple
peasants; it had to be a trick. Special Representative Wang was a capable man, so of
course he could see that much, and a week after he arrived, aside from the well-known,
“Land to the tiller,” there was now, “Wives to the wifeless.” There were plenty of extra
or extra or unoccupied women in China: some men had two wives, so naturally, that
meant an extra woman. Neither widows nor nuns had husbands, so naturally they were

40
 Mao Dun and his masterpieces

unoccupied. The peasants in the southern district were going to remedy the situation.
They were going to take those extras and unoccupied and send them to men who
could make use of them.
On a clear afternoon, probably around the time when Lu Muyou had “freely loved”
the widow Suzhen, the peasants of the southern district held a meeting in front of the
Temple of the Earth God. Cudgels, shovels, hoes and spears crowded together in ranks
that looked quite impressive.Wang Zhuofan served as Interim Chairman, and standing
in front of him were three women with terrified faces. One was dressed a little better
than the others: she was the tyrant Tiger Huang’s concubine. At about five o’clock
they had broken into Tiger Huang’s house. She was hiding at one corner of the bed
trembling. She was completely naked when she was pulled off the bed. Someone had
the idea to drive her out into the street that way, but that idea was not carried through
once they realized she would belong to another man, so she was brought there wearing
her regular clothes after all.
This 18-year-old country girl stared at the men surrounding her with her eyes wide
open. She knew she was there to be “communized,” but her simple mind couldn’t
fathom how they would go about it. With her own eyes she had seen her husband
seduce and rape a young girl. At first, the girl’s resistance and screaming were terrify-
ing, but later, when Tiger Huang was actually taking it out on that helpless piece of
flesh like an animal, she came back to the standard attitude many women might have
in that kind of situation: that it didn’t look so painful. So she thought rape might not
be so awful. But now she was going to be “communized,” and she couldn’t figure out
the difference between rape and “communization,” so she couldn’t help but feel anxi-
ety tinged with fear.1

The work ends with the crushing of the forces of radical change beneath the regrouped forces
of reaction, Hu Guoguang having become a key agent among them. The final scene is seen
through the eyes of Mrs. Fang, who, having never really understood the forces swirling around
her, is the perfect person through whom to embody the surrealistic sense of utter dismay and
disintegration that are the upshot of this attempt to bring into being a new social order:

Mrs. Fang thought painfully and regretted that she had wavered too much in her
thinking back then. She felt dizzy with a distending pain in her head, and her body
rocked back and forth as if floating in air. She felt that she had become the little spider,
hanging alone in the boundless vastness of the air, unable to keep from being swayed
back and forth.
– – Her spider-eyes looked out and the worship-hall of the narrow and low-
lying nunnery had turned into a huge and ancient structure. A myriad of ox-headed,
horse-faced monsters stretched out from cracks in vermillion walls, the columns of
the structure shuddering precariously, their stone footings groaning as if they couldn’t
bear their load. Suddenly, with a thundering sound like the sundering of heaven and
earth, that ancient structure completely collapsed! Yellow dust shot high into the air;
smashed bricks, shattered tiles, splintered beams, cracked rafters along with clouds of
dirt infused with reds and greens – they all scattered and bounced wildly in all direc-
tions before settling onto the broad earth with a noise like thunder, but sounding more
like a mournful cry or gasp.
– – Suddenly a wisp of green smoke issued forth from the collapsed ruins, becom-
ing higher and broader as it came forth, enshrouding the ancient decayed pile of ruins.

41
 Theodore Huters

Little moss-like objects competed to burst forth from the green smoke coming from
the ruins; they took on all kinds of colors, and all kinds of shapes. The little things,
shaking back and forth in the smoke, slowly grew larger, and a face formed on each
one. Among them Mrs. Fang seemed to see Fang Luolan, Chen Zhong, Miss Zhang . . .
Every person she saw in her daily life. Their faces grew larger and larger as they shook.
– – Suddenly, the embers of the ancient structure, prostrate, panting for breath,
flew into the air again. They tried hard to coalesce and unite, then fell together like a
summer torrent on the clump of tiny objects. They struggled, fled, surrendered, every-
thing swirling around wildly, turning into a ribbon of kaleidoscopic color. And among
them appeared a dark heart, suddenly expanding, suddenly contracting, finally beating
ceaselessly! With every beat, a new layer of darkness emerged at its periphery, beat-
ing pit-a-pat like the core. As the heart expanded one layer after another, the rate of
beating quickened and the expansion kept pace. The darkness devoured and destroyed
everything, filling all space, filling the entire universe . . .
Mrs. Fang, with a long anguished moan, fell to the ground.
(194–195)

With this finale Mao Dun expressed his disillusion, perhaps more than he actually intended,
which upset a number of left-wing critics who had hoped for a more hopeful scenario. All in
all, in this brilliant work Mao Dun is able to bring a pivotal period of modern Chinese history
vividly to life, combining thick description of political and social life in flux with an equally rich
depiction of the complicated lives of people struggling to make it through a set of bewildering
transitions that nowhere offer ready and satisfactory solutions. It is all shadowed by a keen aware-
ness of the failure of the revolution, and even more than that, of the chaos of modernity itself.

Midnight
Midnight was written in 1931–1932 and published in book form in January of 1933. The first
two chapters had been scheduled to appear in Fiction Monthly in early 1932, and had been set
in type, but the Japanese attack on the Chinese-controlled parts of Shanghai in January of 1932,
including the deliberate bombing of the Commercial Press, derailed this plan, as the magazine
actually ceased publication at this time. During the months he spent researching and writing
the book Mao Dun was hobbled by eye trouble, forcing him to concentrate on his work on the
novel and pay less attention to other writing commitments. One of the activities he performed
in connecting with his research was to work his many connections in the financial world to gain
access to the Shanghai Stock Exchange, where he went almost daily to observe modern finance
at work, something that shows up in almost obsessive descriptions of the bond market in the text
of the novel. The original plan for the book was to provide a comprehensive vision of China as
a whole, including the countryside, but only a rather haphazard Chapter 4 survives of this part
of the project; Midnight is one of many works by Mao Dun in which he was not able to fulfill
the enormous task of providing an all-embracing vision of the times that he invariably set for
himself. The book was an instant success – Mao Dun is said to have made enough money to
move from the working-class Hongkou area to the upscale Bubbling Well Road neighborhood
(i.e., the area where the book’s capitalist protagonist, Wu Sunfu, lives, although Mao Dun soon
moved back to Hongkou because all his literary friends lived there). The KMT government
banned the book (and most of Mao Dun’s other work) in 1934, after which chapters 4 and 15
were deleted before it and his other work could again be sold openly.

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 Mao Dun and his masterpieces

The novel’s opening passage presents a view of the Shanghai riverfront just as the sun is set-
ting, and emphasizes the conspicuously kinetic modernity of the scene:

The sun had just dropped below the horizon and a soft breeze tickled one’s face. The
turbid water of Suzhou Creek took on a golden-green cast as it flowed quietly and
gently westward. The evening tide of the Huangpu had already imperceptibly risen
and the various boats lining either bank were riding high on the water, their decks
some six inches above the quay. Music from the Park on the Bund wind was carried
over by the wind, dominated by the sizzling and exciting sound of the kettledrums.
An evening gloom was shrouding the tall steel arches of the Garden Bridge in a light
mist, and as the street cars passed over it, their overhead electric cables suspended
beneath the arches from time to time gave off greenish sparks. Looking east from
the bridge one could make out the warehouses of Pudong, resembling giant beasts
squatting on the shore in the dusk, their myriad lights twinkling like so many tiny
eyes. Looking west there was a shockingly large neon advertisement resting on the
roof of a tall office building that gave off the words “Light, Heat, Power!” in fiery red
and green letters.
Just then on this heavenly May evening three lightening-fast 1930 model Citroens
passed over the bridge and turned west, proceeding along the North Suzhou Road.2

This passage with its hints of Futurism and its fascination with the notable features of modern
Shanghai – the bustle, the steel bridge, the tramways, Western music, lights, commerce and the
English language – brilliantly sets the tone for the book in its expression of the fast-moving
modernity the new Chinese educated elites aspired to. The huge neon sign advertising “Light,
Heat, Power!” is the very emblem of the dynamism of the modern city. Following immediately
upon this panorama, we follow the Citroens to a wharf on Suzhou Creek, where they pick up
the handicapped old Mr. Wu, who has arrived by steam launch from his home in the unstable
countryside to stay at Wu Sunfu’s (his successful and entrepreneurial son) Shanghai mansion.
Holding on for dear life to a Buddhist devotional text, The Supreme Book of Rewards and Punish-
ments, the old man is seated in one of the cars, which rushes into the evening traffic, the perspec-
tive then switching to that of the old man:

The car raced crazily forward, with old Mr. Wu staring straight ahead. My god!
Hundreds of lighted windows like so many strange eyes, and skyscrapers mounting
into the sky, all rushing toward old Mr. Wu’s field of vision, only to disappear as they
passed them by. An endless line of lamp poles springing out of the bare ground, one
after the other assailed old Mr. Wu and then vanished; a stream of black monsters
snaked by, each with a pair of of huge eyes emitting a blinding light, horns sounding
and bearing down upon him, aiming at the black box in which Mr. Wu was sitting,
closer and closer! Mr. Wu closed his eyes, his whole body trembling.
(10–11; 15–16)

Like Mrs. Fang’s horrible vision at the conclusion of Waverings, the modern fantasy has sud-
denly turned malign, as seen through the tradition-bound eyes of Mr. Wu, who had actually
been a revolutionary during the time of the overthrow of the Qing dynasty almost thirty years
earlier. Soon after reaching his son’s mansion, old Mr. Wu succumbs to a stroke, a perhaps too
obvious symbol of the demise of China’s old order. As Mr. Wu lies dying, other people at the

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 Theodore Huters

mansion discuss the various types of visitors represented in the house, which is a perpetual
social center:

“But there is still an old gentleman who devoutly believes in The Supreme Book of
Rewards and Punishments.”
“Correct, but that old gentleman is about to, to – give up the ghost.”
“There are still countless old gentlemen like Mr. Wu down in the countryside.”
“Absolutely true, but as soon as they get to Shanghai they too will give up the
ghost. Shanghai is. . . .”
(27–28; 29)

Symbolically, then, the old and the new cannot really coexist, with the inevitable new bound to
supersede and obliterate the old, or, at least, any morally worthwhile elements of the old. And
significantly enough, in this conversation, the man talking of the future is unable to provide a
predicate for the subject of “Shanghai.”
Once this highly fraught scene is set, the novel turns to its main business: a long socio-
economic demonstration of how a would-be domestic capitalist industry is doomed to failure
under the pressure of foreign financial imperialism, a plot line is so relentlessly adhered to so as
to lend a mechanical cast to the work as a whole. The younger Mr. Wu, Wu Sunfu, is cast as a
tragic hero, flawed though he is, engaged in an epic struggle to keep his indigenous enterprises
going concerns in the face of various sorts of opposition. We are told early and often that Wu
Sunfu is possessed of the charismatic leadership qualities that should have sufficed for the task:
“He was never one to belittle himself, and if he went in with them in their scheme, it would of
course become something completely different: he had a way of taking mediocre men and turn-
ing them into thoroughbreds” (81; 76). And, again, when he is engaged in an effort to persuade
his more timid colleagues:

Thinking as he listened,Wu Sunfu’s face suddenly took on a look of determination.

As he glanced at Sun Jifu and Wang Hefu, his eyes were burning with optimism and
courage. This look of his could generally inspire the enthusiasm of his two colleagues,
spur on their dreams, and firm up their resolve.This look of his was magic, it was a look
that could overawe others whenever it came to firming up a plan or overcoming doubt.
(347; 314)

A tragic hero, then, the heroic demiurge of the rising bourgeoisie, but in this case ultimately
unable to overcome the sea of mediocrity and perfidy surrounding him.
While Mao Dun was certainly an orthodox Marxist in his conviction that imperialism would
fatally inhibit the growth of an indigenous industrial capitalism, the sympathy he lavishes on his
protagonist – not to mention the enthusiastic depiction of the dynamism of the city with which
he begins the novel – perhaps reveals an underlying wish that an ideal national capitalism would
be desirable should it actually be allowed to develop. The depredations of imperialism aside,
however, there is another factor impeding the advent of a modern society: the “feudal,” or tradi-
tional perspectives among the moneyed classes that make it impossible for them to see beyond
gaining immediate, short-term return on their investment, leading to a propensity to favor finan-
cial manipulation over investment in long-term industrial development. As the narrator notes
at one point, clearly expressing Wu Sunfu’s views of even his own brother-in-law, Du Zhuzhai:
“To prevent Du Zhuzhai from wavering, however, any sort of long-term entrepreneurial plan

44
 Mao Dun and his masterpieces

was useless; only an investment scheme that would generate shady speculative profits tomorrow
for money invested today would be of any interest to him at all.” (299; 271)
On closer inspection, then, the “modernity” of Shanghai turns out to be merely a thin veneer
on top of a series of retrograde attitudes and practices that constantly distort any propensities
for “healthy” development. One of the symptoms of this is the underlying current of sexuality
that old Mr. Wu had, it turns out, correctly seen as pervading and corrupting the city. Not even
Wu Sunfu is exempt from this, as he falls to temptation a number of times. Perhaps the clearest
embodiment of the two aspects of this speculative bent, however, is Zhao Botao, who is at once
an expert manipulator of the securities market even as he is someone given to excessive indul-
gence in the pleasures of the flesh. While Wu is a character of complexity and nuance, a product
of the high realism that Mao Dun had so long advocated, those like Zhao tend to be caricatures
of evil, in a more Dickensian, “low-mimetic” mode. One of the most interesting things about
the depiction of these depraved relics of the past is that Mao Dun seems to have borrowed the
characteristic means of expression of the “blackscreen” novel of the urban fiction of the previous
decade to portray them. While it might seem that to be inspired by other works and genres of
fiction is inevitable to any novelist, the obloquy poured on this earlier urban fiction by the May
Fourth school of literary realists – slandered by them with the pejorative title “Mandarin Duck
and Butterfly School” – led by Mao Dun and his Society for Literary Research does render
this borrowing at least a bit ironic. Although, of course, it comes as no surprise that Mao Dun
nowhere registers his obvious debt to the fiction he had so despised in his critical essays.
There also turns out to be a decided difficulty when it comes to finding new blood to replace
the corrupt and incompetent representatives of the old order. In a lengthy and illustrative seg-
ment in Chapter 5, Wu has a long conversation with a young man by the name of Tu Weiyue;
Tu is justifiably arrogant, as he is well aware that he is virtually unique in his competence and
perspicacity. Although somewhat put off by Tu’s manner, Wu eventually realizes he needs some-
one of this caliber and thereupon gives him a position of great responsibility. Ironically, it turns
out that Tu had originally been hired through family connection, leaving the reader to wonder
whether Wu would have been able to find a person of such ability other than through such a
traditional method of hiring new staff. Pondering this leads Wu to the melancholy conclusion
that: “In industrially undeveloped China there simply were no such [competent] ‘subordinates;’
all these factory employees were merely the equivalent of the spongers and slackers who hung
around the big landlords in the countryside. Their only skill was at being idle, at flattery, but
they had no idea as to how to run things – having deliberated thus far,Wu Sunfu could not help
becoming pessimistic, thinking there was little hope for China’s infant industry; considering
only lower levels of management, society had no one in reserve, much less at any other level”
(148–149; 135). Emblematic of this problem is the name of the manager that Tu replaces: “Mo
Gancheng,” a clear pun on a phrase meaning “accomplishing nothing.” Interestingly enough,
this is one of the few instances in all his work in which Mao Dun names a character by his per-
sonal qualities, perhaps indicating the author’s ultimate frustration with the phenomenon he is
describing. In this work, then, the enlightened “young China” in which the reform generation
had invested so much hope turns out to be much harder to find than anyone had anticipated.
As another symptom of this weakness of the younger generation, the powerful women who had
played such pivotal roles in Mao Dun’s earlier novels – such as Waverings’ Sun Wuyang, powerful
both sexually and politically – are no longer in evidence, having been replaced by weak-willed
wives or glorified call-girls like Liu Yuying.
As Wu Sunfu’s financial world collapses around him he simultaneously loses his old charis-
matic authority. For instance, as he attempts to negotiate a way out of his predicament with the

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 Theodore Huters

foreign-backed Zhao Botao, who has managed to outmaneuver him,Wu cannot even sustain his
old resolve: “With this vague response, he suddenly weakened. It was as if something snapped
inside, and his heart was in pieces; he could no longer pull himself together. He had lost his
power to resist, along with his self-confidence, and only a single idea revolved around his mind:
was it to be unconditional surrender?” (515; 473–474) Wu is now not even the equal of the
colleagues he had once dominated:

Wang Hefu spoke resolutely, his eyes wide open and staring directly at Wu Sunfu. Two
months earlier such a bold and powerful comment would certainly have come from
Wu’s mouth, but the current Sunfu could no longer be compared to that earlier one;
he now thought straightaway of compromise and the conservative path. Even as he was
goaded in this way by Wang Hefu, Sunfu was still shilly-shallying, unable to come up
with a single plan of his own.
(555; 509)

The arc to the story is thus from bourgeois stability and ascendance, marked by the death
of old Mr. Wu in the first chapter, through its steadily being undermined by forces both inter-
nal and external through to the collapse of both the hopes for a robust indigenous industrial
capitalism and a vigorous modernity. All the hopeful qualities held out in the beginning are
gradually picked away, and replaced by instability and weakness at the end. There is a sort of
false dawn at the end of Chapter 7, when Wu Sunfu has for the moment overcome the various
adversities pressing down upon him, but it does not last. Symbolically, Chapter 8 begins with
a tale of the most depraved sort of “blackscreen” family decadence, when a wealthy newcomer
to the city plots to barter off his spoiled daughter to Zhao Botao to gain insider information, a
sure sign of the way things will be moving as the novel moves on; the contrast with the “Light,
Heat, Power!” that begins the text could not be more striking. Significantly, as the novel moves
towards its close, we are presented with scenes of the labor movement, but it is represented as
being just as corrupt as everything else in the city. The victory of the speculator Zhao Botao
over the industrialist Wu Xunfu is emblematic of the endurance of the old ways in the face of
the challenge of the new. Perhaps the most poignant example of the retrogression is the career
of Zhou Zhongwei, who had progressed from “compradore” (i.e., an agent of foreign interests)
to factory owner and back again:

“Zhou Zhongwei’s reflections moved far into the distance. The whole of his life
revolved in front of his eyes: He had begun as a compradore, and later become an
autonomous owner, but later still a compradore again – a compradore in disguise,
although from now on a nominal owner! A dream, a full circle!”
(497; 457)

Notes
1 Mao Dun, Waverings, trans. David Hull (Hong Kong: Renditions Paperbacks, 2014), 110–111.The Chi-
nese edition used is Shi (huanmie, dongyao, zhuiqiu) (Hong Kong: Lingnan chubanshe, 1965), 85–230.
Further page references will be inserted in the text.
2 Mao Dun, Ziye (Beijing: renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1977), 3. All translations are my own. There is
an English translation of the complete text: Midnight, trans. Xu Mengxiong and A.C. Barnes (Beijing:
Foreign Languages Press, 1957), 9. All subsequent references will be in the text following the passage
cited, the Chinese pages numbers first followed by the page number of the Beijing translation in italics.

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 Mao Dun and his masterpieces

Further readings
Anderson, Marston. The Limits of Realism: Chinese Fiction in the Revolutionary Period. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1990, 119–151.
Chen, Yu-shih. “False Harmony: Mao Dun on Women and Family.” Modern Chinese Literature 7.1 (1993):
131–152.
———. Realism and Allegory in the Early Fiction of Mao Dun. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986.
Feuerwerker, Yi-tsi Mei. “The Dialectics of Struggle: Ideology and Realism in Mao Dun’s ‘Al gae.’ ” In
Theodore Huters, ed., Reading the Modern Chinese Short Story. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1990, 51–73.
Gálik, Marián. Mao Tun and Modern Chinese Literary Criticism. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1969.
Hsia, C. T. A History of Modern Chinese Fiction. New Haven:Yale University Press, 1971, 140–164, 350–359.
Laughlin, Charles. “Mao Dun.” In Thomas Moran, ed., Dictionary of Literary Biography – Chinese Fiction Writ-
ers, 1900–1949. New York: Thomson Gale, 2007, 164–177.
Wang, David Der-wei. “Mao Tun and Naturalism: A Case of ‘Misreading’ in Modern Chinese Literary
Criticism.” Monumenta Serica 37 (1986–1987): 169–195.
———. Fictional Realism in Twentieth-Century China: Mao Dun, Lao She, Shen Congwen. New York: Colum-
bia University Press, 1992, 25–110.

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 3
BA JIN’S FICTION AND
THE FAMILY
Kristin Stapleton

Life and career

As a writer and political activist, Ba Jin (also written as Pa Chin, 1904–2005) wished above all to
emulate his hero, the Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921), and inspire Chinese youth
to rise up to create a just society. Born into the Li family of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan
province in China’s interior, in private life he was known by his given and courtesy names, Li
Yaotang and Li Feigan, respectively. After he launched his writing career in Shanghai in the late
1920s, he adopted the pen name Ba Jin, borrowing the first syllable from the name of another
famous anarchist, Bakunin (1814–1876), and the last from the Chinese spelling of Kropotkin’s
name (jin). Ba Jin’s family was wealthy and well educated. His uncles, brothers, and cousins all
took an interest in events in the wider world, subscribing to literary magazines and reading the
news from eastern China in the tumultuous years after WWI that witnessed the rise of the New
Culture movement in China. By the time he was fifteen, Ba Jin had obtained a Chinese transla-
tion of Kropotkin’s Appeal to the Young, first published in French in 1880. In his autobiography,
he recalls its effects on him – he was so moved he could not sleep and, weeping with joy at dis-
covering a kindred spirit, he dedicated himself to transforming the cruel social order and saving
humanity from the injustices embedded in it.1
In 1923, Ba Jin left Chengdu with his older brother to go to school in eastern China, where
he involved himself in anarchist circles. He witnessed the rise of the communist movement in
wake of the May 30th Incident of 1925, when police in Shanghai’s British-administered Inter-
national Settlement shot Chinese protesters outside a Japanese-run factory. As a committed
anarchist, however, Ba Jin was critical of both of the major political parties, the Communists
and the Nationalists, each of which claimed leadership of the Chinese revolution against local
warlords and international imperialists. Just before open warfare between the two parties broke
out in the spring of 1927, Ba Jin traveled to France, settled in Paris, and studied French literature
while continuing to read and write about anarchism.
Ba Jin returned to Shanghai in 1929, where his first novel, written in France, had already
appeared to popular acclaim. During the next decade, he published many popular works, some
written in Japan, where he lived from late 1933 to mid-1935. As Japanese troops advanced across
China in 1940, he left Shanghai and spent the war years in southwest China, writing constantly.
In 1945 he returned to Shanghai, where he lived the rest of his long life. He was a celebrated

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 Ba Jin’s fiction and The Family

literary figure in the early years of the People’s Republic of China and served as head of the
Shanghai Writers Association and founding editor of the literary magazine Harvest (Shouhuo).
During the Cultural Revolution, however, he was criticized for his anarchist views and petty
bourgeois sympathies; his works were banned. After the death of Mao, his novels began to cir-
culate once more, and he reemerged as a literary elder. He played a leading role in the establish-
ment of the National Museum of Modern Chinese Literature (Zhongguo xiandai wenxueguan)
in Beijing.2 He publicly criticized the Cultural Revolution, famously calling for a museum to
be dedicated to explaining how so many innocent people could suffer so in “New China.”
Under the title “Record of Random Thoughts” (Suixianglu), he published a series of influential
essays reflecting on Chinese history and culture. In 1990, he was among the first recipients of
the Fukuoka Asian Cultural Prize. The Chinese government unsuccessfully nominated him for
a Nobel Prize in literature several times. Illness kept him out of public sight for the last fifteen
years of his life.

Literary achievements
As a writer of fiction and essays, Ba Jin was remarkably prolific; he wrote in service to his i­deals
and tried to tell stories that would move his readers to reflect on social problems. Both his
politics and his desire to appeal broadly led him in the direction of melodrama, especially in his
novels of the 1930s. The Turbulent Stream trilogy, The Family (1933), Spring (1938), and Autumn
(1940), constitutes the most important fictional representation of the May Fourth movement
of the late 1910s and early 1920s. The trilogy offers a series of tragic stories of young people
whose lives are blighted by their elders’ adherence to patriarchal cultural practices justified by
reference to Confucian precepts. As with many a May-Fourth-era critique, Turbulent Stream
represents Chinese ideals of masculinity, femininity, filiality, and family harmony as tools by
which patriarchs control the lives of the young and prevent social change that might threaten
their authority. The novels were based on Ba Jin’s own life, and many young readers found his
account of May Fourth student activism and family strife gripping. The Family was a best-seller
when it appeared and continues to appeal to the young. More than any other Chinese writer of
the twentieth century, Ba Jin established the coming-of-age novel as a popular form.3
While acknowledging the popularity of Turbulent Stream, many literary critics consider the
trilogy and most of the rest of Ba Jin’s early writing naïve and less interesting than the more
inventive and provocative writing of such luminaries as Lu Xun and Eileen Chang. In the caustic
judgment of C. T. Hsia, Ba Jin’s novels of the 1930s display his “manifest inability to give the
illusion of life to his characters and scenes.” Hsia argued that this began to change in Autumn,
published in 1940, and by 1947, with the publication of Cold Nights, Ba Jin had become “a psy-
chological realist of great distinction.”4 Xiaobing Tang analyzed Cold Nights in a chapter entitled
“The Last Tubercular in Modern Chinese Literature,” arguing that the illness of its main charac-
ter represents the culmination of a literary practice, pioneered by Lu Xun, in which an individual
character’s ill health is used to reflect on a range of broader problems, including “an enfeebled
nation, a benighted populace, an individual’s existential angst, or a continually thwarted sensitive
mind.”5 After Cold Nights, Tang argues, the founding of the PRC led to the establishment of
socialist realism as the only acceptable mode; the individual angst-ridden protagonist gave way to
the forward-looking and confident collective of common people as literary subject.
Of all Ba Jin’s novels, Cold Nights could be said to win the critics’ award, but The Family
certainly remains the people’s choice. Translated into many languages, it has also appeared as a
graphic novel, as well as in film and TV serial versions. It has an enduring appeal among young
readers.

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 Kristin Stapleton

The Family
The Family chronicles the lives of three young brothers as they try to achieve happiness within
the confines of a large family ruled autocratically by their grandfather, the Gao patriarch. As
the future head of the family, eldest brother Gao Juexin is expected by his grandfather to
impose discipline on his brothers, Gao Juemin and Gao Juehui, and on the other members of
the younger generation. Juexin himself has accepted, although very unhappily, his elders’ deci-
sions about whom he should marry and what work he should take up. His brothers, inspired
by May Fourth values, choose to defy arranged marriages and other family dictates. Juehui, in
particular, becomes a harsh critic of the behavior of his uncles and aunts, who abuse the servants
and behave hypocritically while flattering the patriarch and his vulgar concubine. A deathbed
conversion of the grandfather into a more understanding old man is too late to save the family;
after he dies the atmosphere becomes even worse. The novel ends as the idealistic Juehui heads
for Shanghai and the freedom it promises from the tragedies of life in a corrupt family and
oppressive social order.
The Family, written as a serial for a Shanghai newspaper in 1931–32, appeared in book form
in 1933 and quickly established itself as the most widely read novel of the era. Ba Jin’s contribu-
tions to modern Chinese literature stand out clearly in his most famous work: he showed how
writers could capture the hearts of young readers via a passionate attack on cultural practices
that were beginning to be seen as oppressive and backward. As with Lu Xun, Ba Jin came to
believe that fiction offered the most effective vehicle for cultural critique. Like most of his other
work, The Family highlights the tragedies that result when human sympathy is sacrificed in the
name of social conventions. Such conventions, his plots reveal, are set up not to contribute to
human happiness but rather to buttress the power of patriarchs and make it impossible for the
hierarchical social order to be challenged by the young and marginalized members of the com-
munity. The critique of Chinese culture offered in The Family will be discussed in more detail
below.
Because Ba Jin’s interest in literature grew largely out of his commitment to social change,
his approach to the written word can be characterized as pragmatic rather than perfectionist.
He was not known as a prose stylist; some critics found his language stilted and too influenced
by patterns of speech he had picked up while studying in France. He did not capture different
types of speech effectively – servant and master all tend to speak and think in the same register,
reflecting his idealism about human commonality rather than a keen sociological understand-
ing.6 From his point of view, though, stylistic weakness was not a fatal flaw. The basis on which
to judge literature, he would argue, was on how effectively it stimulated people to reflect on
and try to improve the social order, not on abstract principles of beauty or creativity unrelated
to the lives of the majority of readers whose primary concern was how best to act in a rapidly
changing world. As many Ba Jin scholars have pointed out, and some have documented in detail,
Ba Jin revised The Family several times over the decades after it first appeared.7 He encouraged
other writers, such as Cao Yu (1910–1996), to transform his story for the stage and for the
screen. In letters to his fans, published as prefaces to the novel or as essays, he characterized his
novel as words from his heart, not as a work of art that could not be improved by rewriting.
In this approach to literature, with its responsiveness to readers’ opinions, Ba Jin seems to
have subscribed to the ideal of “literature to serve the people,” later promoted by Communist
Party Chairman Mao Zedong in his famous “Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art”
of 1942. Mao argued that writers and artists needed to understand and interact with their audi-
ences in order to produce good work. More than most twentieth-century Chinese writers, Ba
Jin tried to relate to his readers, communicate with them, and adapt his writing to address their

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concerns. He also accepted the need to revise his novels after 1949, to accord with the expec-
tations for literature in socialist New China. References to bourgeois literature were cut, and
the characters lost some of their complexity, so that heroes and villains could be distinguished
even more easily than in the earlier versions. That he fell afoul of Communist critics after 1949,
particularly during the Cultural Revolution, was not because he had a fundamentally different
vision of the role of literature from that championed by Mao. He was criticized, rather, for car-
ing too much about the plight of relatively privileged young people, as opposed to downtrod-
den workers and peasants, as well as for having believed that anarchism rather than communism
offered the best hope for the liberation of humankind.
The Family resonated with young people in 1930s China because it told a story they could
identify with, one based on Ba Jin’s own experiences as a youth. Gao Juehui, the young pro-
tagonist whose life resembles Ba Jin’s, recalls an idyllic childhood lost as his beloved mother dies,
his father remarries, and then his father dies. Meanwhile, the Qing dynasty has collapsed and
warlords vie to control the city in which he lives, leading to street battles and confrontations
between arrogant soldiers and angry students. Juehui’s grandfather rules the family as an auto-
crat, ordering Juehui’s eldest brother, Juexin, to enforce his dictates among the younger genera-
tion. The ideals of democracy and science, promoted by the May Fourth movement launched
in 1919, appeal to the boys, but they seem impossible to attain, given the control exercised over
them by their grandfather and the cultural norms that require that they submit to him. Many of
the details of the story correspond to Ba Jin’s own life; the general outline of oppressed youth
seeking to change society despite the opposition of their elders appealed (and still appeals)
widely to young readers.
Ba Jin intended the novel to comfort young people caught in the stifling webs of family obli-
gation and to encourage them to change their lives by standing up for themselves. Lu Xun may
have worried about raising false hopes of radical change among the young – awakening sleep-
ers trapped in an air-tight iron house, in his metaphor8 – but Ba Jin, a member of that younger
generation, had no such reservations. His passion is conveyed through Juehui’s anger and disgust
at the sacrifices the family demands of its members. His elder brother Juexin’s attempts to medi-
ate and compromise are depicted as cowardly, as well as devastating to his own psyche and the
happiness of those he loves; Juexin’s wife Ruijue dies a miserable death in childbirth because he
fails to stand up to the unreasonable demands of his elders. The path forward, Juehui comes to
believe, is to abandon a family united only by birth, hierarchical relations, and ritual in favor of
joining like-minded youth in a “family” that is defined rather by common values and mutual
love and respect. In the novel, Juehui is able to forget his unhappy home life as he gathers with
other young people to publish a radical newspaper.
In The Family, Ba Jin does not state explicitly that the newspaper that Gao Juehui helps
run is associated with an anarchist organization. But he himself had participated in such an
organization as a youth, and as a teenager published essays in anarchist journals in his hometown,
Chengdu. By the time The Family appeared, he was quite well known in Shanghai as an advo-
cate of anarchism. While in France in 1927 and 1928, he had written for international anarchist
journals and engaged in polemics with Chinese Communists. At the time, two Italian-American
anarchists, Sacco and Vanzetti, were in jail in Massachusetts, accused of murder. Ba Jin wrote to
them to express his outrage and support, and Vanzetti replied with words of encouragement. Ba
Jin also began a correspondence with another American activist, Emma Goldman (1869–1940),
while in France. As with his experience of reading Kropotkin as a boy, Ba Jin clearly felt a deep
emotional connection to these heroic anarchist figures. When he took up fiction writing as a
way to promote his political goals, he attempted to infuse the relationships of the young heroes
and heroines of his works, including The Family, with this sort of intense comradely emotion.

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Ba Jin was a fierce critic of Chinese tradition, but, unlike many other leftist writers of the post-
May-Fourth era, his criticism was not motivated by a desire to see a rejuvenated China become
strong and powerful. Nationalism is not a significant theme in Ba Jin’s fiction.
In addition to passionate anarchist visions of human community, Ba Jin’s writings were influ-
enced by his broad reading in Chinese and European fiction and other literature. Olga Lang,
author of an excellent English-language biography of Ba Jin, points out the impact of Russian
literature and history on The Family. When Juehui falls in love with Mingfeng, the young girl
who serves as a maid in his branch of the family, he compares their mutual attachment to that
between the central characters in Tolstoy’s Resurrection. Juehui’s female cousin, Qin, aspires to be
a heroine in emulation of Sophia Perovskaya, who helped formulate a plot to assassinate Russian
Tsar Alexander II and was hanged for it in 1881. Juehui’s brother Juemin, who is in love with
Qin, quotes a line from Turgenev’s On the Eve to encourage himself to be brave in the face of
oppression.9 French literature also made its mark on The Family. Kong Xiangxia notes that such
authors as Romain Rolland, Victor Hugo, and Emile Zola inspired Ba Jin by the forthright
indignation they conveyed in their depiction of the evils of modern society.10 Ba Jin himself
also credited Japanese writers, including Natsume Soseki and Arishima Takeo, as influences on
his work.11
Well before he encountered European and Japanese literature, Ba Jin read widely in Chinese
literature, and the influence of the great novel Dream of the Red Chamber (Honglou meng) is par-
ticularly evident in The Family, as documented and analyzed by many scholars.12 Chen Qianli
points out that both stories center on the theme of a conflict in values between patriarchs and
young men and feature sub-plots in which love between two young people is sacrificed in the
interest of mundane family considerations.13Another clear example of the influence of Dream on
Ba Jin concerns the Gao family compound in The Family, which resembles Ba Jin’s childhood
home up to a point. But Ba Jin’s childhood home had no huge garden like the one in the novel.
The Gao family garden, at first an idyllic world where the cousins escape from the supervision
of their elders and Juehui expresses his love for Mingfeng, closely resembles the Grand View
Garden of Dream of the Red Chamber, where Dream’s hero Jia Baoyu lives happily with his female
cousins. As in Dream, tragedy eventually comes to the Gao family’s garden – Mingfeng commits
suicide there when she is told she must become the concubine of the evil Feng Leshan, head
of the Confucian Society, and realizes that Juehui cannot save her from that horrible fate. Craig
Shaw, author of a thorough study of The Family and its debts to Dream, concludes that “Ba Jin,
consciously or unconsciously, saw in Honglou meng a model” of a work that combined romantic
sentiment with social criticism, his aim in writing The Family.14
Another sort of influence on Ba Jin tends to be overlooked in the scholarly literature on his
work: the influence of the intellectual world surrounding him in Chengdu in the early twenti-
eth century. Unlike Li Jieren (see Chapter 5), Ba Jin did not emphasize his identity as a Chengdu
native in his fiction. The Family’s depiction of the Gao family was intended to make it stand as
representative of all elite Chinese families, and the city in which they lived representative of all
Chinese cities seemingly untouched by modern attitudes about human equality. But, although
its culture was certainly conservative in some ways and its economy only indirectly affected by
the new industrial processes being introduced in eastern China, Chengdu was not at all mired
in the past when Ba Jin was young.15 If it had been, it would have been difficult for Ba Jin to
have acquired a copy of a Chinese edition of Kropotkin’s Appeal to Youth and to have joined an
anarchist society. Chengdu’s elite community was not as attached to the old ways as it appears
to be in Ba Jin’s fiction. In The Family and its sequels, Ba Jin subtly acknowledges the impact
that Chengdu’s notorious anti-Confucian intellectual, Wu Yu (1872–1949), had on his views on
Chinese culture.16

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Wu Yu, like Ba Jin, was the scion of a family of wealthy landowners. Although he was not a
native of Chengdu, he moved there as a youth and developed a reputation as a classical scholar.
In 1910, though, he had a bitter falling-out with his father. Accused by the leaders of the local
educational community of unfilial conduct, Wu Yu responded by printing and distributing an
attack on his father’s morals and behavior, an act that resulted in calls for his arrest. If the 1911
Revolution had not intervened and brought an end to Qing rule, Wu Yu might indeed have
been punished for his lack of filial respect. Instead, he remained active in local politics and corre-
sponded with the leaders of the New Culture movement, including Chen Duxiu.Wu Yu helped
publicize Lu Xun’s story “Diary of a Madman” by praising it in an essay called “Cannibalistic
Family Rituals” (Chiren de lijiao) published in the November 1, 1919, issue of New Youth (Lu
Xun’s story had appeared in an earlier issue of the same journal). He lent his support to Lu Xun’s
assessment of the inhumanity of the Confucian tradition by offering examples from the classical
canon that seemed to justify outrageous conduct.17 In “On Filial Piety” (Shuo xiao), published
in Chengdu in 1920 and then in a collection of his essays that was distributed nationwide, Wu
Yu criticized the neo-Confucian orthodoxy that dominated scholarly circles and argued that
its support for patriarchal families had turned Chinese society into “a great factory to produce
submissive people.”18
The history of Wu Yu’s conflict with his father and his anti-Confucian views were widely
known in Chengdu when Ba Jin was young. The Family was intended to illustrate Wu Yu’s cen-
tral point about how the patriarchal family system (dajiazu zhidu) systematically broke the spirit
of the young and subjected them to endless demands to regulate their conduct in the name of
filiality and propriety. But Ba Jin carried his critique of Chinese culture much further than Wu
Yu did. In Turbulent Stream, the Gao patriarch and his friend Feng Leshan, head of the Con-
fucian Society, expect absolute obedience from the younger generation, justifying themselves
by quoting pithy sayings that they associate with Confucius, but that often date from many
centuries later. For example, in Spring, the sequel to The Family, Qin reports that Feng Leshan
has visited the girls’ school she attends, where he told the assembled students that “lack of tal-
ent is a virtue in women” (nüren wucai bianshi de). This phrase was one of many that came to be
associated with Confucian wisdom in the Qing period and early twentieth century, although
there is no evidence that it had circulated before the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). Wu Yu dedi-
cated himself to trying to peel away what he saw as the pernicious influence of Song and Ming
dynasty neo-Confucian thinkers on earlier Chinese philosophy, many aspects of which he saw
as sound and valuable. Ba Jin, on the other hand, contributed to a tendency among 1920s and
1930s writers to associate everything they saw as bad in Chinese culture with the classical tradi-
tion as a whole. In The Family, Feng Leshan and the Confucian Society are made to symbolize
old, oppressive Chinese culture in general.
The disdain that Ba Jin felt for most aspects of elite Chengdu life is apparent in The Family
and distinguishes him from older intellectuals such as Wu Yu, whose cultural critique focused
more narrowly on certain strands of Chinese thought.Wu Yu was acquainted with Ba Jin’s uncles
and grandfather and, like them, was fond of many of the cultural practices that are made to seem
sinister, profligate, or ridiculous in The Family. Most obviously, Ba Jin’s depictions of Sichuan
opera performances and the actors who portrayed female roles drip with disapproval, in contrast
to the positive accounts of the new-style “spoken plays” (huaju) that Juehui and his brothers
perform. The implied sexual relationships between the cross-dressing actors and some of the
men in the Gao family are held up as a sign of the decadence of these hypocritical Confucian
elders. In The Family, the actors themselves are equated with the women who use sex to attach
themselves to powerful men – particularly Mistress Chen, the Gao patriarch’s vulgar and schem-
ing concubine, who is said to have been a courtesan before entering the family. In Autumn, the

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final novel of the Turbulent Stream trilogy, however, Ba Jin attempts to evoke sympathy for such
actors by providing a pathetic backstory for Zhang Bixiu, the protégé of one of the Gao uncles:
he was raised in a “good” family, but was kidnapped away from his widowed mother and forced
into a life of shame on the stage.19 Wu Yu, in contrast to Ba Jin, loved Sichuan opera and praised
the beauty and talents of the famous cross-dressing actors in essays and poems published in local
magazines in the 1910s. Like the fictional Gao uncles, he was not at all puritanical, nor would
he have seen a taste for opera as in conflict with upright conduct, neo-Confucian or otherwise,
as Ba Jin’s fiction would have it.
Ba Jin’s rather simplistic depictions of women in The Family have attracted criticism. Liter-
ary scholar Jin Feng argues that Qin’s refusal to defy her mother’s wishes in order to act on her
revolutionary beliefs is used to highlight the more revolutionary character of Juehui, and men in
general. Qin cannot overcome her feminine emotions in service to a higher cause.20 The fate of
Mingfeng, similarly, functions primarily to shed light on Juehui’s initial betrayal of her, his subse-
quent disgust with himself, and his growing resolution to break out of the family. The aunts and
the patriarch’s concubine, Mistress Chen, are unrelievedly bad, forcing Juexin to move his wife,
Ruijue, out of the family compound when she is about to give birth, causing her death. The
justification Mistress Chen gives for this cruel act is a local belief that the afterlife of a recently
deceased person (in this case the Gao patriarch) can be harmed by an attack of the “bloodglow”
produced during childbirth. Ba Jin’s depiction of the episode, however, suggests to the reader
that Mistress Chen may not really believe in this superstition – she just wants to use the power
her relationship to the Gao patriarch gives her to put the younger generation in its place.
The literary critic Rey Chow writes that Ba Jin’s depictions of female characters practicing
family rituals was calculated to make such practices appear ridiculous.21 She cites in particular
the scene near the end of The Family in which the Gao women conduct formal ceremonies
of mourning for the deceased patriarch. His description of this event, she argues, assumes that
all of the participants are merely going through the motions – the ritual means nothing to
them emotionally or intellectually. The women wail on cue when the master of ceremonies
announces the arrival of guests, but occasionally make mistakes and begin wailing at the wrong
time.There are no tears, because they are following instructions, not genuinely sorrowful. Ba Jin
presents family rituals such as this funeral, she writes, as “something of an exotic ethnographic
find, whereupon an age-old custom receives the spotlight not for the significance it carries in
its conventional context but rather for a displaced kind of effect – that of an absurd spectacle
seen with fresh eyes.”22
As Chow suggests, Ba Jin does indeed seem to treat many family rituals and customary beliefs
as “absurd spectacles” and “premodern barbarity.” But he is not consistent in his attack on family
rituals. In contrast to the jarring scene of mourning for the patriarch at the end of The Family,
in other parts of the trilogy Ba Jin implies that, when family members care about each other,
family rituals can be very powerful emotionally. This is seen early in the novel in a joyous New
Year dinner celebration involving four generations of the Gao family. Another signal that Ba Jin
does not reject ritual itself is apparent in a recurrent theme throughout Turbulent Stream: the
improper treatment of the bodies of deceased young women as a symbol of moral bankruptcy.
Mingfeng’s dead body is simply made to disappear. Commenting on Mingfeng’s death, Mama
Huang, the older woman servant who speaks as the voice of conscience in the novel, sighs over
the decadent state into which the family has fallen. In Autumn, the final volume of the tril-
ogy, Juexin’s long struggle to see that his young cousin Zhou Hui is given a proper burial by
her cruel husband’s family, so that her ghost – and her living grandmother – can be at ease, is
depicted as an honorable act, not as ridiculous superstition. As historian Norman Kutcher points
out, funerals have long occupied a central place in Chinese cultural practice. Under Confucian

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precepts, however, the nature of the ceremony varied according to the status of the deceased.23
Ba Jin’s critique of funerals throughout Turbulent Stream is related to his main theme in The
Family – the harm done to human relations by teachings that impose and justify great inequali-
ties in status and power.
As many critics have observed, for all of his iconoclasm, Ba Jin was deeply shaped by Chi-
nese cultural values. This is apparent in the actions and thoughts of Gao Juehui. As was the
case with Wu Yu, Juehui’s anger at his elders is fueled by a sense that, by behaving improperly
themselves, the older males have betrayed the very values they demand from their sons and
grandsons. Hypocrisy and self-gratification are the worst sins displayed in the Gao household;
the patriarch’s funeral is the event where all of the hypocrisy and selfishness that Ba Jin saw in
family rituals and relationships is put on display. In contrast, in Autumn, both the narrator and the
revolutionary youth among the characters sympathize with the pain that Juexin feels when his
sorrow for the loss of his cousin Hui cannot be expressed appropriately at her grave because she
has been denied a proper burial. Ba Jin’s criticism of family rituals arises from their use as tools
of oppression. When real respect and love is not present, as with the Gao women’s relationship
with the patriarch, rituals designed to allow respect and love to be suitably expressed must fail.
Shaped by his anarchist training, Ba Jin intended The Family as a critique of hierarchy and
the beliefs, conventions, and practices that maintained it. The breadth of his critique of elite
Chengdu culture, however, suggests that his personal tastes and ideas about what constituted
progress were shaped by many aspects of the culture he experienced in Shanghai and Paris after
he left Chengdu in 1923. Unlike contemporaries such as Li Jieren, Lao She, and Shen Cong-
wen, he had little interest in local history and a certain antipathy for folk culture, as indicated in
his depiction of Sichuan opera as disgusting and Chengdu customs as superstitious. He was an
enthusiastic supporter of Esperanto, which he hoped would become the future world language,
and shared a modernist delight in industry and production. In one essay from 1934, he expressed
his views in a way that seems to echo the description of Shanghai in the first paragraph of Mao
Dun’s Midnight (Ziye, 1933), which culminates with the English words “Light, Heat, Power”
blazing out into the night:

I love cities, I love machines, I love what they call material civilization. They are alive,
hot, fast, powerful. I know that cities contain much that is evil, that machines cause
workers to suffer, and that material civilization only offers a small minority of wealthy
and powerful people the means to enjoy luxuries. But this should be blamed on our
perverse social system (and so we should transform it). Let those people who curse
the cities, who curse the machines, who curse material civilization go comfort them-
selves with their “spiritual civilization.” As for me, I say once again, I love cities, I love
machines, I love material civilization.24

This enthusiasm for material progress and modern cities was not shared by all Chinese novel-
ists of the 1930s and ’40s. Literature and film scholar Zhang Yingjin points out that in “the cul-
tural imagination of modern China, the city repeatedly emerged as a source of contamination
and depravation, as a place of sexual promiscuity and moral corruption, and as a dangerous trap
for the young and innocent.”25 In The Family, Chengdu, the hometown of the Gao family, lacks
all qualities of a modern city: it is primarily a conglomeration of closed and oppressive family
compounds that are only beginning to be challenged by the new social spaces of the school
and street, where revolutionary youth can demonstrate and demand progress. As for Shanghai,
rather than a dangerous trap, it is held up as a liberated and liberating world, where people can
develop their talents and express themselves without restraint and in company with like-minded

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comrades. Juehui’s aunts predict that Shanghai society will turn him into a playboy, but he is
certain that it will save him from suffocating in the depths of family strife and help him forge a
new revolutionary life. This seems confirmed in the sequel, Spring, when his letters home per-
suade his cousin Gao Shuying to follow him to Shanghai as she struggles to avoid what promises
to be yet another awful arranged marriage.
As noted above, Ba Jin’s later novels differ considerably from his 1920s and early 1930s work.
Shanghai and the theme of the promise of the modern city receded after war with Japan began
in 1937. For the most part, Ba Jin’s later fiction lacks the optimistic, hopeful spirit that rises above
the tragedy running through The Family and Spring. One exception, however, concerns the fate
of Gao Juexin. In The Family, he loses his wife in childbirth and sadly supports Juehui’s decision
to depart for Shanghai, fully expecting never to see him again. Over the course of Spring and
Autumn, his beloved son Hai’er dies, as do two of his favorite cousins, more young victims of
patriarchy. His uncles and aunts break up the family estate, despite his desperate efforts to keep
it together to honor his deceased grandfather’s wishes. In an essay about Autumn, Ba Jin revealed
that he had intended to end the trilogy with Juexin’s suicide, which would have reflected his
own eldest brother’s sad end. But, in response to pleas from his readers to save Juexin’s life, he
rewrote the ending: Juexin moves out of the family compound, which has been sold to strangers,
and establishes a small household. He marries a charming servant girl named Cuihuan – almost a
second Mingfeng, caring and pretty, but more pragmatic and self-confident (strongly resembling,
in this regard, Jia Baoyu’s maid Aroma in Dream of the Red Chamber).The future looks somewhat
bright for Juexin, who ends up being a survivor. Thus, while Gao Juehui is the main protagonist
of The Family, Gao Juexin is the central character of the Turbulent Stream trilogy as a whole.
This shift from a focus on revolutionary youth to a focus on emotionally fragile and weak men
struggling (and usually failing) to deal effectively with family demands and social pressure car-
ried through into Ba Jin’s later novels Garden of Repose (1944) and Cold Nights.
In his biography of Ba Jin, literary scholar Chen Sihe notes that Ba Jin never stopped calling
himself “a child of the May Fourth Movement.”26 As a witness to and participant in the youth
activism of that era, he created a novel, The Family, that is the most widely influential literary
account of the movement and the ideas and passions that inspired it. His long career produced
many more novels, stories, and essays, but The Family stands out as his most loved work and
occupies a significant place in the history of modern Chinese literature.

Notes
1 Ba Jin published many autobiographical essays and one book-length memoir, Yi (Shanghai: Wenhua
shenghuo, 1936); the latter has appeared in English translation: The Autobiography of Ba Jin, trans. May-
lee Chai (Indianapolis: University of Indianapolis Press, 2008). Biographies of Ba Jin may be found in
the list of further readings.
2 “Zhongguo xiandai wenxueguan lishi yange” [History of the National Museum of Modern Literature]
www.wxg.org.cn/gydh/lsyg/cjcs/2011-03-23/11966.shtml. Accessed April 4, 2017. A museum dedi-
cated to Ba Jin himself has opened in his former residence in Shanghai, with an associated website that
offers access to much scholarship on his life and writing. “Ba Jin wenxueguan shouye” [Homepage of
the Museum of Ba Jin’s Literature], www.bjwxg.cn. Accessed April 4, 2017.
3 David Der-wei Wang refers to Family as a “revolutionary bildungsroman.” See Wang, The Monster That
Is History: History,Violence, and Fictional Writing in Twentieth-Century China (Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 2004), 158.
4 C. T. Hsia, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961), quotes on
pages 250 and 386. An equally condemnatory review of Ba Jin’s early work, especially The Family, may
be found in Leo Ou-fan Lee’s article, “Literary Trends: The Road to Revolution 1927–1949,” in Merle

56
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Goldman and Leo Ou-fan Lee, eds., An Intellectual History of Modern China (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002), 226–227.
5 Xiaobing Tang, Chinese Modern: The Heroic and the Quotidian (Durham, NC: Duke University Press,
2000), 159.
6 Rey Chow, Woman and Chinese Modernity: The Politics of Reading Between East and West (Minneapolis,
MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1991), 99.
7 Ba Jin’s revisions of The Family are discussed in the following works: Craig Shaw, “Changes in The
Family: Reflections on Ba Jin’s Revisions of Jia,” Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association
(May 1999), vol. 34, 21–36; Taciana Fisac, “ ‘Anything at Variance with It Must Be Revised Accord-
ingly’: Rewriting Modern Chinese Literature during the 1950s,” China Journal (January 2012), vol. 67,
131–148; and Jin Hongyu, Zhongguo xiandai changpian xiaoshuo mingzhu banben jiaoping [Critical Com-
parison of the Editions of Famous Modern Chinese Novels] (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe,
2004), chapter three.
8 Gloria Davies, Worrying About China:The Language of Chinese Critical Inquiry (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2009), 50–51.
9 Olga Lang, Pa Chin and His Writings: ChineseYouth between the Two Revolutions (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1967), 243–245.
10 Kong Xiangxia, “Lun Faguo wenxue dui Ba Jin chuangzuo de yingxiang” [On the Influence of French
Literature on Ba Jin’s Work], Zhejiang daxue xuebao (September 1997), vol. 11, no. 3, 77–92.
11 For a thorough discussion of literary influences on The Family, see Craig Shaw, “Ba Jin’s Dream: Senti-
ment and Social Criticism in Jia,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1993). He
quotes Ba Jin’s own assessment of the influences on him on page 37.
12 On the influence of Dream of the Red Chamber on The Family, in addition to Craig Shaw’s “Ba Jin’s
Dream,” see Gu Yeping, “Jiliu sanbuqu yu Honglou meng yitong lun” [Differences and Similarities
between the Turbulent Stream Trilogy and Dream of the Red Chamber], in Wang Yao and Zhang Zhifang,
eds., Ba Jin yanjiu lunji [Research on Ba Jin] (Chongqing: Chongqing chubanshe, 1988), 160–181.
13 Chen Qianli, “Lun <Honglou meng> dui Minguo wenxue de duofang zhan’gai” [On the Various
Contributions of Dream of the Red Chamber to Republic-era Literature], Wenxue yu wenhua (2016), no.
3, 36–47.
14 Craig Shaw, “Ba Jin’s Dream,” 121.
15 For a fuller discussion of this theme, see Kristin Stapleton, Fact in Fiction: 1920s China and Ba Jin’s Fam-
ily (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016), particularly chapters two and seven.
16 On Wu Yu’s appearance in The Family and its sequels, see Stapleton, “Generational and Cultural Fissures
in the May Fourth Movement: Wu Yu (1872–1949) and the Politics of Family Reform,” in Kai-wing
Chow, Tze-ki Hon, Hung-yok Ip and Don C. Price, eds., Beyond the May Fourth Paradigm: In Search of
Chinese Modernity (Lanham, MD: Lexington Press, 2008), 131–148.
17 Wu Yu, “Chiren di lijiao,” in Zhao Qing and Zheng Cheng, eds., Wu Yu ji [Collected Works of Wu Yu]
(Chengdu: Sichuan renmin chubanshe, 1985), 167–171.
18 Wu Yu, “Shuo xiao” [On Filial Piety], originally published in Xingqi ri [Sunday], a Chengdu literary
journal, on January 4, 1920. Reprinted in Zhao and Zheng, eds., Wu Yu ji, 172–177.
19 Kristin Stapleton, Fact in Fiction, 114–115.
20 Jin Feng, The New Woman in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue Univer-
sity Press, 2004), 83–100.
21 An expanded version of the discussion in the next three paragraphs may be found in Kristin Stapleton,
Fact and Fiction, 79–81.
22 Rey Chow, “Translator, Traitor: Translator, Mourner (or, Dreaming of Intercultural Equivalence),” in
New Literary History (Summer 2008), vol. 39, no. 3, 565–580, quote on 566.
23 Norman Kutcher, “The Skein of Chinese Emotions History,” in Susan J. Matt and Peter N. Stearns,
eds., Doing Emotions History (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2013), 57–73.
24 Ba Jin, “Haizhuqiao” [Ocean Pearl Bridge], in Zhejiang wenyi chubanshe, ed., Ba Jin sanwen jingbian
[Select essays by Ba Jin] (Hangzhou: Zhejiang wenyi chubanshe, 1991), 234–236. Originally published
in Ba Jin’s essay collection Lütu suibi [Random Notes while Traveling] (Shanghai: Shenghuo shudian,
1934).
25 Yingjin Zhang, The City in Modern Chinese Literature and Film: Configurations of Space, Time, and Gender
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), 11.
26 Chen Sihe, Ren’ge de fazhan: Ba Jin zhuan [Development of Character: A Biography of Ba Jin] (Taipei:
Yeqiang chubanshe, 1991), 39.

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 Kristin Stapleton

Further readings
Ba Jin. Ba Jin xuanji (Selected Works of Ba Jin). Vol. 1: Jia (The Family), Vol. 2: Chun (Spring), Vol. 3: Qiu
(Autumn). Chengdu: Sichuan renmin chubanshe, 1995.
Chen Sihe. Ren’ge de fazhan: Ba Jin zhuan (Development of Character: A Biography of Ba Jin). Taipei:
Yeqiang chubanshe, 1991.
Lang, Olga. Pa Chin and His Writings: Chinese Youth between the Two Revolutions. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1967.
Li Cunguang. Ba Jin yanjiu huimou (Retrospective on Ba Jin Research). Shanghai: Fudan University Press,
2016.
Mao, Nathan K. Pa Chin. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1978.
Pa Chin [Ba Jin]. Family. Translated by Sidney Shapiro. With an introduction by Olga Lang. Prospect
Heights: Waveland Press, 1989.
Stapleton, Kristin. Fact in Fiction: 1920s China and Ba Jin’s Family. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016.
Tan, Xingguo. Zoujin Ba Jin de shijie. Chengdu: Sichuan wenyi chubanshe, 2003.
Wang, Miaomiao. “Canonization and Ba Jin’s Work in Chinese and the US-American Scholarship.”
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 16.6 (2014), at http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol16/
iss6/15. Accessed April 26, 2017.

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 4
LAO SHE’S FICTION AND
CAMEL XIANGZI
Lena Rydholm

Life and career

Lao She, pen name for Shu Qingchun (1899–1966), is one of the most widely read authors of
modern Chinese fiction. He was born into a Manchu family in Beijing. His father, an imperial
guard, was killed during the Boxer rebellion against foreign imperialists in 1900. His mother
supported him by washing clothes for soldiers. He was the only one in the family who learnt to
read and write, but being so poor, he often came home from school to find that there was noth-
ing to eat.1 Knowing hardships and social injustices at first hand, he developed a strong sense of
solidarity with the poor classes. He went to Beijing Normal school, which provided free tuition,
and spent his free time at local teahouses listening to storytellers.2 After graduation in 1917, he
got a job as a school principal. He took a keen interest in the New Culture Movement and read
all the publications he could get hold of during the time of the May Fourth movement.3 He
was promoted to a job at the Bureau of Education, but loathing the corruption and nepotism
there, he left to become a teacher.4
He started taking English classes at the Christian Church sponsored by the London Mission-
ary Society. He taught classes in Moral Cultivation and Music at the primary school run by the
church, and he was baptized a Christian in 1922.5 After a position at Nankai Middle School in
Tianjin, aiming to give children a modern education thus contributing to modernizing China,
Lao She went to England in 1924. He taught Chinese for five years at the University of London
School of Oriental Studies. He was deeply upset about British sinophobia,6 but he loved read-
ing English fiction and devoured plays by Shakespeare and novels by Dickens, Conrad, Swift
and Joyce. Back in China in 1930, after a trip to Singapore, he taught at universities in Jinan and
Qingdao. Although earlier on he was reluctant to join the revolutionaries, he was vehemently
patriotic and organized the Anti-Japanese United Front of All Workers of Literature and Art, in
order to produce works to mobilize the masses in the war of resistance against Japan (1937–45).
In 1946, he went to lecture in the United States. Back in China in 1949, he worked in several
capacities with regard to culture and education in the new administration and as Chairman of
the Beijing Federation of Writers and Artists. He received several awards, such as the “People’s
Artist.” Having been beaten and humiliated by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution,
he committed suicide by drowning in 1966.

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Literary achievement
Lao She wrote his first novels in London, inspired by Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby and Pickwick
Papers. The Philosophy of Lao Zhang (Lao Zhang de zhexue, 1926) is a satire of contemporary
Chinese society, about a shop owner’s/school principal’s bullying of his customers/students.
Zhao Ziyue (Zhao Ziyue, 1927), also a satire, is a critique of the new generation of students,
while Mr. Ma and Son:Two Chinese in London (Er Ma, 1929) deals with British sinophobia as well
as generational conflicts in a changing, modern society. His novels, which deal in a comic way
with social injustices, corruption and double standards, were serialized in the influential Short
Story Magazine (Xiaoshuo yuebao) in China, earning him a reputation as a writer before leaving
England. The science-fiction novel The City of Cats (Maocheng ji, 1932–33) was a fierce satire
directed against contemporary Chinese society and politics and the inability to resist imperialist
aggression at the time. Camel Xiangzi (Luotuo Xiangzi), his masterpiece, which was first seri-
alized in Cosmic Magazine (Yuzhou feng) in 1936–37, earned him a reputation in the United
States in the 1940s. This work is discussed in the following section, along with an analysis of the
literary techniques used in this and his earlier novels. The novel Divorce (Lihun, 1933) exposed
corruption in the bureaucracy, reminiscent of Qing Exposé fiction. The Biography of Niu Tianci
(Niu Tianci zhuan, 1934–35) mocks a petty-bourgeois upbringing.
Apart from writing several other novels, Lao She also wrote a large number of short stories,
of which Crescent Moon (Yueyar, 1935) is one of the most famous, telling the life story of a
prostitute in jail in a first-person voice. Growing up in a poor illiterate family, he could portray
the low- and middle-class characters more vividly than many other writers of the May Fourth
generation of writers/reformists, writing from the position of the social elite. The outbreak of
the war of resistance against Japan changed his choice of genres; he now wrote drum songs, folk
songs, new-style poems and plays. Among his famous plays is Dragon Beard Ditch (Longxu gou,
1951), showing the improvements in the lives of poor people living by a canal in Beijing after
1949. Teahouse (Chaguan, 1957), considered his best play, shows the changes in Chinese society
and politics in three scenes depicting life in Beijing in 1898, 1917 and 1945. His most celebrated
novels composed after the war are the trilogy Four Generations Under One Roof (Sishi tongtang,
1946–51), portraying the harsh lives of three families during the Japanese occupation.

The masterpiece Camel Xiangzi

Lao She got the idea to write Camel Xiangzi from a friend who told him about a rickshaw run-
ner in Beijing who had been forced to sell his rickshaw three times, and another one who stole
three camels when escaping from soldiers.7 The city of Beijing, in which Lao She grew up, is
vividly depicted in the novel: the city streets and parks in different seasons and weather condi-
tions, and during holidays and celebrations, involving social customs and festivities.This detailed
description of the city goes beyond situating the story and rendering authenticity to the narra-
tive; the fate of the main character, Xiangzi, is deeply connected with the socio-economic and
natural environment of the city of Beijing.
Camel Xiangzi is the story of a young country boy making a living as a rickshaw runner
in Beijing. He is honest, works hard and has no bad habits. His major goal in life is to buy a
rickshaw and become independent. At the end of Chapter 1, the narrator, just as in traditional
Chinese fiction, adds a comment: “Wishes seldom come true, and Xiangzi’s were no excep-
tion.”8 Xiangzi’s first rickshaw is stolen by soldiers (while he steals three camels, giving him
his nickname). When he has saved enough money to buy a new one, he is robbed by a cor-
rupt police officer. He is seduced and tricked into marriage through the fake pregnancy of the

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cunning and hot-tempered “Tigress,” daughter of the boss at the rickshaw rental, who bullies
and exploits him. Tigress becomes pregnant for real, but dies in childbirth along with the child.
He sells their rickshaw to pay the funeral costs. Disillusioned with life, he starts to drink and
visit whorehouses. On a final attempt to get back on track, he decides to marry the girl he loves,
Fuzi, and work for the benevolent teacher Mr. Cao. But Fuzi has been sold to the whorehouse
by her father, the drunken rickshaw runner, Er Qiangzi, and has already hung herself from a tree.
Xiangzi falls into despair. He drinks, smokes, gambles, whores, cheats and fights with people.Too
sick to pull a rickshaw, he makes a living carrying banners at funerals and protest marches. In the
final chapter, Chapter 24, he betrays Ruan Ming to the police for 60 yuan. Ruan, who had tried
to organize the rickshaw runners in protests, is paraded through the streets before a blood-thirsty
crowd and executed, while Xiangzi is totally indifferent, a mere ghost of his former self.The plot
may seem simple, but the author depicts multiple socio-economic and moral conflicts through
a complex narrative framework, discussed below in the context of the several, and in my view,
complementary readings of the work, leading up to my conclusions.

Social criticism in Camel Xiangzi

Regarding the reading of the novel in its historical context (written in 1936–37), Thomas
Moran sums it up well:

Camel Xiangzi is often read as an allegory of Republican China. [. . .] The novel sug-
gests that the Chinese people were bullied by imperialist powers, misled by the false
promise of capitalist modernization, and betrayed by corrupt government, miscarried
revolution, and their own disunity. Innumerable details in the novel contribute to the
message that the poor were dehumanized by a system that only punished the virtues
Xiangzi embodies.9

Already in 1902 Liang Qichao had proclaimed that fiction could play a significant role in the
reformists endeavour of “saving China.”10 In his view, fiction could change morality, religion,
politics, social customs, even people’s minds and “remould their characters.” Lu Xun and other
writers within the New Culture Movement saw literature as a medium to achieve political, cul-
tural and social change and even change people’s mentality: literature in the service of human
life. Lao She was also deeply concerned for his country and shared the feelings of social respon-
sibility among writers. Read as a national allegory, Lao She’s novel has been criticized, especially
by Marxist critics, for not providing solutions to the national crisis. In the 1955 edition, the most
“pessimistic” final chapter of the novel, Chapter 24, was removed prior to publication and Lao
She “made amends” in the afterword: “I expressed my sympathy for the laboring people [. . .],
but I gave them no future, no way out [. . .] at the time, I could only see the misery of society
and not the hope of revolution.”11
Even if Lao She shared the mainstream view of the didactic function of literature, prevailing in
China through the ages, along with the desire to “save China,” reducing Camel Xiangzi to simply
being a “national allegory”, would be to disregard the author’s emphasis on ethical issues and his
vivid portrayals of human nature. Camel Xiangzi is a complex and sophisticated work of art that
has proved very resilient to an interpretation of its ideological message (the more difficult without
the final Chapter 24). I suggest a reading involving several layers of meaning, expressed through
several narrative modes and conflicting discourses, and in which traces of the literary devices of
both classical Chinese tales and modern Western novels are evident. Let us first take a look at a
reading based on socio-economic and political aspects. According to Jameson (viewing literary

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forms as cultural expressions of modes of production): “On the face of it, Camel Xiangzi is a novel
about money.”12 He identifies two conflicting narrative paradigms: the pre-capitalist narrative
paradigm, in which Xiangzi represents a “pre-capitalist attitude towards money as hoard or treas-
ure” (Ibid., 69), evident in his obsession with the rickshaw versus the capitalist narrative paradigm,
represented by Tigress; as a daughter of a businessman she understands the logic of capital and
market. Xiangzi’s view, according to Jameson, is tied to the outer form of the novel, the Wheel of
Fortune narrative, the alternation between the extremes of success and failure that organizes the
classical tale. However, the classic tale and its readers’ “naïve and positive notion of success, in the
form of good fortune” change when society is “reorganized by the logic of capitalism [. . .] only
failure comes to seem authentic” (Ibid.). Hence, realistic fiction thrives “[. . .] in the contemplation
of the moment of ultimate disaster, definitive misery, and psychic disintegration and demoraliza-
tion.” (Ibid., 70) These are the characteristics of the naturalist novel, which, according to Jameson,
are at work in Camel Xiangzi, reaching its peak in the final Chapter 24 (Ibid.).
Jameson also claims that the outer form makes the reader side with Xiangzi and “hope against
hope” that he will attain his goal and buy a rickshaw; on the other hand, the reader will also see
Tigress’s point of view and realize the sense of it (running her father’s business is superior) (Ibid.,
71). Thus the reader, according to Jameson, has “been maneuvered, against our will, into a situ-
ation in which we must affirm the petty-bourgeois wisdom on this, the wisdom of capital and
the market.” (Ibid.) To this “paradox” is added the final words of the novel in Chapter 24, which
according to Jameson constitute “Lao She’s own judgement on the nature of Xiangzi’s values:”

Handsome, ambitious, dreamer of fine dreams, selfish, individualistic, sturdy, great

Hsiang Tzu. No one knows how many funerals he marched in, and no one knows
when or where he was able to get himself buried, the degenerate, selfish, unlucky
offspring of society’s diseased womb, a ghost caught in Individualism’s blind alley.13

In Jameson’s view, this shows a deep unresolved ideological contradiction in the novel; in addi-
tion, the conflict between Xiangzi and his wife is constructed in such a way that it hides the
fact that they are both individualists, according to Jameson, and we end up with an “ideological
binary opposition which cannot be resolved in its own terms, but only by transcending both of
its terms toward some new one (which might then properly be that of collective praxis)” (Ibid.,
72). But Lao She does not provide that solution, which might show Lao She’s ideological stance
of opposing both Individualism and Collectivism (Ibid.).The ideological conflict in the novel in
this regard, in Jameson’s view, remains unresolved, and Lao She’s judgement of Xiangzi’s struggle
thus remains unclear (Ibid., 71).
Jameson’s analysis has valid points, but the novel’s narrative framework is reduced to an unre-
solved ideological conflict which Collectivism may seem the only answer to, simply because it
is the antithesis of “Individualism.” Lao She evidently did not want to reduce the message of the
novel simply to this binary conflict (at least not in the 1936 edition). The blood-thirsty crowd
waiting for Ruan Ming recalls the execution scene in Lu Xun’s The True Story of Ah Q, as well as
the crowd mentality in The City of Cats. The only scene in the novel when collective solidarity
may seem an option is in Little Horses’s grandfather’s words:

How far can a man alone leap? You’ve seen grasshoppers, haven’t you? Left alone, one
of them can hop great distances. But if a child catches it and ties it with a string, it can’t
even move. Yet a swarm of them can consume an entire crop in no time and no one
can do a thing about it.14

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Yet this passage has also rendered completely opposite readings. Hu Jieqing (Lao She’s wife)
writes: “It was just as [. . .] Little Horse’s grandfather said: [. . .] The only way out would have
been for hundreds and thousands of Xiangzis to unite and struggle together, and this is precisely
the social lesson of Xiangzi’s tradgedy.”15 Moran makes the opposite reading: “because the novel
criticizes individualism, we anticipate a call for collective action, but instead we get the parable
of the locusts [grasshoppers in Goldblatt’s translation] which suggests that mass revolution would
be catastrophic.”16 The parable is open to different interpretations, and I shall return to the issue
of the author’s “attitude” towards Collectivism, as expressed in the novel, in my conclusions. In
addition, the novel contains further layers of meaning and embedded narrative modes, discussed
below.

Camel Xiangzi and Heart of Darkness

Let us turn to the naturalistic portrayal of Xiangzi’s gradual moral degeneration, which, accord-
ing to Yoon Wah Wong, is the result of both the social and the natural environment, inspired by
Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness.17 Joseph Conrad depicted what he had witnessed as captain of
a steamer on the Congo River: the atrocities committed by the imperialists colonizing Africa;
their hypocrisy in claiming a “civilizing” endeavor to “benefit” the natives, while in fact using
brute force to enslave African people in their pursuit of ivory. Wong locates a similar theme in
the comparison between Camel Xiangzi and Heart of Darkness: that of the impact of nature and
social environment on the protagonist.18 To support the argument, Wong cites Lao She’s state-
ments about his interest in Conrad’s methods:

Certain social circumstances or locale[s] may lead to certain action or events occur
[-ring]. Man cannot escape the murderous hands of the environment just as the fly
cannot escape the spider’s nest [web]. Whether such pessimism is acceptable is another
matter. The method [Conrad’s] is worthy of emulation.19

Wong performs a parallel reading to show how Lao She uses a narrative discourse of cause and
effect, connecting both the social and the natural environment with Xiangzi’s gradual moral
degeneration. Indeed, there are detailed descriptions in the novel of the natural environment in
Beijing, depicting seasons and the weather and their impact on people making a living through
outdoor physical labor, like Xiangzi. These descriptions serve an important purpose, according
to Wong, citing Lao She in his essay “A Great Creator of Setting and Character in Modern Time:
Joseph Conrad, My Most Respected Writer” (1935):

The power of the scene becomes more dominating when it is surrounding the man
who failed. For Joseph Conrad,Thomas Hardy and other writers who use setting as an
important element in their works, the “nature” is a villain. In their fictional works, the
white men, traders, opportunists and adventurers who failed themselves, are unable to
escape. . . . The evil spirit of the jungles and rivers get hold of them and let them rot
like grasses.20

In my view, the storm in Chapter 18 is the ultimate example of this. The storm is described in
great detail: its progress, its shifting colors (a feature in Conrad’s work as well). Just like Conrad,
Lao She personifies nature and its objects, thus reinforcing the impression of nature as “a vil-
lain”. After the cold rain, Xiangzi falls ill and never completely regains his strength.These natural

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forces are also detrimental to his neighbors. But this view of nature as a mysterious, conscious
force harming people, as in Conrad’s work, is contradicted by the narrator:

After the rains, poets may sing of rain-pearled lotus flowers and double rainbows;
among the poor families if the adults fell ill, the whole family would starve. One rain-
storm might add a few more prostitutes and small thieves, a few more people ending
up in jail; with the adults sick, their children recoursing to stealing or prostitution
rather than starving! The rain falls on the rich and the poor alike, it falls on the right-
eous and the unrighteous alike. But actually, the rain is not just at all, because it falls
onto a world where there is no justice.21

According to the narrator, nature is not the true “villain”, but social injustice is. Lao She’s novel
portrays class conflict, and in that sense what happened to Xiangzi might happen to any poor
worker being exploited in any society in the early stages of capitalist modernization.
Lao She may have been inspired by Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, with regards to the
impact of the social and natural environments on the protagonist, but there are also differences.
Heart of Darkness is a journey into the darkness, not just of the jungle but also into the darkness
within men’s hearts. Kurtz, a man who is stated to have originally been an educated, moral per-
son who set out on a “civilizing project,” turned into a monster in the jungle, capable of horrible
atrocities against the “savages” he was presumed to “civilize”.22 The reader understands that there
was a pre-existing beast hidden within Kurtz’s heart that is unleashed in a natural environment of
physical hardship and danger, combined with a social environment in which there is nothing to
restrain him: no laws, no social control, no one to hold him accountable. Xiangzi, on the other
hand, possesses natural virtues such as honesty and has his moral standards. He works hard and
lives an ascetic life; he seems to me to be basically a good man turned into a beast by the hard-
ships he suffered in a sick and inhumane society, made worse by forces of nature. The narrator
also interrupts the story to state that Xiangzi is not to blame; the offender is the society in which
people are treated like animals and turned into animals: “Mankind had managed to rise above
wild animals, only to arrive at the point where people banished their fellow-men right back
into the animal kingdom. Xiangzi lived in a cultured city but, through no fault of his own, had
himself become a two-legged beast.”23
Thus, in my opinion, Xiangzi is portrayed as a human being who goes through a process of
de-humanization, while Kurtz in Conrad’s novel is a hypocrite, someone who “pretended” to
be human, while in fact underneath, all along, he was a beast. Another important difference is
that in Camel Xiangzi, as we shall see in the following, Xiangzi’s process of moral degeneration
is portrayed through the technique of interior monologue. In Conrad’s novel, Kurtz’s thoughts
are obscure and distant, we do not get to peek into “the horror” in his head through interior
monologue, psycho-narration or first-person voice narration. Not even the omniscient third-
person narrator wants to take on this filthy task; instead, it is Marlow, a character in the novel,
who tells the story of Kurtz. Now let us turn to the characters in Camel Xiangzi and the use of
interior monologue.

Camel Xiangzi and psychological realism

The main reasons for being an outstanding work of art in modern Chinese fiction and in addi-
tion so popular among readers are the creation of realistic and memorable characters and the
depiction of their inner lives. When Lao She portrays the harsh living circumstance of the poor
population of Beijing in the 1930s, he depicts their thoughts and emotions in a realistic and

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deeper-going way. Growing up in a poor, illiterate family, he could write from their point of
view. Hu Jieqing writes:

Lao She’s neighbours were all poor people. He understood them and knew all about
them.They worked at different jobs: some pulled rickshaws, others were coolies, scrap-
collectors, artists, servants or peddlers [. . . .] In Chapter 16 of Camel Xiangzi, he
describes at great length the tenement courtyard where Xiangzi and Tigress lived. [. . .]
All these people were modelled on ones Lao She had known in his childhood.24

The heavy use of contemporary colloquial Peking dialect gives the characters additional cred-
ibility. He even uses slang words and expressions that were basically only used in oral form at
the time.25 Put into writing, these expressions added to the impression of authenticity. In the
novel, we also find traces of oral storytelling techniques used in traditional Chinese fiction; the
omniscient third-person narrative voice frequently comments on events or passes judgements.
The narrator both tells the story and create counter-narratives that undermine the main nar-
rative by expressing conflicting viewpoints to those of the characters. For instance, in the eyes
of the uneducated Xiangzi: “Mr. Cao had to be a sage, and whenever Xiangzi tried to imagine
what the great man had been like, Mr. Cao was the model, whether Confucius liked it or not.”26
Here the narrator sees fit to intervene:

Truth to be told, Mr. Cao was not particularly wise, just a man of modest abilities who
did a bit of teaching and engaged in other work of that nature. He called himself a
socialist, as well as an aesthete having been influenced by the socialist William Morris
[. . . .] Seeming to realize that he lacked the talent to shake up the world, he contented
himself with organizing his work and family around his ideals. [. . .] so long as his little
family was happy and well run, society could do as it pleased.27

In Camel Xiangzi we also find influences from several Western novels by Dickens, Conrad, Joyce
and others. Inspired by Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby, he had written The Philosophy of Old Zhang,
a satire in which the main character, Mr. Zhang, is a greedy and mean shop-owner/schoolmas-
ter exploits his customers/students and bullies his wife. According to David Wang, Mr. Zhang’s
behavior is so outrageous, absurd and hilarious that he is a “clown” in the novel, while at the
same time, the reader pities his victims’ cruel fate. Thus there is in Wang’s view an oscillation
between a melodrama and a farce.28 In Camel Xiangzi Lao She had decided to write more seri-
ously and not rely mainly on humor for social criticism.29 But as Wang has noted, the description
of some events and characters are exaggerated, as in the case of Tigress, a greedy, gluttonous,
lazy and licentious woman who bullies an overly pathetic Xiangzi.30 Whether or not Tigress is
exaggerated to the point of being a “clown” is something readers can judge for themselves, but
the oscillation between melodramatic narrative discourse and farce is not the major organizing
principle in this novel. Tigress is an indispensable part in the dynamics of the capitalist versus
pre-capitalist narrative discourse. She and Xiangzi are the most memorable characters partly
because Lao She lets the reader peep into their minds through the devise of inner monologue.
The psychological realism in the naturalist depiction of Xiangzi’s mental transformation is
largely achieved through the use of modern literary techniques. Jameson claimed that Camel
Xiangzi is more of a pre-Western classical tale than a modern novel, since it lacks “the newer
techniques of inner monologue or stream-of-consciousness.”31 Słupski and Lydia Liu have
proved him wrong. However, a major problem is that these literary devices are not so obvious
in translation, unless the translator deliberately reflects this trait. This is one reason why modern

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Chinese novels such as Camel Xiangzi have not been duly recognized by Western critics as part
of the international modernist literary movement in the 1920s and ’30s.
As Zbigniew Słupski points out, the story’s focus is not on action and events but rather on
Xiangzi’s thoughts and emotions as a response to these events; the author “tries to penetrate
the mind of his hero through the ‘stream-of-consciousness’ method.”32 In her brilliant study,
Lydia Liu shows how Lao She captures Xiangzi’s inner thoughts through the “innovative use
of psycho-narration and free indirect style,” inspired by European novels and adopted into the
Peking dialect “as if mirroring the colloquial rhythm of Xiangzi’s thought-language.”33 Liu
explains how the narrator first describes Xiangzi’s state of mind “as if observed from the outside
(psycho-narration)” and then “switches to free indirect style that closely imitates the character’s
language” (Ibid., 112), as in the following example (free, indirect style in italics by Liu):

He stopped worrying and walked on slowly. He had nothing to fear as long as Heaven
protected him. Where was he going? He didn’t think to ask any of the men and women
who were already coming out to the fields. Keep going. It didn’t seem to matter much if
he didn’t sell the camels right away. Get to the city first and then take care of it. He longed to
see the city again.34

Blending psycho-narration and free indirect style results in the following impression:

Although the actual words are spoken by the narrator in the third person, the point
of view is exclusively Xiangzi’s [. . . .] It is almost as if the narrator, while speaking in
his own voice (in the third person), temporarily suspends his own point of view in
order to adopt that of the character [. . .] free indirect style breaks down the boundary
between narrating voice and the characters interior monologue. This narrative style
[. . .] allows free access to the character’s thoughts.35

Liu claims that, through the “absence of tense, person and other related grammatical markers,
modern vernacular Chinese is able to switch narrative modes easily” (in comparison with Indo-
European languages) (Ibid., 113):

Chinese free indirect style retains more ambiguity in its relationship to both omnis-
cient psycho-narration and quoted interior monologue than does its counterpart in
other languages.The stylistic effect is that of an uninterrupted flow of narration, some-
what like a free direct discourse, leading to the perfect illusion of a transparent mind.
(Ibid., 113)

Lao She’s use of a third-person narrative voice which submerges into an interior monologue
to depict the continuum of thoughts and emotions as they pass through Xiangzi’s mind was
progressive in Chinese realistic fiction. In my view, this narrative technique is not reserved for
the main protagonist but is used for several oppressive characters in the novel as well. And when
portraying their inner thoughts, their moral characters are exposed. I shall give three examples
(interior monologues in my italics). Interestingly, the military officer in the first example, when
Fuzi comes home, does not even appear in person in this scene, but Fuzi’s return is explained by
the narrator through a peep into the mind of this absent character:

Er Qiangzi’s daughter Fuzi [who had previously been sold to the officer] came home.
Fuzi’s “man” was a military officer. Wherever he was stationed, he set up a simple

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home. Spending a couple of hundred yuan on buying a young girl, next buying a big
plank bed and a couple of chairs, he could thus enjoy his life. When the military unit relo-
cated, he just dropped everything, leaving both the bed and the girl on the spot. Having
spent a couple of hundred yuan like that, to live in this way for a year or so, is not in the least a loss
suffered, just speak of the washing and mending, the cooking and other small chores, if one hired a
servant, would one not have to spend some 8 or 10 yuan on food, boarding and wages? Marrying a
young girl in this way, she’s both a servant and someone to sleep with, guaranteed to be free of diseases.
Now, if she pleases, then tailoring her a dress with flower printed fabric only costs a couple of yuan;
and if she doesn’t please, well, even at the point of being made to squat at home stark naked, there is
nothing she can do about it. When he relocated, he wouldn’t be the least bit sorry about the plank bed
and the two chairs, since she would be left to think of a way to make up for two months of unpaid rent,
and even if she sold the bed and the rest of the stuff, well, it might not even suffice to cover the debt.36

In this passage, the author depicts the unscrupulous lifestyle of the officer and his thoughts on
the matter, coming through at the point where the third person pronoun “he” disappears, along
with the narrators voice. The Chinese language does not require a pronoun in each of the fol-
lowing lines, but by now, in my view, a “he” would no longer be the appropriate pronoun to
add, since narration has turned into interior monologue, thus I add the pronoun “one” instead,
as the English translation requires an agent in the sentence. (Translators tend to add several “he”s
throughout this passage). The question in successive lines that he poses, obviously to himself, also
states his rationale (the costs of servants, risks of whoring) for spending (what in his view is) a large
sum of money on “marital” arrangements. His justifications for exploiting poor girls are aimed
at convincing no one but himself. The impression of interior monologue continues even when
the pronoun “he” returns, since the subsequent lines continue to depict his line of reasoning to
himself as his justifications. The statement: “he wasn’t in the least bit sorry about the plank bed and the
two chairs” clearly illustrates how his mind is completely devoid of pity for the abandoned girl; she
doesn’t even enter his thoughts in this context, since only material objects are worthy of regret.
By depicting this man’s subjective line of thought, his complete lack of empathy, most readers will
come to dislike him, but at the same time, the absurdity in his line of reasoning has a slightly ironic
effect. The reader is again “maneuvered” into a position to see the clown’s (Wang’s discussion on
farcical discourse) rationale and point of view, just as in the case of the conflict between Xiangzi’s
and Tigress’s views discussed by Jameson. But my three examples go beyond monetary issues;
they also portray the entailed moral dilemmas involved and how the characters reflect on them.
My second example is the scene in which Fuzi, forced by her drunkard father to sell her
body to support her brothers, turns to Tigress for help to avoid this cruel fate; but Tigress instead
offers to “help” Fuzi by creating a business investment of her own. Tigress lends her capital to
set her up with a wardrobe and offers to rent her one of her two rooms to conduct business in:

Every time Fuzi used the room, Tigress had made a condition: she had to give her
twenty cents. Friends are friends, but business is business, because of Fuzi’s affairs, she would
have to clean the room very neatly, this required not only work but also spending more money,
indeed did one not have to spend money on buying a broom and a dustpan and what not? Two
cents really could not be considered too much to ask for, it was only because of their friendship that
it was possible to extend this favour.
(Ibid., 143)

Through this line of reasoning and the question she poses, we see that Tigress feels that she has
to justify the profit gained from a friend’s misfortune, at least to herself. The reader gets to see

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her point of view but also realizes that there is no room in her mind for compassion. A final
example: Fuzi’s father asks his daughter for money, which also entails a line of reasoning with
certain moral concerns:

Sometimes he hated his daughter, if she’d been a boy she would most certainly not have
made such a nuisance of herself; this female fetus, why on earth did it have to be tossed in his lap!
Sometimes he pitied his daughter, the daughter having to sell her body to feed her two broth-
ers! Well, hating, or pitying for that matter, he saw no way out of it. And in the event of having
been drinking, and being out of money, he didn’t hate at all, nor did he feel any pity,
he went home to ask her for money. Times like that, he saw her as a money-making
object, and him being her father, he was fully entitled and had every right to ask her for money.
Times like that he still thought of keeping up appearances: Didn’t everybody look down
on Fuzi or what, and being her father he couldn’t very well let her off the hook, he pressed her
for money while at the same time loudly cursing, it seemed like the cursing was for
everyone to hear – Er Qiangzi was not to blame, Fuzi was shameless by nature.
(Ibid., 145–46)

These three examples all concern abuse of the unfortunate Fuzi. Her three exploiters are all rep-
resentatives of the capitalist narrative mode constituted as the perceived “opposite” of Xiangzi’s
way of thinking (Jameson’s idea). Although they are all taking advantage of Fuzi’s poverty for
their own monetary gain, each faces the moral dilemma of doing so in their own way. In their
minds, they construct a line of reasoning that may seem to justify their actions, at least for them-
selves. The officer approaches the matter from what in his mind are purely “facts and reason,”
appealing to economic “facts” (calculations of salary versus “benefits” etc.) and “common sense”
(health safety). His sole focus on “objective” arguments alerts the reader to his lack of compas-
sion, to what is actually his very subjective, one-sided line of reasoning and pure egoism. Tigress
weighs loyalty in friendship against monetary gains and thus gives Fuzi a small discount on the
room rent, a rent she tries to justify based on “actual costs” (as if she had to buy a new broom
every time she cleaned the room) and her increased “work load” (cleaning the room). The dis-
count makes her feel good about herself, being such a good loyal friend. Fuzi’s father, although
he was the one who forced her into prostitution (and later sold her to the brothel), washes his
hands of all guilt, arguing that immoral sexual behavior is an inborn female quality; the “true
cause” of prostitution is not poverty but the “shameless” female nature. He even justifies taking
her money by referring to filial piety: “being her father,” she should support him. The main
thing that concerns him is his own moral appearance in the eyes of others (thus scolding her in
public whilst taking her earnings).
Through the technique of interior monologue used in my three examples, the reader is
“maneuvered” by Lao She into a position where he/she is forced to see the matter from the
oppressor’s point of view, the view of money within the capitalist narrative paradigm. However,
for most readers, their lines of reasoning with regards to “facts,” “reason” and traditional “mor-
als” to justify their actions and profiteering are so pathetic and outrageous that the effect is both
appalling and hilarious at the same time. We find ourselves trapped in the minds of three of Lao
She’s greedy “clowns” within the farcical discourse, portrayed by Lao She in his earlier novels
(such as Mr. Zhang) and inspired by Dickens’s novels (as discussed by David Wang). But this time,
the farcical discourse is created through the modern device of interior monologue, inspired by
Joyce and other modernist writers. We get to peep into the heads of the oppressors and actually
see “the horror” in their minds (as opposed to Kurtz in Conrad’s novel).

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Thanks to our access to the naturalistic description of Xiangzi’s moral degeneration through
the same device of interior monologue, we gain insight into how poor people such as Xiangzi
are transformed, by the combination of a sick and inhumane social environment and the forces
of nature, and morally degenerate. This discourse is reinforced by the narrator who, just as in
traditional fiction, gives a moral judgement: this is “through no fault of his own.” Xiangzi’s inte-
rior monologue constructs a counter narrative to that of the interior monologue of the oppres-
sors that makes us realize that these three people are also the product of a sick and inhumane
society in the early stages of capitalist modernization as well as of the whims of natural forces
(as in Conrad’s novels). Although we, like the narrator, clearly side with the victims, we cannot
completely blame the abusers for their moral imperfections, since they were not “shameless by
nature.” But then, an additional counter discourse turns up, turning everything upside down
again for readers looking for that “single message” in the novel. These are Lao She’s final words
in the novel in Chapter 24 and what appears to Jameson, as well as other readers, to be the
authorial judgement on Xiangzi’s obsessive mindset. Xiangzi is now stated to be “selfish” and
“individualistic” and thus doomed to fail. These are traits of his personality, so in that sense he is
now held responsible for his own fate.
So what are we to make of all these conflicting narrative discourses and voices, the differ-
ent viewpoints expressed by the narrator and the author as well as the characters themselves
through their interior monologues. In my view, what Lao She has created is a realistic portrayal
of cultural, moral subjectivism. In his earlier novel Mr. Ma and His Son he had depicted cultural
relativism, conflicting cultural and moral values between England and China, from his own
viewpoint as a cosmopolitan observer of different customs and moral values. Now he has moved
from the macro to the micro level, to the individual level, portraying moral subjectivism, not
because he endorses it. He is perhaps pessimistic or cynical, but not a nihilist denying that truth
values exist altogether. On the contrary, Lao She had strong views concerning personal morality,
evident in all his works, and his sympathies are quite clear: compassion for the exploited and
oppressed poor classes. Thanks to his own life experiences, he is able to express their thoughts
through an interior monologue in authentic Peking colloquial language. By looking into each
character’s mind and seeing moral dilemmas from each character’s point of view, and letting each
character pass his/her own moral judgement on their own actions, we get a mimetic description
of moral subjectivity.
To sum up, this novel contains several layers of meaning, overt, realistic, as well as symbolic
and hidden, expressed through a carefully constructed narrative framework with several com-
peting and conflicting narrative discourses, in which the literary devices and narrative strategies
of both classical Chinese tales and modern Western novels form a unique hybrid of cosmopoli-
tan and vernacular tendencies and tensions that melt into an organic unity reflecting the author’s
aesthetic vision and moral stance. In Camel Xiangzi, Lao She shows a perfect mastery of the nar-
rative modes and discourses he had experimented with in his earlier novels, reinforcing them in
a more sophisticated way through the use of the modern technique of interior monologue. The
outcome is a realistic portrayal of moral subjectivism. His novel, in my view, does not explore
the dialectics between individualism versus collectivism. On the contrary, as a cosmopolitan
observer of human societies and human beings in different cultures and in different social strata
of society, he was concerned with and explored the rationale for each character’s lack of personal
morals, and justifications of their egoistic actions. These people are rarely evil to begin with,
but each of their petty, egoistic and immoral actions added together amount to creating a sick
and inhumane society, and this becomes a vicious circle. In describing problems and conflicts
in human society, Lao She shows how nothing is black-and-white, and each person applies his

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own scale with regard to moral behavior. His novel probes deeply into the complexity of human
life, human thoughts and emotions. He does not attempt to provide solutions for the problems
in society, distrusting the effectiveness of “collective action” in this novel. If there is a message,
he seems to show why he thinks that collective solidarity would not work in China at the time.

Notes
1 Hu Jieqing, “Preface,” in Lao She, Camel Xiangzi, trans. Xiaoqing Shi (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press,
1981), 3.
2 Ranbir Vohra, Lao She and the Chinese Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), 5
and 10.
3 Tang Tao, ed., History of Modern Chinese Literature (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1998), 255.
4 Ranbir Vohra, Lao She and the Chinese Revolution, 10.
5 Anne V. Witchard, Lao She in London (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012), 30.
6 For an account of Lao She’s life in London, see Anne V.Witchard, Lao She in London. British sinophobia
is also vividly portrayed in Lao She’s novel Mr. Ma and Son:Two Chinese in London (1929).
7 Lao She, “How I Came to Write the Novel Camel Xiangzi,” in Camel Xiangzi, trans. Xiaoqing Shi (Bei-
jing: Foreign Languages P, 1981), 232.
8 Lao She, Rickshaw Boy: A Novel, trans. Howard Goldblatt (New York: Harper Perennial, 2010), 13.
9 Thomas Moran, “The Reluctant Nihilism of Lao She’s Camel Xiangzi,” in Joshua Mostow, ed., The
Columbia Companion to East Asian Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 453.
10 Liang Qichao, Collected Works of Liang Qichao (Liang Qichao wenji) (Beijing: Beijing yanshan chu-
banshe, 1997), 282.
11 Lao She, “Afterword,” in Camel Xiangzi, trans. Xiaoqing Shi, 230.
12 Fredric Jameson, “Literary Innovation and Modes of Production: A Commentary,” Modern Chinese
Literature (1984), vol. 1, no. 1, 67.
13 Lao She, Rickshaw, trans. Jean M. James (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1979), 249, cited by
Fredric Jameson, 71.
14 Lao She, Rickshaw Boy: A Novel, 276.
15 Hu Jieqing, “Preface,” 4.
16 Thomas Moran, “The Reluctant Nihilism of Lao She’s Camel Xiangzi,” 453.
17 Yoon Wah Wong, Post-Colonial Chinese Literatures in Singapore and Malaysia (Singapore: National Univ.
of Singapore, 2002), 127–140.
18 Ibid., 136–137.
19 Lao She, “The Description of Scene,” in Complete Works (1945), 15.237, cited by Yoon Wah Wong, 135.
20 Lao She, “A Great Creator of Setting and Character in Modern Time: Joseph Conrad, My Most
Respected Writer,” in Complete Works (1945), 15.305, cited by Yoon Wah Wong, 136.
21 Lao She, Camel Xiangzi (Luotuo Xiangzi) (Haikou: Nanhai chuban gongsi, 2016), 151. Translation by
L. Rydholm.
22 Conrad’s novel has been criticized by Chinua Achebe for being racist due to the dehumanization
of Africans in the novel, see Achebe, “An image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness,” in
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness: Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Contexts, 4th ed., edited by Paul B.
Armstrong (New York: W.W. Norton, 2006), 336–348.
23 Lao She, Rickshaw Boy: A Novel, 281.
24 Hu Jieqing, “Preface,” 3.
25 Lao She, “How I Came to Write the Novel Camel Xiangzi,” 235.There is even a dictionary of colloquial
expressions in the Beijing dialect in Lao She’s works:Yang Yuxiu, ed., Words and Expressions in Lao She’s
Works] (Lao She zuopin zhongde Beijinghua ciyu lieshi) (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1984).
26 Lao She, Rickshaw Boy: A Novel, 77.
27 Ibid.
28 David Der-wei Wang, Fictional Realism in Twentieth-Century China: Mao Dun, Lao She, Shen Congwen
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), 113–120.
29 Lao She, “How I Came to Write the Novel Camel Xiangzi,” 234–235.
30 David Der-wei Wang, 144–156. Wang even speculates that Camel Xiangzi may be seen as a “macabre
farce,” 144.

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3 1 Fredric Jameson, “Literary Innovation and Modes of Production: A Commentary,” 70.

32 Zbigniew Słupski, The Evolution of a Modern Chinese Writer: An Analysis of Lao She’s Fiction with Biographi-
cal and Bibliographical Appendices (Prague: Publishing House of Czechoslovak Academy, 1966), 63–64.
33 Lydia He Liu, Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity – China, 1900–
1937 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 112.
34 Liu, 106, citing Lao She, Rickshaw, trans. Jean M. James, 25.
35 Lydia He Liu, Translingual Practice, 112.
36 Lao She, Camel Xiangzi (Luotuo Xiangzi), 140–141. Translation by L. Rydholm.

Further readings
Chow, Rey. “Fateful Attachments: On Collecting, Fidelity, and Lao She.” In Rey Chow, ed., Entanglements:
Or Transmedial Thinking About Capture. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2012, 59–79.
Hsia, Chih-tsing. “Lao She (1899–1966).” In C.T. Hsia, ed., A History of Modern Chinese Fiction. New Haven:
Yale University Press,1971, 165–188.
Huang, Alexander C.Y. “Cosmopolitan and Its Discontents: The Dialectic between the Global and the
Local in Lao She’s Fiction.” Modern Language Quarterly 69.1 (2008): 97–118.
Jameson, Fredric. “Literary Innovation and Modes of Production: A Commentary.” Modern Chinese Litera-
ture 1.1 (1984): 67–77.
Liu, Lydia H. Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity – China, 1900–1937.
Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995, 103–127.
Moran, Thomas. “The Reluctant Nihilism of Lao She’s Rickshaw.” In Kirk A. Denton, ed., The Columbia
Companion to Modern Chinese Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016, 211–216.
Słupski, Zbigniew. The Evolution of a Modern Chinese Writer: An Analysis of Lao She’s Fiction with Biographical
and Bibliographical Appendices. Prague: Publishing House of Czechoslovak Academy, 1966.
Vohra, Ranbir. Lao She and the Chinese Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974.
Wang, David Der-wei. Fictional Realism in Twentieth-Century China: Mao Dun, Lao She, Shen Congwen. New
York: Columbia University Press, 1992, 157–200, 111–156.
Witchard, Anne Veronica. Lao She in London. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012.

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 5
LI JIEREN’S FICTION AND
RIPPLES ON DEAD WATER
Kenny K. K. Ng

Life and career

Li Jieren was born in 1891 and died in 1962, living through a tumultuous era that witnessed
massive social changes arising from the two regime-changing revolutions in 1911 and 1949.
During his writing career, the literary revolution of the May Fourth New Culture Movement
and his experience of cosmopolitanism of the post-WWI European literature left enduring
imprints on his literary and creative minds. In 1919 Li joined the Young China Study Society
(Shaonian Zhongguo xuehui) and participated in a work-study program in France. No sooner
had the student movement of May Fourth in Beijing erupted than Li sailed for France where
he spent five years between 1919 and 1924 in Paris and Montpellier studying French literature,
making a living by writing and translating articles for periodicals in Shanghai and Chengdu.
Notably, Li’s sojourn in France converged with the expatriate experiences of some of the great
Western modernist writers – Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, John Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway,
E.E. Cummings, to name just a few – who found in Paris after the First World War the liter-
ary capital and a fermenting ground of world literary trends. But the Sichuan student differed
widely from the expatriate modernists. Li was preoccupied with “an altogether different world”1
in literary sensitivity, historical experience, and political mentality compared with his European
contemporaries. While in France, Li was much less attracted to the avant-garde writers than to
nineteenth-century French realist and naturalist authors. He devoted himself to reading and
translating the realist and regional fictions by Gustave Flaubert, Guy de Maupassant, Alphonse
Daudet, Edmond de Goncourt, Jules de Goncourt, and Marcel Prévost. Li found in those French
authors inspirations for realistic character portraits, particularly nuanced portrayals of human
desires and the female psyche under the patriarchy of Chinese society and Confucian moral
governance. The erotic tradition and a regional flavor of French fiction broadened the horizon
of the young Sichuanese student as seen from his translating Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (1856)
and Salammbô (1862) and Maupassant’s Notre Coeur (1890) and Une Vie (1883).The intercultural
experience permitted him to gaze critically back at his home place and later to transcribe more
global literary sensibilities in his historical trilogy.
It took a decade after his return to Chengdu that Li Jieren came to feel confident in under-
taking his river novel series, a monumental project to depict micro-historic fictional stories of
his hometown seen from an extended, longue durée perspective. The notion of the ‘river novel’

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(dahe xiaoshuo), a Chinese derivative of the French term roman fleuve, connotes an open-ended
sequence of massive social historical novels by Honoré de Balzac, Émile Zola, Alexandre Dumas,
Marcel Proust, and other French authors whom Li had read during his stay in France. In a 14
June 1935 letter, Li expressed his commitment to create a sprawling and interlinking form of
sequential novels “similar to the works of Balzac, Zola, or Dumas.”2 He had nurtured an ambi-
tion to compose multivolume and panoramic historical novels about Chengdu’s changes in
social life and institutions, as well as the evolution of people’s mentalities. He intended to com-
pose his fictional world as a total work that would bear witness to the writer’s lifetime.

Literary achievements
Although he is a versatile and prolific writer, the pinnacle of Li Jieren’s literary achievement is
undoubtedly his novelistic masterpiece Ripples on Dead Water (Sishui weilan), which inaugurates
his monumental fiction series on the 1911 Republican Revolution in Sichuan. Focusing as it
is on Chengdu’s regional culture and everydayness, Ripples on Dead Water announces the novel-
ist’s ambition to convey his place-based narratives on the violent transitions of the revolution
in Chengdu/Sichuan, his home city/province, written as local microhistory that can hardly be
assimilated into the national macrohistory in either the Republican or the Communist regimes.
The ideology of the times and the aesthetics of the novel never ceased to baffle the writer to
such a serious extent that the trilogy eventually turned out to be Li’s unfinished opus magnum,
repeatedly rewritten as he obsessively revisited and renegotiated the past to look into its abysmal
depths and harrowing uncertainty.
Ripples on Dead Water took the novelist no more than seven weeks to complete in 1935.
After the creation of this novel,3 however, the two subsequent installments of his trilogy would
be dragging on throughout his creative life with compulsive acts of rewriting: Before the Tempest
(Baofeng yuqian, 1936, 1956) and The Great Wave (Dabo, 4 vols., 1937, 1958–1963).The writer’s
wavering between conforming to the state’s revolutionary teleology and maintaining an inde-
pendent outlook and individuality in literary creativity persistently stood in the way between
the early success of his first major novel and the later works. It is as though Li had a premonition
of the future that barred him from comprehending the past to finish the sequential historical
fictions. The revolution became the black hole, a dark unknown vacuity with which the writer
struggled to come to terms but could never see beyond.
Considering how Li’s novel project was constantly rewritten in response to the chang-
ing political and aesthetic regimes, Ripples on Dead Water remained very much intact as a
complete work in itself, an indelible stamp on the novelist’s totalizing river novel series.
In 1935 Li secluded himself in a rented studio in Chengdu and finished the novel in one
go. The outcome was a tightly woven vernacular narrative inscribing the mnemonic, geo-
historical, and sociocultural texture of a place and the mundane lives of its inhabitants. It
marked a crucial moment when the regional Sichuan author completely threw himself into
the politics of memory writing and the poetics of place-making – as creative fiction-making
modes with which he would engage himself in the rest of his life, in an individual endeavor
to compete with the ruling regimes in retelling the stories and the peripheral spirits of his
beloved place.
A question that puzzles any reader of Li Jieren’s Ripples on Dead Water (Sishui weilan) is: Why
do some of the outstanding characters created in his first novel never reappear in the later works
as promised by the author’s lifelong historical fiction writing project? After going through the
tightly threaded novel with a wealthy account of compelling human affairs and memorable
characters, readers are left somewhat frustrated to see that Skewmouth Luo (Luo waizui), the

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Gowned Brother (paoge) leader, has fled the town at the end of the story without ever showing
up in the trilogy to reclaim his historical role. Deng Yaogu (Baby Deng), the ambitious heroine
who goes to the lengths of remarrying a Christian convert and landlord to make ends meet, loses
much of her moral defiance and sexual allure in her comeback when the author rewrote the
trilogy. Her son Jin Waizi, supposed to become a major player in the revolution, simply vanishes
and so fails the reader’s anticipation of his rise to political significance. These puzzling points
warrant an in-depth analysis of the masterpiece.

The masterpiece
Ripples on Dead Water is composed of five chapters preceded by a prelude. The opening chapter
(“In Heaven’s Turn”) maps out the sociocultural space between Chengdu and Tianhui (Heaven’s
Turn), a rural town on its outskirts.4 The charming heroine, Deng Yaogu, stifled by boredom
and poverty of small-town life, longs to move to the provincial capital Chengdu but ends up
marrying Cai Xingshun, a simple-minded grocer in Tianhui. Deng (called Sister Cai after her
marriage) has an affair with her cousin-in-law Skewmouth Luo (Cambuel Luo), the head of a
secret society who captivates her as an adventurous hero and a passionate lover.Their illicit affair
is picked up and develops in Chapter 3 (“The Story of Xingshun House”), in which Deng and
Skewmouth feel no need to hide their amour. They even involve the cuckolded husband in
their sexual relationships and the three small-town folks stay peacefully in a ménage-a-trois.The
motif of moral degradation in the stagnant rural locale is augmented by the plot of gang crime,
sex, swindle, and revenge. Back in Chapter 2 (“Confluence”), Gu Tiancheng, a small landholder
who gets stranded in Tianhui on his way to Chengdu, falls into a double-crossing scheme of
Skewmouth’s gang and loses all his money at the gambling table. The private human affairs
in the rural underworld crisscross local historical events of the Boxer Rebellion in Chapter 4
(“Ripple on Stagnant Water”). In a bid for retaliation, Gu turns himself into a Christian convert
and immediately becomes a powerful figure among his countrymen in the wake of the Boxer
debacle. He succeeds in appealing to the Manchu provincial court and accuses Skewmouth and
his secret society members for looting the foreign embassies in the riots. Skewmouth flees the
town in the nick of time, but his lover Deng gets beaten up and arrested with her husband. The
private human affairs take on allegorical dimensions. The rivalry between Skewmouth and Gu
represent two major forces in the locality – secret societies versus the foreign missionaries and
their Chinese associates – as opposing camps driving history forward at the critical juncture.The
two mortal enemies soon become contending lovers, too, when Gu at the end falls under the
charm of Deng. The final chapter (“Residual Murmurs”) marks a most outrageous ending in
modern Chinese fiction, featuring the unruly woman making her opportunistic move and take
advantage of the tumultuous time. With a practical reasoning to move socially upward, Deng
dissolves her marriage from her imprisoned husband, and decides to marry Gu, who then has
been well established in social status after the Boxer Rebellion.

Senses of place and memory

A cursory reading of Ripples may easily make one take it as a banal novel populated by small-
town characters indulging in extramarital affairs, gang fights, wining, cheating, and whoring.
A close explication of the text is called for to unlock Li Jieren’s distinctive method of fictional-
izing history, which maintains parallel interactions between the intimate spheres of domestic
and public places and the public sphere of political intrigues and events. The novel foregrounds
everyday life as the arena in which contending social forces are played out, whereby human

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intrigues intermix with lovers’ romances, quotidian routines intersect with social actions, and
the private destinies of townspeople are inadvertently and remotely linked to local events. Li’s
scheme is to present a series of portrayals of rural town life through which to explore the social
transition of local societies. Importantly, the novelist invents a spatial-narrative scheme to
establish the locality as a metonym for the larger society and reflect its chaos and process of
disintegration. His realistic mode of writing ventures beyond the simplistic commitments to
objectivity and resemblance between word and object, and culminates in a uniquely subjec-
tive configuration of place and memory with its multifaceted, sensuous pasts, questioning any
event-centered historiographical account that claims discursive authority over the people’s own
experiences and senses of the place.
A sense of place and its inextricable embodiments in human memories and perceptions
provide the fundamental principles for deciphering the geo-historical meanings and humanistic
values in Ripples on Dead Water. Perhaps nowhere has the idea of place been more of a central
focus than in Li Jieren’s river novels. Few writers have ever marked out their native and narra-
tive territories as strongly and densely as Li. The sense of place evoked in his novel is based on
a mixing of real geographical sites and imaginary locations. Tianhui, the historically famed city
but a peripheral town in modern China, serves as the center to structure the novel and relate to
its historical spaces.5 Like a foreign traveler or a curious reader, one is guided by the dense nar-
ratives that flesh out rich geographical matrixes of the small-town space. For instance, in Chap-
ter 4, the narrator arranges the characters to attend the country fair at the Bronze Goat Palace,
a renowned local religious venue that gathers people from all walks of life in town. ‘Cognitive
mapping’ here cannot fairly be taken as a theoretical construct – it should induce pragmatic
and illuminating reading tactics for readers and students (who are instructed by their teachers
in the classroom) to navigate and ‘map out’ (advised to draw a map of) the entire geographical
world of Li’s novel. Not only are the geographically specific and public localities on a large scale
important in the novel, so too are many of the intimate, closed, or individual places depicted
as venues of meeting and confluence. Xingshun House is the exemplified semi-public place of
gathering, and so are the teahouses, temples, gambling dens, and streets where people meet or
clash, exchange information, spread rumors, make transactions, or undertake private schemes
and plots. Features of geography and places are depicted in the novel as immobile motors that
impact the characters and their actions.
To make the border town legible in the fictional text, the narrator adopts a method of
narrativizing at once topographically specific and spatially symbolic. Considering the beginning
paragraph that delineates the networked landscapes of Tianhui Town:

Setting off from the provincial capital, out the north gate of the city wall, the dis-
tance to the county of Xindu is generally put at forty li, though in fact it’s somewhat
less.The road describes a winding filament across the level tapestry of cultivated land,
and although it measures scarcely five feet across and has just two lines of setts, both
paving the right-hand side, and although the mud after rain lies so deep that without
new sandals you can scarcely move a step, and although in spring around grave-
weeping time this same mud turns to dust that billows from the heels of every pass-
ing traveler, nonetheless it’s what we call the Northern Sichuan Highway. It stretches
as far as Guangyuan County on the provincial frontier, then on into Shaanxi, through
Ningqiang Department and Hanzhong Prefecture and still farther on from there.
This is no less than the original post route for communication with the northern
capital. Moreover, since the western fork at Guangyuan passes out through the mar-
ket town of Bikou on the border of Gansu Province and through the Gansu regions

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of Jiezhou and Wenxian, this is the obligatory route for all shipments into or out of
the northwestern provinces.
(3)

In what way does the sense of place function in the novel? Li Jieren’s spatial-narrative lays
out the geographical continuities of Tianhui, a market town that lies “midway along our forty
li between Chengdu and Xindu” (4). The narrator not only underscores the in-betweenness
of Tianhui along the northern highway in Sichuan Basin, but also emphasizes the connections
and interlocking spatiography of the small town, situated on a highway leading northbound to
the imperial capital. “This is the road over which, at the time of our story, the better part of all
officials and scholars traveled back and forth to the imperial capital” (4). The opening passage
unfolds the novel’s complex literary topography, working simultaneously on a multiplicity of
vehicles and loci: passengers on carriages and mechanical carts, trains of mules and horses and
camels laden with goods, versus viceroys and commissioners commuting on four-men sedan
chairs between provincial posts and the imperial capital. Besides exploring the correlations of
locations, the narrator exploits the binary opposites of space. Communal activities (like grave-
weeping) and local farm work along the highway are contrasted with extravagant lodgings and
entertainments catering to the traveling bureaucrats and dignitaries. In addition, pre-modern
courier services and official dispatch horses have been replaced by the telegram in recent years.
Toward the end of the novel, speedy telegraphic dispatches carrying the imperial order to pun-
ish the church-sacking rioters change the fates of the heroine. In this sense, modern technology
and communication simultaneously shrink the time-space of the countryside and expand the
political sphere and extend its impact on the provincial town.
Li Jieren’s naturalistic manner to organize the topographical features and travels recalls Zola’s
famous novel, The Beast in Man (La bête humaine, 1890), which features the central roles of
the train and rail travel as a symbol of technological modernity and the danger of human deg-
radation. But Li focuses on the transitionality and mobility of the place from a microscopic
perspective; nonetheless, the provincial writer underscores the coexistence of the locality and
its connectivity, delineating the geographically bounded place that is going to be swept by the
historical currents and their resonances. In the genesis of novelistic space, Li creates an intimately
connected social world of Tianhui that is charged and responsive to the flows of time and his-
tory. Still, why has Li to set this first novel in the border town Tianhui but not in the provincial
capital Chengdu? Readers may remember Flaubert’s narratology in Madame Bovary, in which he
places a pretty and young heroine, Emma, in the countryside city of Rouen, and marries her to
a plodding and dull doctor Charles Bovary. Beyond this similarity of narrativization that puts an
imaginative woman against a scene of dull respectability, Li goes farther in dramatizing the pull
between Tianhui and Chengdu on both spatial and psychological dimensions: for Deng Yaogu,
the distance between Tianhui and Chengdu is as much a physical border as an imagined barrier
and a moral hurdle for her to overcome.
Deng’s experience of growing up in Tianhui recalls more her frustrated movement than the
freedom to move. Born a peasant’s daughter, Deng has nursed a desire to go to see Chengdu
through her mentor, Second Mistress Han, who talks about everything about the city, including
its streets, houses, temples, parks, delicious snacks, fresh vegetables, commodities, and the appear-
ances of its people. The heroine gradually reconstructs an overall picture of the city from Han’s
piecemeal descriptions in her ‘mental mapping’:

Piece by piece she assembled the entire metropolis as she received it from her teach-
er’s lips, and although she had never glimpsed so much as the crenellations of the

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parapets, to hear her talk you would have thought she knew a good deal more about the
city than even her older brother, whose business often took him there in person. She
knew the height and thickness of the city wall, and knew how to describe the crowds
of people pressing both directions through the portals in that wall, of which she knew
that there were four – north, south, east and west. She knew the distance was nine and
three-tenths li from the north gate to the south, and that the west part of the city had
a separate imperial garrison whose Manchu residents were very different to us Hans.
(13)

Notice the woman’s subjective imaging of Chengdu, the mental layout she draws before she
can physically step into the territory. For Deng, Chengdu is her desired paradise, an imagined
city of family wealth, imperial authority, military power, and individual opportunity. Here fic-
tional geography reaches the deep recesses of human desires and creates effects of psycho-geog-
raphy. Chengdu is presented to the heroine as teleological fragments and glimpses of her future
good life and glamor. The subjective images, however, gloss over the realistic class segregations
and complicated social relationships. The fictionalized spatial construct augments Deng’s ideali-
zation of the metropolis, growing and expanding as long as it remains a subjective projection.
Deng fancies that “at the New Year there was Chengdu of the New Year to elaborate, and at the
festivals there was Chengdu of the festivals” (13). Besides all the renowned festivities and estab-
lishments, she also admires “the awesome effect of the various officials and dignitaries emerging
into public” (14). Also notice how the imagined urban stories mirror and anticipate the charac-
ter’s later penetrations into the public spheres of Chengdu. In Chapter 4, Skewmouth Luo takes
Deng to Chengdu to celebrate the New Year festival. They venture into the East Main Street
(Dong dajie) for lantern viewing. It is on the bustling market street that Gu Tiancheng confronts
Skewmouth. The two gangs nearly get into a fight “when knife-play broke out in the midst of
the human press and nearly stained the thoroughfare with gore” (124); then official guards come
in timely and scare away the crowds. In Li Jieren’s fictional remembrance, East Main is a lively
nexus of comings and goings for townspeople and visitors from outside the city for exchanges of
commodities from Suzhou and Guangdong (121–122). The spatial narrative features Chengdu’s
night market as a livable social space as well as a vibrant locale for street brawls.The marketplace
functions as a public venue for the socially marginal characters to stumble into the provincial
capital patrolled by powerful yamen officials and military guards.
It is through arranging the movements of people – their departures and arrivals, excursions
and transgressions – that Li Jieren conveys the historical experiences of the city as his characters
move between their separated little worlds within the nexus of Tianhui and Chengdu. Tianhui
Town functions as a transitional space, a stopover, where people who are originally separated
by spatial and social distance come together and interact. The small town becomes an untamed
territory of sex, violence, and crime. Stuck in her frustrated stasis in Xingshun House in Tianhui,
the heroine is able to cross the city border to Chengdu exactly after she engages an affair with
Skewmouth. Her physical border-crossing is coupled with her move from one moral milieu
to another. In Skewmouth’s company, Deng makes her first visit to the Bronze Goat Palace
(Qingyang gong), a historic Taoist temple and famous landmark at the southwestern corner of
Chengdu, where she brushes past the fine lady of the elite Hao family (whose members reap-
pear as the major upper-class protagonists in Before the Tempest). The chance encounter satiates
Deng’s long-cherished wish to see “how particular the important families were” (15). Chengdu
is turned into an adventurous place of chance, risk, and attractiveness. Characters of divergent
social types associated with separated social communities trespass each other’s boundaries in
public venues. This spatial reconfiguration makes it possible for the individuals of segregated

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classes and opposing forces to interpenetrate the life spheres of one another in Li’s method of
remapping social totality on the eve of the revolution.
How to make the divided worlds interact and counteract in the novel’s social mapping, as
signs of new social relationships and historical change? Consider Gu Tiancheng’s revenge nar-
rative and his spatial trajectory. He passes through Tianhui where he is cheated and maltreated
by Skewmouth. He confronts his foe in Chengdu, and as soon as he puts up a good fight with
him in the public market, he loses his little daughter on East Main. Where does the girl end
up? She is seized by a child trafficker and taken to a makeshift dwelling in Lower Lotus Pond, a
lower-class habitat crammed with “the sorts of people that would build and live in such huts on
public wasteland of the provincial capital” (150–151). The abductor soon sells her as a servant
to the Hao Mansion, a high official family on Shuwa Street. By virtue of an illegal trafficking of
the child, the two contradictory spaces of high and low – the gentry and the lower class – are
interlinked together with their fates. What happens to Gu and how does he face his tragic loss?
He goes to beg consolation from the pastor of the Christian church at Four Sages Temple Street
(Sishengci jie). The Canadian Methodist mission, situated in a well-to-do northern Chengdu
district, represents the intrusion of foreign powers. There Gu undergoes his Christian conver-
sion, and realizes his revenge plan by taking advantage of the foreigner’s increasing encroach-
ments on the provincial land. In June 1900 Gu hears about the Boxer uprising in Beijing. For
fear that all foreigners and Christian converts are prone to the attacks of local rioters, Gu rushes
to seek refuge near the Manchu neighborhoods, a separated inner city in the southwestern
Chengdu. He is emotionally captivated by the vast gracious green space and picturesque charm
in the walled city:

And indeed, what he found on the other side of that single gated wall was like a
separate world. In the outer city it was all buildings, it was all storefronts and paving
stones and streets full of dark-eyed people and nowhere so much as a blade of grass. But
you stepped into the garrison and everywhere you looked was trees – some trees that
scraped the sky and others that grew so dense you couldn’t see beyond them. Front and
back and left and right, everything was greenery.
(207)

What the character perceives inside the walled city is a sort of ‘suburban’ beauty and seren-
ity of vast greenery and winding lanes. In Gu’s eyes, “the Manchu garrison was a world apart, a
world of superlative leisure untouched by vulgarity, with every corner rich in poetry and every
prospect like a painting” (207). Occupied by Manchu soldiers and military officers, this Manchu
quarter of narrow alleys and low structures was left underdeveloped and dilapidated toward the
fall of the imperial dynasty in 1911. Writing his novel in the 1930s, Li Jieren could have been
reminiscing about these deserted lanes, evoking the sense of what Yi-fu Tuan calls ‘topophilia,’
effusing a profound attachment to and love for the place.6 Li’s sense of place-making, however,
has more political-historical substance than the pleasure and affective bond that the word topo-
philia suggests: Li’s place-narrative incarnates the experiences and aspirations of a people with
a history and meaning. Once Gu experiences an immediate rise in social position and political
power in the trilogy (he soon becomes a key figure of the oppositional force in The Great Wave),
readers then recognize that the anti-hero’s trespassing upon the Manchu area anticipates his
future contention for political authority and foresees new sociopolitical relations. In short, the
risky city adventures and dangerous liaisons of Deng and Gu are set to turn into the historical
dynamics of mobility and revolution.

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Sounds of fury: noises, gossips, and rumors

It is through human perceptions and feelings that the writer explores the visible and the aural
dimensions of daily lives, which is crucial to our understanding of identity formation and place-
making. He experiments with the geopoetics of vision and sound that is central to the memory
of past experiences. He tells multisensual stories to see and hear past communities so as to delve
into the complexity of historical events and human experiences from the ground up. As in the
following evocation of a marketplace, the narrator invites the reader to listen to a confused mul-
titude of sounds and noises – to reimagine the past – even at the expense of dramatic actions:

This is a flow of goods, a flood of money, a torment of mankind, and at the same
time a rolling swell of sound. The sound is entirely human, and although the fowl
squawk and the livestock bray, they do so in vain, because nothing can reach your ears
above the voices of humanity.Voices crying the virtues of their wares and voices dick-
ering over prices and hollering to clear the road and shouting in conversation and in
joking and in making fun. As for disputes erupting over matters of no consequences,
those come with the territory; the two sides raise the volume of their slurs until they
can’t go any higher, while those trying to mediate can’t but raise their pacifications
still higher than the fighting pair. It’s nothing but voices and more voices everywhere
you turn, and you can scarcely differentiate the advertisements from the slurs, for your
ears are filled with an unbroken thrum like an expance of mercury. Anyone unused
to it who comes suddenly into its midst is liable to have his eardrums shocked into an
hour or so of deafness.
(50–51)

The third-person, descriptive storytelling enacted through an omniscient, self-effacing narra-

tor conveys an intimate voice like that of an insider tour guide. This narrator takes us to observe
the sights and sounds down the market street where goods and money are circulated on local
and translocal levels. Auditory sensations as indistinct vocal discussions and slurs, so richly and
yet vaguely located, convey a strong sense of rural market activities with an affectionate attach-
ment to the place. The matter-of-fact narration renders the synesthetic experiences of human
voices, animal sounds, and rural vistas particularly well, as they evoke the spatial impressions of
materiality and commodity culture in the daily lives of the various connected localities. “There
are all kinds and colors of braid plaits, and there are embroidered panels for cuffs and skirts and
the like,” for instance; and “there are Suzhou goods and Guangdong goods and cloth for dress-
making and imitation pearls” (50). In the memory narrative, the narrator renders the countryside
an incoherent jumble of human speeches and oral expressions in a rural village loaded with so
many material referents.
The historical picture evoked points to a slowly changing social and material conditions of
the place, and the sense of gradual transformation in the sphere of everydayness demonstrates Li
Jieren’s politics of memory writing, a new way of looking at the past that is less event-centered
than is place-oriented, based on detailed knowledge of the people’s habits and mentalities. Li’s
idea of playing down the centrality of historical events in favor of the bland rhythm of social and
everyday lives in long stretches of time is reminiscent of Fernand Braudel, the French historian
and leader of the Annales School who uses the term the longue durée to designate the slow and
imperceptible time of geography and social structures in human history. Braudel departed from
a traditional event-based historiography and sought to understand deeper structures and lengthy

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rhythms of material and social life in a long-term perspective.7 Li seems to have shared a similar
understanding of history in his art of fiction. Beneath the rapid flux of political events lie the
slowly altering geographical and social conditions subsuming economic transfer, communica-
tion, transportation, and the movement of people and ideas, whose cumulative effects nonethe-
less shape the progress of society and history. In Li’s novelistic representation, the historical world
is created out of human perceptions, or out of their perception of events. His stories convinc-
ingly ask us to recognize that the whole of history is largely a construct of human impressions,
emotions, attitudes, and memories, which nonetheless take on profound historical meanings.
Indeed, the realistic novel itself abounds in gossips and rumors that haunt the memories and
anxieties of the rural subjects. It is the conspiracy talk, derived from miscellaneous and unreliable
sources, all happening behind the curtain, that motivate the small-town figures to be actors or
victims of historical events of far-reaching consequence. Notice the key moment of the roman-
tic encounter between Deng and Skewmouth, when the man explains to the woman why local
people have launched violent attacks on foreigners and Christian converts. The narrator has
Skewmouth read to the heroine a long anti-Christian pamphlet about the widespread rumor
and people’s accusation against the Christian priests for killing children and pregnant women:

Secondly, there are reports from former converts and from patients who have taken
treatment from the foreign devils8 that the medicines they use are decocted principally
from certain parts of children’s bodies. There are men who have witnessed laboratories
filled with human ears and eyes and hearts and kidneys and the five organs and six sacks
of the body, all stored in glass and steeped in medicine to be taken out when needed
and reduced to ointment over the mysterious fires. There are whole foetuses as well,
some of several months and others fully formed, all gouged alive from their mothers’
wombs. These crimes – no less egregious than those of the White Lotus Sect – explain
the miseries of pregnant women and the disappearances of children remarked in recent
years. To speak only of the children, have people not witnessed the foreign devils’
fanatic zeal in rushing to scavenge any illegitimate brat they hear has been discarded,
whether dead or alive or on the road or in a privy? . . .We see the children going in, we
never see them coming out, and the walls are high and the compounds deep, and we
get no view within. But if they aren’t refined into medicine, where are they being kept?
(32–33)

Skewmouth’s malicious stories, invested with gross distortions and blatant exaggerations of
the cruelties of priests inflicted on local children and women, are meant to incite xenophobic
hatred among the country folks. Paul Cohen notes that these gruesome antiforeign tales, widely
circulated in rural China during in the late nineteenth century, were symptomatic of the popu-
lace’s panic about the foreigners’ intrusion in their land.9 Li Jieren emphasizes the private worlds
of his protagonists, that is, their consumption of historical rumors at the height of their xeno-
phobia emotions. Notice how Li reproduces the inflammatory anti-Christian texts by having
the heroine ‘listen to’ her lover’s discourse, and be intrigued by the multiple ways of ‘witnessing’
the atrocities committed by the foreigners. Gossips and rumors are human sounds and speeches,
though undocumented and unreported, that can snowball and grow to drive history forward. Li
achieves his strategy of writing the emotive matrix of the place by placing the reader as directly
as possible in the world of his protagonists to listen to the past and sense the sound of violence.
Li Jieren also displays a deep distrust of comprehensible human action in response to histori-
cal happenings. There is a deep irony between what the hero and heroine would intend to react
and what the deed they are unconsciously committed to. After listening to Skewmouth read the

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“two pages of print” to amplify the foreigners’ power, Deng doubts, “I just don’t see how come
we’re so afraid of the foreign devils” (35). She praises Skewmouth as a “worldly man” who has
“spent years on the waterways traveling and seeing thing,” and believes he should lead his people
to mount resistance. The man’s vociferous charges of the Christians for their atrocious practices
and sexual perversions only prove to be gross misrepresentations and falsehoods. Ironically, it
is exactly after their prolonged conversation on the recent events that the couple begins their
mutual admiration and flirtatious exchange. In other words, the historical ‘moment’ becomes the
tipping point for their illicit romance, triggering their libidinous desire and licentious behav-
ior. The man finds increasing sophistication of the heroine: “What did surprise him today was
the spirit in that pair of eyes, which even ordinarily seemed marvelous” (35). Skewmouth has
learned his lesson and would not again underestimate the woman. For Deng is no Emma in
Madame Bovary; Emma is an addict and victim of her romantic fantasy. Deng is entrepreneurial
in spirit, always looking for a chance for social climbing by seeking the right and powerful man.
As history sets in to catch the characters unawares, they seem to be small actors on the political
stage and are in most ways limited in their ability to control events. The author, however, inter-
laces the local agencies of individual protagonists and their ideas and behaviors into his historical
place-writing. The Boxers’ violence in mid-1900 triumphed only briefly until foreign troops
entered Beijing in the summer of 1900. As the narrator mockingly remarks, though the news
about the attack on foreign embassies in Beijing “did raise a slight ripple such as a clear breeze
raises on a pool” in the ancient city of Chengdu, “the hearts of the people in their various niches
remained, like stagnant water deep beneath the surface, without the slightest agitation.” That is
to say, “there was no movement great enough to penetrate the depths” (201).True, the characters
mostly are at the mercy of the much more powerful historical currents that bear influence on
their fates; but there is, nonetheless, “a certain amount of movement at the surface” enough to
“stir a certain person back into the mix” (201). This person is Lu Maolin (Shaggy Forest Lu), a
minor sidekick, who confronts us with his micro-story of revenge. He ultimately takes advan-
tage of the event and changes the course of the big story. Like Gu Tiancheng, Lu has harbored
vengeful feelings for Skemouth for losing his beloved women to him. Lu’s successful revenge
is built on rumor and his wager on imbalanced information. Shortly after the Boxers sack the
foreign embassies in Beijing, Skewmouth and his gang plan to follow and kill the missionaries
in Sichuan. Lu has a chance encounter with Gu in a teahouse – as in Li Jieren’s historical world,
random and insignificant human affairs often turn out to be crucial ones – where he encourages
Gu to alarm his foreign guardians and yamen officials about the imminent attack from the secret
society gang. The two former losers win their best bet this time when the foreign troops strike
back in Beijing. The Sichuan government receives an imperial decree to protect foreigners in
the city. The officials order to arrest Skewmouth, the ringleader of rioters, who escapes from the
town for good.The series of local events suggests that time is the deceiver as well as the surpriser,
as one fierce rival takes the principle turn of the Boxer fiasco to drive out another.
In Li Jieren’s scheme, the grand political history has to be trivialized, personalized, and eroti-
cized as long as it filters down to the fabrics of daily lives and the intimate human webs. This
schism between the private and the collective poses the fundamental question of how to inter-
pret the historicity of the place that the writer is probing.The ultimate cause for the rise of Deng
and the downfall of Skewmouth has more to do with their individual desire, bias, blindness, love,
and hatred than with their ideological and class backgrounds. It is in the midst of the Boxer
event that Deng and Skewmouth have become madly engrossed in love with each other when
they openly defy all social rules and moral standards. Skewmouth is idealized in the woman’s
eyes: “no man in the world could match his valiance or chivalry or attentive understanding, and
the scope of his abilities was still further beyond compare” (216). For Skewmouth, the woman

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is so adorable and captivating that it has left him “neither freedom nor desire to act on anything
other than the dictates of her whim” (216). No doubt the bandit hero is obsessed with the
woman. The woman thinks that the man would sacrifice himself to defend her life and honor
under any circumstances. But they are all wrong. The characters are subject to their naturalistic
instincts for carnal pleasure, beauty, wealth, and riches. Skewmouth ruthlessly leaves his beloved
woman in the hands of his enemies. The heroine settles for a divorce and remarriage proposal
with Gu Tiancheng in her instinctual ability to survive. Li demystifies the romantic tenor of the
couple and the ideological caricature of the otherwise revolutionary characters, creating a vision
that limits the agency of individual actors, or even diminish the hero to the level of a ‘human
beast.’Whereas readers are inclined to see the man imprisoned within a destiny on which he can
barely lay his hands, the author portrays an exceptional woman in modern Chinese fiction who
does not subscribe to traditional morality and family, but can promptly pursue her sentimental
and sexual relationships and achieve a rise in social status.
The entangled micro-narratives of desire and revenge of the situated characters in Chengdu
weave kaleidoscopic stories of a people in their relationships to the environment in its richly
topographical, sociocultural, and historical textures. Li Jieren’s compelling stories of Chengdu
and the lively mentalities of its urban commoners will be of much relevance to literary critics,
cultural historians, and urban geographers interested in the city as the intersection of place, his-
tory, memory, community, and identity. ‘The past is a foreign country.’ David Lowenthal quotes
L.P. Hartley’s opening proverbial phrase from The Go-Between (1953), meaning that there is a
plethora of pasts constantly being redefined and remade to suit present intentions.10 If you walk
through Chengdu today, you would gain a visual impression of the pace of the contemporary
city’s urbanization amidst the composite images of demolition, reconstruction, preservation,
tradition, culture, entertainment, and commodification. The literary city located in the fiction
arouses an estranged feeling of déjà vu in the mind of the readers engaging in their pleasur-
able strolls and way-findings in the city. They can ruminate on the contrasts between the verbal
reconstructions of historical Chengdu and the modern facelifts undergone in contemporary
Chengdu. What makes Li Jieren’s fictional panorama still memorable today has less to do with
the grand narrative of revolutionary utopianism than with the text being read as a powerful ver-
bal heritage, a form of public memory of the vanished historical city with its topography, mate-
rial culture, social fabric, and everyday practices. The trenchant sense of place and topophilia
conveyed in the dense literary text lead to a deeper understanding of the peripheral city and the
local people’s desires, anxieties, fears, disputes, and historical tribulations against the omnipresent
threats of sovereign nationhood and global capitalism. Perhaps readers can go further and take
the challenge to read Li’s whole trilogy and the rewrites too, to sense how the writer could
maintain a sense of contingency and openness against the teleological view of history imposed
after 1949, preserving his works as they are a public testimony to the local pasts. However, life is
too short and the novels are too long – what are the ethical imperatives to retrieve lost cultural
lives and save forgotten pasts from national history in the postmodern age? So goes the last line
of the novel, “The times have changed!” Certainly, Ripples on Dead Water can be appreciated as
a complete singular work in itself, which continues to inspire us about the politics of writing
home and the meaning of belonging to a place.

Notes
1 Bret Sparling, “Translator’s Introduction,” in Li Jieren, ed., Ripple on Stagnant Water (Honolulu: Univer-
sity of Hawai‘i Press, 2013), x.
2 Li Jieren Studies (Li Jieren yanjiu), ed. Society for the Study of Li Jieren (Li Jieren yanjiu xuehui)
(Chengdu: Sichuan daxue chubanshe, 1996), 202.

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3 The Chinese original, Sishui weilan, was first published by the Chung Hwa Book Company (Zhonghua
shuju) in Shanghai in 1936. The novel underwent only minor revisions when it was republished in
1955 by the Writers Publishing House (Zuojia chubanshe) in Beijing. The first English translation of
the novel based on the 1955 revision was published in the Panda Books series as Ripples Across Stagnant
Water (Beijing: Chinese Literature Press, 1990). A more recent translation is completed by Bret Sparling
and Yin Chi, Ripple on Stagnant Water: A Novel of Sichuan in the Age of Treaty Ports (Portland, ME: Merwin
Asia, 2014).
4 Li Jieren, Ripple on Stagnant Water, trans. Bret Sparling and Yin Chi. All references of page numbers are
cited from this English translation.
5 ‘Tianhui’ means the ‘return of the Son of Heaven’ – a historic locale made famous as the place to which
the Tang Emperor fled in the mid-eighth century to escape An Lushan’s revolt and from which he
eventually made his ‘imperial return.’
6 Yi-fu Tuan, Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes, and Values (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1990), xii.
7 Fernand Braudel, “History and the Social Sciences: The Longue Durée,” (1958) trans. Sarah Matthews,
in Jacques Revel and Lynn Hunt, eds., Histories: French Constructions of the Past (New York: The New
Press, 1995), 115–145.
8 The term “maritime devils” is used in the translation for yang guizi to refer to ‘foreigners.’ I prefer to use
‘foreign devils’ as commonly adopted.
9 Paul A. Cohen, China and Christianity:The Missionary Movement and the Growth of Chinese Anti-Foreignism,
1860–1870 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), 45–58.
10 David Lowenthal, The Past Is a Foreign Country (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985), xvii.

Further readings
Alter, Robert. Imagined Cities: Urban Experience and the Language of the Novel. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2005.
Choy, Howard Y. F. Remapping the Past: Fictions of History in Deng’s China, 1979–1997. Leiden: Brill, 2008.
Cohen, Paul. History in Three Keys:The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth. New York: Columbia Univer-
sity Press, 1997.
Cresswell, Tim. Place: A Short Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005.
Li, Jieren. Comprehensive Works of Li Jieren (Li Jieren quanji). 17 vols. Chengdu: Sichuan wenyi chubanshe,
2011.
Lin, Qingxin. Brushing History against the Grain: Reading the Chinese New Historical Fiction (1986–1999).
Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2005.
Moretti, Franco. Atlas of the European Novel 1800–1900. London:Verso, 1999.
Ng, Kenny Kwok-kwan. The Lost Geopoetic Horizon of Li Jieren:The Crisis of Writing Chengdu in Revolutionary
China. Leiden: Brill, 2015.
Stapleton, Kristin. Fact in Fiction: 1920s China and Ba Jin’s Family. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016.
Stuckey, G. Andrew. Old Stories Retold: Narrative and Vanishing Pasts in Modern China. Lanham: Lexington
Books, 2010.

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 6
FICTION OF LEFT-WING
WRITERS
Between ideological commitment and
aesthetic dedication

Nicoletta Pesaro

Left-wing writers: an overview

Chinese left-wing literature emerged in the late 1920s when the literary theories and associa-
tions that had flourished during the first decades of the 20th century received a political boost
following the founding of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921 and the radicalization of the
historical context. Both realism and romanticism – the main literary trends that had contributed
to the birth of the New Literature – were a fertile platform for the development of a socially
engaged view of literature. Inspired by this view of literature, a group of talented left-wing writ-
ers appeared on the literary scene, among whom the prominent ones include Jiang Guangci,
Rou Shi,Ye Zi, Zhang Tianyi, Sha Ting, Xiao Hong, and Xiao Jun.
These authors felt a strong urge to expose China’s deplorable socio-political conditions and
people’s general state of poverty, inequality, and oppression. To a certain extent, they also shared
the need to elicit a reaction from their readers. Despite their different philosophical and artistic
approaches to the literary representation of the social crisis as well as of the individual conun-
drum, each of them may be considered a leftist writer, aiming to emancipate and modernize
the Chinese people. Inspired and encouraged by their mentor – the authoritative and influential
writer Lu Xun (1881–1936), they all joined the League of Left-Wing Writers, which was estab-
lished in Shanghai in March 1930 by Lu Xun and six other founding members1 who shared his
enlightened consciousness.
These writers may be further divided into three distinct groups. The first group includes
Jiang Guangci, Rou Shi, and Ye Zi, who were motivated by their early commitment to a roman-
tic, almost utopian vision of reality and literature. Although soon convinced of the need for a
revolutionary breakthrough, the tone and style of their fiction are imbued with a deep subjec-
tivity, a tragic sense of life, and an idealistic impetus, which marked their short literary career.
They also shared a sad personal fate, destined as they were to a premature and wretched death.
The second group includes Zhang Tianyi, Sha Ting, and Xiao Jun, whose style and approach
tend to be based on a more matter-of-fact view of life and on the use of a variety of realistic
techniques to describe and to interpret reality. An altogether different case is that of the female
author Xiao Hong, whose literary style and attitude towards reality are impossible to label under
a well-defined category such as romanticism or realism. Among these writers, Xiao Hong’s

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psychological and lyric realism, Xiao Jun’s and Sha Ting’s detached and objective observation,
and Zhang Tianyi’s satirical exposure of Chinese society stand out conspicuously.
In terms of narratology, we may observe these distinctive features: (1) a highly subjective
narrative mode, based on both a first- or third-person narrator strategy, where (even in the lat-
ter case, despite its extra-diegetic position) the narrator shares the same values and feelings as
some of the characters, while rejecting those of others’ (this being the case with Rou Shi,Ye Zi,
and Jiang Guangci); (2) a strictly objective third-person narration based on a cold and detached
gaze/voice, seemingly without expressing a personal standpoint (Xiao Jun, Sha Ting); (3) the
subtle, sometimes cruel humor of a critical observer on social mores, marked by a mild subjec-
tivity, in Zhang Tianyi’s case; (4) the emotionally dense rendition of the self-denouncing horrors
of reality, as provided by Xiao Hong, in whose works the subject is powerfully expressed in its
objective conditions, a style reminiscent of Hu Feng’s concept of subjective realism.2
Their regional difference, another distinct feature observable among them, shapes the con-
tent and form of their works to a certain extent. While Jiang Guangci, Rou Shi, Ye Zi, and
Zhang Tianyi’s works deal with the social degradation and the burden of an obsolete tradition
in both the countryside and cities of central and southeastern China, Xiao Jun and Xiao Hong’s
fiction represents the northeast, which was invaded by the Japanese army early on, and is thus
permeated with tragic scenes and grave consequences of war. By contrast, Sha Ting depicts
Sichuan’s rural communities and their distinctive cultural and social features. For this reason, he
is also included among the Native Soil Fiction (xiangtu xiaoshuo) writers.
From a historical point of view, due to their premature deaths, Jiang Guangci, Rou Shi, and
Ye Zi’s fiction reflects the earlier phase of Chinese revolutionary or proletarian literature (puluo
wenxue) in the late 1920s and early 1930s, caught up in the clash between romantic ideas of a
better society, a sense of ill-contained indignation for social injustice, and a still overpowering
subjectivity. This attitude of moral wrath and growing social awareness – not exempt from a
certain degree of ingenuity – are peculiar to their most representative works: The Youthful Tramp
(Shaonian piaobozhe, 1926) by Jiang Guangci, “A Slave Mother” (Wei nuli de muqin, 1930)
by Rou Shi, and “Harvest” (Fengshou, 1933) by Ye Zi. These texts voice the same indignation
against upper-class exploitation of peasants through three different characters: respectively, a
youngster compelled to lead the life of a vagrant after his parents are hounded to death by the
landowner; a mother “lent” by her husband to a rich couple as a “son-producer”; and a middle-
aged peasant whose family and crops are eventually devastated by flood, drought, and finally by
the greedy despots of the village.
Zhang Tianyi was a truly prolific author already in the late 1920s, but like Xiao Hong, Xiao
Jun, and Sha Ting, his best works were published in a later phase, within a more defined politi-
cal and historical context of military conflict and heavier politicization of literature. The early
instinctive but generic rebellion of proletarian fiction against injustice – animated by a sincere
adherence to a Marxist world view – is replaced in these later works by a more cognizant and
concrete reading of reality, where China’s semi-colonial and brutalized condition is fully dis-
played and analyzed, showing a deeper awareness of the need to fight and overthrow the oppres-
sive establishment.
Among these left-wing voices, Xiao Hong stands out as the most refined and original one: her
masterpiece The Field of Life and Death (Shengsi chang, 1935) is an epic of sorrow and violence,
which places northeastern peasants – especially women – at the center of narration. Removing
all authorial filters, she gives back the immediacy and naked essence of human existence in rural
areas ravaged by poverty and invasion. War’s heavy moral and physical burden on poor peasant-
soldiers and their heroic sacrifice are depicted in Xiao Jun’s novel Countryside in August (Bayue
de xiangcun, 1935) as well as in Zhang Tianyi’s “Twenty-one Men” (Ershiyi ge ren, 1931). In

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the former work, Manchurian landscapes and customs emerge from behind the vivid narra-
tion of individual and collective everyday struggle in wartime China; in the latter, Zhang targets
with scathing frankness the senseless violence of war and its gruesome life-death struggle. Zhang
Tianyi’s most typical fiction, though, focuses more on petty government officials, and the narrow-
mindedness and hypocrisy of the upper and middle classes, and finds its ideal form in the short
story. With a similar satirical approach, Sha Ting represents his homeland’s “small-town” culture.

The romantic rebellion: an ethic of suffering and sacrifice

Despite his admiration for the heroic commitment of young martyrs, on many occasions Lu
Xun warns his readers of the dangers implied by the self-sacrificing attitude of Chinese intellec-
tuals. “I am mostly against the sacrifice of others. . . ”,3 he writes in a famous letter to his wife Xu
Guangpin, but the human intimacy and gratefulness for the sacrifice of a lost friend expressed in
his essay devoted to Rou Shi’s tragic death4 were later transformed in a eulogy of political sacri-
fice.5 As Qian Liqun points out, Lu Xun himself, in a riddle of contradictions, finally developed
an intrinsic logic of sacrifice of the individual for the community.6
The young generation of left-wing writers shares a romantic passion for life and a tragic
attraction for death, the border between love-passion and revolutionary passion being somehow
blurred in their works. There is a nihilist impulse towards the heroic “gesture” that dominates
their ideal, but their literary endeavor reveals a genuine compassion for peasants and workers,
which nonetheless merges with a more traditional, dreadful sense of fate. Their pessimist vision
thus contrasts with a more wishful trust in people’s possibility to revolt, oscillating between two
needs: to express individual sensitivity and to foster collective awareness. While the former need
is represented by full details that blend with the romantic love aspirations of youth, the latter
tends towards abstraction and is often reduced to a rather generic and naïve form of ideologiza-
tion. Another feature of these early left-wing writers is a strong autobiographical flavor, which
they share with earlier and less politicized May Fourth writers.
Jiang Guangci (1901–1930), born in Anhui province within a family of merchants, is one
of the major exponents of early “proletarian literature,” being one of the first youth sent to the
URSS to attend the Chinese class of the Oriental Communist University (also known as Far
East University or Stalin School). After returning to China he became an active member of
the Chinese Communist Party and enjoyed rapid and sweeping popularity as a revolutionary
writer. His famous essay “Modern Chinese Society and Revolutionary Literature,”7 together
with Guo Moruo’s articles of the same period, was instrumental in launching the new phase of
May Fourth literature. Extremely popular in the late 1920s as the founder of the “revolution-
ary novel,” Jiang’s romantic figure inspired many youths. Unfortunately, he died of tuberculosis
in 1931, a disease which was fully reflected in Jiang’s relationship with his wife Song Ruoyu,
marked by a mixture of “love and sickness.”8
His debut novel, TheYouthful Tramp, represents the transition from the socially undistinguished
“revenge pattern,” typical of the traditional Chinese martial arts (wuxia) novel, to an incipient
awareness of class struggle and the need to channel personal wrath into a more rational political
activism. Nevertheless, the tone of the story is extremely melodramatic and, ultimately, Jiang
fails to transcend either the traditional cliché of individual revenge or the formulaic repetition
of the talented scholar and beauty (caizijiaren) pattern of unhappy love: for the protagonist’s infatu-
ation for the young daughter of a shopkeeper he is working for is harshly opposed by the father
and ends with the mournful death of the girl. Although the hero finally helps the nationalistic
student movement, joins workers in a factory, and eventually dies in battle during the Northern
Expedition, his death does not carry a clear revolutionary or ideological meaning.9

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 Fiction of left-wing writers

The story takes the form of long letter written by the protagonist to his mentor, the progres-
sive writer Jia Wei. In the opening, the protagonist Wang Zhong provides a definition of the
revolutionary writer: he should be characterized by “ardent feelings, rebellious spirit, innova-
tive thought, and unconventionality.”10 This reminds one more of the Romantic Byronic hero
than the communist activist of the Maoist literature in the later periods. The Youthful Tramp is a
short Bildungsroman, in which the young protagonist goes through several hardships and trials
(the violent death of his parents, sexual harassment by a travelling scholar, begging and stealing
out of hunger, humiliation by his ruthless employers), until he learns the importance of fighting
and sacrificing himself for his new political ideals. Along with the growing resentment due to
his experiences of poverty and of exploitation at the hands of different people belonging to the
upper class (the landlord, the scholar, and finally the shopkeeper in W. city),Wang Zhong gradu-
ally acquires a deeper social and patriotic awareness. However, his Bildung is not fully completed,
for what prevails, in the end, is still his “wandering spirit” which prevents him from taking a con-
crete political stand, his rebellion being confined to the romantic aura of an individual beau geste.
As in other fiction of the May Fourth period, this work displays an apparent metafictional inten-
tion: despite his sincere social compassion (tongqing) for peasants and workers and his personal
commitment, Wang Zhong’s growing political zeal seems to go in the direction not so much of
concrete social action as of its representation, his sacrifice only becoming meaningful when Jia
Wei mentions it at the end of the novel, conferring on him the mark of literary memorability.
A similar ethic of love and sacrifice is the Leitmotiv of the short story “On Yelu River” (Yelujiang
shang, 1926), in which the heroic death of a Korean girl at the hands of the Japanese is related
by her young fiancé who flew to China and then Russia after the Japanese invasion of North
Korea, and his nationalistic and anti-Japanese sentiments are fundamentally inseparable from his
mournful passion for the woman.
The Bildung of young revolutionaries is also the theme of the short story “Two Brothers’
Night Talk” (Xiongdi yehua, 1926), which presents two brothers’ reunion in Shanghai and the
elder brother’s conversion to communist ideals after an ardent conversation with the younger
one. All works by Jiang keep a romantic and subjective approach alive: love entanglement is often
a constitutive part of his plots, as if the young hero could not completely separate his political
consciousness from a biological, emotional drive, although the final aim of this entanglement is
naturally seen as a passage “from the domain of eros to that of polis”.11
Another socially engaged writer with a romantic sensibility was Ye Zi (1912–1939). Born in
Henan province, he was the son of a small merchant who eventually took administrative charge
of the local yamen. The whole family later became deeply involved in the revolution, as one
of its members was among the founders of the local Communist Party. Ye Zi himself took an
active role and joined the left-wing movement in the countryside. After working in Shanghai
as a writer and a teacher under Lu Xun’s tutelage, he died in poverty of pneumonia at the age
of twenty-seven.
Early revolutionary uprisings in the countryside are a central theme in his works: particularly
significant is the depiction of a small rural community disrupted by natural disasters and social
injustice in the two short stories “Harvest” and “Fire” (Huo, 1933). Generational misunder-
standings and the clash between traditional culture and the political movements emerging in
the late 1920s unfold against the background of a tragic struggle for survival. In Ye Zi’s fiction
we witness a theatrical mise en scène of the human lot which, in the peasants’ eyes, is not only
subject to Heaven’s despotic and blind power like their families and crops, but also prey to rapa-
cious local landlords. As in Mao Dun’s more famous novella Spring Silkworm (1932), only young
generations seem to acknowledge the peasants’ right and possibility to revolt in order to subvert
what their fathers superstitiously regarded as unbeatable godlike forces. Appearing as unfilial and

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good-for-nothing sons, they actually lead other villagers to realize the unacceptable injustice
dominating their lives. “Harvest” is narrated through a sympathetic extra-diegetic narrator’s
voice, but the main story is narrated through Old Yunpu’s mind: an honest and tenacious peasant
whose family and fields are ravaged by misfortune and human greed. In order to buy some food
for his family, starving after a rapid succession of floods and draughts, he is obliged to sell his ten-
year-old daughter, and eventually to give all his harvested wheat to his creditors to pay his debts.
Drawing on his own family experience, in these stories Ye Zi celebrates the peasants’ unshak-
able resistance against terrible odds. A romantic heroism is implicit in the description of their
everyday struggle against a “wolf-hearted” Heaven, their unremitting labor and resilience being
their only weapon.Ye Zi sees through their simpleminded acceptance of ming (fate) and suffer-
ance, suggesting a revolutionary road to re-establishing social justice. However,Ye’s perception of
social unrest and moral agency is still individually structured: Old Yunpu and Liqiu, his son, are
vividly described in their intentions and beliefs as individual representatives of the peasant com-
munity – the idea of the crowd and of collective consciousness have not taken a clear shape yet.
Rou Shi (1902–1930) was born into an educated family in the countryside near Ningbo
(Zhejiang). As his father was involved in a small trade job, and because of their poor economic
conditions, his education only began when he was ten. He eventually worked as a teacher at the
primary and middle school level, but had the chance to meet Lu Xun in Beijing in 1925, and to
attend his lectures. Back in his home village, he soon became involved in rebellious actions and
in 1928 flew to Shanghai to engage in literary activities. It was then that his collaboration with
Lu Xun started. Most of his works were published in those two years before he was arrested and
executed by the Nationalist government in 1930.
As in the case of Ye Zi and Jiang Guangci, Rou Shi’s early fiction is also imbued with roman-
tic fervor and a passionate indignation against injustice. The short story “A Slave Mother” is
one of his finest works, and his novel February (Er yue, 1929) is also an interesting example of
this romantic, proto-proletarian literature. In Rou Shi’s vibrant representation of idealistic and
fervent young revolutionaries, love has an important place, being considered both an obstacle
and a roadmap for future political action. Despite his conviction that the old society needs to be
overthrown, the writer’s stand is deeply influenced by an oversentimental and somewhat Nietzs-
chean mood, typical of his time. One example of this pattern is the main character of Rou’s
novel Death of the Old Times (Jiushidai zhi si, 1929), Zhu Shengli, whose life has been destroyed
by his family’s poverty and its “cannibalistic” social practices. In a fit of rage after the suicide of
his beloved, he declaims a poem of mournful madness:

Red is dead, green is dead, light is dead, speed is dead; she is dead, you will also die,
and I am dying; [. . .] and Buddha is also dead with her, the soul is dead, the air is dead;
[. . .] the living are dead and the dead are dead; [. . .] everything has died with her.12

The tragic ending of the novel, with the lovers’ double suicide, follows in the tradition of the
pessimistic view on love expressed in Chinese fiction.
Rou Shi’s short story “A Slave Mother,” acclaimed by Romain Rolland as a good piece of
socialist fiction soon after it was published,13 reflects the deep humanist attitude of these young
intellectuals and their gloomy view of Chinese rural society. As Yang Yi pointed out, in this story
Rou Shi’s descriptions deal more with the moral and spiritual degradation of human beings
than their material conditions.14 The short story portrays the tragic figure of a woman “rented
out” by her husband (according to the traditional practice of “renting one’s wife”) to a childless
middle-aged scholar and his wife. From the beginning, the sharp words of the other characters
allow us to grasp the tragedy of this simple woman (who is silent most of the time), transformed

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into a mere material resource for survival. Her husband tells her: “If we go on like this we will
get to the point of selling the wok.What’s the point of letting you suffer along with me: we’d bet-
ter think of a way of exploiting your body.”15 “It suffices that your belly fights to excel, in order
to give birth to one or two [children], and everything will be okay” (p. 278), says the match-
maker, trying to persuade her that it is a good chance to leave her weak and poor husband and
earn money for her family (she already has a five-year-old son).
As David Wang observes, the woman is one of the many “sisters” of Xianglin’s wife;16 how-
ever, differently from Lu Xun’s memorable character, in Rou Shi’s story this “hungry woman”
becomes nothing more than a body, a belly, a pure sign in the semantics of China’s sacrificed
or – in Lu Xun’s words – cannibalized human beings. Utilized as a mere body, the woman is
subjected to a twofold exploitation: as a member of the subaltern class she is kept in a hopeless
condition of social inferiority; due to gender inequality, she has to sexually serve both her hus-
band’s needs and those of the scholar – for whom she is but a “means of production” in Marxist
terms, as well as the sources of sustenance for her eldest son’s survival, as the author suggests
towards the end. She is the victim not only of traditional abuses perpetrated on poor peasants
by the elites, but as a woman, she is also the victim of a long-standing sexist order. In this case,
we do not witness any kind of (even generic) rebellion, as the young woman endures her eco-
nomic and the physical/moral exploitation without ever trying to resist her sacrifice, a means to
provide for her family by letting her body be used as a pawn for survival. In the sad ending of
the short story, even her elder child, whom she abandoned in order to provide the rich couple
with an heir, seems not to recognize her after she has been away for three years to take care of
her “surrogate son”.
As in the case of Ye Zi’s poor and resigned peasants, the woman’s only reaction to such a
degrading lot is her ascribing it to her bitter fate, the ethic of sacrifice and sufferance overshad-
owing any sense of self-respect and human dignity. Survival is the main value here, the only
respected one, as in the case of the desolate community of human beings depicted in Xiao
Hong’s fiction (which will be analyzed in the last section of the chapter). This ethic of sacrifice,
which is embedded and instinctively performed by Rou Shi’s humbler characters, reflects his
own standpoint and moral commitment. In his most acclaimed novel February, the protagonist
Xiao Jianqiu is tormented both by the issue of the salvation of his country and by his senti-
mental conundrum, as he is attracted to two women. As Lu Xun notes in his short preface to
the novel, the keynote of the story is the great suffering that accompanies the characters and
the society as a whole. While aware of the social and political conditions that brought China to
this desperate situation, Rou Shi, like other early left-wing writers, was unable to translate this
passionate impulse into a more practical and effective agenda, with himself becoming an object
of sacrifice at the end of his short life, just like his characters.
Although the quality of the Byronic hero – “a mourning but simultaneously defiant man”17 –
can be found in these writers and their characters, an echo of Russian and early Soviet litera-
ture is also evident in their style and themes. Emotionally and intellectually tortured, the young
protagonists of their works tend to display the neurotic fervor that distinguishes Dostoevskij’s
most famous heroes, in dealing with both unfulfilled love affairs and a scorching impatience
with society’s backwardness and oppressive structure. Traces of Gorki’s autobiographical novels
can also be found in Jiang Guangci’s fiction.

Quotidian drama and comedy: a new approach to reality

In their gloomy vision of the present, the early left-wing writers often adopted a dramatic, grief-
stricken attitude which, despite a generally sympathetic feeling towards their humble characters,

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almost denied them any agency. The main aim of these authors was to express a moral impulse
stemming from their tragic recognition of the misery of Chinese society. However, their gaze
was fundamentally detached from real life: except for what derives from their personal and fam-
ily experience, their stories often sound abstract. A radical change in this attitude that pushed
fiction towards a more realistic and concrete depiction of the historical framework and the
condition of individuals is to be found in Zhang Tianyi (1906–1985), a popular fiction writer
active from the late 1920s. Born in Nanjing, he first studied at an art school in Shanghai, but
later moved to Beijing where he attended Peking University. Attracted by both Butterfly and
Mandarin Duck Fiction and Lin Shu’s translations, he began his career by writing essays and
short stories suffused with humor and bordering on crime fiction.
Exposed to the New Literary Movement, Zhang soon changed his course by adopting a
completely new and revolutionary style, tackling a range of problems, from the experience of
war to ordinary life under the oppressive Nationalist government. Zhang’s realistic approach
wholly reversed the tragic but idealistic representation of social injustice and the romantic trend
summed up by the formula “love + revolution.” His sharp, satirical voice (complementary to
Lao She’s good-tempered humor) exposed the concrete roots of social inequality, exploring the
hypocrisy and ineptitude of human nature. He later became a well-known author of children’s
fiction.
One of the first examples of his new, cruder style is the short story “Twenty-one Men,”
the title referring to the number of soldiers involved in a bloody mutiny during the warlords’
regime. “Nobody can take care of anyone,”18 says the first-person narrator in the midst of the
battle, while his comrade-in-arms “gets a crack in the head and soon lies down, relaxing on a
mud heap, and after a few spasms, like a slaughtered hen, falls asleep” (p. 46). The hardships and
cruelty of a soldier’s life are directly presented without any intellectual filter, and in very crude
language.
What follows is an abrupt clash between soldiers, and the fight is depicted as a primitive
struggle for survival. This short story, more than any other piece of fiction imbued with revo-
lutionary zeal, shows war’s harsh reality of suffering and death. Zhang Tianyi is good at focus-
ing on the narrating subject’s bodily sensations. The narrator himself realizes that he has been
wounded: he feels pain somewhere in his body and blood dripping. The narration stops when
the narrator faints and then restarts when he wakes up in a pool of blood. The whole scene
is described as an amazingly truthful battlefield representation entirely based on the narrator’s
sensory and radically internal focus. Stripped of any intellectually structured vision, war appears
just as it is, filled with pain and the stench of corpses, pieces and fragments of bodies surrounding
the survivors, the sound of gunshots still lingering in theirs ears.
Another change in the style and content of Zhang’s fiction, which further developed his
inclination for a non-mediated observation of society, was brought about by his stories on
urban bureaucrats, small intellectuals, and petty bourgeois. Zhang’s satirical approach, which
distinguishes him from the other left-wing writers, strikes the readers as refreshing for his adop-
tion of the comic register in exposing a variety of social abuses and malpractices. One exquisite
example is the short story “Bao and His Son” (Baoshi fuzi, 1934), the portrait of two generations
in the semi-colonial, socially uneven Shanghai of the 1930s. Through a critical observation of
the weaknesses and vices of human beings, the short story focuses on modern family and social
conflicts, targeting the urban middle-class milieu and its tendency to mimic the Westernized
lifestyle of the upper classes.
Typical of Zhang’s fiction is his skillful portrayal of characters, a feature for which he is
somewhat indebted to his mentor Lu Xun. Few simple sketches and scenes under his pen are
enough to evoke a whole psychological and social world. In the abovementioned text, Old Bao

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is a middle-aged concierge who has to cope with the superficial Occidentalism of his foppish
son. A conservative and rather weak widower, he only cares about his son’s education, hopelessly
striving to maintain his dignity before his friends. Through the description of the unbridgeable
cultural gap between the father’s traditionally sober lifestyle and his son Bao Guowei’s fantasies
of luxury, Zhang manages to demonstrate how unbridgeable the economical gap is between
the Chinese lower strata and high-ranking society – to which the youngster vainly aspires to
belong – hinting at the asymmetrical relations between China and her colonizers. Like Lu Xun’s
“Soap,” a foreign brand product stands at the core of Zhang’s metaphor: Bao Guowei is irresist-
ibly drawn to a perfumed hair grease found in the bathroom of one of his rich schoolmates, but
when his father buys him a similar (but inferior) product made in China, he angrily rejects it,
marking both the limits of Chinese modernization and the incongruence of an unachievable
social identity.
At the end of the tragicomic story, not only is Bao Guowei expelled from his prestigious and
expensive foreign school for beating a schoolmate, but his father, overwhelmed by the debts he
has accumulated in order to support his education, eventually collapses in the street. This last
scene ironically not only hints at traditional China’s collapse due to unfair competition from
foreign powers, but also reveals her own inner contradictions, a metaphor of the fatal conclusion
of the Darwinian struggle shrewdly depicted in Zhang Tianyi’s satirical fiction.

From Urban Shanghai to rural Sichuan: in search of

“Localized Realism”
Equally well versed in the satirical representation of characters and their social context is Sha
Ting (1904–1992), born into a declining landlord’s family in Sichuan province. The young
boy’s first connection to revolutionary thought and action was mediated through an uncle
involved in rebellions organized by secret societies. In 1927, he joined the Communist Party,
and in 1931, together with Ai Wu, also a Sichuan native, he began his activity as a left-wing
writer, experiencing the political fervor of Shanghai’s literary circles. Nonetheless, his literary
production acquired more depth and originality only when he went back to his province (after
1935). Here, following Lu Xun’s advice, he tried to “carefully choose from” and “deeply delve
into”19 his real-life experience in order to find suitable subject matters for his fiction.
According to Anderson, “Sha Ting discovers the nascent eruption of the crowd instinct,”20
but it is the unique intersection between his artistic talent and his homeland which shaped his
peculiar style and his most significant fiction. Being a tireless observer of Sichuan rural tragedies,
he is often listed among the “Sichuan writers,” and his works are labeled as part of the rural
fiction tradition. Both he and Ai Wu consulted Lu Xun on what kind of material they should
draw in writing fiction. Their conundrum was the result of the clash between early revolution-
ary fiction and reality: the romantic impulse of the author’s early commitment to leftism now
had to be molded into a more concrete form of writing, stepping out of the writers’ narrow
class environment.21 The answer to the nagging question of how to effectively contribute to the
urgent political and social needs of the Chinese, and of how to overcome the flaws of previous
left-wing fiction, characterized as too subjective and formulaic, was found by Sha Ting and Ai
Wu in their “localized realism”: a faithful depiction of Sichuan rural customs and human types.
Taking Sha Ting’s first novel, The Gold Diggers (Taojin ji, 1943), as an example, its main sto-
ryline consists of an objective narration of complicated social relations in a small provincial town
(Beidouzhen), where a coterie of corrupted and greedy notables strives to take possession of
a widow’s gold mine. Following the model of Mao Dun’s most famous novel Midnight (1931),
Sha Ting successfully depicts the interaction between different social and economic forces in

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late 1930s rural Sichuan, through some representative individuals: Bai Jiangdan is a declining
gentleman, while Lin Changme, the owner of a gold factory, represents the local connections
between business and illegal secret societies (Gelaohui); the rich widow He and her weak son
represent the landlord class. An almost epic struggle takes place between the strong and prudent
landlady and the old gentleman who, despite his lack of money, manages to take advantage of
his social position in town and his political connections. Supported by the city officials and with
the help of the law, he finally obtains the right to exploit the gold mine, which is located where
the tombs of He family’s ancestors lie. However, in the end, he does not have enough money to
keep digging for gold, making the whole endeavor pointless.
The customs and circles of local society are very finely depicted, as are the effects of histori-
cal events in the background, such as the economic crisis and the Sino-Japanese War. Sha Ting
excels in constructing character profiles and dialogues, shedding light on a colorful gallery of
human types: the roots of China’s social drama are to be found in the sinful existence of the
middle and upper classes in the countryside, addicted as they are, at all levels, to an assortment
of petty or great vices, such as drinking, smoking opium, gambling, extorting money from poor
peasants, and manipulating the law for personal profits.
As many scholars agree,22 it is through his well-chiseled characters that Sha Ting’s realistic
style overcomes some limits of the previous representation of rural China. A special hallmark of
his works is the re-creation of a peculiar chronotope: the fastidious reconstruction of a whole
social and cultural world, not the generic Chinese countryside, but Sichuan’s rural town culture.
In many of his short stories he depicts, with a detached though sarcastic flair, the typical micro-
cosms of remote rural towns, a literary space where traditional Sichuan culture and modern
anxiety blend and collide at the same time, shedding light on a range of social issues, such as
war, banditry, economic bankruptcy, local corruption, and gender abuses. In “The House of the
Fragrant Teahouse” (Zai Qixiangju chaguan li, 1940), as in many scenes of the novel The Gold
Diggers, the local teahouse is the microcosm where people voice their aspirations and contradic-
tions, both social and personal. As though on a small real-life stage, the two main characters, the
ward chief and an arrogant member of the town gentry whose younger son has been arrested
for desertion, act in the very short timeframe of the story, revealing the tug-of-war dynamics
between local officials’ power and illegal economic forces. In another two stories, following Lu
Xun’s “Nora discourse,”23 Sha Ting denounces the abuses inflicted on women, who are merci-
lessly judged and condemned by their own community. “In the Ancestral Hall” (Zai citang li,
1936) depicts a woman who is accused of betraying her husband and becomes an object of the
neighbors’ cruel curiosity and their desire for exemplary punishment. The gloomy absurdity
of the closing scene, with the “unfaithful” wife being “taken out of her bedroom in a coffin, a
white handkerchief stuffed in her mouth,”24 is enhanced by the unreal silence of the previously
garrulous onlookers, and reminds us of another story, Lu Ling’s novelette Hungry Guo Su’e
(1943). In “An Autumn Evening” (Yi ge qiuye, 1944), a young prostitute, who has been publicly
chastised by a jealous wife for belonging to such a shameful social category, receives unexpected
support from an unwilling conscript. Although criticized at this time for his cold attitude and his
apparent refusal to take sides, Sha Ting shows uncommon skill in capturing the specific histori-
cal background as well as the innermost instincts and psychology of human beings. In the late
left-wing fiction, both Zhang Tianyi’s and Sha Ting’s approaches did not conform to any theo-
retical statement about proletarian classes, but tried, sometimes successfully, to plunge into the
actual human cauldron of a composite society, where the causes of great inequalities and long-
standing abuses are rooted in the interaction of both opposite and intersecting cultural forces.
In addition, the realistic portrayal of the microcosms of Chinese urban (Zhang) and rural (Sha)
landscapes is reinforced by a wise use of the colloquial style (Zhang) and the local dialect (Sha).

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War, nature, and gender in Xiao Hong and Xiao Jun’s fiction
Few other modern Chinese writers have been able to represent the human condition with such
a vibrant and touching mixture of subjectivity and realism as Xiao Hong (1911–1942). She was
born into a landlord family in Hulan (Heilongjiang), but soon felt stifled by her clan’s rigidity
and the lack of love from her father. A rebellious woman, who could not tolerate traditional
restrictions, she escaped with a cousin but was eventually obliged to go back home. At the age
of twenty, she escaped again to Harbin, and got pregnant by a man whom she refused to marry
(because the wedding had been originally arranged by her family). It is in these hard times that
she met the young writer Xiao Jun. After marrying him, they started a vagrant life in Canton,
Qingdao, and Shanghai, eking out a living on the meager remunerations of their publications
amidst personal conflicts and economic hardships. In 1935, with the help of Lu Xun, she pub-
lished her first novel, which was hailed by the progressive intellectual circles of Shanghai as a
patriotic masterpiece. After her relation with Xiao Jun deteriorated, she went to Japan for a short
period, and returned to Shanghai on hearing of Lu Xun’s death. She later married her second
husband, another northeastern writer (Duanmu Hongliang). She then went to Hong Kong
where, during the 1942 bombing of the city, she died of a wrongly treated illness, almost alone,
assisted in hospital only by a young friend.
A prolific writer with a wide range of novels, short stories, poems, and essays, Xiao Hong
drew abundant sources from her own life experiences and excelled in the depiction of female
characters and their worlds. Xiao Hong’s stories are unique in their novel themes and subtle
characterization as they touch upon a range of sensitive and rarely mentioned issues, such as
neglected motherhood (“The Abandoned Child” and “On the Bridge”), social prejudices, misfit
children (“Hands” and “Little Liu”), and abused female bodies (“The Death of Wang Asao”).25
The Field of Life and Death, praised by Lu Xun as conveying a “strength for life and a struggle
against death,”26 presents a spectacle of horror and sorrow, dominated by a hopeless struggle for
survival. The novel was initially acclaimed for its “political correctness,” as in its second part it
recounts the resistance of humble peasants against the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. How-
ever, Xiao Hong’s literary commitment and social awareness were far from being conditioned
by any political orientation and ideology. Despite being an early member of the League of the
Left-Wing Writers, she declared at a writers’ conference in 1933: “The writer does not belong
to any class, he/she only belongs to the human race. Now as well as in the past, the source for
a writer’s writing is the ignorance of human beings.”27 Not only are her creative spirit and
thought nurtured by such an independent stance, but the structure of her works and her literary
style also reveal some distinguishing features and a radically personal approach. In her novels, we
do not find any full-blooded characters or clear and well-developed plot. What appear before
the readers’ eyes are China’s northeastern peasants, especially women in fragmentary descrip-
tions, sometimes lyrical, sometimes expressionistic, and the story usually unfolds through a chain
of single episodes of everyday life. Rather than one single character, it is the sum of all characters
that creates a collective but stirring human portrait of the peasants. Instead of a close-knit plot,
her story usually presents a variety of scenes and narrative threads that constitute the historical
scenery of 1930s China. At the same time, each of Xiao Hong’s finely carved figures remains
vividly impressed in the readers’ memory as their vivid authenticity neatly transcends the his-
torical and geographical borders of World War II China, and enters the universal theatre of the
unbearable frailty of human life.
Violence as an inescapable part of existence is one of the key themes in Xiao Hong’s descrip-
tions of (wo)men’s everyday resistance against hunger, epidemic, sexual abuses, exhausting work
in the fields, war, and even Nature itself. Everything seems dominated by a law of senseless

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violence. Suffering and discrimination due to social inequality also constitute a major theme
in the novel. In Xiao Hong’s works, however, socio-political violence is just part of a universal
landscape of suffering, shared by human beings and animals, down to the tiny insect, and not
a vehicle for the expression of an ideological stance, as the nationalistic interpretation of her
work often suggests. Nor is her narration of women’s miserable material and moral condition
confined within an early feminist awareness. The crudeness and sincerity of her depiction of
women’s destiny wrecked by unwanted pregnancies, brutal sexual relations, and obsolete social
or family burdens, derive mainly from her inborn feeling of independence, spiritual freedom,
rejection of any form of abuse, and her profound understanding of the consequences of poverty
and unhappiness. What distresses Xiao Hong more than any physical pain or deprivation is the
spiritual void haunting these women: “In the village they will never know, they will never expe-
rience the soul, only matter fills their life” (p. 68). The sudden drowning of a butterfly struck by
an accidental blow from Old Mother Pockface has the same inevitability and casualness as the
awful death of the young Yueying, whose body is ruthlessly consumed by an incurable illness.
Fifty years before Mo Yan’s novels, this female writer, also born in North China, had already
built a powerful connection between human beings and animals, finding in the latter’s existence
the same tragic seeds of suffering as in the former’s. “In the countryside human beings and ani-
mals together are occupied in living, are occupied in dying” (83), comments the extra-diegetic
narrator in The Field, while depicting the miserable life of Golden Bough, a young peasant from
the village, whose girlish instinct for love is repaid with male viciousness and unwanted moth-
erhood. The female characters in the novel are often compared to animals: Fifth Sister is like
“a small lively pigeon”; Old Mother Pockface is a “female bear entering her cave,” while Old
Mother Wang recounting the death of her little daughter, as in Xiangling Sao’s sad storytelling,
resembles an owl to the eyes of the children listening to her (p. 45, p. 47). The description of the
old mare taken to her last trip to the slaughterhouse by Mother Wang is a striking example of
Xiao Hong’s universe of sorrow.
Political matters, such as patriotism and national identity, are of course touched upon in Xiao
Hong’s fiction, but her primary concern is to dismantle any kind of facile ideological commit-
ment, for she was inclined more towards the depiction of human life as an existential rather than
a political drama.This is clearly shown in her ethnographic novel Tales of the Hulan River (Hulan
he zhuan, 1942), whose poetic style reminds one of the Beijing school writer Fei Ming, in terms
of its delicate natural descriptions and the simple yet meaningful way of evoking the tragic cycle
of life and death embedded in the reality of rural communities.
The sensitivity of her approach contrasts with the “gallant” fiction of Xiao Jun (1907–1988).
In the latter’s literary production, we find the same social and geographic environment, the war-
ravaged northeast, and the same motivation to write, but the perspective and style are apparently
different. Xiao Jun was Xiao Hong’s first husband and shared with her much of her troubled life
and intense intellectual experiences, as they were both morally and practically supported by Lu
Xun in the Slave Series project.28 Xiao Jun, born into a family of proletarian origin, joined the
army early on and received his first education, publishing his first short story in 1928. His social
environment and military experience provided him with a fresh and modern repertoire about
workers and conscripts. He is considered as one of the first authentic proletarian writers. Like
Jiang Guangci, Xiao Jun’s early fiction reflects a romantic spirit and an emotional flair very close
to the Creation Society’s style. However, his life experience and the keen observation of the
reality that surrounded him later inspired him to develop a sharp vision of social inequality. In
his best-selling novel Countryside in August, he tells the story of a group of peasant-soldiers and
their fight against the Japanese invaders and the government’s troops in their home territory. It
is necessary and meaningful to compare and contrast Xiao Jun’s fiction with that of Xiao Hong

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on similar themes: Xiao Jun prefers strong colors to her subtle nuances; equally sensitive and
inclined to portray the violence and injustice exerted against his countrymen, Xiao Jun none-
theless radically differs in his emphasizing a rhetoric of sacrifice and heroism, not eschewing a
crude but bombastic depiction of murders and rapes. A faithful painter of the cruel everyday
struggle for survival in times of war, Xiao Jun’s early romantic approach resurfaces in an only
thinly disguised form in his later fiction, in the heroic representation of central male figures, such
as commander Iron Eagle or Boil Tang – strong masculine prowess in war actions for the former,
and sexual vitality, in the latter one. It suffices to compare the scene of Golden Bough’s passively
submitting to her brutal lover, in The Field of Life and Death, with a similar episode of the love
making between Li Qisao and Boil Tang in Xiao Jun’s novel. Both love scenes are described in
terms of animal instinct and fight. However, while Xiao Hong adopts a de-familiarizing and
seemingly emotionless narrative strategy, focusing on the female body taken as a prey, Xiao Jun’s
representation of sex mainly shows the excitement of the sensual encounter between two bod-
ies, as perceived by the male imagination.

Conclusion
This overview of some representative left-wing Chinese writers attests to the variety and inter-
section of different styles and approaches in their literary creation which, despite the focus on
the social issues that troubled China in the 1930s and 1940s, is primarily concerned with writ-
ers’ personal commitments and artistic explorations. Only a few years later, the rigid application
of Mao’s guidelines as laid down in the Talks at the Yan’an Conference on Literature and Art was
to displace this polyphonic creation and artistic pursuit. These writers’ quest touches upon the
very core of the Chinese search for modernity from a social perspective, raising some questions
which were to re-emerge in contemporary Chinese literature – such as the choice between a
romanticized or mimetic reproduction of reality, the observation of human nature, and the clash
between a minjian (popular) and qimeng (enlightened) vision of society. This inner contradiction
of Lu Xun’s legacy, which haunted all left-wing writers, was definitely overcome by Xiao Hong.
Although she inherits her mentor’s enlightened vision of literature, she adopts a popular stance,29
as she stands among rather than above her fictional characters. Cherishing Chinese popular
culture in both its positive and negative aspects, she is the author of stories imbued with both
a humanistic and social concern that brings out the best aspects of Chinese left-wing fiction.

Notes
1 See Lee, Leo-Oufan, “Literary Trends: The Road to Revolution,” in John K. Fairbank and Albert
Feuerwerker, eds., The Cambridge History of China:Volume 13, Republican China 1912–1949 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1986), 428–444.
2 See Kirk A. Denton, The Problematic of Self in Modern Chinese Literature: Hu Feng and Lu Ling (Stanford:
Stanford University, 1998), 83.
3 Lu Xun, Letters from Two Places (Liang di shu), Complete Works of Lu Xun (Lu Xun Quanji), vol. XI (Bei-
jing: Renmin Wenxue Chubanshe, [1933] 1981), 16.
4 Lu Xun, “In Memoriam in Order to Forget,” in Complete Works of Lu Xun (Lu Xun Quanji), vol. IV,
479–490.
5 Gloria Davies, Lu Xun’s Revolution:Writing in a Time of Violence (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2013),
169.
6 Qian Liqun, Xinling de tanxun (Searching the Soul) (Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi chubanshe,1988),
106–107.
7 Published in 1925 on Juewu (supplement of the Shanghai newspaper Minguo ribao).
8 David Der-wei Wang, The Monster that is History. History, Violence, and Fictional Writing in Twentieth-
Century China (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2004), 107–108.

95
 Nicoletta Pesaro

9 Charles Laughlin, “The Moon Coming Out from the Clouds: Jiang Guangci and Early Revolutionary
Fiction in China,” in Tao Dongfeng et al., eds., Chinese Revolution and Chinese Literature (Cambridge:
University of Cambridge Press, 2009), 35.
10 Jiang Guangci, “The Youthful Tramp,” in Selected Works (Jiang Guangci xuanji) (Beijing: Kaiming chu-
banshe, [1926] 2015), 3.
11 David Der-wei Wang, The Monster that is History, 91.
1 2 Rou Shi, Death of the Old Times (Jiu shidai zhi si), Selected Fiction of Rou Shi (Rou Shi xiaoshuo jingxuan)
(Beijing: Quanguo baijia chubanshe, [1929] 2013), 393–394.
1 3 Yang Yi, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction (Zhongguo xiandai xiaoshuo shi) II vol. (Beijing: Renmin
wenxue chubanshe, 1988), 295.
1 4 Yang Yi, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction, 296.
15 Rou Shi, “A Slave Mother,” February (Er yue) (Hangzhou: Zhejiang wenyi chubanshe [1930] 2005),
271–295.
1 6 David Der-wei Wang, The Monster That is History, 118.
17 Vanessa Mangione, “Lord Byron’s Descendants,” in Franke Reitemeier, ed., Strangers, Migrants, Exiles:
Negotiating Identity in Literature (Göttingen: Universitätsverlag Göttingen, 2012), 16.
18 Zhang Tianyi, “Twenty-One Men,” in Selected works of Zhang Tianyi (Zhang Tianyi zuopin xuan)
(Xiangtan: Xiangtan daxue chubanshe, [1931] 2009), 46.
19 Sha Ting and Ai Wu, “An Exchange of Letters on Subject Matter in Fiction,” in Complete Works of Lu
Xun (Lu Xun Quanji), vol. 4 (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, [1931] 1981), 366–369.
2 0 Marston Anderson, The Limits of Realism: Chinese Fiction in the Revolutionary Period (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1990), 193.
21 Sha Ting and Ai Wu, “An Exchange of Letters on Subject Matter in Fiction,”.
2 2 Marston Anderson, The Limits of Realism, 190;Yang Yi, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction, 461.
23 Lu Xun, “What Happens When Nora Leaves Home?” Complete Works of Lu Xun (Lu Xun Quanji), vol.
1, (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, [1924] 1981), 158–165.
24 Sha Ting, “In the Ancestral Hall,” in Small-Town Fiction (Xiangzheng xiaoshuo) (Shanghai: Shanghai
wenyi chubanshe, [1936] 1992), 49.
25 Presented respectively in “Qi’er” (1933), “Qiao” (1936), “Xiao Liu” (1935), “Shou” (1936), and “Wang
Asao de si” (1933).
26 Xiao Hong, The Field of Life and Death (Shengsi chang), Complete Works of Xiao Hong (Xiao Hong
quanji), vol. I (Ha’erbin: Heilongjiang daxue chubanshe, [1935] 2011), 43.
27 Xiao Hong, “Present-Day Artistic and Literary aAtivity. Record of the July 7 Forum,” in Complete Works
of Xiao Hong (Xiao Hong quanji), vol. IV (Ha’erbin: Heilongjiang daxue chubanshe, [1938] 2011), 460.
28 It was under Lu Xun’s encouragement that Xiao Hong, Xiao Jun and Ye Zi founded the Slave Society
in 1935, and their works were published at their expenses within the Slave Series.
29 Chen Sihe, “A Popular Tragedy from an Enlightened Viewpoint: The Field of Life and Death,” in Zhang
Haining, ed., An Impression of Xiao Hong – Research (Xiao Hong yingxiang. Yanjiu) (Ha’erbin: Hei-
longjian daxue chubanshe, 2011), 120–138.

Further readings
Han, Xiaorong. Chinese Discourses on Peasants 1900–1949. New York: SUNY Press, 2012.
Hsia, C. T. A History Modern Chinese Fiction. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, [1961] 1999.
Liu, Lydia. “The Female Body and Nationalist Discourse: Manchuria in Xiao Hong’s Field of Life and
Death.” In Angela Zito and Tani Barlow, eds. Body, Subject, and Power in China. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1994, 157–180.
Sun, Yifeng. Fragmentation and Dramatic Moments: Zhang Tianyi and the Narrative Discourse of Upheaval in
Modern China. New York: Peter Lang, 2002.
Tao Dongfeng,Yang Xiaobin, Rosemary Roberts, and Yang Ling, eds. Chinese Revolution and Chinese Litera-
ture. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 2009.
Yan Haiping. Chinese Women Writers and the Feminist Imagination, 1905–1948. Oxon and New York: Rout-
ledge, 2006.
Yan, Jiayan. A History of the Schools of Modern Chinese Fiction (Zhongguo xiandai xiaoshuo liupai shi).
Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1989.

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 SECTION II

Romanticism and
the new people
 7
IMAGINING NEW CHINESE IN
GUO MORUO’S POETRY
Paolo Magagnin

Life and career

Guo Moruo, the pen name of Guo Kaizhen, was born in 1892 in the Sichuanese town of Leshan,
the son of a wealthy merchant family of Hakka origin. After receiving traditional schooling in
his childhood and further pursuing his education in Jiading and Chengdu, he moved to Japan
in early 1914 to specialize in medicine. It was during his Japanese years that, thanks to his pro-
ficiency in German, English, and Japanese, he first devoted himself to reading foreign literature
and began his career as a writer and translator. By his own account, he began writing poetry in
vernacular as early as 1916: his earliest poems were published in 1919 in the Shanghai literary
supplement The Lamp of Learning (Xuedeng). In 1921, while in Tokyo, he co-founded the Crea-
tion Society, a literary association committed to the promotion of Romanticism, self-expression,
“l’art pour l’art-ism,” and international literature. Among the founding members were other like-
minded Chinese students and writers-to-be, such as Yu Dafu, Cheng Fangwu, and Tian Han.
Shortly after his arrival in Japan, Guo also met a Japanese nurse, Satō Tomiko, who became his
common-law wife despite a previous arranged marriage celebrated before his departure.
The years following his return to China in 1922 marked the beginning of Guo’s conversion
to Marxism, made official in 1924, and the growth of his long-lasting left-wing commitment.
In 1926 he enthusiastically embarked on the Northern Expedition led by Chiang Kai-shek; just
after joining the Communist Party, in 1927, he took part in the Nanchang Uprising against the
Kuomintang. Following the failed rebellion and the Nationalist reaction, he fled once again to
Japan in early 1928. He remained there for almost a decade, devoting himself mainly to auto-
biographic writing and to the study of paleography, history, and archaeology. Back in China at
the outburst of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), Guo Moruo was put in charge
of propaganda work for the United Front: from then on, his artistic activity was permanently
influenced – or obscured, depending on one’s perspective – by his ardent political engagement.
After the founding of the People’s Republic, Guo held several prestigious political and aca-
demic posts, becoming one of the most influential personalities of the New China and a close
comrade of Mao Zedong’s. In particular, in 1949, he became the first President of the Chinese
Academy of Sciences, a position he held for almost three decades until his death. However, at the
onset of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, not even his outstanding revolutionary pedigree was
enough to spare him: criticism and personal attacks were launched against Guo and his family,

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leading to persecution by the Red Guards and even to the death of two of his sons. After his full
rehabilitation in the early 1970s, Guo Moruo died in Beijing in 1978.

Literary achievements
Few modern intellectuals can compete with Guo Moruo’s multifaceted production and extraor-
dinary range of interests. In addition to his career as a scholar of Chinese antiquity and a promi-
nent statesman and cultural leader, in the literary field he gained a solid reputation as a poet
and playwright, but also as a prolific translator, novelist, and essayist. Moreover, his inclination –
especially in the early part of his artistic career – to draw from, absorb, and reinterpret a plurality
of sources, both native and imported, traditional and modern, offers countless points of depar-
ture for analyzing his writing from a comparative perspective.
Guo’s first and most famed poetic collection, The Goddesses (Nüshen, 1921), is heavily
indebted to the imported models absorbed while in Japan – such as Whitman, Tagore, German
Romanticism and Expressionism – but also taps into the classical Chinese tradition in which he
had been educated in his youth. Fallen Leaves (Luoye), published in 1926, is one of the earliest
examples of an epistolary novel in modern Chinese literature, clearly inspired by the Werther
and by the writer’s own life experience. Indeed, the novel is presented as a collection of letters
written by a young Japanese girl to a Chinese student. Aside from its blatant use of Romantic
models, the work reveals a series of themes that are typical of May Fourth literature, such as
the impossibility of lasting love relationships, and the identification between the tragic fate of
the individual and that of a whole generation. The war years witnessed Guo Moruo’s grow-
ing interest in historical drama involving traditional settings and characters revisited through
the prism of patriotism. His most famous historical play, Qu Yuan (1942), attracted immediate
attention after its grand premiere in Chongqing. The eponymous Warring States poet, who
displays the traits of a Faust, a Hamlet, or a King Lear, is innovatively portrayed as a patriot and
a tragic revolutionary hero. Such a representation is largely the fruit of Guo’s creativity, and is
still standard today.
One cannot stress enough Guo Moruo’s efforts as a cultural agent and intermediary. In 1919
he began translating Goethe’s Faust, an enterprise he never completed but which occupied him
for three decades. His 1922 translation of The Sorrows of Young Werther caused considerable stir
among young intellectuals, helping shape the Romantic imagination of the time. The signifi-
cance of Guo Moruo’s contribution as a translator transcended the literary realm, particularly
thanks to his partial translation of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, begun in 1923. Although by no means
the first Chinese intellectual to show an interest in Nietzsche, Guo made Zarathustra accessible
to a much larger audience through his interpretive translation. Moreover, his Chinese version
of Kawakami Hajime’s Social Organization and Social Revolution (1924), an essay that had played a
crucial role in his own conversion to Marxism, also fostered the development of a sharper left-
wing consciousness in many young readers.

The masterpiece
Just like his personal career, Guo Moruo’s literary output is extremely complex, wide-ranging,
and multifaceted. Moreover, the artistic value of his literary achievements, or at least a part
of them, has been an object of heated debate and even denigration up to the present day.
Critic Achilles Fang’s biting aesthetic judgment is frequently cited: “[h]umorless sincerity, death-
seriousness, even deadly dullness, – traits one seldom finds in traditional Chinese poetry – mark
[Guo Moruo’s] poetry.”1 Some critics have also noted “the immaturity of his creative work”

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and the fact that “his later prominence in left-wing politics [. . .] kept his works in print longer
than reader interest would have dictated.”2 As a matter of fact, Guo’s political engagement as
a champion of Marxism, as well as the acclaim earned from critics acting solely on the basis
of an ideological agenda, also tend to obscure the aesthetic aspects of his artistic expression.
However, moving away from the equally inadequate perspectives of unfavorable criticism and
hagiography, I feel naturally compelled to join those who identify The Goddesses as the peak of
Guo’s inventiveness and talent, as a work that set the standard for a modern poetry of the “I,”
bringing together a broad range of sources of inspiration. In terms of impact and iconicity, its
significance as a turning point in Chinese literature is incontestable, and the pioneering role
of its author acknowledged even by his detractors. Indeed, the collection was celebrated as the
true beginning of modern Chinese poetry, and established Guo as one of the most influential
modern poets in China.
The Goddesses appeared in August 1921, but was mostly made up of verses already published
in literary journals while Guo was a student in Japan: some of them had been composed as early
as 1916, three years before the official outbreak of the May Fourth Movement. The collection
comprises a poetic prologue followed by 56 poems, 4 of which are actually verse dramas.3
By making use of free metric forms and vernacular language, the poems reveal the heavy
influence of imported models, but also tap into references to classical Chinese tradition, giv-
ing voice to a sentiment of powerful individualism, unrestrained vitality, and oneness with the
cosmos. This range of elements creates a kaleidoscope of sources, themes, forms, and voices that
Guo treats with great virtuosity, especially when it comes to the re-elaboration of preexisting
models. Only two years after its publication, Wen Yiduo, a fellow poet with a radically differ-
ent (and, it could be argued, much more sophisticated) aesthetic approach, and one who was
otherwise quite critical of Guo’s Occidentalism, praised the collection as embodying the spirit
not only of the present times, but of the whole twentieth century.4 In addition to being a typi-
cal product of the enthusiastic, dynamic Zeitgeist of the May Fourth era, in the artistic field The
Goddesses “is synonymous with the New Poetry movement’s aspiration to the ‘new’ in form and
subject.”5 In this sense, despite its aesthetic flaws and a certain degree of naivety, it set the course
for the most dynamic poetry of the May Fourth era, lending its vigorous expressive force to new
poets seeking a modern voice.
The Goddesses was followed by a number of other poetic works, including the collection
Starry Skies (Xingkong, 1923) and the 42-stanza-long poem The Vase (Ping, 1928). Although
some of them received critical praise, none of Guo’s later collections was nearly as successful or
influential as his first one. However, the flamboyant style of his early writing soon lost its glamor:
the later period of his poetic creation was characterized by a gradual return to more traditional
forms6 and more ideologically correct themes from a Marxist perspective.

Reconfiguring traditional into modern, native into foreign

Taking exception to the second half of Fang’s above-mentioned statement, according to which
“the emergence of [Guo Moruo] on the Chinese poetic scene [. . .] marked the end of tradi-
tion,”7 Lin points out that the poet “introduced a much-needed element, vitality, into the new
verse, but he did not bring down the curtain on tradition;” on the contrary, “[t]raditionalism
continued to play a meaningful part not only in [Guo’s] poetry but in the poetry that followed.”8
Nevertheless, in his creative work, the treatment of his native tradition is always an imaginative
one, a constant renegotiation of models and themes in the light of aesthetic and cultural moder-
nity. Despite some attempts at downplaying the relation between Guo Moruo’s output and
other literatures,9 foreign models undoubtedly played an important role in shaping his eclectic

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artistic expression and in his re-interpretation of tradition. This comes as no surprise, since
modern Chinese poetry feeds generously on imported resources to the point of appearing “un-
Chinese,” and represents “such a radical departure from Classical Poetry that it looks ‘foreign’ to
many Chinese readers even today.”10
As a pupil, Guo Moruo received a typical traditional schooling in the Chinese classics. His
early interest in classical Chinese literature and philosophy never faded: it emerges extensively
in his early poetry (including The Goddesses) and represents a lifelong source of aesthetic and
thematic inspiration for his literary production and scholarly work. In the literary field, Guo
grew particularly fond of the early poetry represented by the Songs of Chu (Chuci) and the Book
of Odes (Shijing), as well as of Tang poetry. Moreover, he found gratification in the poetic style of
such Daoist works as Zhuangzi and Laozi; a few years later, he would broaden his philosophical
vistas through the reading of Confucian and Neo-Confucian thought.
His encounter with Western literature, however, took place quite early on, through Lin Shu’s
translations/adaptations: among these readings, Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe may have played a major
role in the development of a sense of historicism that resurfaces in his later historical plays and
scholarship.11 In 1913, while attending a modern high school in Chengdu, the young writer
came in contact with an author who seems to have made a deep impression on him, namely
Henry W. Longfellow. According to Guo, Longfellow’s “The Arrow and the Song” was some-
what reminiscent of the ancient Chinese lyrical tradition exemplified by the Book of Odes.12
As a matter of fact, a classical sensibility resurfaces in many of Guo Moruo’s most reflective
and measured lyrics – his so-called “small wave” verse, as opposed to the “great waves” of his
explosive and vigorous poems. “A Clear Morning” (Qingchao, 1920) is a typical example: “Over
the pond a few young willows, / under the willows a long pavilion, / in the pavilion my son and
I sit, / on the pond the sun and clouds are reflected”13 (148). Although within a more flexible
metric organization, the poem shows indebtedness to classical poetry in its traditional imagery
and motifs – the willows and the contemplation of spring – but also in its use of repetition and
parallelism. It also shows Guo’s preference for stanzaic structures, a scheme that recurs even in
most of his free verse compositions.
As was naturally the case with foreign-educated Chinese students of the time, a genuine,
full immersion in foreign literature only took place after Guo’s moving to Japan. There, as early
as 1915, he had the opportunity to read Rabindranath Tagore in English or Japanese. The poet
himself acknowledged the influence of the Bengali writer on the composition of The Goddesses,
although it took some time for him to process it: Guo’s indebtedness towards Tagore’s composed
lyrical style is clear in the contemplative verses written in 1919, such as “Parting” (Bieli) and
“New Moon and White Clouds” (Xinyue yu baiyun), and more generally in the third section
of the collection, variously inspired by Tagore’s Crescent Moon. On the thematic plane, Guo may
also have drawn some inspiration from Tagore in the frequent mention of the sun as an object
of praise and worship in many of his most energetic poems, and of the moon in other, more
meditative verses. “Hymn to the Sun” (Taiyang lizan, 1921), with its eightfold invocation to the
glowing body as a source of life and poetic inspiration, is only the most transparent example of
the first category, “New Moon and White Clouds” of the second.
Tagore also proved crucial to Guo’s development of a pantheistic conscience, which is per-
ceivable throughout the collection. It is probably through the reading of Tagore that Guo started
to explore other thinkers and texts expressing pantheistic views, such as Kabīr and the Upanisad,
·
but also the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza. However, despite the admiration for Kabīr and
Spinoza expressed in the poem “Three Pantheists” (San ge fanshenlunzhe, 1920), as well as in
some essays, Guo’s pantheism presents no real religious implications. Rather, it serves as a poetic
device; its philosophical roots should be sought in a broad native tradition that encompasses

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shamanistic elements, the Zhuangzi (whose author, unsurprisingly, is also addressed in the poem),
and the combination of individualism and communion with the cosmos of the Neo-Confucian
thinker Wang Yangming.
The two literary figures that had the greatest impact on Guo Moruo’s poetics while in Japan,
after the early phase dominated by Tagore, are Walt Whitman and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Whitman is invariably cited, together with Tagore himself and Henrik Ibsen, as a major source
of formal and theoretical inspiration for many May Fourth intellectuals. In Guo’s case, this influ-
ence can be identified in the adoption of a number of formal features that had been introduced
or revived by America’s bard, such as the use of free verse, the recurrent presence of the poetic
“I,” the predilection for enumeration and repetition, and a general penchant for powerful, dis-
sonant imagery, best embodied by his “Song of Myself.” At the theoretical level, in addition to
their common democratic convictions (although Guo’s notion of democracy was rather hazy
at the time), the two artists largely shared a vision of an epic pantheism and of an identifica-
tion between the Self and nature. However, Guo’s own pantheistic views excluded the idea of
an omnipresent God at work in the world, an idea repeatedly evoked by Whitman; rather, they
involve a godless, natural All. If a God exists in such a worldview, he is but an expansion of the
poet’s ego. Despite minor divergences, Whitman’s poetics proved crucial to the formation of
Guo’s own aesthetics at the time, and continued to exert a conspicuous influence in later years.14
Guo Moruo’s encounter with Goethe, mainly through his reading (and translation) of Faust,
was equally decisive: it marked a turning point that notably shaped the composition of many of the
poems in the first part of The Goddesses, encouraging Guo to try his hand at writing poetic dramas.
Goethe’s works triggered an adjustment of Guo’s earlier pantheism, urging him to give special
prominence to the creative power of the individual, as well as to the role played by human action
in the progress of society. In this sense, Guo may have found a new mode of self-expression and a
new perspective by exploring “Faustian-Promethean strains”15 hitherto unknown in Chinese lit-
erature. The impact of Goethe’s masterpiece is especially noticeable in “The Nirvana of the Phoe-
nixes” (Fenghuang niepan, 1920), but also permeates “The Rebirth of the Goddesses” (Nüshen zhi
zaisheng, 1921): in the latter, the filiation is clearly marked by the insertion, by way of a prologue,
of the Chorus mysticus from the closing section of the German Faust.16 I will provide below a more
detailed analysis of the two poetic plays from the perspective of destruction and re-creation.
While in Japan, Guo Moruo read the Bible – probably inspired by his Japanese wife, the
daughter of a Protestant minister – but also became acquainted with Greco-Roman and other
mythologies. Echoes of the “Song of Songs” can be found in “Venus” (1919), despite the Latin
reference contained in the title: “I would compare your loving lips / to a wine cup. / An inex-
haustible, sweet liquor / that would keep me constantly inebriated” (130). Guo naturally became
acquainted with Arishima Takeo’s works, through which he became acquainted with the writ-
ings of many authors who would soon become his literary beacons – the most notable being
Whitman, who enjoyed enormous popularity in Japan at the time. He also came in contact with
such Japanese forms of fiction as the “I-novel” (shishōsetsu): the strong self-referentiality typical
of this genre undoubtedly gave him – as well as his fellow Creationists, notably his then close
friend Yu Dafu – a solid aesthetic point of reference.17
Guo Moruo also may have come into contact with the European avant-garde of Expression-
ism, Dadaism, and Futurism, either in their original forms or through Japanese reinterpretations.
Expressionism, with its focus on subjectivity, subversion, and the centrality of emotional experi-
ence, found its natural place in the poet’s artistic stance and modes of expression. An interesting
study has been carried out that stresses the emphasis on onomatopoeia and the combining of
images and words that are found in some of Guo’s verses, e.g. “The Nirvana of the Phoenixes,”
which may point at Dada as a source of inspiration.18 Futurist motifs and images are easier to

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detect, for example in the personification of the city in “Looking Afar from Fudetate Peak”
(Bili shantou zhanwang, 1920): “Pulse of the great metropolis! / Surge of life! / Beating, pant-
ing, shrieking. . . / Spurting, flying, jumping. . . ” (68). However, the Futurist exaltation of the
industrial metropolis is absent from Guo’s poetic horizon, as is the modernist binary opposition
between city and nature. Moreover, his concept of power and destruction has a specific con-
notation that, although similarly aimed at radical rejuvenation, is far removed from the blatant,
right-leaning belligerence of Italian Futurism.
The osmotic symbiosis between diverse models and sources is a constant trait of Guo Moruo’s
intellectual and artistic attitude. Even when confronted with the ubiquitous foreign suggestions
in The Goddesses, it is important to note that “every occidental discovery is balanced in Guo
Moruo by the reimmersion in the deepest current of Chinese national heritage.”19 The complex-
ity of Guo’s intellectual universe stems precisely from this network of interliterary and intralit-
erary connections, woven together and reconfigured by the poet in a powerfully modern way.

The explosion of the Self

The resurgence of individualism, even in its most extreme and unabashed forms, is undoubtedly
one of the main features of new Chinese poetry. As a matter of fact, the emergence of a modern
poetry devoted to lending voice to the artist’s Self is intimately connected to the critical endeavor
undertaken by Hu Shi, the eminent activist for language reform and the engineer of the literary
revolution that took place at the end of the 1910s. Hu began to draw attention to the renewal of
poetry as early as 1917, when his first vernacular poems appeared in New Youth (Xin qingnian).
His artistic efforts were collected in 1922 under the title Experiments (Changshi ji), and were
accompanied by a series of seminal theoretical essays on the innovation of poetic language and
thought. In particular, “On New Poetry” (Tan xinshi, 1919) marked a turning point in the way
poetry was to be conceived of and created for many years to come. Hu’s concept of new poetry
involved the discarding of classical Chinese language in favor of the vernacular, the adoption of
free verse and even prose-like metric forms, the revitalization of ideas and images, and a renewed
attention to clarity and conciseness. His programmatic vision ultimately favored – much in the
same way as Imagism was doing in Europe and America – an artistic creation based on concrete-
ness and individual experience, against traditional literary models that Hu and his followers saw
as ossified, overly formalistic, lacking authenticity and hindering genuine self-expression.
However, when it comes to the advocacy of spontaneity and subjectivity, it was not Hu Shi that
left the deepest mark in the new poetry of the May Fourth era, but Guo Moruo. Furthermore, if
we take 1916 as the composition date of the earliest poems that would later be gathered in The
Goddesses, Guo seems to have incorporated such principles in his poetic creation about one year
before Hu’s literary revolution. A celebration of unfettered self-expression and of the poet’s crea-
tive power, The Goddesses is the epitome of the Romantic subjectivity that was an essential feature
of the May Fourth Movement. However, as widely discussed by his scholars, in Guo’s early poems
the “I” has a cosmic significance and is embedded in a pantheistic vision that is unique to him.
This sentiment is ubiquitous throughout the collection, but reaches its peak in “The Heav-
enly Hound” (Tiangou, 1920): “I am the Heavenly Hound!/ I swallow the moon,/ I swallow
the sun,/ I swallow all the stars,/ I swallow the entire universe,/ I am I!/ I am the light of the
moon,/ I am the light of the sun,/ I am the light of all the stars,/ I am the light of X-ray beams,/
I am the total Energy [in English in the original] of the entire universe!/ I race,/ I shout wildly,/
I burn,/ I burn like blazing fire,/ I shout wildly like the ocean,/ I race like electricity,/ I race,/
I race,/ I race,/ I peel my skin,/ I eat my flesh,/ I suck my blood,/ I gnaw my guts,/ I race on my
nerves,/ I race on my spine,/ I race on my brains,/ I am I!/ My I is about to explode!” (54–55).

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The poet identifies with the Heavenly Dog of Chinese mythology, resonating with the leg-
endary Norse wolves that cause the world to sink into darkness at Ragnarök. Here the poet’s
pantheistic Self becomes the incarnation of cosmic energy and one with the universe, in an
everlasting process of creation and destruction.20 The pounding rhythm of the poem, its free
meter and explosive style perfectly epitomize the “great wave” verse that made him famous,
and its powerful imagery taps into scientific knowledge “in an attempt to enrich and renew the
current vocabulary of poetry.”21
A very similar rhythmic pattern and imagery, as well as the same persistent “I” at the begin-
ning of each verse, can be found in “I am a Worshipper of Idols” (Wo shi ge ouxiang chong-
baizhe, 1920). The poet bursts forth “I am a worshipper of idols!,” then goes on to itemize the
objects of his worship – which include the sun, the mountain peaks, the ocean, life, death, light,
darkness, the creative spirit, blood, the heart, bombs, grief, destruction, but also Suez and Pan-
ama, the Great Wall and the Pyramids – and ends with the verses “I worship destroyers of idols,
worship myself! / I am also a destroyer of idols!” (99). By anaphorically using the pronoun “I,”
the poet’s hyperbolic Self reviews the manifestations of both nature and humankind, from heav-
enly bodies to the products of human genius and creativity; and after shifting its gaze towards
man and his violence, at the end it turns to itself once again, trapped in a solipsistic loop. Just as
the I reaches the peak of its elevation it also reaches its terminal point: it subsequently collapses
into self-referentiality, losing the ability to convey any message and – in “The Heavenly Hound” –
finding an ultimate outlet only in an explosion.22
The use of free verse and the fondness for diverse references – science, nature, and mythol-
ogy, to name just a few – but also the ubiquity of an amplified “I,” the catalogue technique, and
the feeling of physical and spiritual oneness with the universe can be instantly traced back to
Whitman, and especially to “Song of Myself ” and the second stanza of “So Long.” However, this
prominent, all-encompassing Self is rooted not only in a Romantic and heroic subjectivity, but
also in Nietzsche’s philosophy of the Übermensch. The German thinker had already been given
prominence by other May Fourth intellectuals, notably Mao Dun and Lu Xun, who emphasized
the role of the Overman in overturning traditional – i.e. Confucian – morality. In his early verse,
Guo pushes this idea of a powerful individual to its extreme consequences, making it a corner-
stone of his poetics. Although Guo’s interest for Nietzsche cooled in later years, the philosopher
obtained an eminent place in his personal theoretical pantheon, as witnessed by the influential
translation of Zarathustra.23 Nietzsche is even celebrated, together with Copernicus and Darwin,
as one of the “bandits of doctrinal revolution” in “Hymn to the Bandits” (Feitu song, 1919), with
the poet praising his iconoclasm and addressing him directly in these terms:“Nietzsche, you mad
advocate of the philosophy of the Overman, you who have humiliated gods and smashed idols!”
(114–115). The hypertrophic and unrestrained Self found in The Goddesses is also evocative of
the “extension of the Self ” (Erweiterung des Ichs) theorized by Max Stirner, the father of anarchist
individualism, who exerted a significant influence on many intellectuals of the time – especially
Yu Dafu, who opened a 1923 article on Stirner with a discussion of this very concept24 – and
was seen by some of them as a precursor to Nietzsche’s philosophy.
The celebration of self-expression, artistic creativity, and individual freedom that permeates
The Goddesses hit the modern Chinese literary scene with unrivalled momentum. The collec-
tion proved crucial to the formation of a new poetic conscience and voice: echoes of the same
individualistic sentiment, the presentation of the poet as a hero, and even some metric features
of Guo’s new-style verse can still be found, decades later, in an entirely different artistic and
ideological context – e.g. in such “obscure” poems as “The Answer” (Huida, 1976) by Bei Dao.25
Despite immediately earning Guo Moruo a legion of admirers and imitators, however, the exac-
erbated self-absorption and overwhelming rhetoric of The Goddesses proved hardly sustainable

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in the long run. By the mid-1920s, most modern poets – including Guo himself – had already
turned to other forms and sources of inspiration.

Destruction and rebirth

The celebration of annihilation and destruction in such poems as “The Heavenly Dog” or
“I am a Worshipper of Idols” is self-evident.26 In her discussion of the sublime in The Goddesses,
Zheng goes as far as to declare that “[t]he sublime transfigured in Guo’s ‘new’ verse is a sublim-
ity of the joys of destruction bordering on savagery.”27 Elsewhere, the depiction of such themes
shows more positive, even cheerful traits. This is the case, for example, with the final stanza of
“Victorious Death” (Shengli de si, 1920), dedicated to IRA fighter Terence MacSwiney, with its
apostrophe: “O solemn death! O death in a golden blaze! O death triumphant! / O victorious
death! / Impartial, selfless God of Death! I thank you!” (122). The Romantic idea of death as
“true liberation” (128) longed for by the poet is also patent in “Death” (Si, 1919).
However, it is in the poetic dramas “The Rebirth of the Goddesses” and “The Nirvana of
the Phoenixes” that the celebration of destruction, and the subsequent call for the creation of
a new world order, find their most accomplished poetic representation. In the former work,
Guo revisits the myth of the goddess Nüwa mending the heavens at the time when the sky
and the earth were in disruption, as related in several traditional sources. In his version of
the myth, three anonymous goddesses, possibly symbols of the eternal feminine essence (ewig
Weibliche) evoked in the motto from Faust, are put on the stage. Facing a turbulent world and
an impending catastrophe, they disappear while announcing the advent of a new world, made
of new light and warmth: “We will create a new sun, / We will no longer stay in these niches
as statues!” (8). In the following verses, a bloody war between Zhuanxu and Gonggong – two
mythical characters reminiscent of the warlords ravaging China at the time – leaves the world
in ruins. The goddesses, now unseen and only heard, sing a song of welcome to the newly cre-
ated sun, which has yet to rise. The voices of praise fade as the stage manager appears bowing
to the audience:

Everyone! You must have grown tired of sitting in this fetid, gloomy world! You must
be thirsting for light! The poet who composed this play has put his pen down. In fact,
he has fled beyond the sea to create a new light and warmth. Everyone, are you waiting
for the appearance of a new-born sun? You better create one yourselves! Till we meet
again under the new sun!
(14)

The chaotic old world has undergone utter obliteration: “New-made wine / cannot be con-
tained in old skins” (8), sings the Third Goddess. However, a rebirth, embodied by the new sun
and sustained by the poet’s creative endeavor, is only hinted at in the stage manager’s closing
statement – not without a hint of irony – and left to the efforts of the audience.28
A more complex conceptualization of rebirth, following the demolition of the old order, is
found in “The Nirvana of the Phoenixes,” perhaps the most accomplished poem in the collec-
tion, which tellingly opens its second section. Guo Moruo reimagines the myth of the phoenix,
grafting the Near-Eastern bird that rise from its ashes onto the feng and huang of the Chinese
tradition – respectively the male and female phoenix, whose appearance is associated with the
advent of a righteous ruler. Through the representation of the cycle of death and rebirth, sym-
bolized by the phoenixes, the poem captures the spirit of the May Fourth Movement and its
yearning for a new life born out of the ashes of a collapsing world. In a solemn tone sustained

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by repetition and parallelism, the “Prelude” describes a bleak world where the death by fire of
the phoenixes is imminent: “The night is now deep, / the wood is now lit, / the feng is tired of
pecking, / the huang is tired of flapping, / their hour of death is near!” (35). The pitch of the
poem is then elevated by the intense song of the feng:“Universe, o universe, / I curse you with all
my strength: / you blood-soiled slaughterhouse! / You gloom-filled prison! / You grave where
phantoms shriek! / You hell where demons frolic! / Why do you even exist?” (38). The song of
the huang introduces a more gentle and nostalgic note, in the awareness that the incoming death
will put an end to the freshness and sweetness of youth, but also to the worries and grief of this
life. While the couple is consumed by the fire, a flock of other birds approaches to witness their
demise, mocking them and hoping to inherit a piece of the world they have left behind. The
poetic play closes in a climax ushered in by the carefully orchestrated “Song of rebirth,” in which
the reborn phoenixes gleefully sing their own resurrection and the advent of a new world: a
world dominated by the liberating force of fire – another incarnation of the pervasive image of
the sun – and by the return to a pantheistic vision where “the One of the All is born again, / the
All of the One is born again!” and “fire is you. / Fire is me. / Fire is him. / Fire is fire!” (43–44).
As is the case in “The Rebirth of the Goddesses,” the political and revolutionary implications
of this renewal are not developed or made explicit: such a change remains confined to the realm
of a humanist idealism, tinged with utopian suggestions. In spite of a generally optimistic tone,
the new world never seems to be fully realized, and the unambiguous certitudes of socialist real-
ism are still nowhere to be found in The Goddesses. This said, one may see in this idea of renewal
the seeds of the engagement that will dominate Guo’s later life and artistic production, starting
with his conversion to Marxism in 1924. However, Guo’s political views were still blurry and
hardly systematic at the time, and his enthusiasm still largely fashioned by Romantic models. His
sympathy for certain left-wing principles is beyond doubt, but the famous claims expressed in
the “Preface” (Xushi, 1921), namely “I am a proletarian” and “I want to be a Communist” (3),
should not be overstated. Rather, it has been suggested that “The Nirvana of the Phoenixes”
presents religious overtones, starting from the evocation of the concept of nirvana in the title.
From this perspective, the regeneration brought about by May Fourth and allegorically staged
by Guo may be seen as “not a mere historical event but a religious ritual, one that initiates the
new youth into an ecstasy of total self-confidence and self-sacrifice.”29
In any case, the idea of rebirth is ever-present in The Goddesses: while it is not always for-
mulated as explicitly as in the poetic plays discussed above, it is often hinted at in a number
of ways. As already mentioned, one of Guo’s favorite semantic fields associated with renewal
includes sun, fire, light, heat, and energy in their various forms. In “Sunrise” (Richu, 1920), the
dark clouds gathering in the sky are “all driven away by Apollo’s mighty light” (62) while “the
cockcrows all around play a song of triumph” (63). Perhaps unsurprisingly, the line “light and
darkness are divided, as if cut with a knife” (62) is reminiscent of the beginning of the Genesis,
which may reinforce the idea of (re-)creation and its religious associations. Moreover, in a game
of internal reverberations, the song of the roosters – the only birds that refrained from mocking
the dying feng and huang – also introduces the rebirth song of the phoenixes in “The Nirvana of
the Phoenixes” by announcing “the light that died is born again. / [. . .] the universe that died is
born again. / [. . .] the phoenixes that died are born again” (43).
The exaltation of the creativity of man – and especially the poet – is also intimately con-
nected with the idea of rebirth. In “The Pyramids” (Jinzita, 1920), for instance, the sun is sym-
bolized by the pyramids themselves, which in turn roar: “Create! Create! Create with all your
might! / The creative force of humankind can rival that of the gods! / If you do not believe us,
then look at us, we glorious constructions!” (107).The Romantic celebration of human creative
power is exemplified by the feverish monologue of Qu Yuan in the poetic play “The Tragedy

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at the Xiang River” (Xiang lei, 1920): “I follow the example of the spirit of creation, I create
freely, freely express myself. I create magnificent mountains and grand oceans, I create the sun,
the moon, the stars, I ride the wind, the clouds, the thunder, the rain, and though limited by
my own body I break free, I can expand into the universe”30 (22). This speech seems to encap-
sulate the universe of The Goddesses and its aesthetic mainstays: the celebration of creation and
free self-expression, the identification of the poet with a demiurge, the expansion of the Self,
and a pantheistic vision expressed in a language that is strongly reminiscent of “The Heavenly
Dog” – besides the hammering presence of the “I.” Echoes of Dr. Faust’s euphoric lines clearly
resonate in the words of the poet that Guo Moruo admired most. It comes as no surprise that
Guo somehow elected Qu Yuan as his alter ego, just as Goethe did with Faust:31 a characterization
that would be finally accomplished 20 years later, in the 1942 historical play of the same name.
The wealth of elements drawn from all disciplines and epochs, remolded by Guo Moruo’s
talent to create a brand-new mythical universe, has earned The Goddesses the status of a master-
piece in modern Chinese literature. Because of its cross-cultural value, the collection should also
be entitled to a first-rate place in the realm of world literature. Its role in the formation of a new
aesthetic conscience and a new approach to poetic expression marks a milestone in the cultural
history of China. Even though many of these forms and modes were more or less quickly aban-
doned, a world of artistic possibilities was opened that transcended both the continuation of
tradition and the mere imitation of foreign models. From this perspective, The Goddesses paved
the way for modern Chinese poetry and exerted an enduring influence for the decades to come.

Notes
1 Achilles Fang, “From Imagism to Whitmanism in Recent Chinese Poetry: A Search for Poetics That
Failed,” in Horst Frenz and G. L. Anderson, eds., Indiana University Conference on Oriental-Western Litera-
ture Relations (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1955), 186.
2 Bonnie McDougall and Kam Louie, The Literature of China in the Twentieth Century (London: Hurst &
Company, 1997), 42.
3 The edition of The Goddesses used in this contribution follows that contained in the first volume of Guo
Moruo quanji (Complete Works of Guo Moruo), published in 1982 by Renmin wenxue chubanshe.
4 Wen Yiduo, Wen Yiduo quanji (Complete Works of Wen Yiduo), vol. 2 (Wuhan: Hubei renmin chu-
banshe, 1993), 110.
5 Yi Zheng, “The Romantic Transfiguration of a Sublime Poetics,” in Caroline Baillie et al., eds., Travel-
ling Facts: The Social Construction, Distribution, and Accumulation of Knowledge (Frankfurt am Main and
New York: Campus, 2004), 112.
6 Lars Ellström, “Guo Moruo, Nüshen (The Goddesses), 1921,” in Lloyd Haft, ed., A Selective Guide to
Chinese Literature 1900–1949, Volume III: The Poem (Leiden, New York, København and Köln: Brill,
1989), 108–114.
7 Achilles Fang, “From Imagism to Whitmanism,” 186.
8 Julia Lin, Modern Chinese Poetry: An Introduction (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1972), 198.
9 For instance, Hu Shi emphasized the supposed indigenous origins of the new genre, although his poetic
thought had been essentially shaped by his education in the US and his immersion in Euro-American
modernist poetry. See Kirk A. Denton, “Form and Reform: New Poetry and the Crescent Moon
Society,” in Joshua Mostow, ed., The Columbia Companion to East Asian Literature (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2003), 366. On the attempt to obscure the interliterary and anticonformist aspects
in Guo Moruo’s early poetry see also Wolfgang Kubin, “Creator! Destroyer! On the Self-Image of the
Chinese Poet,” in Modern Chinese Literature (1996), vol. 9, no. 2, 252.
10 Michelle Yeh,“ ‘There Are No Camels in the Koran’:What Is Modern About Modern Chinese Poetry?”
in Christopher Lupke, ed., New Perspectives on Contemporary Chinese Poetry (New York: Palgrave Mac-
millan, 2008), 15.
11 Marián Gálik, “Kuo Mo-jo’s The Goddesses: Creative Confrontation with Tagore, Whitman and Goe-
the,” in Marián Gálik, ed., Milestones in Sino-Western Literary Confrontation (1898–1979) (Weisbaden:
Otto Harrassowitz, 1986), 45.

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 Imagining new Chinese in Guo Moruo’s poetry

12 Ibid., 44.
13 Guo Moruo, Guo Moruo quanji (Complete Works of Guo Moruo), vol. 1 (Beijing: Renmin wenxue
chubanshe, 1982), 148. Further quotations from the Chinese text will be indicated by page numbers in
brackets after the citation. All translations from the Chinese are my own.
14 See Liu Rongqiang, “Whitman’s Soul in China: Guo Moruo’s Poetry in the New Culture Movement,”
in Ed Folsom, ed., Whitman East & West: New Contexts for Reading Walt Whitman (Iowa City: University
of Iowa Press, 2002), 172–186; Ou Hong, “Pantheistic Ideas in Guo Moruo’s The Goddesses and Whit-
man’s Leaves of Grass,” in Ed Folsom, ed., Whitman East & West, 187–196.
15 Marián Gálik, “Kuo Mo-jo’s The Goddesses,” 61.
16 Ibid., 59 ff.
17 See Christopher T. Keaveney, The Subversive Self in Modern Chinese Literature:The Creation Society’s Rein-
vention of the Japanese Shishōsetsu (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).
18 Kin Pong James Au, “The Influence of Dadaist Poetry Works on Chinese and Japanese Poems from the
Late 1910s Till the Late 1920s,” The Asian Conference on Arts and Humanities Osaka, Japan 2014 – Confer-
ence Proceedings 2014 (Nagoya: IAFOR, 2014), 600–612.
19 Anna Bujatti, “The Spirit of the May Fourth Movement in The Goddesses of Guo Moruo,” in Marián
Gálik, ed., Interliterary and Intraliterary Aspects of the May Fourth Movement 1919 in China (Bratislava:Veda,
1990), 104.
20 Marián Gálik, “Kuo Mo-jo’s The Goddesses,” 59.
21 Julia Lin, Modern Chinese Poetry, 209.
22 Richard Trappl, “ ‘Modernism’ and Foreign Influences on Chinese Poetry: Exemplified by the Early
Guo Moruo and Gu Cheng,” in Marián Gálik, ed., Interliterary and Intraliterary Aspects of the May Fourth
Movement 1919 in China, 89. A groundbreaking investigation into the low-to-high, inside-to-outside
corporal dynamics of “The Heavenly Hound” is found in Mi Jialu (Mi Jiayan),“Zhangkuang yu zaohua
de shenti: ziwo mosu yu Zhongguo xiandaixing – Guo Moruo shige ‘Tiangou’ zaijiedu” (The Insolent
and Creating Body: Self-Fashioning and Chinese Modernity. A Reinterpretation of Guo Moruo’s
Poem ‘The Heavenly Hound’), Jiangnan xueshu, vol. 35, no. 1, 13–21. For an intriguing reading of the
obliteration of the Self as the sign of a longing for totality and a prelude to a conversion to collectivism,
see Victor Vuilleumier, “Body, Soul, and Revolution: The Paradoxical Transfiguration of the Body in
Modern Chinese Poetry,” in Tao Dongfeng et al., eds., Chinese Revolution and Chinese Literature (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 57.
23 See Raoul David Findeisen, “The Burden of Culture: Glimpses at the Literary Reception of Nietzsche
in China,” Asian and African Studies (1997), no. 6, 79–81.
24 Yu Dafu, Yu Dafu quanji (Complete Works of Yu Dafu), vol. 10 (Hangzhou: Zhejiang daxue chu-
banshe, 2006), 48–64.
25 Michel Hockx, “Introduction: The Making of Modern Chinese Poetry,” in The Flowering of Modern
Chinese Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from the Republican Period, trans. Herbert Batt and Sheldon Zitner
(Montreal, Kingston, London and Chicago: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016), 17.
26 See Wolfgang Kubin, “Creator! Destroyer!” 252 ff., and Chu Zigang, “Lun Guo Moruo zaoqi shige
zhong de siwang yishi” (On the Conscience of Death in Guo Moruo’ s Early Poetry), Zuojia zazhi
(2012), no. 3, 32–33.
27 Yi Zheng, “The Romantic Transfiguration of a Sublime Poetics,” 113.
28 See Anna Bujatti, “Lo spirito del 4 Maggio nella ‘Rinascita delle dee’ di Guo Moruo” (The May Fourth
Spirit in Guo Moruo’s ‘The Rebirth of the Goddesses’), Cina (1980), no. 16, 265–272.
29 David Der-wei Wang, “Chinese Literature from 1841 to 1937,” in Kang-i Sun Chang, ed., The Cam-
bridge History of Chinese Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), vol. 2, 482.
30 Anna Bujatti, “The Spirit of the May Fourth Movement in The Goddesses of Guo Moruo,” 103.
31 Marián Gálik, “Kuo Mo-jo’s The Goddesses,” 66.

Further readings
Chen, Xiaoming. From the May Fourth Movement to Communist Revolution. Guo Moruo and the Chinese Path
to Communism. New York: SUNY Press, 2007.
Gálik, Marián. “Kuo Mo-jo and His Development from Aesthetico-Impressionist to Proletarian Criticism.”
In Gálik, ed., The Genesis of Modern Chinese Literary Criticism, 1917–1930. London: Curzon Press, 1980,
28–62.

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 Paolo Magagnin

Lee, Leo Ou-fan. “Kuo Mo-jo.” In Lee, ed., The Romantic Generation of Modern Chinese Writers. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1973, 177–200.
Mi, Jiayan. Self-Fashioning and Reflexive Modernity in Modern Chinese Poetry, 1919–1949. Lewiston, NY:
Edwin Mellen, 2004.
Průšek, Jaroslav. “Kuo Mo-jo.” In Průšek, ed., Three Sketches of Chinese Literature. Prague: Oriental Institute
in Academia, 1969, 99–140.
Roy, David Tod. Kuo Mo-jo.The Early Years. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971.
Shih, Shu-mei. “Psychoanalysis and Cosmopolitanism. The Work of Guo Moruo.” In Shih, ed., The Lure of
the Modern. Writing Modernism in Semicolonial China, 1917–1937. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University
of California Press, 2001, 96–109.

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 8
ROMANTICIZING NEW
CHINESE IN POETRY
Zhu Ziqing, Wen Yiduo, Xu Zhimo

Frederik H. Green

While the short story, and in particular the pioneering examples of Lu Xun discussed in Chap-
ter 1, undoubtedly played the foremost role in modernizing Chinese literature and in insti-
tutionalizing the new Chinese vernacular (baihua) as the language of the new literature, the
role played by poetry in bringing about a “literary revolution” as was advocated by progressive
reformers must not be neglected, especially because the task of modernizing Chinese poetry was
arguably even more daunting than that of modernizing fiction. Classical Chinese poetry written
in literary Chinese (wenyan) is above all defined by its strict prosodic rules that govern meter and
rhyme. Mastery of these rules was for centuries not only a sign of cultural sophistication, but also
an essential requirement for success in the civil service exams. As a result, classical poetry carried
immense discursive significance in the formation and articulation of moral, aesthetic, and politi-
cal beliefs. It was only during the New Culture Movement of the late 1910s and early 1920s, a
progressive reformist movement aimed at rejuvenating and modernizing Chinese culture, that
classical poetry’s usefulness as a tool for self-expression or social renewal began to be questioned
by intellectuals in support of the literary revolution.
All three poets discussed in this chapter had a profound impact on the development of a
new Chinese poetry in the first part of the twentieth century. Zhu Ziqing (1898–1948) was a
pioneer of free verse and advocate a new poetic language that expanded the horizon of poetic
diction. As a student at Peking University, then the country’s center of progressive thought,
Zhu remained closely aligned with the ideas of his mentors, such as Hu Shi’s advocacy of the
“great liberation of poetic form” that called for poets to express their thoughts and feelings
in free, vernacular verse and in the spirit of Tolstoyan humanism and modern individualism,
exemplified by the writings of Zhou Zuoren (1885–1967). Wen Yiduo (1899–1946) shared
Zhu Ziqing’s humanism and the belief in the transformative potential of socially progressive
new poetry. However, Wen Yiduo’s intense interest in English romantic poetry and his training
in aesthetic theories also led him to the advocacy of a more formalistic approach to new verse.
Xu Zimo (1897–1931), finally, shared Wen Yiduo’s love of romantic poetry and his belief that
the new poetry could benefit from more formal structures. While this did not imply a return
to classical prosody and form, it was to be understood as a reaction to the unbridled free-form
poetry of the early reformers. Together with Wen Yiduo and other like-minded intellectuals,
Xu in the 1920s founded the Crescent Moon Society, a literary group that pursued spir-
itual renewal by way of aestheticism. Of all three poets, Xu Zhimo is undoubtedly the most

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“romantic,” not just because of his desire to freely express individual emotions by way of sen-
sual imagery, a desire he shared with Zhu Ziqing and Wen Yiduo, but because of his idealism,
his uncompromising pursuit of aestheticism, and his celebration of sublime love in his poetry
and throughout his short life.

Life and career of Zhu Ziqing

Born into a declining gentry family in Jiangsu province, Zhu Ziqing, like many of his peers,
received an education that was partly traditional and partly modern. In 1916, Zhu entered
Peking University where he eventually majored in philosophy, and where he met Zhou Zuoren,
who had a lasting impact on Zhu’s literary development. Like Zhou, Zhu remained politically
moderate, even as the May Fourth Movement of 1919 erupted in Beijing.The movement, how-
ever, instilled in Zhu a set of humanitarian ideals and anti-imperialist sentiments that also shaped
much of his early verse. Unlike Wen Yiduo and Xu Zhimo, both of whom studied abroad after
graduation, Zhu Ziqing remained in China and taught for several years at a number of modern
schools in Zhejiang and Jiangsu province. In 1921, Zhu Ziqing joined the Literary Research
Association, China’s first modern literary society that promoted the ideas of the New Culture
Movement and that proposed that literature be placed in the service of humanity. Around that
time, he also became an active promotor and practitioner of new poetry. With his friends and
fellow writers Yu Pingbo (1900–1990),Ye Shengtao (1894–1988) and Liu Yanling (1894–1988),
he founded the first Chinese literary society dedicated to new verse, the New Poetry Society
(Xinshi she).1
Zhu’s activity as a new-style poet only lasted until around 1925. That year, Zhu began to
teach at Tsinghua University where he became chair of the Chinese department in 1932.2
Though his complete works only include a few dozen new poems, his impact on the new
poetry movement was considerable.3 Encouraged by Zhou Zuoren’s promotion of the short
lyric (xiaoshi), a form of new poetry that was modeled on modern Japanese haiku and the
poetry of Rabindranath Tagore, Zhu in the early 1920s became one of the new form’s earli-
est advocates and practitioners.4 Furthermore, in his highly lyrical yet socially engaged prose
proems, Zhu frequently expanded the stylistic and thematic boundaries of new Chinese poetry
in the vernacular. Of equal importance to his role as a pioneer of new verse was Zhu’s work as
a critic of modern poetry, as an educator and scholar, and as an editor. The poetry volume of
the seminal Comprehensive Compendium to Modern Literature (Xinwenxue daxi shiji) from 1935
that included works by over fifty modern poets, for example, was edited and prefaced by him.
Today, Zhu is best remembered as a writer of essays. In fact, Zhu was one of the key intellectu-
als who turned the essay into one of the most important literary genres of Republican-period
China. During the Sino-Japanese war, Zhu relocated to Changsha and then to Kunming after
Tsinghua University, Peking University, and Nankai University moved to the hinterland to
form National Southwestern Associated University. In 1938, he became the chairman of the
All-China Literature and Art Association for Resistance, a loose organization of patriotically
minded intellectuals who wished to optimize the impact of artistic activity on the war effort
to resist Japanese aggression.5

Achievements of Zhu Ziqing

Zhu Ziqing is often credited for bringing the fledging new poetry to maturity.6 While Hu
Shi and Zhou Zuoren have to be credited with pioneering the use of vernacular and free
verse in Chinese poetry, their poems too often failed to be “poetic.” Michelle Yeh summarizes

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the challenge that modern poets were facing at that time: if modern Chinese poetry was to
have neither fixed form nor classical syntax or poetic diction, how was it to be recognized as
poetry?7 In 1922, Zhu Ziqing was one of eight co-editors and contributors to China’s first
anthology of modern poetry, a collection entitled A Snowy Morning (Xuezhao) that consisted
of a total of 187 new poems and that was to have a lasting impact on China’s new poetry
movement.8 At the same time, Zhu was one of the editors and contributors to the first liter-
ary journal exclusively dedicated to the publication and discussion of modern poetry, the
short lived Poetry Monthly (Shi yuekan). Established in 1922, it only published seven issues, yet
despite its short print-run published close to 500 modern poems by nearly 100 new poets. It
also carried works of theory and criticism, as well as translations of foreign poetry. In 1924,
Zhu published his own collection of modern verse and prose essays entitled Tracks (Zongji) to
great critical acclaim.
Zhu Ziqing’s critical writings on the topic of modern poetry were equally influential, mak-
ing him one of the leading interpreters of the new poetry.9 His critical essays were anthologized
in 1947 in Talks on the New Poetry (Xinshi zahua). That year, Zhu Ziqing also oversaw the com-
pilation of Wen Yiduo’s complete works. Today, Zhu Ziqing’s importance as a poet is overshad-
owed by his legacy as a writer of essays, many of which form an essential part of the Chinese
curriculum of students all over the Chinese-speaking world.

The masterpieces of Zhu Ziqing

A Snowy Morning was published in Shanghai in 1922 by the Commercial Press, one of Chi-
na’s first modern publishing houses. Mainly because of its close association with the Literary
Research Association, it had become the most important publisher of modern and progressive
literature, textbooks, and translations of foreign literature. A Snowy Morning was received enthu-
siastically by critics and readers alike and went through several reprints. Because contributors
were arranged by stroke order, the nineteen poems by Zhu Ziqing, whose last name had the
fewest number of strokes among all eight contributors, headed the anthology. Zhu’s poems
reflect the main stylistic and topical trends of the burgeoning new poetry movement and are
evidence of his mastery of the new medium. The second poem in the selection entitled “Coal”
(Mei), for example, responded to the call to expand the scope and themes for poetry on the one
hand while, on the other hand, extoling progress and optimism, social justice and humanism, and
infusing poetic language with new vitality.

You slumber deep underground,

So filthy, so dark!
The people who look at you
How they hate you, fear you!
They say,
“No one wants to be close to it. . .!”
Then suddenly you start dancing from amidst in the Field of Fire,
Out from your black naked figure,
Burst flashes of glow and heat;
Oh! Glow and heat everywhere,
Dazzling and bright!
They have forgotten what was before,
Their mouths wide open in laughter,
Singing songs in praise of you;

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 Frederik H. Green

Swaying their bodies,

In tune with the rhythm of your dance.10

Written in the new vernacular, “Coal” breaks with traditional meter and adopts a free form,
as did most poetry in the early days of the new poetry movement. In fact, the liberation from
strict rhyming and metric conventions, which is such a defining feature of classical Chinese
verse, was one of the prime concerns for new poets active in the early 1920s, and in this regard
alone A Snowy Morning was exemplary. All 187 poems in A Snowy Morning were printed in
the newly adopted Western way of printing poetry on the page, namely vertically line by line
instead of as one continues body of text where line breaks were indicated by small circles,
as was conventional with traditional poetry. Zhu’s poem, however, does not abandon meter
entirely, and he attempts to maintain a roughly equal line length for corresponding lines.
He further creates semblance of stanzas by indenting the first line of the three topical units
in the poem. At the same time, Zhu makes conscious – at times excessive – use of modern
Western punctuation, which visually added to the “modern-ness” of the poem, but which
also helped accentuate stress and lend rhythm to the poem. Several other of Zhu’s poems in
A Snowy Morning were similar in length, rhythm, topic, and poetic diction to “Coal,” such
as “Small Grasses” (Xiaocao), where the beauty of small grasses is extolled as a new spring
arrives or “Among My Fellow Men” (Renjian), a poem that describes two chance encounters
that deeply move the lyrical “I,” one with a simple, warm-hearted peasant and one with a
mother and child. Both the perceived purity of peasant life and the allegorical significance of
motherly love within the concept of modern nationalism were frequent tropes in May Fourth
literature.
Another poem included in A Snowy Morning representative of the formalistic and prosodic
concerns of the early stages of the new poetry movement is “Attachment” (Yilian), a short poem
consisting of only three lines:

Sitting in a third class carriage,

Dimly recalling Shanghai in January,
My heart sinks.
2/18/21, onboard the
Shanghai-Hangzhou train

The short lyric had been one of the most enthusiastically embraced genres of the new poetry
movement. Zhou Zuoren had been among its most fervent promoters in China. He had been
impressed by the way modern Japanese poets had infused haiku and tanka, two traditional verse
forms, with new life when they had begun modernizing their language and literature during the
late nineteenth century. Zhou had translated several of them into Chinese and published them
in Poetry Monthly. In an introduction to the modern tanka of Takuboku Ishikawa (1886–1912),
for example, he refers to them as “poems of life” whose content “emphasizes the expression of
real life and does away with restrictive examples of the past, whereas the form is revolutionary
in that it employs colloquial language and breaks with line restrictions, something new poets
[in China] all too often dare not do.”11 Zhu Ziqing achieves all those objectives beautifully in
“Attachment.” Ostensibly composed on board a train and written in the modern vernacular, the
poem is not only intrinsically modern, but also grounded in real life. The emotion expressed in
the poem appears like the scene viewed from a train window – fleeting, and disappearing in an
instant. As such, the poem also conforms to Zhu Ziqing’s own critical demands for successful

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short lyric. “The use of [writing] short poetry,” Zhu writes in “On Short Verse and Long Verse”
that appeared in Poetry Monthly in 1922,

lies in [. . .] expressing the awareness of a single instant. Therefore, it should cherish
conciseness and abstain from longwindedness. [. . .] Artistically, short poems should
emphasize suggestion and flexibility of expression. The reader should feel as if count-
less scenes are eager to jump out.12

Zhu Ziqing’s best known poem, however, was not a short poem, but a long prose poem enti-
tled “Destruction” (Huimie) that appeared in 1923 in Short Story Monthly (Xiaoshuo yuebao),
another important progressive literary journal affiliated with the Literary Research Association.
Consisting of a preface and a total of 246 lines, the poem was written after a visit to the scenic
West Lake. “The three nights I spent at leisure on the lake left me feeling giddy, like a wisp of
smoke or a floating cloud, my footing completely off balance,” Zhu writes in the preface. “At
that moment, I felt greatly troubled by the temptations I had found myself entangled with and
as a result was yearning for destruction.”13 What follows is a lyrical tour-de-force that pushes, in
Michael Hockx’s words, the modern vernacular and the prosody of modern poetry to its gram-
matical and stylistic extremes.14 Sentences crammed with adjectives extend over several lines and
the innovative use of rhyme, alliterations, parallelism, and repetition make reading “Destruction”
a lyrical experience that at the time of publication certainly was unprecedented in modern
Chinese literature.

Rambling down the road

Dejected and crestfallen
That’s me!
That’s me!
Myriad colors,
Spread out so close at hand:
Here, so beautiful to see!
There, so beautiful to hear!
Smelling the thick fragrance,
tasting the strong flavors;
and all that my hand touches,
and my body leans on,
so smooth and lustrous,
so soft and supple,
Willingly!15

As the poem continues, the lyrical “I” extols elusive imagery, marvels in concrete descriptions
of nature and delves into hallucinatory near-death experiences until, in the last lines, the poet
concludes with a spiritual awakening.

Struggling, Struggling, I am finally returning,

the smoke and dust lift and I see the soil of my land!
All images vanish,
all radiance dissolves;
casting off all restraints,

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 Frederik H. Green

I am returning to my old self!

[. . .]
My old self, ordinary and insignificant,
now sees each step clearly and distinct,
filled with great joy –
All that is distant
I can no more, and want no more take notice of.
I won’t delay,
Go! Go! Go!16

Zhu’s juxtaposition of concrete and abstract images, frank exploration of highly subjective emo-
tions, and innovative use of the vernacular paired with clear historical allusions led Yu Pingbo,
another important May Fourth poet and critic, to state: “When talking about its melodious
and emotional style, the profound gloominess of its mood, and the heart-rendering grace of
its tonality, there is only Qu Yuan’s ‘Encountering Sorrow’ that can compare,”17 alluding to the
fact that the poem is both thoroughly modern in its innovative use of prosody while also firmly
grounded in China’s own rich poetic tradition.
Zhu’s lyrical exploration of nature and his meditative subjectivity also find expression in
many of his famous essays. In “The Lotus Pond by Moonlight” (Hetang yuese, 1927) a pensive
narrator finds spiritual respite on a nightly stroll on the campus of Tsinghua University, for
“alone in the all-pervading moonlight, one could think about everything, or about nothing, and
so believe oneself to be a free man.”18 His highly personal “The View from the Rear” (Beiying,
1925) is a sentimental recollection of Zhu’s father’s expression of parental love. Following exten-
sive travels in continental Europe and an extended seven-month stay in London between 1931
and 1932, Zhu recorded his impressions in Notes from my Travels in Europe (Ouyou zaji, 1934)
and Notes from London (Lundun zaji, 1943), two important examples of Republican-period travel
essays.
After around 1925, Zhu only occasionally reverted to writing modern verse. One of Zhu’s
last pieces of writing, however, was a new-style poem. It was written in memory of his friend,
fellow poet and critic Wen Yiduo, upon learning of Wen’s assassination in 1946 by KMT agents.
Composed not long before Zhu’s own untimely death in 1948 that had been hastened by
stomach ulcers aggravated by his refusal to accept relief food in an act of protest against Chiang
Kai-shek’s postwar regime and its backing by the US government, the poem not only echoes
the optimism and defiance of the May Fourth poets from three decades earlier, it also stands as
proud evidence that the new poetic language and form these poets had set out to establish per-
sisted and flourished, even – or especially – at a time when some of its creators suffered political
suppression.

You are a ball of fire,

Lighting up the deepest abyss;
Guiding the youth to find themselves
From amidst their hopelessness.
[. . .]
You are a ball of fire,
Blinding the demons;
You are destroying yourself!
But from your ashes a New China will burst forth!19

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 Romanticizing new Chinese in poetry

Life and career of Wen Yiduo

Born into a scholarly family in Hubei province,Wen Yiduo’s education, like that of Zhu Ziqing,
was shaped by his exposure to the traditional Chinese canon as well as to modern Western arts
and sciences. In 1912, Wen entered preparatory classes at Tsinghua University where he then
matriculated in 1918.There, he became acquainted with the work of John Keats and other Eng-
lish romantic poets, but was also exposed to the ideas of the May Fourth Movement.20 These
ostensibly conflicting intellectual impulses – idealism and the pursuit of beauty on the one hand
and anti-imperialist patriotism and social activism on the other – were to remain his defining
creative influences.
In 1922, Wen embarked for further studies in the US, enrolling first at the Art Institute of
Chicago and later Colorado College. Perceiving of art as the highest act of reason, a convic-
tion Wen shared with Western romantic thinkers, he immersed himself in the study of art and
aesthetic theories. Experiencing racial discrimination and witnessing what he perceived to be
Western cultural imperialism while in America, he also developed an acute sense of patriotism
and a desire to serve his country.21 These themes were frequently explored in his new poetry that
he had begun composing around the time of the May Fourth Movement. Upon his return to
China in 1925,Wen first taught at the newly established Art Institute of Beijing and a number of
other progressive universities before accepting a professorship in Chinese literature at Tsinghua
University in 1932, a position he continued to hold throughout the war years when Tsinghua
relocated to Kunming.
All throughout the late 1920s, Wen continued to shape the direction of modern Chinese
verse, especially after becoming a core member of the Crescent Moon Society. Together with
Xu Zhimo, he first edited Poetry Journal (Shikan), the new poetry section of The Morning
Post Supplement (Chenbao fukan), and later the Crescent Moon Monthly (Xinyue yuekan), the
group’s influential journal. Both publications also frequently carried his own new verse, yet
it was in his role as the Crescent Moon Society’s main theoretician that he would have the
most lasting impact on modern Chinese poetry. As a scholar of classical literature, Wen Yiduo
was particularly drawn to the Book of Odes (Shijing) and the poet Qu Yuan. In 1944, Wen
Yiduo joined the Democratic League (Minzhu tongmeng), a progressive party that promoted
a “Third Way” as a political alternative to the KMT’s authoritarian nationalism or the CCP’s
communism. In those years of political activism, Wen drew much inspiration from Qu Yuan’s
valiant steadfastness, as an essay composed not long before his violent death at the hands of
KMT agents in 1947 attests. “We should note that [. . .] there were two Qu Yuans,” he writes,
quoting Maxim Gorky’s recommendation that a great artist needs to be viewed both as son of
his time and as a historical figure participating in the struggle for the people’s liberation. “His
time didn’t allow him to fight in other ways [. . .], but he did struggle and was a participator
in the struggle for the people’s liberation [. . .]. If I am a worshipper of Qu Yuan, I worship
him from this angle.”22

Achievements of Wen Yiduo

If Zhu Ziqing needs to be seen as a pioneer whose innovative use of the vernacular in modern
verse helped the new poetry gain maturity, Wen Yiduo is often credited with formalizing the
new genre and laying the foundation of what has since been referred to as “national form.”
At first reluctant to embrace the vernacular as a language for poetry, Wen Yiduo eventually
embraced it enthusiastically around the time of the May Fourth Movement to give voice to
his awakening romantic inclinations that were fueled by intense study of his poetic icons like

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 Frederik H. Green

John Keats and other English romantics, and pre-modern Chinese poets like late Tang poet Li
Shangyin. He especially admired Li Shangyin’s poetry of sensuous imagism and intense feelings.
Yet unlike some other May Fourth poets whose vernacular poems were typically composed in
free verse with little regard for rhyme or meter and that too often imitated Western prosody or
drew on exotic foreign subject matter, Wen Yiduo became increasingly convinced that the new
poetry would greatly benefit from the introduction of formalist conventions and the obser-
vance of what he referred to as “original color” (bense).23 In two essays from 1923 in which
Wen critically discussed Guo Moruo’s poetry collection The Goddesses (Nüshen, 1922), a highly
expressive and experimental example of the new poetry that was discussed in the previous
chapter, Wen admits that Guo’s collection masterfully embodies the spirit of the time, yet at the
same time laments Guo’s excessive use of foreign diction and a disconnection from its national
origin. He elaborated his ideal for the new poetry: “The new [Chinese] poem should not be a
purely local poem, but it should retain some local color. It also should not be a purely foreign
poem, but should absorb the best foreign qualities [. . . .]” This “marriage of East-West aesthet-
ics” as he called it not only included the poem’s content, but the poem’s rhythm and form.24
In his influential essay “The Metric Structure of Poetry” (Shi de gelü, 1926), he elaborated on
this idea by emphasizing the aesthetic value of form. Denouncing those new poets who “in the
name of romanticism attack metric structure,” Wen not only hinted at the strict observance of
meter by the English romantic poets he had studied so thoroughly, but also insinuated that there
is a correlation between mastery of formal conventions and aesthetic value. “For the more coura-
geous an artist,” Wen wrote by citing Han Yu, Goethe, and Schiller, “the more he enjoys dancing
wearing foot shackles, the better the dance.”25 Wen hastened to explain that he was not advocating
a return to the strict and inflexible formal conventions of traditional Chinese poetry, but instead
proposed a new understanding of rhythmical symmetry and line balance that required a return to
form and meter, for “without form (geshi) there will be no symmetry in rhythm (jie de yunchen)
and without meter (yinchi) there will be no balance between lines (ju de junqi).”26 What exactly
he meant by that he illustrated by citing the opening line from his most famous poem, and by his
own account his most successful one in terms of form, “Dead Water” (Sishui, 1925). By includ-
ing horizontal lines (the original was printed vertically), he marked the metrical feet as follows:

Zhe shi | yigou | juewang de | sishui (This is | a ditch | of hopeless | [and] stagnant water)

He then explained that from here on, each line in the poem “is composed by using three two-
character feet and one three-characters foot,” yielding equal line length but allowing for flexibil-
ity in terms of stress and word choice.27 This technique subsequently became widely adopted by
modern poets, not least by his friend and fellow poet of the Crescent Moon Society, Xu Zhimo,
who wrote that “I believe that during the last five or six years the few of us who write poetry
have been influenced by the author of ‘Dead Water.’ ”28

The masterpieces of Wen Yiduo

Even before Wen Yiduo articulated his ideas regarding “national form,” his poetry fre-
quently diverged from the unbridled free-form and overt westernization of imagery and
symbolism then popular among the new poets. In his poem “Beauty and Love” (Mei yu ai)
from his first collection of verse entitled Red Candle (Hongzhu, 1923), for example, Wen
used lines of roughly equal length, and drew in part on classical Chinese poetic symbolism.
The poem gives voice to Wen’s quest for beauty and sublime love that characterizes much
of his early poetry. At the same time, its rich imagery and its evocation of color and sound

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recall both traditional Chinese verse as well as the verse of Keats whom the young Wen
frequently cited.

The window spits out soft lamplight –

Two rows of yellow squares inlaid on the wall;
The shadow of a pair of date trees, resembling a pile of snakes,
At sixes and sevens spread out and sleeping under the wall.

Oh! That large star! Companion of Chang E, the Chinese moon goddess –
You obstruct my sight for no reason;
The bird in my heart at once stopped its song of spring,
Because it hears your silent heavenly music.

[. . .]29

Wen’s quest for aesthetic perfection in poetry continued with unbridled vigor after his return
from America, especially after joining the Crescent Moon Society in which he found a circle
of like-minded who shared his romantic sensibilities and for whom aestheticism and poetics
were an essential component of the renewal of Chinese society. In “The Metric Structure
of Poetry,” Wen had clearly articulated his views regarding an ideal form of modern verse as
constituting a tripartite aesthetic paradigm, namely one where the beauty of poetry is derived
“not only from musical beauty (rhythm [yinjie]) and pictorial beauty (ornate diction [cizao]),
but also architectural beauty (symmetry in rhythm [jie de yunchen] and balance between lines
[ju de junqi]).30
This aestheticized vision of modern poetry found expression in his second collection of
poems entitled Dead Water (1928) and especially in the oft-quoted and aforementioned mas-
terpiece of the same name, though any attempt at capturing the symmetry that Wen referred
to as ‘architectural beauty’ is invariably lost in translation, due to the multisyllabic nature of
the English language. However, “Dead Water,” with its lines of equal length, its rhythm that is
accentuated by alliterations and assonance, and its vivid and sensuous images not only embodies
Wen’s aesthetic vision, it also gives voice to the other impulse that shaped Wen’s career, namely
his patriotism and social activism. The hopeless and stagnant water is usually understood as an
allegory for the political situation in China, which was rife with civil war at the time, and an
expression of despair over the unfulfilled promises of the New Culture Movement and the
Republican revolution.Yet even amidst that stagnant pool of dead water, there lingers the fresh
green of a brighter spring.

This is a ditch of hopeless and stagnant water,

The cool breeze unable to raise a ripple.
Better hurl in some more scrap copper and rusty iron,
And sprinkle it with your left-over food.

Yet maybe even that tarnished copper will turn emerald green,
And the rust on the iron will bring forth peach blossoms;
Let its grease weave a layer of silk muslin,
And mold evaporate into rosy clouds.

[. . .]31

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 Frederik H. Green

Yet in other poems, while remaining true to his poetic vision with regard to rhythm, diction,
and symmetry, not even a trace of hope remained. In his long elegiac poem “Deserted Village”
(Huangcun), stretching over fifty lines and prefaced by an actual newspaper clipping about a
region devastated by war, Wen describes a village whose inhabitants have fled from an advanc-
ing army.

Where have they all gone? How come

That a toad squats on the rice steamer, white lotus blossoms in the water ladle?

[. . .]

This scene is strange, so cruel!

Heaven! Such fine village could not keep them;
This Peach-Blossom Spring, and no soul in sight!32

Even more mournful and pessimistic is his poem “Tiananmen” that was written in response to
the March 18 Massacre of 1926 that killed forty-eight students and injured several hundred who
had participated in an anti-warlord and anti-imperialist demonstration in Beijing. Assuming the
voice of a scared rickshaw puller, the poem is hauntingly graphic and uncannily prophetic for
events to take place in modern history.

Oh brother! I was scared stiff today!

My two legs are still trembling now.
[. . .]
You haven’t seen that black corpse,
Brains spilled, trampled on, so frightening,
Still waiving a white flag, still talking. . .
[. . .]
So for us rickshaw pullers it’s bad luck,
For tomorrow morning Beijing will be filled with ghosts!33

The young Wen’s aestheticism had been inspired by Keats’s romantic sensibilities and the allu-
sive imagery of Li Shangyin that had led him to find his own romantic voice in poetry.Yet his
experiences abroad that had awoken his sense of patriotism and his witnessing of China’s civil
wars and the frequent abuse of power by the authorities also grew in him another voice, one
of defiant activism that would eventually turn him into a martyr. In his poem “Confession”
(Kougong, 1926), he lyrically explored this coexistence of different voices and poetic impulses.

I won’t deceive you, I am no poet.

Even though what I love is the integrity of white rock
Dark pines and the wide ocean,
The evening glow on the back of a crow.
Twilight woven with the wings of bats.
[. . .]
Remember, what feeds me is a pot of bitter tea!
But, will you be afraid if I tell you that there is another me?
One whose thoughts crawl in the garbage can like a fly.34

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Life and career of Xu Zhimo

No other writer in China embodies the image of the romantic poet better than Xu Zhimo who
was able to reconcile his ideals of individuality and love, his quest for freedom and unity with
nature, and his pursuit of beauty in his enduring poetry and in life. Born into a prominent bank-
ing family in Zhejiang province, Xu, like Zhu Ziqing and Wen Yiduo, received an education
that provided him with a solid grounding in classical literature, but also exposed him to Western
learning. Upon graduating from a modern middle school in Hangzhou in 1915, he went on to
study at the Shanghai Baptist College (later Hujiang University), Tianjin’s Beiyang University,
and Peking University where he came under the patronage of Liang Qichao (1873–1929),
one of China’s foremost reform-minded intellectuals, and of Hu Shi. In 1918, Xu left for the
US where he received an MA in political science at Columbia University. He then sailed for
England where he first enrolled at the London School of Economics, but later moved to Cam-
bridge where, in the words of Kai-yu Hsu, the atmosphere of aristocratic idealism helped him
cultivate his poetic sensitivity and he wholeheartedly immersed himself in Anglo-American
literary culture. Xu Zhimo later recalled that “my eyes were opened by Cambridge, my appetite
for knowledge was stimulated by Cambridge, my concept of self was nurtured by Cambridge.”35
Like Wen Yi-duo and other May Fourth poets, it was particularly British romantic poetry
that inspired Xu Zhimo to explore, through his own verse, beauty and oneness with nature and
to express his desire for self-affirming individualism and sublime love. But for Xu, this quest was
not limited to poetic expression alone. After his return to China in 1922, he embraced a lifestyle
that prioritized emotions over reason and flouted social conventions. He divorced Zhang Youyi,
his first wife from an arranged marriage, and began to publicly pursue Lin Huiyin, who was
already betrothed to the son of Liang Qichao. Another scandal ensued when he began to court
Lu Xiaoman, a married socialite, forcing Xu to temporarily leave China and embark on a trip
to Europe. Upon his return, however, the two got married in 1926.
Xu held a number of teaching positions: at Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Cen-
tral University in Nanjing. When in 1924, the Bengali poet and Nobel Prize laureate Rabindranath
Tagore toured China, Xu and Lin Huiyin acted as Tagore’s interpreters, and Xu later translated
several of Tagore’s works. The title of Tagore’s poetry collection The Crescent Moon (1913), which
had been translated into Chinese as Xinyue ji by Zheng Zhenduo (1898–1958), another pioneer
of the New Poetry Movement, was then adopted as the name for a society that began over casual
social gatherings in Xu Zhimo’s house of reform-minded writers and intellectuals.36 In 1927, after
several of the group’s core members like Hu Shi, Wen Yiduo, Rao Mengkan, and Liang Shiqiu
had relocated to Shanghai, the Crescent Moon Monthly and the Crescent Moon Bookstore were
founded, giving new impetus to the group’s shared desire of advancing China’s spiritual rejuvena-
tion through poetry. However, not long after Xu Zhimo, the group’s main champion, died in a
plane crash in 1931, the Crescent Moon Society went into decline.

Achievements of Xu Zhimo
While Wen Yiduo has been acknowledged – not least by Xu Zhimo himself – as the person who
lay the theoretical foundation for a new national form in poetry, it was Xu Zhimo who, by way
of his creative use of poetic form, his innovative receptiveness to Chinese and foreign influences,
and his playful command of the new vernacular, created a body of work that not only helped
popularize the new poetry among his contemporaries, but also has kept its appeal for readers
in the Chinese speaking world to this day. Xu’s poetics were driven by the desire to renew and

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enrich Chinese society by way of aestheticism and lyricism. In a lecture he delivered at Tsinghua
University in 1921 not long after his return from England, he gave voice to his belief in the
transformative power of art by claiming that “aesthetic appreciation will prove a potent factor in
[cultivating our self-consciousness] and a delicate sensibility for what is beautiful is by far more
important and fruitful to life than a strong intellect and moral character.”37 He shared this kind
of romantic idealism with Wen Yiduo, but Xu was far more determined to make it the mantra of
his life and to persistently promote his aesthetic vision. It was Xu who had initiated Poetry Jour-
nal and was the driving force behind Crescent Moon Monthly and the Crescent Moon Bookstore.
Like Wen Yiduo, Xu Zhimo felt that the new poetry would benefit from more stable prosodic
patterns. In fact, as he wrote in the preface to the first issue of Poetry Journal, he firmly believed
that not only was “poetry a tool to express mankind’s creativity,” but also that the liberation of
spirit of the Chinese people would not be complete “without an adequate poetic expression.” He
believed that “only through exquisite form would it be possible to express an exquisite spirit.”38
He elaborated on what he meant by exquisite form in an essay from the same year in which he
emphasized the importance of rhyme and meter, stating that “only if we understand that the life
of a poem rests on the logic of its internal rhythm can we grasp a poem’s real beauty.”39 In prac-
tice, Xu achieved this both by experimenting with meter of equal verse length and by creatively
adapting Western meters and stanzaic patterns. Julia C. Lin has argued that in this way, Xu was
able to achieve structural unity while maintaining flexibility.40 It was Xu’s instinctive approach to
form rather than Wen Yiduo’s theoretical application that led to a more natural prosody.

The masterpieces of Xu Zhimo

Xu Zhimo’s first poetry collection, Zhimo’s Poems (Zhimo de shi, 1925), was already deeply
steeped in the romantic aesthetics that became Xu’s hallmark, even though it did not yet display
the formalistic and prosodic maturity of his later work. Xu experimented with various forms of
meter, including free verse, ballads, and sonnets, and with poems of equal line length that were
sometimes referred to as “rectangular poems” (fangkuaishi).41 The first poem of the collection,
“A Snowflake’s Delight” (Xuehua de kuaile) combines Xu’s use of sensuous imagery with a
playful yet highly melodic colloquialism.

If I were a snowflake
Dancing in mid-air with grace
My way I’d know without failing –
Rising, soaring, sailing –
Earth’s ground would be my bearing.

I would not seek the cold and lonely dell

Nor would I find the forlorn bottom of the fell
And neither would I fall on empty streets, ’d there wailing –
Rising, soaring, sailing –
You see, my bearing’s not failing.

In mid-air my graceful snowflake dance

Spotting below me her quiet residence
Her stroll in the garden I’d be awaiting –
Rising, soaring, sailing –
Ah, her body’s sweet plum-scent I’m inhaling.

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That moment I trust my snowflake shape

And softly descend and moisten her cape
And nearer to her wave-like bosom I’m drawing –
Melting, fusing, thawing –
Still closer to that gentle bosom I am drawing.42

Xu’s amorous entanglement with Lin Huiyin and his divorce of Zhang Youyi on the grounds of lack
of mutual affection had already made headlines by the time Xu’s first poetry collection appeared, and
poems lamenting the transience of romance or evoking vaguely erotic encounters only amplified
Xu’s public image as a romantic poet. Julia C. Lin has argued that while Wen Yiduo’s poetry is essen-
tially that of the earth – richly varied, luxuriantly sensuous, and staidly concrete – the poetic world
of Xu is of the celestial realm, transluscent, ethereal, and abstract, claiming a spiritual kinship, among
others, with Shelley, whom Xu deeply admired.43 This transluscent and ethereal nature, together with
a desire for oneness with nature, is particularly evident in “A Snowflake’s Delight.”
Most of the poems in A Night in Florence (Feilengcui de yiye, 1927), Xu’s second collection,
were written during his period of exile that had become necessary because of the scandal caused
by his courtship of Lu Xiaoman. It includes a number of travel poems in which Xu laments
the separation from his lover or else describes natural scenes or the exotic localities he visits to
metaphorically explore a certain emotion, like desolation, intense excitement, and hope. The
title poem, “A Night in Florence,” a long prose poem with regular lines of mostly equal length,
is one example. “Siberia,” which was written onboard the Trans-Siberian Railway, was another.
The poem’s lyrical persona opens the poem by revealing previously held assumptions about
Siberia being a hostile place of icy nothingness entirely devoid of hope before coming to a quite
different realization in the second verse.

Siberia: – I used to imagine that

You were a place bereft of Heaven’s favor;
Desolate, relentless, its harshness without equal.
[. . .]
For your people, this land is a frozen hell,
Where no rosy clouds leave a trace of hope in the sky,
Where one does not ask for loving kindness, for gentle affection.
[. . .]

Yet today, as I face this foreign landscape –

It is no wasteland, this Siberia between spring and summer,
I do not see the solid ice of winter, its withered branches and shivering crows.
[. . .]
Look, drifting in the blue vastness of the sky the boats of immortals, –
And what you see over there is not the glow of clouds, it is the smiles of the Gods,
The enchantment of jade-like flowers in these spherical surroundings. . .44

Typical of Xu’s poems of this stage – though hard to capture in translation – is his mastery
of internal rhyme and use of rhythm to accentuate scenes or emotions expressed in his verse.
Equally hard to capture are his playful alliterations and assonances, but his vivid and sensuous
images are discernable even in translation. Xu skillfully integrates occasional use of classical dic-
tion into his poem, thereby lending elegance and refinement to his vernacular prose. As in his

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first collection, we can also find examples of amorous poetic personifications in A Night in Flor-
ence, like his famous poem “Chance Encounter” (Ouran), in which the lyrical voice becomes a
cloud in the sky that briefly meets a wave on a forlorn journey, epitomizing the transient nature
of love and the solace found in nature.
In Fierce Tiger (Menghu ji, 1931), Xu’s third collection, his experimentation with English
meter and his own innovative use of the Chinese vernacular find their most successful and most
critically acclaimed examples. The title of his collection was chosen in reference to William
Blake’s poem “The Tyger” and many of Xu’s poems echo Blake’s and the later romantics’ use of
quatrains and rhymed couplets and their poetic exploration of spiritual renewal, supreme imagi-
nation, and natural beauty. At the same time, scenes of parting and the ephemeral nature of all
things are prevalent topics in Fierce Tiger, as in “The Last Days of Spring” (Canchun), a poem that
consists of two rhymed quatrains where each line consists of the same number of characters and
that laments the passing of spring. Taking leave is the topic in “Second Farewell to Cambridge”
(Zaibie kangqiao), one of Xu Zhimo’s most famous poems. It consists of seven quatrains with
alternate end rhymes, three of which are quoted here.

Quietly I take my leave,

Just as quietly as I came;
Quietly I wave a farewell,
To the glowing Western sky.

The golden willows by the river’s bank,

Like brides in the evening sun;
Their splendid reflection shimmer in the waves
And ripple through my heart.

[. . .]

Silently I take my leave,

Just as silently as I came;
I shake my sleeves,
Not wanting to take away a piece of glowing sky.45

In a melancholic voice and with subtle and highly sensuous imagery, Xu captures the atmos-
phere of the place that had once nurtured his poetic sensitivity and where, by his own account,
his eyes had been opened to the boundless potential for spiritual renewal offered by art. He had
returned to Cambridge during his trip to Europe at the time of the scandal resulting from his
courtship of Lu Xiaoman. Farewell poems form an important sub-genre in traditional Chinese
poetry, and by writing his emotional farewell Xu not only expressed his genuine attachment to
Cambridge, but also eternalized the city as one of the birthplaces of Chinese romantic poetry.
In recent years, the banks of the Cam River have become a pilgrimage site for poetry-loving
Chinese tourists, and in 2008, a memorial was set up for Xu in the backs of King’s College by
the banks of the river.
Xu Zhimo’s body of poetry is not devoid of poems with social concerns. His Fierce Tigers col-
lection, for example, includes a poem entitled “Song of the Prisoners” (Fulu song), which is an
indictment of warlordism and profiteering, while A Night in Florence includes two “battle songs”
(Zhan’ge) that are critical of ruthless generals and sympathetic to the plight of soldiers. The first
of them, ‘Commander-in-Chief ” (Dashui), was written in response to a newspaper article about

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wounded soldiers being buried alive. It was structured as a dialogue between two soldiers dig-
ging the grave. Most of Xu’s work, however, is apolitical or, in the eyes of leftist critics of the
time, even escapist. In his poem “This Is a Cowardly World” (Zheshi yige nuoqie de shijie) from
his first collection of verse, for example, the lyrical persona laments that because this world is full
of cowardice, it tolerates no love, urging his lover to “abandon this world, and die for our love!”46
While Xu Zhimo is best remembered for his poetry, he also was an accomplished essayist
and travel writer. Like many of his poems, his travel essays tended to eulogize and exoticize the
places he visited. In “Snippets from Paris” (Bali de linzhao, 1927), for example, he wrote that

those who have come to Paris surely no longer will cherish paradise. And those who
have had a taste of Paris frankly say that they would not give a damn for hell anymore.
All of Paris resembles a duck-down filled mattress, which comfortably cushions your
whole body, and will soften even the hardest bones.47

He also wrote plays, fiction, and produced a copious body of translations that includes short
stories by Katherine Mansfield, whom he had met in Cambridge, and romantic poetry by
Christina Rossetti, William Blake, and Lord Byron.

Notes
1 Ma Liangchun and Li Futian, eds., Comprehensive Dictionary of Chinese Literature (Zhongguo wenxue
dacidian) (Tianjin: Tianjin renmin chubanshe, 1991), vol. 4, 2027.
2 The progressive Tsinghua University had been founded in 1911 after the US Congress voted to reassign
some of the Qing court’s Boxer Rebellion indemnity payments.
3 Note that as with many other progressive May Fourth intellectuals who were invested in creating a new
form of poetry like Hu Shi, Zhou Zuoren, Guo Morou or Yu Pingbo, Zhu Ziqing likewise continued
to write traditional-style poetry. In fact, the number of Zhu’s poems written in the classical-style far
exceeds that of his new-style poetry.
4 The Bengali poet Tagore enjoyed great popularity in China, not least because he had been the first
Asian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. For the importance of the short lyric during the
New Culture Movement, see Frederik Green, “Translating Poetic Modernity: Zhou Zuoren’s Interest
in Modern Japanese Poetry,” Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese (JMLC) (2013), vol. vol.11, no. 1,
138–161.
5 Charles Laughlin, “The All-China Resistance Association of Writers and Artists” in Kirk A. Denton
and Michel Hockx, eds., Literary Societies of Republican China (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008),
379–411.
6 Jiang Tao,“The Birth of the New Poetry and Its Dynamic Development,” (Xinshi de fasheng ji huoli de
zhankai), in Hong Zicheng, ed., A Brief History of a Century of Chinese New Poetry (Bainian Zhongguo
xinshi shilüe) (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2010), 10.
7 Michelle Yeh, Modern Chinese Poetry: Theory and Practice Since 1917 (New Haven:Yale University Press,
1991), 22.
8 Zhu Ziqing et al., A Snowy Morning (Xuezhao) (Shanghai: Shangwu yingshuguan, 1922).
9 Pan Songde, Thirty Chinese Critics of Modern Poetry (Zhongguo xiandai shilun sanshi jia) (Taibei: Xiuwei
zixun keji, 2009), 79–92.
10 Zhu Ziqing et al., A Snowy Morning,  2–3. All translations of poetry and prose are my own unless oth-
erwise indicated. I have maintained the same punctuation and line breaks as used in the originals.
11 Quoted from Frederik Green, “Translating Poetic Modernity,” 154.
12 Quoted from Michael Hockx, A Snowy Morning. Eight Chinese Poets on the Road to Modernity (Leiden:
CNWS, 1994), 99.
13 Zhu Ziqing, Selected Poems and Essays by Zhu Ziqing (Zhu Ziqing shiwen xuanji) (Beijing: Xinhua
yinshua, 1955), 34.
14 Michael Hockx, A Snowy Morning, 127.
15 Zhu Ziqing, Selected Poems and Essays by Zhu Ziqing, 34–35.

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16 Ibid., 48.
17 Yu Pingbo, “On Reading ‘Destruction’ ” (Du ‘Huimie’), The Short Story Monthly (Xiaoshuo yuebao)
(1923), vol. 14, no. 8. “Encountering Sorrow” (Lisao) by Qu Yuan (c. 340–278 BC), a loyal minster
wronged by court intrigues who eventually drowned himself, is one of the most important elegiac
poems in the traditional Chinese poetic canon. Consisting of over 2000 Chinese characters, the highly
allegorical poem recounts the poet’s spiritual and fantastical journey through mythical realms.
18 Quoted from David Pollard, The Chinese Essay (New York: Columba University Press, 2000), 216–224.
19 Cai Dengshan, In Search of the Soul of China’s Modern Men of Letters (Bainian jiyi: Zhongguo jinxiandai
wenren xinling de tanxun) (Taibei:Youxiu zixun, 2016), 26.
20 Ma Liangchun and Li Futian, Comprehensive Dictionary of Chinese Literature, vol. 6, 4497.
21 Qian Liqun,Wen Rumin and Wu Fuhui, eds., Thirty Years of Modern Chinese Literature (Zhongguo xiandai
wenxue sanshinian) (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1998), 132–133.
22 Quoted from Wen Yiduo and Catherine Yi-Yu Cho Woo, eds., Wen Yiduo: Selected Poetry and Prose (Bei-
jing: Panda Books, 1990), 88.
23 Ma Liangchun and Li Futian, Comprehensive Dictionary of Chinese Literature, 95.
24 Wen Yiduo, “The Local Color of ‘Goddess’” (Shennü zhi difang secai), in Wen Yiduo and Zhu
Ziqing, eds., Complete Works of Wen Yiduo (Shanghai: Kaiming shudian, 1948), vol. 3, 195.
25 Wen Yiduo, “The Metric Structure of Poetry” (Shi de gelü) in Wen Yiduo and Zhu Ziqing, eds., Com-
plete Works of Wen Yiduo (Wen Yiduo quanji) (Shanghai: Kaiming shudian, 1948), vol. 3, 246.
26 Wen and Zhu, eds., Complete Works of Wen Yiduo, vol.3, 248.
27 Ibid., 252.
28 Quoted from Julia C. Lin, Modern Chinese Poetry: An Introduction (Seattle: University of Washington
Press, 1972), 102.
29 Wen and Zhu, eds., Complete works of Wen Yiduo, vol. 3, 66–67.
30 Ibid., 249.
31 Ibid., 16.
32 Ibid., 24–26. Peach Blossom Spring is the name of a utopian settlement in a fable by Chinese poet Tao
Yuanming (365–427).
33 Ibid., 27.
34 Ibid., 5.
35 See Kai-yu Hsu, trans. & ed. Twentieth Century Chinese Poetry: An Anthology (New York: Doubleday &
Company, 1963), 67.
36 Lawrence Wang-chi Wong, “Lions and Tigers in Groups: The Crescent Moon School in Modern Chi-
nese Literary History,” in Kirk A. Denton and Michel Hockx, eds., Literary Societies of Republican China,
279–312.
37 Quoted from Xu Zhimo, “Art and Life,” in Kirk A. Denton, ed., Modern Chinese Literary Thought:Writ-
ings on Literature, 1893–1945 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), 179.
38 Xu Zhimo, “Preface to Shikan” (Shikan bianyan), in Xu Zhimo, ed., Complete Works of Xu Zhimo (Xu
Zhimo quanji) (Shanghai: Xinhua shudian,1995), vol. 4, 53.
39 “Shikan takes a break” (Shikan fangjia), ibid., 58.
40 Julia C. Lin, Modern Chinese Poetry, 102–107.
41 Because of their rectangular shape on the page, critics sometimes also referred to them as ”dried toufu
block poems.” As such, they evoked notions of architectural beauty that Wen Yiduo had theorized
about.
42 Complete Works of Xu Zhimo, vol. 1, 7–8.
43 Julia C. Lin, Modern Chinese Poetry, 107.
44 Complete Works of Xu Zhimo, vol. 1, 160–262.
45 Ibid., 327.
46 Ibid., 18–20.
47 Complete Works of Xu Zhimo, vol. 4, 145–146.

Further readings
Batt, Herbert and Sheldon Zitner, eds. and trans. The Flowering of Modern Chinese Poetry: An Anthology of
Verse from the Republican Period. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016.
Hong Zicheng, ed. A Brief History of a Century of Chinese New Poetry (Bainian Zhongguo xinshi shilüe).
Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2010.

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 Romanticizing new Chinese in poetry

Kai-yu Hsu. Wen I-To. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1980.

———, trans. and ed. Twentieth Century Chinese Poetry: An Anthology. New York: Doubleday & Company,
1963.
Lin, Juli C. Modern Chinese Poetry: An Introduction. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1972.
Pan Songde. Thirty Chinese Critics of Modern Poetry (Zhongguo xiandai shilun sanshi jia). Taibei: Xiuwei
zixun keji, 2009.
———. Modern Chinese Poetry:Theory and Practice Since 1917. New Haven:Yale University Press, 1991.
Xu Zhimo. Xu Zhimo. Selected Poems. ed. and trans. Nicole Chiang. Cambridge: Oleander Press, 2012.
Yeh Michelle, trans. and ed. Anthology of Modern Chinese Poetry. New Haven:Yale University Press, 1992.

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 9
YU DAFU’S ROMANTIC
FICTION
Youth consciousness in crisis

Tong He

Life and career

Yu Dafu (1896–1945) was born in Fuyang County, Zhejiang Province. At a young age, he read
a wide range of classical Chinese literary works and received a traditional education. Then he
began to write classical-style poetry and managed to have some of them published. In 1913, he
went to Japan for further education along with his elder brother. After his brother returned to
China, he remained there for almost ten years. He changed his major several times, first from
medical science to law, and then to economics, but he never lost his interest in literature. During
his study in Japan, he read a large number of foreign novels in Japanese, English, and German,
which helped him acquire fluency in these three languages.
Among overseas Chinese students in Japan, Yu Dafu shared similar views with Guo Moruo
on how to rejuvenate Chinese literature, and keep it in line with the zeitgeist at the time. Along
with other friends who supported their ideas, they founded Creation Society (Chuangzao she)
in 1921. It was a writing community inspired by Western aesthetics of romanticism as well as the
ideology of individualism. Drawing on his personal experience,Yu started writing short stories
that were thematically concerned with the lives of Chinese students aboard and their emotional
and psychological problems.
Upon receiving his bachelor’s degree in economics from Tokyo Imperial University,Yu returned
to China in 1922. He firstly taught at different institutions of higher education across the coun-
try for some time. Later, he gave up teaching and worked as an editor for The Creation Quarterly
(Chuangzao jikan), The Creation Monthly (Chuangzao yuekan), and other periodicals in Shanghai.
Meanwhile, he published several critical essays on the novel and drama. During this period, he
was continuously faced with financial difficulties. This personal predicament was reflected in his
social concerns and criticism in his creative writings. The collection Cold Ashes (Hanhui ji) shows
an increasing realist tendency in his works, as he became more engaged in social affairs by taking
part in many literary activities. Apart from short stories,Yu also published his diaries, as he saw this
genre as an essential part of literature. “Nine Diaries” (Riji jiuzhong) sold more copies than his
most celebrated collection Sinking (Chenlun). It is a detailed account of his love story with Wang
Yingxia, a famous beauty in Hangzhou. The couple got married with a big wedding in 1928, but
ended their marriage with a nasty divorce 12 years later. In addition to his short stories, essays, and
poems,Yu translated a great deal of literary works from Western literature into Chinese.

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When the Sino-Japanese War broke out, he became actively engaged in politics, participated
in activities for national salvation and produced numerous anti-Japanese articles. In 1938, Yu
went to Singapore at an invitation from Sin Chew Daily, and became a leading figure among
the anti-Japanese activists there. He helped establish the South Sea Society (Nanyang xuehui) to
improve the Chinese literary studies in Singapore. After Singapore was taken by the Japanese,Yu
fled to Sumarta and lived under the pseudonym of Zhao Lian. Because of his fluent Japanese,
he was forced to work as a translator for the Japanese army. Using this job as a cover,Yu secretly
helped and protected many Chinese citizens and residents. Unfortunately, his real identity was
discovered by the Japanese police, and in 1945, he was arrested and secretly executed.

Literary achievements
Yu Dafu’s literary achievements rest chiefly on his short fictional works, though in his literary
career, he produced several collections of refined essays, literary criticism, and literary theory.
His better-known collections of stories include Sinking (1921), Cold Ashes (1927), and The
Past (Guoqu Ji, 1927). His longer works such as Spring Tide (Chunchao, 1922), The Lost Sheep
(Miyang, 1927), Late-flowering Cassia (Chiguihua, 1932), She Was a Weak Woman (Ta shi yige ruo
nüzi, 1932), and Flight (Chuben, 1935) are also well known.
Sinking marks Yu’s controversial debut in the literary world. It consists of a novella and two
short stories: the title story, “The Silver-grey Death” (Yinhuise de si) and “Moving South”
(Nanqian). The title story portrays the physical and emotional frustrations of a melancholic
young student who always feels isolated and humiliated by his Japanese classmates. “The Sil-
ver-grey Death” narrates the death of a drunken widower who desires love from women but
fails to get it. “Moving South” depicts the protagonist’s affair with a married woman and his
traumatic experience of being manipulated by her. Overall, these stories are characterized
by bold descriptions of sex and sexuality as well as erotic themes. In terms of language, they
are enveloped by a depressed, sometimes decadent tone, which constituted the hallmark of
Yu’s unique writing style. At first, most critics argued that the book was immoral for its overt
writing of sex, but Zhou Zuoren defended Yu’s work in an article on Supplement to Morning
News (Chenbao fukan), quoting Albert Mordell’s criteria of “immoral literature” in The Erotic
Motive in Literature (1919) as the ground for his defense. Zhou praised the book as a piece of
artistic work with a serious moral sense, and radically changed the public’s opinion on Yu’s
writings. From then on, the book was regarded as the first collection of short stories written
in vernacular Chinese (Baihua), and Yu Dafu was considered one of the founders of modern
Chinese literature.
With the collection Cold Ashes, the author’s focus turned from the bitterness of sex to the
bitterness of reality. In this book, “Colored Rock by the River” (Caishiji), “Nights of Spring
Fever” (Chunfeng chenzui de wanshang), “A Humble Sacrifice” (Baodian) are the best-known.
“Colored Rock by the River” is a historical novel featuring the poet Huang Zhongze (1749–
1783) in the Qing Dynasty. Through the poet’s emotional sufferings, the author expresses his
social critique of the darkness in his society which destroys the young talent’s ambition. “Nights
of the Spring Fever” depicts the encounter between a down-and-out writer and a strong-willed
factory girl, which exposes the sweat and toil of the common workers at the time and presents
a true friendship between an intellectual and a worker. “A Humble Sacrifice” describes a tragic
death of a rickshaw puller. The poor man’s biggest dream is to buy his own rickshaw to earn a
better life, but the harsh reality dashes his dream to pieces. Through the first-person narrator’s
account of his interactions with these workers, the author not only shows deep sympathy for the
exploited working class, but also cherishes his great admiration for their kindness, honesty, and

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moral virtues. These stories also demonstrate Yu’s artistic improvement in characterization and
plot construction and signify his entry into a new stage.
The title story in the collection The Past marks the full maturity of Yu’s novel writing, and
has been praised by many critics as his finest work with skillful narrative techniques. It tells of a
short reunion between Li Baishi and Laosan who once had a crush on Li. Adopting Li’s point of
view, the narrator “I” recounts his past days with Laosan’s family. The narrator falls in love with
one of Laosan’s sisters. Out of an abnormal sexual desire for her, he endures her beating and
scolding joyously, without knowing that Laosan was in love with him. After learning the truth,
he wants to retrieve the lost love between them, but Laosan is now a widow, and turns down
his courtship. In the end, the narrator leaves the city with a melancholy heart. The plot is rather
simple, but within the limited narration, the author expands the story time to the past history of
the characters, which to a great extent shows a distinctive technique of stream of consciousness.
Instead of constructing the story in a clear storyline, this short story is more like a floating of
emotions, revealing the emotional struggle of a sentimental narrator.
In general, Yu Dafu’s major contribution to the development of modern Chinese literature
lies in three aspects. First and foremost, he creates the genre of autobiographical fiction writing,
along with the signature use of homodiegetic narrator.Yu was greatly influenced by the Japanese
I-Novel, a kind of writing which draws its inspiration from naturalism but primarily focusing
on self-exposure and self-representation. Thus, he tends to look inwardly, and examines himself
through the lens of sexuality. Secondly, he creates the literary archetype of the superfluous man.
In many of his fictional works, the protagonists are all marginalized intellectuals who manifest
the common symptoms of hypochondria in the May Fourth era. They are devoted to genuine
love but always meet with a dead-end, and fail to find their proper places in society. Echoing the
characterization of superfluous men in Russian realist tradition and the fin-de-siècle mood in
Western literature,Yu creates his version of superfluous men as an epitome of the new genera-
tion of Chinese intellectuals at the time, who experience hope, disillusionment as well as frus-
tration. Thirdly, he explores and opens the path of romantic writing which is different from the
path of realism advocated by his contemporary writers such as Lu Xun. As a whole, Yu Dafu’s
insights into the Chinese youth consciousness in his time and his remarkable way to describe
the youth consciousness in crisis under multiple pressures are major reasons for his significant
literary achievements.

Sinking: youth consciousness in crisis

Sinking narrates the story of a young Chinese student studying in Japan. It opens with a pasto-
ral scene in the countryside where the protagonist is by himself, reading Wordsworth’s poems
aloud. The melancholic young man feels lonely in school, so he often escapes to the secluded
place to enjoy the company of nature. One day when he walks with three Japanese classmates,
they encounter several Japanese girls. While others are flirting with the girls, he feels ashamed
and fails to speak a single word to them. Furiously, he blames his awkward behavior on the
prejudice and discrimination these students have for him, and writes in his diary a wish to have
an Eve whose body and soul belong to him alone. Soon, upon leaving Tokyo for college, he
becomes immensely sentimental about the city, and writes a few sad poems to his friends. At
his newly rented house, the protagonist secretly falls in love with the landlord’s daughter and
indulges in daily masturbation, for which he feels deeply ashamed of himself. Later, he peeps at
the daughter having a shower and is discovered by the latter. Out of fear for being humiliated,
he moves to a new accommodation in a more isolated place on a mountain. Just when he feels
everything is back to normal as he enjoys the solace of nature and his books, he runs into a big

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fight with his brother. For the sake of rebellion as well as revenge, he changes his major so as to
spite his brother. One day, while he is strolling around the nearby field, he overhears a couple
having sex in the wild. Emotionally exited by the accidental encounter, the protagonist retreats
to his bed, but the sleeping is unable to quell his sexual urge. So, he goes to the city, intending
to seek emotional comfort in a brothel. While inside the brothel, he feels he receives unequal
treatment from the waitress who treats him differently from Japanese guests. Half-drunk and
half-disillusioned, he writes poems and sings them loudly to show his complaint. After he wakes
up from his drunkenness, he pays the bill and gives the female waiter the last penny in his pocket.
Now, penniless, he cannot make his way back, so he goes to the seashore in despair. Facing the
direction where China lies, he slowly walks into the sea.
Regarding the ending, it is uncertain whether the protagonist commits suicide or not, but the
tenor of the novella is undoubtedly desperate and tragic. Thus, the title “Sinking” could be read
as imparting multiple symbolic meanings. First, it may refer to the protagonist’s drowning in the
sea. For this reason, some critics argue that the story is a suicidal tragedy. In a more meaningful
way, it could be interpreted as a metaphor for the protagonist’s moral degeneracy in life and his
failure to solve the multiple conflicts in the formation of his selfhood. In the preface to Sinking,
Yu Dafu states that the title story depicts the psychology of a sick youth.1 The story could also
be read as an anatomy of juvenile hypochondria brought about by multiple pressures and bitter
experience in life. The bitterness he tries to represent is the conflict between body and soul,
caused by the mood swings of adolescence. From this perspective, the story is not only about
the personal experience of a melancholic youth, but also expresses a larger concern with the
crisis fermenting among the young Chinese in their search for themselves. Situating the story in
its context of the May Fourth era when pressures arose due to profound intellectual revolution,
Yu’s story may be read as his response to the heated discussions centering on the formation of
the new youth, which is permeated with crises, physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual.

From new youth to sick youth

Initially, the image of the new youth was created by enlightened Chinese intellectuals at the
turn of the twentieth century in contrast with that of the old, sick man of China.The late-Qing
intellectual Yan Fu may be the first to use the epithet of sick man as a metaphor for China beset
with external and internal crises.2 Lu Xun, through his relentless portrayals of men with physi-
cal or mental illnesses, pinpointed the sickness within the feudal society as well as traditional
Confucian values. Regardless of the actual age, the image of a sick Chinese embodied the aging
and deteriorating sociopolitical system of the country and was employed as a foil by some intel-
lectuals in the formation of national consciousness. Against such a portrait of the senile China,
the May Fourth revolutionaries laid the hope and responsibility of rejuvenating the country
on the younger generation. Following the lead of Liang Qichao’s “juvenile China”3 and Li
Dazhao’s “youthful China,”4 Chen Duxiu called for the making of the new youth. The primary
task for these young Chinese was to carry out the intellectual revolution to modernize China,
as he wrote on the opening issue of the periodical New Youth (Xin qingnian), “the strength of
our country is weakening, the morals of our people are degenerating, and the learning of our
scholars is distressing. . . . Our youth must take up the task of rejuvenating China.”5 Specifically,
he set out six qualities6 to effect a fundamental change in the national consciousness of the Chi-
nese youth. In the environment of the New Culture Movement, the new youth was a vanguard
infused with a strong romantic individualism in the pursuit of science and democracy. At this
point, to be a new youth was to make a total break from the traditional values and to embrace
the ideas of liberty, equality, and individuality celebrated in the Western discourse.Yet in practice,

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the complexity of the traditional culture and the diversity in the concept of modernity made it
impossible for the young Chinese to have a clean break from the past. Understandably, the force
of cultural continuity played an unrecognized role in the formation of modern consciousness
and selfhood.Thus, crises rose among young students and caught the attention of some sensitive
writers in support of the New Culture Movement.
Yu Dafu was one of them. He sensed that the new youth was sick, because a variety of crises
were appearing in the youth consciousness, and went ahead to expose the internal conflicts and
turmoil by means of creating memorable youth characters in his fictional works. In his depic-
tion of the new youth, he focused more on the anxiety, uncertainty, and the disorientation of
their newly established self. He approached the issue of youth consciousness in two major ways,
as is shown in his characterization of the protagonist in his novella Sinking. On the one hand,
although drawing the same inspiration from Western romanticism,Yu Dafu’s young men are dif-
ferent from the poised and robust archetype in the new youth narrative. Unlike Chen Duxiu’s
reproduction of a Byronic hero on the Chinese soil, Yu Dafu’s young heroes always possess a
quite narcissistic, melancholic, or sometimes decadent personality, showing another face of the
new youth in the making.7 On the other hand,Yu’s image of the new youth remains, at the same
time, quite traditional. For example, in the story, the protagonist’s great sentimentality at the
train station of Tokyo echoes the classic scenes described in traditional Chinese poems on one’s
departure. And the traditional intellectual’s lifestyle of being accompanied by women and wine
to stimulate creative imagination finds strong resonance in Yu’s characterization. Denton is right
to point out that “the story also enacts in spatial terms and through literary allusions the irresolv-
able modern tension between a radically alienated consciousness attempting to understand itself
in social isolation and nostalgic longing to return to the comfort of a traditional community of
like minds in a unified moral cosmos.”8 Therefore, by revealing the psychological development
of the tragic end of an overseas Chinese student in Japan, Yu represents and delves deeply into
this crisis from three aspects: juvenile hypochondria, the discovery of one’s body, and the anxiety
over one’s national identity.

Hypochondria as symptoms of mental crisis

The crisis first appears as a discrepancy in the young protagonist’s perception of himself, which
gradually develops into a mental illness of hypochondria. Like a typical coming-of-age story,
the young protagonist is concerned with his role in society as he interacts more deeply with
the world. But, instead of focusing on the outside adventure in shaping one’s consciousness,Yu’s
primary concern lies in the emotional and psychological turmoil experienced by the name-
less youth. The story reveals a series of frustrations: the alienation and loneliness he feels in his
relationship with his classmates, the uncertainty with his intention to study in Japan, the worries
about his future when he gets back to China, the lack of male charm to develop a relationship
with girls. Meanwhile, immersed in the vast romantic works from Western literature, he strongly
identifies with the romantic heroes portrayed in those books. Imitating their love of nature,
passionate personality, and strong rebellion against established norms and social conventions, he
forms an idealist image of himself as a romantic hero. As a result, a discrepancy appears, for the
protagonist is nothing but a frustrated youth due to his lack of capability as well as the charisma
for becoming such a hero in real life.
In fact, the protagonist’s love of nature is more like an escape from dealing with the discrep-
ancy in his consciousness. Because of his failure in developing intimate relationship with girls
around him, he resorts to nature, seeing nature as his desired female. This is clearly portrayed
when he enjoys the natural scenery in an open field:

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This, then, is your refuge. When all the philistines envy you, sneer at you, and treat
you like a fool, only Nature, only this eternally bright sun and azure sky, this late sum-
mer breeze, this early autumn air still remains your friend, still remains your mother
and your beloved.With this, you have no further need to join the world of the shallow
and flippant.You might as well spend the rest of your life in this simple countryside, in
the bosom of Nature.
(32)9

Unlike the philistines with whom he cannot find common ground, the sun, the sky, the breeze,
and the air become his friends, the mother, and the beloved that the protagonist can identify
with. Here, nature is an extension of his own self-awareness, and at the same time, a projec-
tion of his inner desire. In this sense, the love of nature acts as a source of consolation for the
inadequacies of the young student, facilitating his self-imagined creation of a hero like those in
romantic literature.What comes along within this self-expression is a cluster of strong feelings of
melancholia and pity. The reason for these feelings is unknown, but it is important to show that
expression on his face. For example, when the protagonist hears the approaching of a peasant, he
soon changes his smile into a melancholy expression, “as if afraid to show his smile before stran-
gers” (33). In the same vein, his favorite books such as Emerson’s Nature or Thoreau’s Excursions,
and his love of romantic writers such as Wordsworth, Henie, and Gissing, become objects onto
which he projects his self-awareness. As C.T. Hsia notes, “a Wertherian self-pity exaggerates alike
the hero’s love for nature and the ache in his heart.”10 Opposite to this keenly identification with
nature as well as romantic literatures, the distance between him and his classmates epitomizes
his failure to identify with the social milieu in which he lives. For him, it is hard to think and
to convince himself that he is one of them. This intentional distancing from the social world in
turn generates more feelings of pity and loneliness that enhance the image of a sentimental hero.
As the narration goes, “his emotional precocity had placed him at constant odds with his fellow
men, and inevitably the wall separating him from them had gradually grown thicker and ticker”
(31). Thus, the protagonist is torn between the two contrasting selves: one is the ideal self as a
romantic hero at oneness with nature and literature, and the other one is the isolated self as a
marginalized youth in need of women’s love and care.
At the same time, the discrepancy in the self is revealed by the narrative distance between
the narrator and the protagonist. Although the story is narrated from a third-person point of
view, the narrator tends to use a judgmental eye in observing the protagonist’s behaviors.Taking
the narrator’s standpoint, readers know more than the protagonist in the story. There are three
important statements made by the narrator, signifying the gradual illness of the youth. The first
one is the beginning sentence of the story, “lately he had been feeling pitifully lonesome” (31).
This foretells the coming of hypochondria that develops from pitiful loneliness in the plot of
the lonely character “he.” Following this statement, the rest of the opening section could be
read as a supporting example for such a statement. Then, at the beginning of Section Two, the
narrator makes clear that “his melancholy was getting worse with time” (34). This is the first
stage of the development of the protagonist’s hypochondria, showing instances of the character’s
inability to befriend with his classmates. The final stage is alluded to in the opening sentence of
Section Six, “after he had moved to the mei grove, his hypochondria took a different turn” (47).
This is a confirmation of the illness and, at the same time, a notice of the new symptoms from
this sick youth.The statements altogether function as a diagnosis of the illness of the protagonist,
along with the inspection of his psychological thoughts for causes and symptoms. Secondly,
the protagonist expresses his real emotions through his diary and his confession in the manner
of self-exposure. However, under this frankness of expressing one’s mind, careful readers could

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notice the protagonist’s habit of fantasizing himself as a victim, which makes his account of
himself unreliable. For example, there’s an apparent narrative discrepancy at the scene when
the protagonist is leaving Tokyo. At the station, the protagonist bids a pitiable farewell, crying
with tears while mocking himself for crying without a reason. Since he doesn’t have a single
sweetheart, brother, or close friend in the city, then for whom are his tears intended? But in the
next few lines, the protagonist starts to write poems “intended for a friend in Tokyo” (39). The
discrepancy between the protagonist’s point of view and the narrator’s point of view further
renders the writing of hypochondria a self-diagnosis of one’s failure in constructing a unified,
coherent self. As Ou-fan Lee states, behind the young student’s coming-of-age story lies “a maze
of ambiguities between reality and appearance, between the self and visions of the self.”11
To some extent, many critics agree that Yu’s anatomy of the young protagonist’s hypochon-
dria functions as a kind of writing therapy that provides its author a place to outpour his suffer-
ings while studying in Japan. Guo Moruo speaks highly of Yu’s story for the author’s admirable
sincerity, and because of his audacious self-exposure, it is firstly a fresh spring breeze, awaken-
ing countless youthful hearts, and secondly a storm as well as a shock to the hypocrisy of the
old literati and pseudo-scholars.12 Similar to this critical stance, C. T. Hsia reads Yu’s story as an
autobiographical account, recognizing the nameless hero as an authentic representation of Yu
himself. Taking a rather conventional approach, Hsia interprets the story within the frame of
psychological realism, drawing a conclusion that the story tends to be purely mawkish senti-
mentality.13 The two readings seem to have overlooked the importance of narrative distance
between the narrator and the protagonist. In the opinion of Michael Egan, there’s an ironic
effect in terms of the rhetoric of the story. The irony is achieved through the narrator’s con-
stant distancing from the protagonist. Drawing from the narrative theory of Wayne Booth, he
uses ample textual evidences to illustrate the difference among the author, the narrator and the
protagonist. Accordingly, the sentimental hero appears laughable and lacks self-knowledge to
the reader. By identifying the irony within Yu’s autobiography writing, Egan directs the critical
attention to the story’s literariness, pointing out the universal appeal of such an essentially apo-
litical and individualistic text.14 However, my readings, particularly through the way in which Yu
deals with hypochondria, recognizes the importance of the narrative distance between the nar-
rator and the protagonist, but the purpose is not to form a rhetoric irony as Egan asserts, but for
a representation of the discrepancy between the self in one’s own eyes and the self from others’
eyes. By writing a hypochondriac youth,Yu exposes the crisis in the young man’s consciousness
in formulating a healthy personality.

Physical crisis in the body

Secondly, the crisis lies in the discovery of the intertwined discursive practices on one’s body,
mostly through the lens of sexuality.The young protagonist suffers from an uncontrollable sexual
desire which leads to his daily masturbation, voyeurism, and internal conflict between the mind
and the body. In spite of the protagonist’s harsh self-reproach, he is unable to control himself.
Whenever he surrenders to his sexual addiction, he finds little pleasure in his deviant behaviors,
but for most of the time, a profound bitterness, guilt, and regret. Many critics see this bitter
view of sex as a common syndrome of a teenager in his puberty burdened with the national
inferiority of being a humiliated Chinese in Japan. For instance, Kirk A. Denton views the bit-
terness being intertwined with “the protagonist’s continent blaming of his country’s weakness
for his own sexual inadequacies.”15 Nevertheless, this view of adolescent frustration mixed with
national humiliation has been questioned for its insufficiency to explain the motive behind
the protagonist’s possible suicide at the end of the story. In the opinion of Ming Dong Gu, he

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suggests a Freudian interpretation of such bitterness, recognizing the frustrated youth as a Chi-
nese Oedipus in exile. He holds that the story is structured on the central theme of a fragmented
Oedipus complex, and the root cause of the protagonist’s tragedy lies in his complete unaware-
ness of the hidden Oedipal conflict in his consciousness, which fuses all his personal problems
with an emotional matrix composed of a series of related ideas like the beloved, mother-love,
mother nature, and the motherland.Thus, the final scene of the youth trying to drown himself is
his attempt to be reunited with the maternal matrix represented by the image of the ocean.16 It
is a fascinating argument, but I wish to complement his reading by examining the role the body
plays in causing the protagonist’s emotional and psychological crisis under dual pressures from
Confucian tradition and Western modernity. The sexual frustrations make him aware of the dis-
course that has been imposed on his body which is the locus of different discursive forces. The
primary one is the Confucian morality, and an opposing force comes from the Western discourse
of romanticism, along with another significant one derived from modern medical pathobiology.
At first, the emerging desire from his body is recognized as a natural phenomenon. “With all
nature responding to the call of spring, he too felt more keenly the urge implanted in him by
the progenitors of the human race.” (42) The protagonist thinks that his body is a part of nature,
so that’s why he feels comfortable and complete when he is back with nature alone. Naturally,
he feels the sexual impulse is normal, but when that impulse leads to his frequent masturbation,
he feels guilty instead of pleasure for he thinks these actions are immoral. His inner thought
goes as follows:

He was ordinarily a very self-respecting and clean person, but when evil thoughts
seized hold of him, numbing his intellect and paralyzing his conscience, he was no
longer able to observe the admonition that “one must not harm one’s body under any
circumstances, since it is inherited from one’s parents.” Every time he sinned he felt
bitter remorse and vowed not to transgress again.
(42)

This is the moment when he starts to experience the discursive force of Confucian doctrine
that has been inscribed on his body. The Confucian belief bonds his body to the larger context
of the collective consciousness. That his body doesn’t belong to him, and that he should obey
the moral codes that confine his desires and emotions. Unlike a naturalistic representation of his
natural reaction, he views it as a sin and a stain, thus evaluating his body through a moralistic
lens. The biological impulse is regarded as an evil thought which numbs his intellectual ability
as well as paralyzes his conscience. According to traditional morality, the body is not a property
of his own to exert his will for personal fulfillment, but an instrument in the service of Confu-
cian biopolitical power as well as the continuity and honor of the family. Since Confucius states
that self-respect and the integrity of one’s body constitutes the fundamental base of filiality,
then what the protagonist does with his body clearly violates these set of rules, resulting in his
sense of guilt and remorse. As a consequence, he sees his body dirty and morally degraded, and
the natural actions out of his own will then is being judged as a transgression which should be
banned forever.
However, opposing this discursive force is another force imparted from Western literary
works he reads. His sexual fantasy has an obvious Western imprint, as he craves for “an Eve from
the Garden of Eden” (36), and these desired female images floating in his head are all naked
madam, luring him with decadence (42). The seductive female coincides with the Western cul-
tural imaginary. His surrender to these middle-aged Eves, mostly from the romantic literatures,
once again shows his identification of himself as the romantic heroes, and also indicates a strong

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desire of an autonomy of selfhood.The hard struggle made by the protagonist is in fact a conten-
tion of two opposing forces between Confucian morality and Western individualism. Another
piece of supporting evidence is that when the protagonist learns that the great Russian writer
Gogol suffers the same habit as him, his fear of being intellectually unproductive due to the
immoral actions has been greatly alleviated, showing his dependence on the Western discourse
to enhance his knowledge of himself. In one critic’s words, “Yu’s characters can be read as
emblems of modernity’s tensions between desires for an autonomous self and traditional desires
for stability defined within a shared cultural meaning system.”17
Apart from the above two forces in defining and regulating the protagonist’s body, there is
also the interplay of the medical discourse that affects his view of such sexual frustrations. In
the first place, he regards these frustrations as the symptoms of hypochondria. Psychologically,
his love turns quickly into hate whenever he fails in making social contacts with others, leading
to his frequent statement of revenge inside his heart. To some extent, these frustrations not only
reproduce the physical grounds for the sick protagonist to declare revenge, but also reinforce
the reasons for self-reproach, justifying and enhancing the verbal actualization of the neurotic
depression. Secondly, when the morning masturbation grows into a habit, the protagonist starts
to worry about his psychical health as well as his intellectual ability as he goes to the library
for medical help. When he learns from the medical books that masturbation is harmful to one’s
psychical health, he uses the words “abuse” and “harmful” to describe his behavior. He sees his
body in the unhealthy state from the medical gaze, and intends to remedy the abused part of
his body. As a result, he adopts the medical approach to make up for the loss. He incorporates
milk and raw eggs into his diet, and takes a bath every day. Consequently, troubled by the fear
emerging from the medical discourse, and the guilt coming from the moral discourse, the pro-
tagonist feels his hypochondria worsened, forming his own image as a sick youth with promi-
nent cheekbones, big bluish-gray circles around his eyes, and his pupils as expressionless as those
of a dead fish. It is with conflicting emotions that the protagonist attempts to make sense of his
sexuality through the discovery of his body under different discursive forces. In this way, the
struggle between the mind and body of the melancholic youth haunts the young man’s efforts
to construct one’s selfhood.
Yu Dafu’s story reveals the awakening desire within one’s body, transcends the issue of a
character’s sexuality, and delves into the cause for anxiety and frustration of a modern man’s
existence in the world.The protagonist forms his self-consciousness through the discovery of his
body. The discovery conforms to the modern conception of how one’s body is constructed by
various discourses, and how the body becomes the locus of competing discursive forces.

Crisis in national identity

The discourse of the body in Yu Dafu’s story shows that the crisis is both individual and national.
The construction of oneself is closely related to the national consciousness, especially in the
context of the overseas Chinese students. Although China is not a focus in the narrative, it
remains as a subtext in fueling the protagonist’s crisis in constructing his national identity. The
feeling is quite complicated. He is emotionally attached to the traditional image of a cultural
China, but the image is broken by the present condition of a weak and debilitated China; he is
fascinated by the Western concepts of individuality, but he remains doubtful about the benefits
of modernity coming from the West. Implicitly, this crisis in the young man’s recognition of his
national identity further points to the dilemma between tradition and the modernity. Within
his emotional conflict, the crisis has been aggravated, leading to the tragic end of the young
protagonist.

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 Yu Dafu’s romantic fiction

The protagonist shows constant nostalgia for the cultural past of China, identifying him-
self with the traditional Chinese poet. In the first section, after he reads the first and third
stanzas of Wordsworth’s “The Solitary Reaper,” he suddenly has an impulse to translate them
into Chinese. Particularly, his translation of the third stanza is full of nostalgic feelings for
the irretrievable past characteristic of the nostalgic theme and melancholic tone in classic
Chinese poetry. What’s more, he skips the second stanza and focuses on the third one, which
explains that his real intention of reading these naturalists’ works is to find the similar scenes
that he can relate to his own cultural taste and aesthetics. After translating these stanzas, he
immediately reproaches himself for this silly act, saying that “English poetry is English poetry
and Chinese poetry is Chinese poetry; why bother to translate” (33). Obviously, for the young
protagonist, both cultures are unique. When translating Wordsworth’s stanza into Chinese,
the original poem becomes an insipid hymn and loses its essence and uniqueness. The same
applies to Chinese poetry. Therefore, the young protagonist does not feel inferior for his own
culture in his encounter with the Western literary works, and instead has a strong confidence
in his cultural identity. Before he walks into the sea, he faces the direction in which China
lies. This is a symbolic gesture for his emotional return to the ancient, remote, and misty
motherland. This nostalgic attachment is further presented in the protagonist’s writing of
classical-style poetry on the departing scene at the Tokyo train station and in the brothel.
Echoing his Chinese poetic ancestors in the same condition, he conveys the similar mood
in the traditional lines, “looking homeward across the misted sea, I too weep for my beloved
country” (53).
In the meantime, he feels ashamed all the time of being a Chinese student among his Japa-
nese peers. Contrasting the old and weak China with modernized and powerful Japan, he feels a
strong sense of inferiority and blames his poor motherland for all his problems and death. After
the Sino-Japanese war, the defeated China sent its young students to Japan in order to bring
back new knowledge and power. To learn from Japan which used to be a pupil of China was
not something to be proud of for the young protagonist as well as the author.Yu Dafu himself
once wrote:

In youth, one always passes through a romantic lyrical period, when one is still a muted
bird but wants nonetheless to open one’s throat and sing out, especially for people who
are full of emotions. This lyrical period was spent in that sexually dissolute and mili-
tarily oppressive island nation. I saw my country sinking, while I myself suffered the
humiliations of a foreigner. . . . Like a wife who had lost her husband, powerless, with
no courage at all, bemoaning my fate, I let out a tragic cry. This was “Sinking”, which
stirred up so much criticism.18

The image of his national identity is described as a powerless widow, which adds a new dimen-
sion in the interpretation of the sexual inadequacy of the protagonist. Being sexually unat-
tractive is not a personal failure, but a consequence of national humiliation. The protagonist’s
experience with Japanese girls makes him feel doubly humiliated because these women were
already inferior to the Japanese male. And this sense of humiliation is further intensified by his
encounter in the brothel.The protagonist goes to the brothel but feels mistreated by the waitress
for she serves the Japanese man instead of him. He angrily thinks that even a prostitute dares to
tread on his dignity, and as an emotional consolation, he vows to seek revenge, but ironically, he
never takes any concrete action. The shame and humiliation make the young protagonist run
away from identifying with his country, as he intentionally cuts himself from participating in
the social circle of the Chinese students in school. In a lesser way, his intentional break from his

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 Tong He

elder brother could be interpreted as a break from the homeland.This conscious rejection of the
motherland is what the critic has pointed out as “the self-imposed exile.”19
In conclusion, the young man’s tragic end is brought about by a heterogeneous interplay
of multiple forces, national, social, personal, emotional, and spiritual. As a sharp and sensitive
observer,Yu Dafu adequately notes a striking contrast between the idealized image of the new
youth called for by the New Culture Movement and the weak, timid, and disoriented young
Chinese in reality. The making of the new youth embodies an intellectual as well as political
autonomy in the awakening of the young Chinese consciousness, but Yu Dafu’s writings uncov-
ered the hidden dimension of a great crisis in the consciousness of the Chinese youth in his time.
In many ways, the protagonist in his novella represents a large number of Chinese youth who
attempted to recover the repressed humanity from tradition, but were thrown into emotional,
psychological, and spiritual crisis due to their bitter encounter with stark reality. Through the
examination of juvenile hypochondria, the discovery of the body, and the recognition of the
national identity, Sinking probes deeply and artfully into the crisis in youth consciousness aris-
ing from the New Culture Movement. Its insight into the tragic experience of the protagonist
contributes to a better understanding of the image of the new youth, while at the same time, it
evokes reflections on the construction of selfhood in the May Fourth era.

Notes
1 Yu Dafu, Works of Yu Dafu (Yu Dafu wenji) (GuangZhou: Hua Cheng chubanshe, 1983), vol.7, 149.
2 Yan Fu, “On Strength,” (Yuanqiang) in Selected Works of Yan Fu (Yan Fu wenxuan) (Tianjin: Baihua
wenyi chubanshe, 2006), 24.
3 Liang Qichao, “On Juvenile China,” (Shaonian zhongguo shuo) in Collected Works from Ice-Drinking
Study (Yinbingshi heji) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1989), vol. 5, 7.
4 Li Dazhao, “On Youth,” (Qingchun), in Works of Li Dazhao (Li Dazhao wenji) (Beijing: Renmin chu-
banshe, 1999), vol.1, 194.
5 For a more detailed description of consciousness in crisis, see chapter four of Lin Yü-Sheng’s book The
Crisis of Chinese Consciousness: Radical Antitraditionalism in the May Fourth Era (Madison: The University
of Wisconsin Press, 1979), 65.
6 Chen Duxiu, “A Letter to Youth,” (Jinggao qingnian) in Selected Works of Chen Duxiu (Chen Duxiu
wenxuan) (Chengdu: Sichuan wenyi chubanshe, 2009), 18.
7 The word “face” used here echoes Matei Calinescu’s identification of five features of modernism. It’s
unclear whether Yu read the book or not, but his perception of modernity has a lot in common with
Calinescu’s from Five Faces of Modernity (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1987), 151–157.
8 Denton Kirk A., “The Distant Shore: The National Theme in Yu Dafu’s Sinking,” Chinese Literature:
Essays, Articles, and Reviews (1992), vol. 14, 117.
9 The English quotations are taken from The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2007), 31–55.
10 C. T. Hsia, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1961), 104.
11 Ou-fan Lee, The Romantic Generation of Modern Chinese Writers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1973), 110.
12 Guo Moruo, “On Yu Dafu,” (Lun Yu Dafu), in Materials on the Creation Society (Chuangzaoshe ziliao)
(Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chubanshe, 1985), 803.
13 C. T. Hsia, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction, 105.
14 Michael Egan, “Yu Dafu and Transition to Modern Chinese Literature,” in Modern Chinese Literature in
the May Fourth Era (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977), 321.
15 Denton Kirk A., “Romantic Sentiment and the Problem of the Subject: Yu Dafu,” in The Columbia
Companion to Modern Chinese Literature (New York: Columbia University Press), 149.
16 Ming Dong Gu, “A Chinese Oedipus in Exile,” Literature and Psychology (1993), vol. 39, no. 1, 1–25.
17 Denton Kirk A., The Columbia Companion to Modern Chinese Literature, 148.

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 Yu Dafu’s romantic fiction

18 Wang Zili and Chen Zishan, eds., Research Materials on Yu Dafu (Yu Dafu yanjiu ziliao) (Tianjin: Tianjin
renmin chubanshe, 1982), vol. 2, 217.
19 Denton Kirk A., “The Distant Shore: The National Theme in Yu Dafu’s Sinking,” 110.

Further readings
Doležalova, Anna. Yu Ta-fu: Specific Traits of His Literary Creation. Bratislava: Publishing House of the Slovak
Acdemy of Sciences, 1970.
Egan, Michael. “Yu Dafu and the Transition to Modern Chinese Literature.” In Merle Goldman, ed., Mod-
ern Chinese Literature in the May Fourth Era. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977, 309–324.
Feuerwerker, Yi-tsi Mei. “Text, Intertext and Representation of the Writing Self in Lu Xun, Yu Dafu and
Wang Meng.” In Ellen Widmer and David Der-wei Wang, eds. From May Fourth to June Fourth: Fiction
and Film in Twentieth-Century China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993, 167–193.
Keaveney, Christopher. The Subversive Self in Modern Chinese Literature: The Creation Society’s Reinvention of
the Japanese Shishosetsu. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
Lan, Feng. “From the De-based Literati to the Debased Intellectual: A Chinese Hypochondriac in Japan.”
Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 23.1 (Spring 2011): 105–132.
Levan, Valerie. “The Confessant as Analysand in Yu Dafu’s Confessional Narratives.” Chinese Literature:
Essays, Articles, Reviews 34 (2012): 31–56.
Ming Dong Gu. “A Chinese Oedipus in Exile.” Literature and Psychology 39.1 (1993): 1–25.
Shih, Shu-mei. “The Libidinal and the National: The Morality of Decadence in Yu Dafu, Teng Gu, and
Others.” In Shu-mei Shih, The Lure of the Modern:Writing Modernism in Semicolonial China, 1917–1937.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001, 110–127.

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 SECTION III

Modernist aesthetics and

sensibilities
 10
MODERN CONSCIOUSNESS
AND SYMBOLIST POETRY
Fei Ming, Li Jinfa and others

Gang Zhou

When Auerbach was analyzing Virginia Woolf ’s 1927 novel To the Lighthouse in his admired
Mimesis, he certainly had no idea that there was a writer in China whose 1932 novel Bridge
(Qiao) was being compared to Woolf ’s.The person who made this connection was Zhu Guang-
qian, a well-known literary critic in 1930s and 1940s China, and the writer was Fei Ming. In
Zhu’s words, Fei Ming’s Bridge “leaves out all the superficial stuff and shallow logic, and goes
directly to the depths of the heart, quite similar to Marcel Proust and Virginia Woolf, although
these modern novelists are yet to be familiar to Mr. Fei Ming.”1 Often neglected and little
understood, Fei Ming is very unique in the history of modern Chinese literature. By stubbornly
being himself, taking the path that was distinctively his, Fei Ming nevertheless exhibits in his
writing and experimentation a strong affinity with Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust and other
modernist writers.
Like Fei Ming, the poet Li Jinfa (the other writer discussed in this chapter) also has a strong
affinity with Western modernism and especially with French Symbolism. Li, once called the
“Baudelaire of the Orient,” introduced French Symbolism into modern Chinese poetry. Unlike
Fei Ming, whose modernist sensibilities were independent of the modernist influence, Li Jinfa
was intimately familiar with poems by Baudelaire and Verlaine. Li wrote all of his poems when
he was studying in France and Berlin between 1920 and 1925. Jinfa (Golden Hair), the pen
name our poet adopted in 1922, told a vivid story of his poetic muse. As the legend goes, Li,
who had fallen ill and become delirious in Paris, saw a blonde goddess.Without doubt, Li Jinfa’s
poetic inspiration came directly from the West.2

Fei Ming and Bridge (Qiao)

Life and career

Fei Ming (1901–1967), the pen name of Feng Wenbing, was born in Huangmei, Hubei Prov-
ince, a place famous for its Buddhist tradition. Fei Ming’s special bond with Buddhism would
later play a significant role in his writing and thinking. As a child, Fei Ming received a traditional
education, which laid a solid foundation for his knowledge and appreciation of traditional Chi-
nese literature. In 1922, he entered Beijing University to study English literature. The Western

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 Gang Zhou

writers whom he most admired were Shakespeare, Cervantes, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy and
Baudelaire.
In 1925, Fei Ming’s first collection of stories, Tales of the Bamboo Grove (Zhulin de Gushi),
was published, followed by two more: Peach Orchard (Taoyuan) in 1928 and Date (Zao) in 1931.
As one can infer from these titles, Fei Ming’s earlier works “paint scenes of pastoral life, often
viewed from the perspective of an innocent child, or simple country person, whose heart is por-
trayed as pure, uncluttered by worldly concerns and thus closest to the highest form of truth.”3
While all these features are still visible in Fei Ming’s 1932 novel Bridge (Qiao), the work is a
masterpiece that promises much more. Bridge is first and foremost a modernist literary work that
reflects Fei Ming’s unique fascination with “human consciousness.”
Fei Ming started teaching at Beijing University in November 1931. In the early 1930s, Fei
Ming was considered one of the most important Jingpai (Peking Style) writers.4 However, his
literary career was disrupted by the Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). During the war, Fei Ming
had to return to his hometown, Huangmei, where he taught in the elementary and secondary
schools. His only postwar work was After Mr. Neverwas Rides a Plane (Moxuyou Xiansheng zuo
feiji yihou), which was serialized in The Literary Magazine from June 1947 through Novem-
ber 1948. While this work still contains some visible signatures of Fei Ming, including stylistic
innovations and blending of genres, it is dramatically different from Fei Ming’s earlier works.
Instead of being passionate about dreams and consciousness, the transformed Fei Ming is more
preoccupied with reality and history.5

Literary achievements
Liu Xiwei, a well-known Chinese literary critic in the 1930s and 40s, commented on the
uniqueness of Fei Ming’s writing:

Among modern Chinese writers one can rarely find someone like Fei Ming, who is
so completely being himself. . . . Fei Ming is truly devoted to creation, and therefore
his work has strong personal signatures. He is not interested in following the trend, and
therefore he always has his forever place, which becomes a Peach Blossom Spring for
a few kindred spirits to linger without any thoughts of leaving.6

In the history of modern Chinese literature, Fei Ming’s influence is felt in the works of two
groups of writers. The first group consists of regionalist writers such as Shen Congwen and
Wang Zengqi; the second includes modernist poets such as Bian Zhilin and He Qifang. In the
recent years, scholars in Mainland China have attempted to reassess Fei Ming’s contribution to
the lyric poetic tradition in modern Chinese fiction.7 Fei Ming’s self-conscious appropriation
of classical poetry is apparent in his masterpiece Bridge, which may be seen as a parallel to the
“lyrical novel” in the West. While such an appraisal is significant, it fails to distinguish Qiao from
other poetic fiction written in modern China. In the following section, I present my own read-
ing of the novel.

The masterpiece

The meaning of Bridge (Qiao)

Bridge starts as a love story, and then it becomes something else. The novel starts with a story
within a story set on a distant ocean country. A 12-year-old boy was escorted to his uncle’s place

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 Modern consciousness and symbolist poetry

to avoid the chaos following a fire in his village. A little girl from the neighborhood joined him,
while her father was busy salvaging their furniture. The boy later walked back to the village
alone to retrieve “a doll” that the little girl had left behind.The girl’s name, Asbas, was apparently
foreign, and the word doll was rendered in English in Fei Ming’s text.
The main story starts in the following chapter “Golden Silver Flower.” Our protagonist Xiao
Lin, a 12-year-old boy, went outside of the city to play after school. He crossed the bridge, where
he met Granny Shi and her 10-year-old granddaughter Qinzi, who would later become his fian-
cée. Xiao Lin gave Qinzi the golden silver flower that he picked from the tree. Their pure and
innocent love touches the reader’s heart. Scholars have argued that the “green plum blossom and
bamboo horse” (qingmei zhuma) motif might come from the influence of George Eliot, whose
The Mill on the Floss was one of Fei Ming’s favorite books. Considering the foreign sounding of
the frame story, one can probably agree with this claim.8
Bridge consists of two parts. According to Fei Ming, after completing two-thirds of Part I,
he started writing Part II. The whole writing process started in 1925, and the story remained
unfinished even when the book was published in 1932. Some readers joked that Fei Ming spent
seven years building his bridge. But what intrigues me is that Fei Ming was eager to start writing
Part II. So what is in the second part?
Part II takes place ten years later, when Xiao Lin returns to his hometown after having stud-
ied in the North. There is a new protagonist Xizhu, Qinzi’s female cousin, who had been “a
little thing” when Xiao Lin left, and was not even mentioned in Part I, but appears suddenly in
Part II as a beautiful young woman. It sounds like a typical love triangle, but the focus of Bridge
is certainly elsewhere. To really understand Bridge, one must understand what a bridge is in Fei
Ming’s textual world.
Xiao Lin first crossed the bridge at the beginning of the novel. He then met Granny Shi
and Qinzi, and followed them to Qinzi’s home for dinner. The significance of these events was
explained later when Xiao Lin went home and saw her sister washing clothes on the riverbank
outside the city while waiting for him. Suddenly Xiao Lin realized that there were things in his
heart he could no longer share with his sister, and those things were certainly the golden silver
flower and Qinzi. Here we may say that the Bridge is like a passage that transforms Xiao Lin
into this young man with his first taste of love and maturity.
Xiao Lin crossed the bridge again in Part II in the chapter titled “Bridge.” Xiao Lin, Qinzi
and Xizhu went on an outing to the Bazhang Pavilion. There was a wooden bridge on the way
there, which could never be crossed in Xiao Lin’s memory. When thinking about this bridge,
he always remembered being that frightened boy, who was too afraid to cross it. Xiao Lin asked
Qinzi and Xizhu to cross the bridge first. Qinzi crossed first, and then Xizhu, who stopped in
the middle, looked back at Xiao Lin and asked him what he was looking at:

Honestly Xiao Lin himself doesn’t know what he is looking at. The image of the past
seems to become more and more vague, and it seems to carry the current image of
these two girls’ back further and further away, very much like a dream. The color is
still the color of the bridge. When Xizhu looks back, it takes Xiao Lin’s breath away.
“Under the Bridge the flow of water is like sobbing,” as if immediately one could hear
the sound, smiling back at her. From that moment on, this bridge takes the middle as
its other shore, where Xizhu is standing, her beautiful image perpetual there, and only
the sky forms her background.9

If the first bridge transforms, this second bridge transcends. If the first crossing is about life
experience, the second one is about dreams and sudden enlightenment. While the first crossing

145
 Gang Zhou

is linear, the second one is anything but linear. At that moment, past memory and present image
merge into a dream. What Xiao Lin did was to paint that dream, to add the color and the sound
to reach that epiphany. Evoking the line from a poem by Wen Tingyun (812–870), one of Fei
Ming’s favorite poets from the late Tang Dynasty, “Under the Bridge the flow of water is like
sobbing,” Xiao Lin painted a dream that crystallizes layers of time and space. We might still con-
sider this bridge a passage, a passage from the real to a dream world, a world that is more real
than the “real.” It still has things to do with the heart, but this time the heart is on its own quest,
a search for the ultimate state of truth and beauty. In a way, all these descriptions about Xiao Lin,
Qinzi and Xizhu’s outing to the Bazhang Pavilion are just a setup to bring the reader to that
moment of sudden enlightenment.
In his preface to Bridge, Fei Ming wrote that he once considered Tower as the title of the
book. If we say Bridge is the passage from this shore to the other, Tower is certainly the passage
from earth to sky, from this world to the next. Transcendence is at the core of this work, which
marks Fei Ming unique in the history of modern Chinese literature. It also makes sense when
one realizes that the title of the last chapter of Part I of Bridge is “Tombstone.” The chapter
recounts Xiao Lin’s encounter with a tombstone in the wilderness. Just like Bridge and Tower,
“Tombstone” may be read as a passage from life to death, from this world to the next. I think
it was at that moment Fei Ming realized that what he really wanted to write was something
beyond life, beyond death, something like a dream world, something about human imagination
and human consciousness. I believe that prompted him to begin writing Part II.

Bridge and modern consciousness

In a short piece written in 1936, Fei Ming compares Don Quixote with the Chinese classical
novel Water Margin. In contrast to Jin Shengtan, a well-known critic in the Ming Dynasty, who
praises the author of Water Margin for writing the book in his mind first before putting it on
paper, Fei Ming praises Cervantes for starting his writing “without having a full book in his
mind.” Fei Ming claims that if he had been given ten or twenty years to write a novel, he would
definitely do what Cervantes had done.10 That was exactly what Fei Ming did in writing Bridge.
The fact that Fei Ming would feel comfortable publishing the novel chapter by chapter in a
serial form, even in different magazines, then moving on to the second part without complet-
ing the first, and finally publishing the unfinished novel in 1932 while writing more chapters
afterwards shows us his singular understanding and appreciation of the uncertainty of writing as
a process. I think this is also what Fei Ming means when he writes in his preface to Bridge that
writing Bridge taught him how to write.
What takes center stage in Part II of Bridge is Fei Ming’s fascination with the inner process of
human imagination and human consciousness. He seems particularly interested in showing how
the mind could be triggered by one word, one phrase, one line from a Tang poem, one image
or event, and then by free association, imagination, intuition, even exaggeration to arrive at that
dream world, to experience epiphanic ways of coming to the truth. Just like the chapter “Bridge,”
many chapters in Part II consist of those moments of sudden enlightenment.
The Chinese critic Wu Xiaodong argues that the key to understand Bridge is to understand
that psychological and imaginary real that Fei Ming builds in his fictional world. He coins the
term “Heart Image” to summarize that imaginary real, or we may say the dream world. Both
“heart” and “image” are concepts with a long and rich tradition in Chinese culture. Wu Xiao-
dong’s discussion therefore focuses on the influence of Chinese literary tradition on Fei Ming’s
dream world.11 While Wu’s observation is insightful, I would point out the Western and modern-
ist nature of Fei Ming’s imaginary real. In the chapter “Tower,” Xiao Lin says, “I often observe

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 Modern consciousness and symbolist poetry

my own thinking. It can be said to be very much like geometry, which brooks no vagueness
and imprecision. I don’t feel the truth of life as a dream, but rather feel the truth and beauty
of dream.”12 Geometry would never have occurred to any Chinese traditional man of letters
when talking about their thinking and imagination. I think Fei Ming’s attempt at “scientifically”
rendering the inner mechanism of human imagination and human consciousness makes him a
kindred spirit of Western modernist writers.
In 1927, Fei Ming wrote an essay titled “Telling of Dreams.” In that essay, Fei Ming cites
Shakespeare several times, all in the original English. He quotes Hamlet and King Lear. When
talking about what the dream means for him, he cites Shakespeare’s work as the best example.
Because when Shakespeare starts writing, he does not know what he will accomplish. Then his
words give birth to words, and sentences to sentences, just like an unfathomable dream. Here we
again see Fei Ming emphasize the uncertainty of writing; we also realize Fei Ming’s understand-
ing of dream world is mediated by his unique understanding of Shakespeare and other writers in
the Western literary tradition. In “Telling of Dreams,” Fei Ming mentions far more writers from
outside of China than from China.13
In her discussion of Fei Ming, Shu-Mei Shih coins the term “mutual mediation” to describe
Fei Ming’s engagement with the Chinese and Western literary traditions. At Beijing University,
Fei Ming was known for writing his English exams with a Chinese brush. Invoking this perfect
image, Shih argues that Fei Ming was at home with both the traditional and the modern, with
the East and the West. What impresses me in the image of Fei Ming’s “writing English with a
Chinese brush” is the kind of ease and freedom that was rarely seen among the May Fourth
writers.While the May Fourth writers had to fight hard to even start writing in the vernacular,
the subsequent generation, Fei Ming’s, was able to overcome the alienation and precarious-
ness in their attitude toward languages, be it classical Chinese, the vernacular or English.14 In
a way, Fei Ming’s writing of Bridge synthesizes this ease and freedom both linguistically and
stylistically.
In my opinion, what distinguishes Fei Ming from his Chinese contemporaries is his abid-
ing interest in subjective experience and human consciousness, which is inherently modern-
ist. But in Fei Ming’s case it is shaped by Buddhism, Taoism, classical Chinese poetry and
his own interpretation of Shakespeare, Cervantes, Eliot and Baudelaire. In the West, “the
growth of the analysis of the subjective point of view is seen philosophically in Bergson and
psychologically in Freud, but was most rigorously pursued in the subjective self-reliance of
modernist art, which delineated this kind of psychology, and also traced the growing eman-
cipation of the expressive or creative individual from socially accepted forms of belief (as in
Joyce’s portrait of himself as Stephen Dedalus), . . . ”15 In a way, what Fei Ming really wants his
reader to see is Xiao Lin’s psychology, his way of seeing things into that dream world, and his
imaginative, intuitive “epiphanic” way of coming to the truth. In Bridge, especially Part II, Fei
Ming uses a variety of techniques, not exactly stream of consciousness, to delineate how the
mind and imagination of Xiao Lin (sometimes Qinzi) operate to reach that enlightenment.
Unlike those Western modernists, Fei Ming is not interested in capturing how consciousness
works minute by minute; he is more interested in one psychology that transcends reality to
that dream world.
In analyzing Virginia Woolf ’s To the Lighthouse, Auerbach points out the social and historical
conditions that led to Western modernist writers’ emphasis on the “reflections of consciousness.”
He writes:

At the time of the first World War and after – in a Europe unsure of itself, overflowing
with unsettled ideologies and ways of life, and pregnant with disaster – certain writers

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 Gang Zhou

distinguished by instinct and insight find a method which dissolves reality into mul-
tiple and multivalent reflections of consciousness. That this method should have been
developed at this time is not hard to understand.16

In other words, it was this clash of the most heterogeneous ways of life as the result of Western
imperialism, (which began in the sixteenth century, continued through the nineteenth and into
the early twentieth century at an accelerating pace), that made those European modernist writ-
ers turn away from ever-dubious “important” exterior events and shift attention to everyday
minor, random events, as well as the dreamlike wealth of the inner consciousness.
In China, the emergence of modern consciousness and a sense of “interiority” was based
on a very different historical experience.17 In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century,
Chinese intellectuals and writers encountered the clash of ideologies and ways of life, mainly
between their own tradition and Western values. Instead of desperately trying to make sense
of a world of multitude, as argued by Auerbach, Chinese intellectuals struggled to resist and/
or embrace the West, while fighting to transform their traditional society into a modern one.
It is no surprise that modern Chinese fiction would start with accounts of disturbed psyches.
Both Lu Xun’s “Diary of a Madman” and Yu Dafu’s “Sinking” were elaborations of the trou-
bled “interiority” that was never a topic for traditional Chinese literature. As the generation
that came after the May Fourth writers, Fei Ming followed his own path in exploring human
psychology.What we see in Xiao Lin’s observation, imagination, or lost in imagination all point
to an artistic world that is uniquely Fei Ming’s. In many ways, the text that should be placed
alongside Fei Ming’s Bridge is Lu Xun’s Wild Grass, a volume of prose poems that records the
dreamlike wealth of Lu Xun’s subconscious world. While Lu Xun’s Wild Grass presents a self-
destructive old soul in its darkest and most precarious existential condition, Fei Ming’s Bridge
features a young artist whose heart embarks on a quest for truth, and enlightenment. But for
both writers, their fascination with human consciousness and the world led to the creation of
masterpieces.

Li Jinfa and Light Rain (Weiyu)

Life and career

Li Jinfa (1900–1976), the pen name of Li Shuliang, was born into a Hakka family in Guang-
dong province. He studied in Hong Kong and Shanghai from 1917 to 1919, and then joined a
group of students to study in France. While studying sculpture in Paris, Li Jinfa came under the
strong influence of French Symbolist poets, especially Charles Baudelaire, whose Les Fleurs du
Mal became his poetic inspiration. Between 1920 and 1924, Li wrote more than three hundred
poems, which were published after his return to China in 1925: Light Rain (Weiyu, 1925); Sing
for Happiness (Wei xinfu er ge, 1926); Guest Visitor and Hard Time (Shike yu xiongnian, 1927).
Known as China’s first Symbolist poet, Li Jinfa created a poetic world that confounded his read-
ers with its grotesque images and unusual associations.
Li taught art in Hangzhou and Guangzhou after his return to China. He produced only one
more volume, Exoticism (Yiguo qingdiao), a collection of poems, essays and fiction, published
in 1942. In the late 1940s, he became a diplomat for the Nationalist Government. After 1949,
Li Jinfa immigrated to the United States, raising chickens on a farm in New Jersey. In 1964, he
published his last literary work, a volume of essays titled Idle Jottings (Piaoling xianbi). He died
in New York in 1976.

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Literary achievement
The publication of Li Jinfa’s first collection of poetry Light Rain in 1925 caused a great stir
on China’s literary scene. While some praised Li’s contribution for creating a new sensibility
for modern Chinese poetry, others were shocked by his use of bizarre, grotesque images and
obscure meanings. Most of Li’s contemporary critics such as Su Xuelin considered incompre-
hensibility and obscurity a hallmark of his poem. While they credited Li Jinfa for introducing
French Symbolist poetry into China, they also blamed him for doing injustice to French Sym-
bolists, citing his inadequate knowledge of French and Chinese.18
Li’s work was admired in Taiwan in the 1960s following the emergence of Taiwan modernist
poetry. Taiwanese poet Ya Xian interviewed Li in the 1970s. In Mainland China, after having
been totally forgotten for three decades, Li’s reputation revived in the early 1980s when Chinese
writers and intellectuals became greatly interested in Western literary tradition after the end of
the Cultural Revolution.

The masterpiece

A Reading of “Woman Forsaken”

“Woman Forsaken” (Qifu), the first poem of Light Rain, is the most anthologized of Li Jinfa’s
poems:

Long hair hangs down disheveled before my eyes,

Blocking the shaming stares
The rapid flow of fresh blood, the slumber of dried bones
Dark night and insects arrive slowly with conspiring steps
Over the corner of the low wall
And yelp into my chaste ears
Like the howling wind in the wilderness
That makes all the nomads shiver.19

The theme of “the abandoned Woman” was nothing new in Chinese poetic tradition, but to
evoke images such as “the rapid flow of fresh blood” and “the slumber of dried bones” must have
been shocking to the readers of the 1920s. In a typical traditional Chinese poem, the abandoned
woman yearns for her absent lover. Everything that surrounds her, things in her boudoir, or in
the courtyard, points to her sorrow and loneliness. Autumn would be the typical season for such
sentiment, which reminds her and the reader of the brevity of youth, beauty and of life itself.20
In this case, we can hardly sense any trace of a lover. What captures the reader at the beginning
of the poem is a tense and hostile relationship between the abandoned woman and the world.
Her only buffer against that hostility is her long and unruly hair. More disturbing and power-
ful images are evoked: dark night and conspiring insects, howling wind, and the frightened and
shivering nomads. The abandoned woman we see here is an outcast who had to fight the dis-
dainful stares and accusations in her hopelessness and helplessness.
In the second stanza, the reader encounters more colorful images: the empty vale, the flit-
ting bee, the sorrow that hangs down the cliff, the mountain spring and the red leaves. For Zhu
Ziqing, a popular essayist and critic of the 1930s, all these images are like “beads of various
colors and sizes,” which the reader must string together. He argues that what Li Jinfa wants to

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 Gang Zhou

express is not meaning, but sensations and emotions. In other words, the reader is not invited by
the poet to pursue the meaning of every word, every image, but to experience the atmosphere
constructed by these symbols. According to Zhu Ziqing, this is the technique of the French
Symbolists.21
A shift of perspective occurs at the beginning of the third stanza. While the first two stanzas
are narrated from the first-person perspective, the rest of the poem is narrated in the third per-
son. If the reader is compelled to identify with the victimized woman in the first two stanzas,
in the third and fourth stanzas he or she is positioned to view the abandoned woman from a
distance and to see how ennui of time brought to her a sense of melancholy, decadence and life-
lessness. The reader encounters more colorful but obscure images: the flame of the setting sun,
ashes in the chimney, vagrant crows and rocks in a tumbling sea. Again, the reader has to string
these beads together, while experiencing a poetic world that does not yield a single message so
much as a network of associations.
Li Jinfa’s poem ends on a rather strong note: wearing a ragged skirt, wandering by the graves,
the abandoned woman refuses to adorn the world. With these destructive energies and symbols,
Li Jinfa’s abandoned woman continues to fight the world, offering no tears or compromises. Li
Jinfa’s “abandoned woman” could not be more different from the beautiful and lonely women
of traditional Chinese poetry. His approach to the theme attests more to the influence of his
poetic muse, Baudelaire, considering the sense of darkness and decadence conveyed by Li’s
abandoned woman. But compared to Baudelaire’s promiscuous and scandalous woman, Li Jinfa’s
“abandoned woman” is rather morally upright.
One way to decipher Li Jinfa’s “Woman Forsaken” is to read the first poem in Baudelaire’s
Les Fleurs du Mal, “Benediction.” “Benediction” is autobiographical.22 I would suggest that Li
Jinfa’s “Woman Forsaken” is also autobiographical. In the Chinese poetic tradition, a poem on
the abandoned woman very likely involves female impersonation by the literati poet.23 Li’s piece
was written when he was a lonely, isolated and marginalized student in Paris. Li later recalled liv-
ing in poverty and reading “humanist and leftist” works that stimulated his interest in “decadent
works.”24 Just like “Benediction,” “Woman Forsaken” gives us a first glance of the poet, and lays
the foundation for a breathtaking poetic world.

Light Rain and Baudelaire

Baudelaire’s influence on Li Jinfa’s Light Rain was immense. The title alone is reminiscent of
Baudelaire’s “Mists and Rains” and “Overcast Sky.” It also reminds us of the beginning of Baude-
laire’s famous poem “Spleen:”

The rainy moon of all the world is weary,

And from its urn a gloomy cold pours down.25

Li Jinfa’s contribution to modern Chinese poetry is in many ways Baudelairean. He introduced

into modern Chinese poetry a new vocabulary, and a new set of images that came from the Baude-
lairean fascination with the ugly, the repulsive and the morbid. As we all know, Li Jinfa’s poetry
shocked his reader with its abundant images of the grotesque, such as corpses, skeletons, bloody
lakes, dried bones and pale shadows. Another popular poem from Light Rain is “Night Song”
(Ye zhi ge): “We stroll on dead grass, / Sadness and anger entangle our legs. / Pink memories /
Decayed animals by the road, emitting stench.26 Again, here the images of death and ugliness, the
emotion and sensation evoked by these images were all alien to the Chinese poetic tradition.

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Scholars have made some interesting comparisons of the dominant images used by Guo
Mo-ruo in Goddess (1921) and by Li Jinfa in Light Rain (1925):

Image/frequency: cold night, Guo (5) and Li (38); death, Guo (4) and Li (8);
Dead corpse/decayed bones, Guo (2) and Li (19); graves, Guo (3) and Li (7);
Wild wind/fallen leaves, Guo (1) and Li (10); wasteland, Guo (0) and Li (7);
Waning moon, Guo (1) and Li (9); setting sun, Guo (1) and Li (10);
Vestigeous blood/stained blood, Guo (0) and Li (5); dirty mud, Guo (1) and Li (15);
Sun, Guo (55) and Li (10); sunrise, Guo (9) and Li (2); ocean/waves, Guo (14) and
Li (0); burning fire, Guo (27) and Li (0); burning blood, Guo (5) and Li (0);
Bright moon/clear breeze, Guo (5) and Li (1); white clouds/flowing water, Guo (10)
And Li (1), and murmuring spring, Guo (3) and Li (1)27

If Guo Mo-ruo’s Goddess symbolizes this ever-creative energy, infused with explosive passion,
the narrative of the sun, the light, the fire, and the dawn, Li Jinfa’s Woman Forsaken stands at the
other pole. She is dark and morbid, drained of energy, and sings the song of icy coldness, ruin
and pain. Placing these two poets side by side, one cannot help but be impressed by the force of
change that transformed and modernized traditional Chinese poetry.28

Some other Chinese symbolists

Besides Li Jinfa, other Chinese poets who also have strong affinity with French Symbolism
include Wang Duqing, Mu Mutian and Liang Zongdai.
Wang Duqing (1898–1940) was born to an ancient family of scholar-officials in Xi’an. He
received a traditional education, and began writing poetry at age eight or nine. He then acquired
a modern education, and went to study science in Japan. In the early 1920s, Wang traveled
widely in Europe, visiting Florence, Rome, Madrid,Venice, Pompeii, and lived briefly in Lyon,
London and Berlin. He spent most of his European sojourn in Paris, where he lived, according
to his autobiography, like a “romantic and decadent.”29
After returning to China in 1925, Wang published eight volumes of poetry between 1926
and 1932, including Before the Image of Holy Mother (Shenmuxiangqian, 1927); Venice (Weinishi,
1928); Egyptians (Aijiren, 1929). Wang joined the Creation Society in 1926, and became chief
editor of the Creation Monthly.
Wang’s most popular poem “I come out of a Café” (Wo cong café-zhong chulai) best
embodies his pursuit for “pure poetry.” “I came out of a café, / intoxicated fatigue / weighing
on my body / I did not know / where to turn, to find / my temporary home. / Ah, cold and
silent streets, / dusk, light rain.”30 Wang once commented on this poem, pointing out that its
uneven lines and rhymes befit the mood of the intoxicated poet. Wang associates “pure poetry”
with Baudelaire, and states that Chinese Symbolists must learn from Baudelaire, Verlaine and
Rimbaud, to be poets of “art for art’s sake.” Wang’s another well-known poem “Mourning for
Rome” (Diao Luoma) juxtaposes Rome with his own hometown, Xi’an, the ancient capital of
China. The long poem is sprinkled with foreign words from various languages: foreign names,
foreign places, while also having allusions to the Chinese classical anthology, Songs of the South
(Chu ci) and other collections of traditional poetry.
Mu Mutian (1900–1971) was another important member of the Creation Society whose
poetry was inspired by French Symbolism. Mu was from a wealthy Manchu family in North
China. He encountered French Symbolism when studying Mathematics in Japan in the 1920s.

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He was so fascinated with French Symbolists that he switched his major to study French litera-
ture at Tokyo Imperial University. After returning to China, his first volume of poetry, Traveler’s
Heart (Lu xin) was published in 1927 by the Creation Society.
Like Wang Duqing, Mu Mutian also calls for “pure poetry.” In his important 1935 article
“What is Symbolism,” Mu proposes that poetry must avoid philosophizing and conceptualizing;
it must suggest but not state. He also places the translated Baudelaire’s sonnet “Correspond-
ences” at the very center of his article. For him, Correspondences, the primary characteristic of
Symbolist poetics, means complex correspondences between the manifestations of nature and
the human soul.31 His most famous poem “Pale Bell” (Cangbaide zhongsheng) best represents
Mu’s poetic view:

Pale bell sounds decay misty
Disperse exquisite desolate hazy in the valley
—Withered grass  thousands  ten-thousands of layers
Listen forever fantastic ancient bell
Listen  thousand sounds  ten-thousand sounds32

Using “pale,” a visual image, to describe the ancient bell-sounds, Mu’s title of the poem provides
a brilliant example of Synesthesia. While using no punctuation throughout the entire poem,
Mu uses blank spaces to separate words and phrases, suggesting silences amid sounds. In the first
stanza, the central image of the poem, ancient bell (guzhong), was tolling in the valley (guzhong,
its homophone). The repetition of words, phrases and the multiple of numbers all sound like
forever echoes singing in the valley. In the following five stanzas, Mu Mutian evokes the other
four senses to create a delicate world of Correspondences.
Different from Wang Duqing and Mu Mutian, Liang Zongdai (1903–1983) was trained in
France and particularly known for his apprenticeship with Paul Valery. Liang studied French in
Geneva and Paris, studied German in Heidelberg, and Italian in Florence. He also knew English
well, as he translated Shakespeare’s sonnets. Following Paul Valery, Liang passionately proposes
that poetry is a “pure poem, and that pure poetry is nothing but a ‘poeticization of the soul as
it is.’ ”33 What makes Liang Zongdai’s poetics unique is his juxtaposition of French Symbolism
with traditional Chinese poetics, which makes him a pioneer in the early days of the Compara-
tive Literature in modern China.
In 1934, Liang Zongdai published a collection of essays entitled Symbolism (Xiangzheng
zhuyi), arguably the first serious theoretical engagement with French Symbolist poetry by a
Chinese poet. In these articles, Liang likens Symbolism to xing, as evinced in the Classic of Poetry
(Shijing).34 Referring to the definition in The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, “Xing
rouses . . . that which rouses the affections depends on something subtle for the sake of reflective
consideration,”35 Liang points out that

by something minute, xing intimates the subtle relationship between two things which
may look irrelevant to each other on the surface yet can be mutually implicated. Feel-
ing can be generated by “referring to something minute and subtle that evokes the
associative consideration of the other.”36

For him, such a resonance between the poetic mind and things in the cosmos reminds us of the
Baudelairean Correspondences.

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Notes
1 See Zhu Guangqian, “Bridge,” (Qiao), Literature Magazine (July 1937), vol. 1, no. 3, 183–189.
2 See Chen Houcheng, The Smile on the Lips of the Death of God: A Biography of Li Jinfa (Taipei:Yeqiang
chubanshe, 1994).
3 See Li-hua Ying, The A to Z of Modern Chinese Literature (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2010), 42.
4 For discussions on Jingpai writers, see Susan Daruvala, Zhou Zuoren and an Alternative Chinese Response
to Modernity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard East Asian Monographs, 2000); Shu-Mei Shih, The Lure of the
Modern: Writing Modernism in Semicolonial China: 1917–1937 (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2001).
5 For discussions on Fei Ming’s postwar work, see Carolyn Fitzgerald, Fragmenting Modernisms: Chinese
Wartime Literature, Art, and Film, 1937–49 (Leiden: Brill, 2013). For discussions on Fei Ming’s transfor-
mation after 1949, see Liu Jianmei’s chapter on Fei Ming in her Zhuangzi and Modern Chinese Literature
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 126–142.
6 Liu Xiwei, “Record of Drawing Dreams – Mr. He Qifang’s Work,” in Chen Zhenguo, ed., Research
Materials of Feng Wenbing (Fuzhou: Huaxia wenyi chubanshe, 1991), 207.
7 See Ge Fei’s “The Meaning of Fei Ming,” Wenyi lilun yanjiu (2001), vol. 1.
8 See Shu-Mei Shih, The Lure of the Modern:Writing Modernism in Semicolonial China: 1917–1937 (Berke-
ley: University of California Press, 2001), 193.
9 See Fei Ming, Bridge (Qiao) (Shanghai: Kaiming Shudian, 1932), 301.
10 See Fei Ming, Selected Writings of Feng Wenbing (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1985), 359–360.
11 See Wu Xiaodong, “Mind Concept and Heart Image: Poetics of Fei Ming’s Novel Bridge,” Wenxue
pinglun (2001), vol. 2, 133–141.
12 In his essay “Fei Ming’s Poetics of Representation: Dream, Fantasy, Illusion, and Alayavijnana,” Haoming
Liu also focuses on this paragraph. Modern Chinese Literature and Culture (Fall 2001), vol. 13, no. 2, 30–71.
13 See Fei Ming, Selected Writings of Feng Wenbing, 319–325.
14 For May Fourth writers’ attitude towards the vernacular and other languages, see Gang Zhou, Placing
the Modern Chinese Vernacular in Transnational Literature (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).
15 See Christopher Butler, Modernism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010),
55.
16 Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, trans. Willard R. Trask
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953), 551.
17 For discussions on “multiple modernities,” see Zhang Longxi’s “Literary Modernity in Perspective,” in
Yingjin Zhang, ed., A Companion to Modern Chinese Literature (Oxford, UK: John Wiley & Sons Ltd,
2016), 41–53.
18 See Zhao Jiabi, ed., Zhongguo xinwenxue daxi (Compendium of Modern Chinese Literature). 10 vols (Shang-
hai: liangyou tushu gongsi, 1935).
19 Michelle Yeh’s English translation with my minor revision, see Michelle Yeh, Anthology of Modern Chi-
nese Poetry (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1992), 18.
20 See Zong-Qi Cai, How to Read Chinese Poetry: A Guided Anthology (New York: Columbia University
Press), 144.
21 Zhu Ziqing’s comment well captures Li Jinfa’s bold and innovative use of images and symbols, which
of course comes from Li’s Western muses. We might want to look at Baudelaire’s famous poem “Cor-
respondences” here:
Nature is a temple in which living pillars
Sometimes give voice to confused words;
Man passes there through forests of symbols
Which look at him with understanding eyes.
-------
With power to expand into infinity,
Like amber and incense, musk, benzoin,
That sing the ecstasy of the soul and the senses
22 See, Baudelaire’s “Benediction,” in Charles Baudelaire, ed., Flowers of Evil, trans. Cyril Scott (Lexington,
KY: Wildside Press, 2016), 7–9.

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 Gang Zhou

2 3 See Zong-Qi Cai, How to Read Chinese Poetry: A Guided Anthology, 2.

24 See Gloria Bien, Baudelaire in China: A Study in Literary Reception (Newark: University of Delaware
Press, 2013), 128.
25 See Charles Baudelaire, Flowers of Evil, 52.
26 My translation. For other translations, see Hsu Kai-Yu, ed., Twentieth Century Chinese Poetry (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1962), 175.
27 See Song Yongyi, “Li Jinfa: Survival Through Praise and Blame of History,” in Zeng Xiaoyi, ed., To the
World Literature:The Influence of Foreign Literature Upon Modern Chinese Writers (Changsha: Hunan wenyi
chubanshe, 1985), 395. Cited from Mi Jiayan, Self-Fashioning and Reflexive Modernity in Modern Chinese
Poetry (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2004), 145.
28 Ibid., 85–88, see Mi Jiayan’s chapter on Li Jinfa, “The Decadent Body: Toward a Negative Ethics of
Mourning in Li Jinfa,” in his Self-Fashioning and Reflexive Modernity in Modern Chinese Poetry, 85–144.
29 Wang Duqing, “My Life in Europe,” (Wo zai Ouzhoude shenghuo), 2nd ed. (Shanghai: Daguang shuju,
1936).
30 My translation. For other translations, see Hsu Kai-Yu, Twentieth Century Chinese Poetry, 194.
31 Mu Mutian, “What Is Symbolism” (Shenme shi Xiangzhengzhuyi) in Chen Dun and Liu Xiangyu,
eds., Selections of Mu Mutian Literary Criticism (Beijing: Beijing Normal University Press, 2000).
32 My translation. For other translations, see Hsu Kai-Yu, Twentieth Century Chinese Poetry, 188.
33 Liang Zongdai, “Symbolism,” (Xiangzheng zhuyi) in Poetry and Truth (Shi yu zhen) (Beijing: Zhong-
yang bianyi chubanshe, 2006), 87.
34 Also see David Der-wei Wang, “Chinese Literary Thought in Modern Times: Three Encounters,” in
Carlos Rojas and Andrea Bachner, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Modern Chinese Literature (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2016), 597–617.
35 Liu Xie, The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons (Wenxin diaolong) (Taipei: Heluo tushu chu-
banshe, 1976), 240.
36 Liang Zongdai, “Symbolism,” (Xiangzheng zhuyi) in Poetry and Truth (Shi yu zhen), 71.

Further readings
Baudelaire, Charles. The Flowers of Evil. Translated by Cyril Scott. A Baudelaire Book, 2016.
Butler, Christopher. Modernism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2010.
Chen Houcheng, The Smile on the Lips of the Death of God: A Biography of Li Jinfa.Yeqiang chubanshe, 1994.
Fei Ming. Bridge (Qiao). Kaiming Shudian, 1932.
———. Selected Writings of Feng Wenbing. Beijing renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1985.
Li Jinfa. Light Rain (Weiyu). Beijing xinchao she, 1925.
Shih, Shu-Mei. The Lure of the Modern: Writing Modernism in Semicolonial China: 1917–1937. University of
California Press, 2001.
Wu Xiaodong. “Mind Concept and Heart Image: Poetics of Fei Ming’s Novel Bridge.” Literary Review
(Wenxue pinglun) 2 (2001): 30–71.

154
 11
THE POETRY OF DAI
WANGSHU
Where tradition meets modernism

Yaohua Shi

Life and career

Born on March 5, 1905, Dai Wangshu is one of the most celebrated Chinese poets of the twen-
tieth century. “Wangshu” is his most frequently used pen name and derives from a couplet in
Lisao by the Chu bard Qu Yuan, “I sent Wang Shu ahead to ride before me; The Wind God
went behind me as my outrider.”1 Dai is often described as a modernist, yet his pen name, by
which he is almost universally known, suggests a complex relationship with Chinese tradition.
Dai grew up in a moderately prosperous and cultured family. His father was a bank employee;
his mother knew many vernacular stories and operatic arias by heart. The year of Dai’s birth
coincided with the end of the millennium-old civil service examination system. Dai attended
prestigious modern-style elementary and high schools in Hangzhou. Their conservative cur-
ricula, however, included heavy doses of traditional Chinese culture.
It was in high school that Dai met and began to collaborate with his close friends Du Heng and
Shi Zhecun. In 1922, the “three musketeers” started a literary group Orchid Society and a year later
a magazine Friends of Orchids. Like “Wangshu,” the word “orchid” is richly evocative. The tradition
of using orchids to signify all things pure and noble also harks back to Qu Yuan. Over time, when
men became sworn brothers, they were said to exchange “orchid registers” or genealogy records.
The name “Orchid Society,” therefore, connotes a close-knit literary confraternity. The title of
the magazine, on the other hand, is in the style of the early twentieth-century Mandarin Ducks
and Butterflies fiction. Dai dabbled in old-style poetry. His surviving ci-poem “Strolling down the
Imperial Way” (Yujiexing) is exquisite and sentimental. Dai also tried his hand at writing short sto-
ries and published them in Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies magazines. However, unlike most typi-
cal Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies fiction, Dai’s stories, “Debt” (Zhai), “Child Street Performer”
(Maiyitongzi), and “Motherly Love” (Mu’ai), focus on the plight of the poor and disadvantaged.
Dai’s left-leaning tendencies continued in college. Shanghai University, which Dai and Shi
both attended, was a product of the short-lived alliance between the Nationalists and the Com-
munists. Deng Zhongxia, its provost, Qu Qiubai, dean of the school of humanities, and Chen
Wangdao, chair of the Chinese department, were all Communists. Chen was the first Chinese
translator of the Communist Manifesto. Dai majored in Chinese but audited Sociology classes,
which seems to have reinforced his leftist sympathies. It is likely that Dai started writing new-
style poetry in college.2

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 Yaohua Shi

In 1925, students at Shanghai University protested against the May 30th Massacre of strik-
ing workers. As a result, the school was shut down. Dai then enrolled in the intensive yearlong
French course at the Jesuit Université l’Aurore in Shanghai. The instruction relied heavily on
memorization and extensive reading of canonical nineteenth-century Romantic texts, especially
those by Victor Hugo, Alphonse de Lamartine, and Alfred de Musset. According to his close
friend Shi Zhecun, Dai studied French Romantic writers in class but “hid Verlaine and Baude-
laire under his pillow.” Dai eventually rejected Romanticism in favor of Symbolism, particularly
late Symbolist poets such as Remy de Gourmont and Francis Jammes.
It was also at l’Aurore that Dai joined the Communist Youth League and started another
literary magazine Jade Necklace Trimonthly (Yingluo xunkan) with Du Heng, Shi Zhecun, and
the Taiwanese writer Liu Na’ou. Three of Dai’s earliest published poems, “Leaving Home with
Tears in My Eyes” (Ninglei chumen), “Wanderer’s Night Song” (Liulangren de yege), and “Know
How” (Kezhi) first appeared in the trimonthly, as did his translations of “Le ciel est par-dessus le
toit” (The sky’s above the roof) and “Il pleure dans mon coeur” (It rains in my heart) by Verlaine.
Dai also published a detailed critique of a selection of French poems translated into Chinese by
a scholar named Li Sichun. Dai was twenty-three. His college years were formative both politi-
cally and artistically. His original poetic works in Jade Necklace are unmistakably modern in form,
if not always in content and mood. Tellingly, even as he embarked on his career as a modern
poet at l’Aurore, he adopted a pen name associated with Qu Yuan, one of the towering figures
in ancient Chinese verse.
In the wake of Chiang Kai-shek’s anti-Communist purges in April 1927 the three friends left
l’Aurore, but soon regrouped in Songjiang outside Shanghai where Shi’s parents lived. In Songji-
ang, Dai, Shi, and Du busied themselves translating foreign literature. Several months later Dai
went to Beijing ostensibly to see if he could finish his studies there.While in Beijing, he became
friends with Feng Xuefeng, a dedicated Communist. It was at Feng’s suggestion that Dai began
to translate Soviet literature and Marxist literary theory. It was also through Feng Xuefeng that
Dai Wangshu and Du Heng joined the League of Left-wing Writers in March 1930. However,
neither Dai Wangshu nor Du Heng became a dogmatic follower of the League. In fact, during
the heated debate on the Third Category of men in 1932, Du Heng was to break away acrimo-
niously from the League. Having already left Shanghai, Dai supported his friend from Europe.
Dai Wangshu arrived in France in November 1932. According to some accounts, Dai went
to France partly to satisfy his fiancée’s desire for her future husband to acquire a foreign degree.
During his two and a half years in Europe, Dai audited a few classes at the Sorbonne and at
the Institut Franco-Chinois in Lyons but was otherwise disinterested in academics, preferring
instead to explore the literary and artistic riches of the French capital on his own. He met
established literary figures like André Malraux and André Breton and was fascinated with the
apparent solidarity among French left-wing intellectuals, which he contrasted with the infight-
ing among the League of Left-wing writers in China. In dire financial needs, he spent much
of his time doing translation work secured for him by his fiancée’s older brother, Shi Zhecun,
in Shanghai. Dai also studied Spanish at the Berlitz language school in Paris. His interest in
Spanish literature took him to Spain in 1934. He traveled around the country, visited various
monuments, including those connected to Cervantes, and browsed in bookstores and libraries
in Madrid. Dai was later to translate Don Quixote into Chinese. Sources contradict on whether
he finished the translation or not. Failing to make any progress toward an academic degree, Dai
was expelled by the Institut Franco-Chinois and returned to China in 1935. Soon afterwards his
fiancée broke off their engagement, having fallen in love with another man.
Although he suffered a big setback in his personal life, Dai achieved success with two liter-
ary magazines he helped edit, Modern Poetry (Xiandai shifeng) and New Poetry (Xin shi). Modern

156
 The poetry of Dai Wangshu

Poetry was a quarterly started by Shi Zhecun. The first issue attracted contributions from many
modernist poets of the day such as Xu Chi, Ji Xian, and Jin Kemu besides Dai Wangshu and Shi
Zhecun. A thousand copies of the issue quickly sold out. With New Poetry, Dai sought to bring
together poets from the Crescent School and the Late Crescent School in the North and mod-
ernists in the South. Bian Zhilin, who wrote a preface to Dai’s poems decades later, was on the
editorial committee. Ten issues of the magazine appeared between October 1936 and July 1937.
After Japan occupied Shanghai, Dai moved to Hong Kong where he eked out a living editing
a literary supplement for a local newspaper. During his eight years in the British colony, Dai was
active in the local literary scene. With Ai Qing, he co-edited a poetry magazine Acme (Ding-
dian). Only one issue was published. Dai contributed his translations of eight Spanish poems
by Federico Garcia Lorca, Rafael Alberti, and Vicente Aleixandre. In 1942, a year after Hong
Kong fell to the Japanese, Dai was arrested for his anti-Japanese propaganda writings. In 1945,
Dai returned to Shanghai but was soon wanted by the Nationalist government for subversive
activities and sought refuge in Hong Kong in 1948. The following year he went to Beijing to
take up translation work only to die of asthma on February 28, 1950, at the age of forty-five.

“Rain Lane” poet

Famously known as the “Rain Lane Poet,” Dai Wangshu’s name is inextricably linked to the
poem that made him instantly famous after it came out in 1928. Without a doubt, “Rain Lane”
is one of the best-known poetic works of modern Chinese literature. Indeed, to many people
in China, it is synonymous with modern Chinese poetry, if not modern Chinese literature itself.
No other modern Chinese poem has achieved the same recognition except perhaps “Bidding
Farewell to Cambridge Again” by Xu Zhimo. “Rain Lane” appeared in Fiction Monthly (Xia-
oshuo yuebao). Its editor Ye Shengtao proclaimed the poem epoch-making at the time of its
publication.3 In his letter to Dai Wangshu, fellow poet Zhu Xiang compared its perfection to
Tang poetry.4 Many later critics have likewise lavished praises on the poem.
The success of “Rain Lane” rests primarily on its prosody and imagery. One only has to read
the original aloud to get a sense of its musicality:

Cheng zhe youzhi san, duzi (Holding an oil-paper umbrella, alone)

Panghuang zai youchang, youchang (Lingering in the long, long)
You jiliao de yuxiang (And lonely rainy lane,)
Wo xiwang feng zhe (I hope to encounter)
Yi ge dingxiang yiyang de (A lilac-like girl)
Jie zhe chouyuan de guniang (Laden with sorrow.)

One notices how starting in the second line the final “ang” weaves in and out of the rest of the
stanza. “Pang,” “huang,” “chang,” “xiang,” “wang,” “xiang,” “yang,” and “niang” – all belong to
the so-called jiang-yang rhyme category.The first two lines consist of seven characters, each with
a caesura after the fifth character. The third line, without a caesura, consists of six characters and
is semantically closely linked to the last character of the second line. Syntactically, the first three
lines form a unit. The use of a comma instead of a full stop moves the reader along. The long,
long, short line pattern reverses itself in the second half of the stanza. The fourth, fifth, and sixth
lines consist of five, seven, and seven characters respectively and form another unit. The play
between regular and irregular line breaks, the use of mid-line pauses or caesuras, and the open
nasal finals create a haunting cadence and a meandering rhythmic pattern that perfectly match
the searching, longing mood of the poem.

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 Yaohua Shi

Repetition and variation characterize the rest of the poem as well. Words and phrases recur
in subtly varied forms. The number of characters per line also never stays the same until the
end when the first stanza is repeated almost verbatim. The whole poem has a lilting quality that
makes it immediately memorable. The liberal use of internal rather than end rhymes, although
the latter appear as well, gives the poem a free, modern feeling. Perhaps this is what Ye Shengtao
had in mind when he declared that the poem had opened a new era for the prosody of New
Poetry.
“Rain Lane” is certainly novel in form and likely shows the influence of Verlaine, who
frequently repeats sounds and plays with meter and cadence.The poet Ai Qing, for instance, saw
a resemblance in the poem’s “floating rhymes” to Verlaine’s use of nasal vowels in his “Chanson
d’automne” (Autumn song):

Les sanglots longs (Long wails)

Des violons (Of violins)
De l’automne (Of autumn)
Blessent mon coeur (Pierce my heart)
D’une langueur (With a languorous)
Monotone. (Monotone.)

Some critics have echoed and elaborated on Ai Qing’s intriguing assertion, singling out the
interweaving (or floating) internal and end rhymes in the first stanza: “longs,” “violins,” “mon.”
One critic goes so far as to suggest that the similarity between the nasal vowels in “Rain Lane” –
“ang” – and “Chanson d’automne” – “on” – is more than coincidental.5 Dai knew “Chanson
d’automne.” It is one of the six poems by Verlaine that Dai translated into Chinese.6 However,
all but the last one “Un grand sommeil noir” (A vast black slumber), translated in the 1940s,
were rendered in the style of classical Chinese poetry, unlike “Rain Lane.” The assertion that
the jiangyang rhymes in “Rain Lane” imitate the vowels in “Chanson d’automne” also strains
credibility. It is curious that Ai Qing did not look for parallels in Dai’s translation of “Chanson
d’automne,” a more direct and logical place to seek evidence of influence. In Dai’s Chinese ver-
sion the opening stanza reads:

Qingqiu shijie, (Les sanglots longs)

Qiqi yanyan (Des violons)
Qinyun sheng chang; (De l’automne)
Yu yin niao niao, (Blessent mon coeur)
Tuitang dandiao, (D’une langueur)
Zong duan renchang. (Monotone)

The beginning of the first three lines involves a series of aveolo-palatal consonants, “qing,” “qiu,”
“qi,” “qin.” Starting with the third line the scheme “floats” from opening to end rhymes. The
eminent poet and essayist, Zhu Ziqing, did not see “interspersed rhymes” (shuyun) as entirely
new, but suggested that their increased use was stimulated by Western poetry.7 It is likely that
Dai’s translation of “Chanson d’automne” served as a practice run before he applied floating
rhymes in “Rain Lane.”
If the form of “Rain Lane” is novel, its imagery is thoroughly traditional. The association of
lilacs with melancholy, in particular, is a familiar trope in classical Chinese poetry. It occurs in the
works of the Tang poet Li Shangyin and the Southern Tang poet Li Jing.The contemporary poet
Yu Guangzhong dismisses “Rain Lane” as “a second, third-rate minor piece.” In his view, only

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an unimaginative poet would resort to a pile of “weak and depressing” adjectives; the real test of
a poet’s power lies in his use of verbs and nouns.Yu charges that the only substantive image in
the poem is the oil-paper umbrella.8
One may dismiss Yu’s judgment as overly simplistic, but the opinion of Bian Zhilin, is harder
to ignore. Bian had worked with Dai Wangshu on the editorial committee of New Poetry in the
1930s. In his preface to the Poems of Dai Wangshu (Dai Wangshu shiji) published in 1981, Bian
recalls how they took the same cargo ship from Hong Kong to Tanggu in 1949 and how Dai
passed away less than a year later. Putting his personal feelings aside, Bian attempts to evaluate
Dai Wangshu’s work objectively. According to Bian, “Rain Lane,” like Dai Wangshu’s other early
works, marks a shift from Western poetry toward Chinese tradition. Having won a strong foot-
hold for vernacular poetry in modern literature, poets could turn to classical poetry for inspira-
tion without any reservations by the late 1920s. To Bian Zhilin, “Rain Lane” is “an expansion
or ‘dilution’ ” of the famous line by Li Jing, “in vain the lilacs gather the melancholy in the rain”
(ding xiang kong jie yu zhong chou). However, “the trite imagery and hackneyed diction make
the success of the poem seem . . . facile and superficial.” Bian points out that Dai himself didn’t
think too highly of “Rain Lane.”When he published Drafts (Wangshu cao), the second selection
of his poetry in 1933, he chose not to include “Rain Lane.”
Bian’s reference to Dai’s own view is confirmed by Du Heng, who wrote the preface to
Drafts at the poet’s request before he left for Europe. Du is an even more privileged source than
Bian.When Dai wrote “Rain Lane” in the summer of 1927, both Dai and Du were guests at Shi
Zhecun’s parents’ house in Songjiang. The three friends were like-minded young writers. Du
recalls their obsession with traditional rules of prosody. Dai had also spent the previous two years
studying French, reading the works of Paul Verlaine, Remy de Gourmont, Paul Fort, and Fran-
cis Jammes. According to Du, the metric innovations of these Symbolist poets freed Dai from
traditional prosodic requirements. Du contrasts Dai with earlier Chinese practitioners of Sym-
bolist poetry and criticizes their obscurantism. Du does not name names, but one is reminded
of Li Jinfa and Qian Zhongshu’s parody of Cao Yuanlang’s poem “Mélange Adultère” in Fortress
Besieged.9 Compared with Li’s “Woman Abandoned,” “Rain Lane” is transparency itself. There
is no attempt at synaesthesia, the mixing of senses or sensory correspondences à la Baudelaire,
Rimbaud, or Verlaine. In the second stanza of “Rain Lane,” color, smell, and emotion are kept
separate in parallel constructions instead of being yoked together, “lilac-like color, / lilac-like
fragrance, / lilac-like sorrow.” Du cites a friend in Beijing who describes Dai’s poems as Symbol-
ist in form but traditional in content. Even though he calls the characterization a simplification,
Du essentially endorses the view. The accessibility of “Rain Lane” accounts for its enduring
popularity. Du asserts that neither Dai nor his friends thought the poem was special.Ye Sheng-
tao’s praise caught them by surprise. Dai was flattered, but soon changed course and moved away
from overly relying on musical and formal patterns. Du remembers Dai excitedly showing him
a new poem, “My Memory,” a couple of months later, telling him that it was his “masterpiece.”

Other major works

Dai published four collections of verse during his lifetime. His total output numbers ninety-
two poems. The first collection, entitled My Memory, includes twenty-six poems written before
1929. “My Memory” is also the title of the last section of the collection; the other two are “Old
Treasure Bags” and “Rain Lane.” Many poems in “Old Treasure Bags” show signs of imitation.
“Old” elements can be found in some of the poems’ traditional-style titles as well as some of the
phrasings. More recent influences range from French Romanticism through British Decadence
to the native Crescent Moon School. The poet Ai Qing finds much “self-indulgent sighing and

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 Yaohua Shi

lamenting” in the poems.10 A typical example is the last stanza of “Listening to the Sparrow in
Cold Wind” (Hanfeng zhong wen quesheng):

Sing, my sympathetic sparrow,

Sing away my fragrant dream;
Blow, you cruel wind,
Blow away my insignificant life.11

The poem “In the Gloaming” (Xiyang xia) is no less bleak. The opening reads:

Clouds spread brocade over the dusky sky,

Streams flow gold in the setting sun;
My lanky shadow drifts on the ground,
Like a lonely specter under an ancient tree.

Although the speaker manages to “dissipate sorrow” and “dissipate joy” at the end, the poem is
suffused with helplessness.
Completed only a few months after “Rain Lane,” “My Memory” is one of Dai’s favorite
poems and radically different from the far more famous “Rain Lane.” Instead of rhymes, the
poem resorts to extended series of parallel constructions. For example, the beginning reads:

My memory is faithful to me,

More faithful than my best friend.

It exists in a lit cigarette,

It exits in the lily-patterned barrel of a pen,
It exits in an old powder compact,
It exits in the dewberries on a crumbling wall,
It exists in a half-finished bottle of wine,
In torn-up poems of days past, pressed petals of flowers,
In the bleak light of the lamp, the stillness of the water,
In every soulful or soulless thing,
It exists everywhere, like me in this world.

The poem is characterized by an incessant rhythmic pattern. Long series of parallels alternate
with short ones. Stretches of verse intersperse with prose: “zai yi qie you linghun meiyou ling-
hun de dongxi shang, / ta daochu cunzai zhe, xiang wo zai zhe shijie yiyang” (In every soulful
or soulless thing, / It exists everywhere, like me in this world), “ta de baifang shi bu yiding de, /
zai renhe shijian, zai renhe difang” (Its visitations are unexpected; / At any time, in any place).
The poem is clearly modeled on Jammes’s “La salle à manger” (the dining room) not only in
its repetition of key phrases but also in the trope of the faithfulness of memory. A quick look at
the beginning of “La sale à manger” reveals Dai’s debt to Jammes:

Il y a une armoire à peine luisante (There is an armoire, barely polished)

qui a entendu les voix de mes grand-tantes, (which has heard the voices of my great-aunts)
qui a entendu la voix de mon grand-père, (which has heard the voice of my grandfather.)
qui a entendu la voix de mon père. (which has heard the voice of my father)

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A ces souvenirs l’armoire est fidèle. (The armoire is faithful to these memories.)
On a tort de croire qu’elle ne sait que se taire, (It is a mistake to think it only knows how to
be silent)
car je cause avec elle. (because I talk to it.)

Dai had translated this and other poems by Jammes. There is no doubt that Dai not only knew
the poem but also borrowed its technique.
Critical reception of “My Memory” has generally been positive. Zhu Ziqing praises its “sub-
tlety” and “suggestiveness.”12 Ai Qing finds its use of modern colloquial language refreshing.13 Bian
Zhilin is of the opinion that the daily language in the poem is flexible and well suited to modern
life. However, he also points out that Dai’s new approach carries inherent risks. Commenting on
Dai’s subsequent work as a whole, Bian writes that the result is sometimes too diffuse, the combi-
nation of classical Chinese and Westernized syntax awkward, and the boundary between verse and
prose blurry.14 While one can find examples of these pitfalls in Dai’s poetry, they are not obvious in
“My Memory.” Again,Yu Guangzhong is less than impressed. Besides its form,Yu faults the poem
for lacking philosophical depth. Indeed,Yu may have a point.The poem reads like a rumination on
memory, but it would be a stretch to describe it as thought-provoking. Using a gendered metaphor,
Yu disparages the poem as decadent, “smacking of rouge and powder.”15
“Severed Finger,” the last poem in My Memory is worth noting if for no other reason than its
somewhat macabre subject. The finger in question belonged to a martyr. Ai Qing finds the sub-
ject much more to his liking than Dai’s sentimental works. Bian Zhilin praises its originality and
command of language, calling it well paced, sensitive, and precise. According to some sources,
the poem was inspired by the arrest and execution of a communist. A comrade of his escaped
and brought his severed finger to Dai Wangshu. Others dismiss the account as fiction.16 Gregory
Lee, author of a monograph on Dai, argues against a realist reading of “Severed Finger:” “The
poem, for all its initial apparent realism, attempts to evoke, suggest and finally to create an aura
of mystery rather than describe and explain. Such Symbolist qualities, together with the ‘viola-
tions’ of the poetic norms, would tend to declare the poem as Modernist” (Ibid.). Certainly, the
poem is full of enigmatic, fantastical elements and contradictions. Midway into the poem, one
is clearly in surrealist territory:

This is the severed finger of a martyred friend.

It is wretchedly pale, and withered, like my friend.
Often haunting me, and very distinct
Is the scene when he gave the finger to me.
“Keep this memento of ludicrous and pitiful love, for me,
In this wrecked life, it can only increase my misfortune.”
His words were deliberate and calm, like a sigh.
And his eyes seemed to brim with tears, although there was a smile on his face.
Of his “ludicrous and pitiful love” I do not know.
I only know he was arrested in a worker’s home.
Then he must have been tortured, then put in a wretched jail,
Then sentenced to death, the death sentence that awaits us all.

The speaker goes on to repeat that he knows nothing of the martyr’s “ludicrous and pitiful
love.” It is unclear if the object of his friend’s love is personal or political. Even when he was drunk,
he never once spoke about it, leading the speaker to surmise only that it must have been something

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 Yaohua Shi

very sorrowful. That is perhaps why “He kept it hidden, he wanted it to be forgotten, along with
the severed finger.” The second half of the poem contains a series of paradoxes on the part of the
martyr and the speaker. The martyr wants the world to both remember and forget. Describing
his love as “ludicrous and pitiful” implies belittling and distancing, if not total repudiation. Then
why does the martyr reproach the world toward the end of the poem for being “cowardly”? The
contradictions turn the finger into an almost empty signifier. Likewise, the speaker’s response to
the “lovely” blood-red ink stain on the finger is oddly incongruous with the hero’s fate.The finger
brings the speaker “slight but persistent sorrow,” yet he “treasures” it, for what purpose one won-
ders. Whenever he “feels depressed about something trivial,” he will bring out the glass jar. Like
most modernist poems, “Severed Finger” resists an easy, straightforward interpretation.
In 1932, after My Memory went out of print, Shi Zhecun, editor of the monthly Les Contem-
porarains (Xiandai), planned to reprint it along with Dai’s recent poems. Dai, however, excluded
all eighteen poems from “Old Treasure Bag” and “Rain Lane” in the first collection, keeping
only the last section “My Memory.” Along with the new works, the second collection entitled
Drafts (Wangshu cao) included forty-one poems. Most of them had appeared in periodicals
before. Drafts was published in August 1933 after the poet had left for France. In November
of the previous year, Shi extracted seventeen theorems on poetry from Dai’s notebooks and
published them in Les Contemporarains. Among other things, Dai argues for a purist conception
of poetry characterizing musical and painterly qualities as extra-poetic. Drafts reflects Dai’s new
thinking on poetry.
Loneliness, nostalgia, and melancholy, however, recur as themes in some of the poems in
Drafts. Some critics see a progression from a derivative, neo-Symbolist to a more assertive,
modernist style in Drafts. “Impressions” (Yinxiang), for instance, resembles Maeterlinck’s Serres
chaudes (Hothouses) in its use of enumeration and juxtaposition.17 “Day of sacrifice” (Jiri) echoes
themes and ideas from Dai’s earlier poems. Like “Severed Finger,”“Day of Sacrifice” commemo-
rates a deceased friend. The language is also similarly simple and plain. However, it is much less
grotesque and enigmatic than “Severed Finger.” It is also less fragmented and more specific.
By contrast, “Sleeplessness” (Bumei) in the second part of the collection is more elu-
sive. They are no longer concerned with loneliness and nostalgia but explore sub- or semi-
consciousness. “Sleeplessness” in particular is packed with complex rhetorical devices. The first
line, “Amid the silent sound waves,” contains an apparent oxymoron and sets the background
for the rest of the poem. This is followed by an anthropomorphism in the following three
lines: “Every charming image / In the dizzy brain, / Takes a moment’s stroll.” The poem goes
on to elaborate on the images teeming in the poet’s fevered state of mind, incorporating not
only anthropomorphisms but also synaesthesia. Like soldiers during an inspection, images form
“peach-colored” ranks; the color association seems automatic and involuntary. The movement
of the images is likened to the shifting shadows of flowers under a moon traversing the sky.
The menacing military trope is conjoined with the traditionally romantic ones of the moon
and flowers. By suggesting that the jumbled images are the result of a dream, the third stanza
in effect normalizes them. The end of the poem echoes the oxymoron of deafening silence
introduced at the beginning: “Let the highest silent sound waves / Come and rupture the
fragile ear-drums.” Together they suggest a pre- and post-dream state and frame the center of
the poem. They set the hermeneutic boundaries for the poem and rationalize it. Gregory Lee
summarizes “Sleeplessness” as enigmatic without being obscurantist, in contrast with Li Jinfa’s
experiments (182 and 217).
The third collection of Dai’s verse Poems of Wangshu (Wangshu shigao) was published in 1937.
It combined My Memory and Drafts plus four new poems, his theorems on poetry, and transla-
tions of six French poems. Of the four new poems “Before an ancient temple” (Gu shenci qian)

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is regarded by some critics as one of his most polished Symbolist works. Others find it puzzling.
There is also disagreement over its dating.18 The poem’s imagery of a roc flying vast distances is
recognizably from Zhuangzi’s Wandering Beyond (Xiaoyao you), but its mood is far from carefree.
Dai’s roc metamorphoses from a water spider whereas Zhuangzi’s roc begins its life as a whale-
like creature. The starting and end point of their journeys are also different. Dai’s poem begins
in the confined space before an ancient temple. Zhuangzi’s essay begins in the northern sea.The
poem is entitled “Before an Ancient Temple,” yet apart from a single explicit reference at the
beginning of the poem, there is no further mention of it. What is one to make of the signifi-
cance of the temple? Whereas Zhuangzi’s roc keeps journeying forward, its counterpart in Dai’s
poem returns to the speaker’s “heart” and “lies dormant there in sorrow.” Instead of exhilaration
the poem ends in despair. The first stanza associates the flight of the water spider/roc with the
speaker’s thoughts. The retreat in the last stanza suggests the difficulty of breaking free from
tradition symbolized by the ancient temple.
“Smile” (Weixiao) is one of the shortest and most carefully composed poems by Dai Wang-
shu. One critic compares its three stanzas to Hegel’s thesis, antithesis and synthesis:19

Light mists waft from the distant mountains,

Water spiders linger over the still water;
Speak. Do not hold back; do not hold back.

People smile,
Their hearts turn into flowers.
People smile,
Numerous faces turn cloudy.

Become a garland of love pledge,

Become a pillar for weary travelers.

Whether one can shoehorn the poem into Hegelian dialecticism is an open question. To begin
with, the tripartite division of the poem does not line up neatly with Hegel’s triad. The first
stanza might conceivably form a conceit. However, if one were pressed to find a thesis and
antithesis, they are in the second stanza. Rather than extend the proposition of unfettered
expression broached at the beginning of the poem, the conclusion reaffirms it. If anything, the
logic seems binary. The last stanza conveys equilibrium and balance between the two, which
comports with the title “Smile” suggesting measured merriment.
Dai’s last book of poetry Years of Catastrophe (Zainan de suiyue) appeared in 1948. It consists
of twenty-five poems written between 1932 and 1947 including some that are overtly patriotic.
A good example is “New Year’s Blessing” (Yuandan zhufu) written on New Year’s day 1939:

The New Year brings us new hope.

Bless our land!
Blood-stained land, charred, cracked land,
So that even more resilient lives will grow.

The New Year brings us new strength.

Bless our people!
Miserable, courageous people,
Misery will bring freedom and liberation.

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 Yaohua Shi

An occasional poem, “New Year’s Blessing” is uncharacteristically declamatory and direct. It is

the least self-consciously poetic of Dai’s works. Equally patriotic but more elaborate is the poem
“With My Mutilated Hand” (Wo yong cansun de shouzhang). Its impact derives from a striking,
surreal image of a mutilated hand caressing the far corners of the equally mutilated country:

With my mutilated hand,

I touch and feel this vast land:
This corner has turned to ashes,
This corner is now blood and mud;
This stretch of lake must be my former home.

As the poem progresses, the hand roams over the snowy peaks of the Changbai Mountain in
Manchuria, the muddy water of the Yellow River, the rice paddies of the Yangtze delta, the
lychee trees of Guangdong, the “bitter waters of the boatless South China Sea” until the muti-
lated hand and the mutilated land become indistinguishable from each other. When the hand
reaches the still intact part of the country, the mood changes drastically. The speaker’s touching
becomes increasingly eroticized: “Over there, with my mutilated hand I caress lightly / as if
caressing a lover’s soft tresses, a breast in a baby’s hands.” Instead of couching his feelings for the
“motherland” in conventional filial terms, the speaker proclaims his love as if to a fertile young
woman, to whom he clings with all his strength in hopes of national regeneration because only
there can the Chinese cease to “live like beasts and die like ants.”
Written in 1942 during the Sino-Japanese War, the poem forms a stark contrast with “Sev-
ered Finger.” Though mutilated, the hand seeks to heal, comfort, and restore the country that is
itself being dismembered. The martyr with the severed finger is self-pitying and self-absorbed.
“Severed Finger” is inward-looking and claustrophobic whereas “With My Mutilated Hand” is
outward-looking and expansive.What unites the two poems is their surrealism. Both the disem-
bodied hand roaming across the country (or the map) and the speaking severed finger place the
poems beyond run-of-the-mill realism.
“Written on a Prison Wall” (Yu zhong ti bi), a poem composed in 1942 while Dai was held
in a Japanese jail, is another work that is deceptively realistic and autobiographical. It revolves
around the imagined death of the speaker and China’s victory over Japan. The flights of fancy
provide the sources of the poem’s pathos, stoicism, and optimism – the affective power of the
address to the speaker’s friends or apostrophe:

If I die here,
Friends, do not feel sad.
I’ll live forever
In your hearts.

The speaker’s only wish is that his friends will remember “one of them.” The second half of the
poem is predicated on the speaker’s certainty of China’s victory. He longs for the country’s liberation
and is willing to die for it. Still alive, he imagines what will happen after his death:

When you return,

Dig up his mutilated body from the earth.
Raise his soul
With your victory cheers,
And deposit his bones on a mountain peak.

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Naturalizing modernism through translation

Known primarily as a poet, Dai was in fact also a prolific translator throughout his life. As a
struggling writer and student in Shanghai and France, he supported himself mainly through
translation, but translation was more than a livelihood for Dai. It was part and parcel of his crea-
tive process and a direct means of poetic appropriation. In 1983, Hunan People’s Publishing
House in China issued a three-volume anthology of Dai Wangshu’s translations of poetry edited
by Shi Zhecun. Shi begins his preface by asserting an inseparable link between Dai the transla-
tor of European poetry and Dai the practitioner of New Poetry. This is a claim that Shi repeats
in his 1988 introduction to the complete poetic works of Dai Wangshu. Shi Zhecun divides his
friend’s career into three phases. In Shi’s view, Dai’s early works were influenced by classical Chi-
nese poetry. It was not until he immersed himself in modern European poetry that he started to
break away from tradition. Dai began by translating the British Decadent poet Ernest Dowson
and the French Romantic Victor Hugo. At Feng Xuefeng’s suggestion, he also translated Soviet
poetry. In his middle phase Dai became partial to French Symbolists, particularly Paul Fort and
Francis Jammes. In his late phase Dai translated mainly Spanish anti-Fascist poetry. Shi finds
influence of the above-mentioned European poets in Dai’s own works from these phases.20
Translation, therefore, played a formative or even transformative role in his development as a
poet. It was through translation that he absorbed what he needed to grow as a poet, according
to Shi. Dai the translator made Dai the modernist possible.
Shi’s contention is illuminating insofar as it points out the central importance of translation
in Dai’s creative process. His conclusion, however, may create the impression that much of Dai’s
poetry is derivative. Translation is never a passive, one-way process as Walter Benjamin argues
in his classic essay “The Task of the Translator.” On the contrary, it is an active, even aggressive
reworking of the original. For example, Dai audaciously renders five of Verlaine’s poems in the
style of classical Chinese verse. This choice may seem anachronistic and arbitrary. It also violates
Benjamin’s injunction against domesticating the original. Benjamin concurs with Rudolf Pann-
witz that it is a mistake to “turn Hindi, Greek and English into German instead of turning Ger-
man into Hindi, Greek, English.”21 Rather than allow the source language to affect the target
language as Pannwitz and Benjamin advocate, Dai naturalizes the original. On the other hand,
Benjamin contends that the original and the translation are both interdependent and independ-
ent. The original serves as a point of departure for the translation, which ultimately takes on a
life of its own. Dai is attracted to Symbolism because its musicality and imagery remind him
of traditional Chinese poetry. Whether this constitutes a misreading of Symbolism or not, Dai’s
“mis-translation” of Verlaine is highly productive. Through translating “Chanson d’automne,”
Dai makes Verlaine’s technique his own and successfully incorporates it in “Rain Lane.” Thus
translation serves an instrumental purpose for Dai. “Rain Lane” can be read as an extended
translation of “Chanson d’automne.” It completes the circle of appropriation and adaptation.
As a translator, Dai’s relationship to European modernist poetry is highly practical. Dai
translated French, Spanish, and Soviet fiction and Marxist literary theory without compos-
ing works of his own in either genre. With poetry, however, translation invariably leads to
appropriation. This is another way to interpret Shi Zhecun’s comments. Translation is more
than the transfer or transmission of form and content; it could be understood as transforma-
tive creation. As a translator, Dai is never a passive, transparent medium. On the contrary, his
interest in French and Spanish poetry is selective and personal.22 As a student at l’Aurore he
was initially fascinated with Baudelaire and Verlaine, but soon gravitated toward Gourmont,
Fort, and Jammes. In the 1940s, Dai resumed translating Baudelaire and Verlaine including
selections of Fleurs du Mal. As mentioned earlier, Du Heng set himself and Dai apart from

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their Symbolist predecessors. Indeed, one will never mistake “Rain Lane” for one of Li
Jinfa’s works. Even Dai’s most macabre poem “Severed Finger” contains little that is truly
shocking or offensive to middle-class sensibilities (epater la bourgeoisie!). Unlike Dai Wang-
shu, Li Jinfa makes little attempt to domesticate French Symbolism, insisting instead on its
foreignness and difference from the Chinese poetic tradition. Many critics have pointed out
that Li’s poems read like translations. Ironically, in the end Li Jinfa’s Symbolism comes across
as more deferential and derivative than Dai Wangshu’s intertexual, adaptive version. Dai’s
experiments have endured. His practice of translation as transformation disrupts the unity
and purity of the original and rewrites European modernism. His poems are rarely facsimile
copies of French and Spanish master texts but are rather products of cultural difference and
hybridity, like much modern Chinese poetry in general.

Notes
1 The Songs of the South: An Ancient Chinese Anthology of Poems by Qu Yuan and Other Poets, trans. David
Hawkes (London: Penguin Books, 1985), 73. Wang Shu is the moon’s charioteer.
2 According to his friend Du Heng, Dai began to write new-style poetry in the years between 1922 and
1924.
3 Bei Ta, Rain Lane Poet: A Biography of Dai Wangshu (Yuxiang shiren: Dai Wangshu zhuan) (Hangzhou:
Zhejiang renmin chubanshe, 2003), 49.
4 Collection of Zhu Xiang’s Letters, Volume 2 (Zhu Xiang shuxin erji) (Hefei: Anhui renmin chubanshe,
1987), 186–187.
5 Bei Ta, Rain Lane Poet, 58.
6 For a discussion of Dai’s translations of Verlaine’s poems, see Peng Jianhua, “Dai Wangshu’s Translations
and Criticism of Verlaine,” (Lun Dai Wangshu dui Wei’erlun de fanyi yu piping) Bulletin of Changsha
University of Technology (Changsha ligong daxue xuebao) (2014), vol. 29 no. 3, 61–94. As noted earlier,
two of the poems appeared in Jade Necklace Trimonthly in 1926. Dai’s version of “Chanson d’automne”
was not published until 1943, fifteen years after “Rain Lane” appeared in print, but the translation may
have been completed in 1926. Dai himself noted that it was an old translation. “Chanson d’automne”
was included in Li Sichun’s selection of French poems, the subject of Dai’s critical review.
7 Quoted in Zheng Zekui and Wang Wenbin, A Critical Biography of Dai Wangshu (Dai Wangshu ping-
zhuan) (Tianjin: Baihua wenyi chubanshe), 32–33.
8 Quoted in Bei Ta, Rain Lane, 52.
9 Qian Zhongshu, Fortress Besieged (New York: New Directions, 2004), 72.
10 Ai Qing, Collected Poems of Dai Wangshu (Dai Wangshu shiji) (Chengdu: Sichuan renmin chubanshe,
1981), 1.
11 Unless otherwise indicated, all translations of the cited poems are mine.
12 Quoted in Bei Ta, Rain Lane Poet, 55.
13 Ibid.
14 Bian Zhilin, Collection of Dai Wangshu’s Poetry (Dai Wangshu shiji) (Chengdu: Sichuan renmin chu-
banshe), 6.
15 Quoted in Bei Ta, Rain Lane Poet, 55.
16 See Bei Ta, Rain Lane Poet, 68. In his interview with Gregory Lee, Shi Zhecun asserts the poem was not
based on a real event, see Gregory Lee, Dai Wangshu, 178.
17 Gregory Lee, Dai Wangshu, 182.
18 See Bei Ta, Rain Lane, 150.
19 Chen Xuguang, quoted in Bei Ta, Rain Lane Poet, 127.
20 Shi, introduction, Complete Poems of Dai Wangshu (Dai Wangshu shi quanbian) (Hangzhou: Zhejiang
renmin chubanshe, 1989).
21 Walter Benjamin, Selected Writings, Volume 1 1913–1926, eds., Marcus Bullock and Michael W. Jennings
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 261–262.
22 Other critics have made the same point. See for instance, Bei Ta, Rain Lane Poet, 22, Zheng Zekui and
Wang Wenbin, A Critical Biography, of Dai Wangshu, 28.

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 The poetry of Dai Wangshu

Further readings
Chen, Bingyin. A Critical Biography of Dai Wangshu (Dai Wangshu pingzhuan). Chongqing: Chongqing
chubanshe, 1993.
Lee, Gregory. “Western Influences in the Poetry of Dai Wangshu.” Modern Chinese Literature 3.1/2 (1987):
7–32.
Lee, Leo Ou-fan. Shanghai Modern.The Flowering of a New Urban Culture in China, 1930–1945. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.
Mi, Jiayan. Self-Fashioning and Reflexive Modernity in Modern Chinese Poetry. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen,
2004.
Shih, Shu-mei. The Lure of the Modern: Writing Modernism in Semicolonial China, 1917–1937. Berkeley, Los
Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2001.
Yeh Michelle. Modern Chinese Poetry:Theory and Practice since 1917. New Haven:Yale University Press, 1991.
Zheng Zekui and Wenbin Wang. A Critical Biography of Dai Wangshu (Dai Wangshu pingzhuan). Tianjin:
Baihua wenyi chubanshe, 1987.

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 12
THE NEW SENSATIONISTS
Shi Zhecun, Mu Shiying, Liu Na’ou
Christopher Rosenmeier

Introduction
The three writers under consideration here – Shi Zhecun (1905–2003), Mu Shiying (1912–
1940), and Liu Na’ou (1905–1940) – were the foremost modernist authors in the Republican
period. Collectively labelled “New Sensationists” (xinganjuepai), they were mainly active in
Shanghai in the early 1930s, and their most famous works reflect the speed, chaos, and intensity
of the metropolis.1 They wrote about dance halls, neon lights, and looming madness alongside
modern lifestyles, gender roles, and social problems.The city becomes a dizzying mix of sensory
impressions and diametric opposites, enticing and modern but also callous, corrupt, and dehu-
manizing. Their works experimented with new literary forms, themes, and narrative techniques
in order to capture the sights and sounds of the city as well as the sense of alienation and fatigue
stemming from an inability to keep up with the pace of change.
The New Sensationist writers were mostly opposed to the prevailing trends in contemporary
Chinese literature. They resisted the increasing politicization of art encouraged by the promi-
nent League of Left-Wing Writers (1930–1936), and they saw themselves as an avant-garde that
rejected the tenets of realism and social engagement promoted by the cultural elite at the time.
The short story representing the modernity and sexuality of Republican Shanghai is these
authors’ most well-known genre of writing. Among their short stories, Shi Zhecun’s “One
Evening in the Rainy Season” (Meiyu zhi xi, 1929) and Mu Shiying’s “Five in a Nightclub”
(Yezonghui li de wugeren, 1932) are two representative ones, which will be discussed later. But
such short stories do not reflect the entirety of these writers’ oeuvres. Shi Zhecun was interested
in traditional Chinese literature as well as modern psychology, and these interests feature promi-
nently in his works, spanning broadly from gothic horror to careful explorations of the repressed
yearnings of petty bourgeois characters. Mu Shiying’s early writings also range more widely,
with his early works focusing on the fury, violence, and sexual frustration of thugs and bandits.
The epithet of “New Sensationism” to designate the group of writers should be noted with a
word of caution. Rather than forming a clearly self-identified group, the writers discussed here
were lumped together by their critics. The term originally denoted a group of Japanese writers
(shinkankaku ha) who were inspired during the 1920s by Western modernist art movements,
such as Futurism, Expressionism, and Dadaism.2 Key members included Kawabata Yasunari, who
later won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1968, and Yokomitsu Riichi. In 1931, the Marxist

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 The new sensationists

critic Lou Shiyi used “New Sensationism” in a harsh critique of Shi Zhecun’s short stories,
arguing that they were influenced by the Japanese movement and that this aesthetic has a heavy
note of the “Erotic” and the “Grotesque.”3 Lou concludes that Shi’s fiction was “the literature of
those who live by reaping the interests of capitalism.”4 Shi objected to the label, arguing in 1933
that he wrote “psychological fiction” influenced by Freud.5 Despite Shi Zhecun’s attempts to
distance himself from New Sensationism, it remains widely used today. Regardless of the term’s
origin as a critical label, it is useful as a way to gather these writers as a group. They were quite
different in many ways, but there are still notable similarities in their works and they worked
closely with each other for several years.

Formation and history

The origins of the New Sensationist group can be traced back to the late 1920s at Aurora Uni-
versity (Zhendan daxue) in Shanghai.6 The main members were Shi Zhecun, Dai Wangshu, Su
Wen (also known as Du Heng), Liu Na’ou, and Feng Xuefeng. The group edited the minor
literary journals Pearl Necklace Trimonthly (Yingluo xunkan) and Trackless Train (Wugui lieche) to
publish their own works and translations.7 After Trackless Train was shut down by government
censors in 1929, some of them started a new journal, La Nouvelle Littérature (Xin wenyi) which
saw eight issues published before it too was closed by government censors. They also ran a
publishing house, the Frontline Bookstore (Diyi xian shudian), later renamed Froth Bookstore
(Shuimo shudian), which issued their creative writing and translations.
The funding for these endeavours was provided by Liu Na’ou who was born into a wealthy
family in Taiwan in 1905. Liu spoke fluent Japanese and in 1920 he was sent to high school and
college in Japan.8 Upon graduation, he went to Shanghai in 1926 where he studied French at
Aurora University. Following a visit to Japan in the late 1920s, Liu Na’ou returned with several
works by modernist Japanese authors which he then translated and published. Liu also intro-
duced the French modernist writer Paul Morand who had influenced the Japanese New Sen-
sationists. Liu Na’ou only published a single short story collection, Scène (Dushi fengjingxian)
in 1930. In his later works, he shifted his focus to film, writing screenplays and editing a film
journal, Modern Cinema (Xiandai dianying).
Shi Zhecun was born in Hangzhou and grew up in Songjiang near Shanghai. He too started
studying French at Aurora University in 1926. He learned English as well and translated several
works from their English originals, including Arthur Schnitzler’s Frau Berta Garlan in 1929.9
Schnitzler’s novels had a considerable influence on Shi’s literary work alongside the work of
Havelock Ellis, Edgar Allan Poe, and others.10 Born and raised in Shanghai, Mu Shiying became
affiliated with the group when he published his first short story, “Our World” (Zanmen de shi-
jie), in the February 1930 issue of La Nouvelle Littérature. He was still only 17 and a student at
Kwang Hua University.11 Shi Zhecun introduced the young author in an editorial comment:

Mu Shiying is a name that is unfamiliar to readers. He is a new author who can make
the “great authors” who merely flaunt their undeserved reputations feel ashamed.With
respect to Ideologie, “Our World” is admittedly somewhat lacking, but in artistic terms
it is very successful. This is a young author of whom we can have great expectations.12

Mu Shiying’s political views were found wanting, and this was perhaps Feng Xuefeng’s left-
ist influence, but this quote also demonstrates how the group rejected the mainstream literary
establishment of the time – the “great authors” with their “undeserved reputations”.This consti-
tuted an attack on the New Culture Movement writers who by 1930 were well-known figures.

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 Christopher Rosenmeier

Shi Zhecun confirmed this to Leo Ou-fan Lee many years later, explaining that the young
writers saw themselves as an avant-garde group who was “revolutionary and aesthetic rebels on
an international ‘front line’ ”.13
At the time, cultural discussions were increasingly dominated by political ideology and the
League of Left-Wing Writers’ calls for proletarian literature, but the New Sensationist group
stood out in its refusal to bow to such demands. Indeed, leftist critics were generally quite nega-
tive about their writing. In 1932, Qu Qiubai wrote a scathing critique of Mu’s short story “The
Man Who Was Made a Plaything” (Bei dangzuo xiaoqianpin de nanzi, 1931), claiming that he
was a traitor to the leftist cause.14 According to another League reviewer the same year, the main
problem with Mu Shiying’s writing was that he failed to “discuss the upright struggle of the
proletarian classes.”15 Mu Shiying responded to such criticism in the preface to his next short
story collection, Public Cemetery (Gongmu, 1933):

I am unwilling, as so many are today, to adorn my true face with some protec-
tive pigment, or to pass my days in hypocrisy shouting hypocritical slogans, or to
manipulate the psychology of the masses, engaging in political manoeuvring, self-
propaganda, and the like to maintain a position once held in the past or to enhance
my personal prestige. I consider this to be base and narrow-minded behaviour, and
I won’t do it.16

Much like Shi Zhecun, Mu Shiying opposed the politicized cultural milieu with its “hypocriti-
cal slogans” as well as the more famous authors trying to “maintain a position once held in the
past.”This denunciation of his leftist critics ensured him the enmity of the League of Left-Wing
Writers.
By this time, Mu Shiying was already a minor celebrity in literary circles. He was considered
quite a dandy – strikingly handsome and a frequent visitor of the dance halls he wrote about. In
1934, he even married a dance hall hostess, Qiu Peipei, causing a bit of a stir. Mu was not a pro-
lific writer, but he did publish several collections of short stories: North Pole, South Pole (Nanbeiji,
1932, expanded edition in 1933), Public Cemetery, and Statue of a Platinum Woman (Baijin de nüti
suxiang, 1934).17 In the late 1930s he produced less fiction, and like Liu Na’ou, becoming quite
interested in the techniques and possibilities of cinema.

Les Contemporains and independent literature

In 1931, the Froth Bookstore closed and the group disbanded. Liu Na’ou returned to Japan for a
while, and Shi Zhecun went back to Songjiang where he took up teaching.18 Shortly afterwards,
however, Shi was offered the post of managing editor of a new literary journal, mainly because
he was neither affiliated with the Guomindang nor with the League of Left-Wing Writers.19 Shi
accepted the offer, and the new journal published its first issue in May 1932. This was Les Con-
temporains (Xiandai). With its dual titles in Chinese and French and the inaugural cover display-
ing cubist artwork, the journal conveyed a strong sense of cosmopolitanism. It featured modern
poetry, fiction, essays, articles, and many translations of foreign literature.20 The articles often
covered various Western literary movements, but there were also book reviews, biographies, and
reproductions of modern art.The journal aimed to keep educated urban readers abreast with the
latest trends and developments in contemporary culture in China and across the world.
Les Contemporains was a success and it placed Shi Zhecun in an important position on the
Shanghai cultural scene. He managed to garner broad support for the journal and tried to keep
it outside the fray of political discussions. In the editor’s statement in the first issue, Shi declared

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that it would be independent of politics and factionalism and that manuscripts would be chosen
for publication “solely according to the subjective criteria of the editor, and these criteria natu-
rally rest on the intrinsic worth of the literary product itself.”21 Since political journals tended
to get banned fairly quickly, many of China’s most important writers and poets of the time
published in Les Contemporains, both League writers and independents, including Mao Dun, Ba
Jin,Yu Dafu, Shen Congwen, Zhang Tianyi, and Lao She.
The journal also became a major vehicle to showcase the works of the New Sensationist
writers and their friends, and it enabled Shi Zhecun to cultivate modernist Chinese literature.
Mu Shiying contributed quite a few pieces, and it also carried the poetry of the main exponents
of symbolist and modernist poetry in China at the time – Dai Wangshu, Mu Mutian, Bian Zhi-
lin, He Qifang, and others.
Despite the desire to stay independent, Les Contemporains became embroiled in the intensi-
fying literary debates on the proper role of literature in society. This accelerated after Su Wen
joined Shi Zhecun as co-editor.22 In 1932, Su Wen and Hu Qiuyuan claimed to be writers
of “the third category” (di san zhong ren) or “free men” (ziyou ren), a label indicating their
independence of political affiliations. But in the polarized atmosphere of the time, a claim of
independence was necessarily a political stance in and of itself, and the League critic Zhou Yang
called Su Wen a “dog” of the ruling classes.23 The debacle over the “third category” dispute was
more than the publishers could handle, and compounded by financial trouble, Shi Zhecun and
Su Wen had to resign as editors after the publication of the November 1934 issue. After two
more issues with new editors at the helm, the journal closed irrevocably.24 The threat from Japan
and politics were the dominant issues of the day, and there was less tolerance for highbrow
cosmopolitan endeavours such as Les Contemporains. Shi Zhecun’s next literary journal, Literary
Food Vignettes (Wenfan xiaopin), closed after a few issues. Still, the New Sensationist writers kept
in touch. Dai Wangshu even married Mu Shiying’s sister in 1936 after his relationship with Shi
Zhecun’s sister fell through.25
Following the Japanese invasion of China proper in 1937, the literary scene changed dra-
matically. Shi Zhecun moved to Kunming and took up teaching at Yunnan University. Mu
Shiying moved to Hong Kong in 1938 where he lived for a while with several other writers
before returning to Shanghai the following year where he then edited a newspaper for the Wang
Jingwei government. He and Liu Na’ou started collaborating with the Japanese, even going to
Japan to participate in a literary conference. In 1940, they were both killed in independent assas-
sinations.26 Shi Zhecun never wrote fiction again. He focused on translation work in the 1940s
and 1950s and eventually pursued an academic career in classical scholarship.

Shi Zhecun’s fiction

The majority of Shi Zhecun’s creative writing was produced over the decade from 1926 to
1936. His oeuvre spans quite broadly from quiet contemplative pieces focusing on memory
and nostalgia to surreal works featuring madness, absurdity, sexuality, and death. He even made
a deliberate effort to make sure that his different short story collections each displayed a dif-
ferent aspect of his authorship.27 Yet there are two threads that can be traced throughout his
earliest works. First, it was his interest in psychoanalysis, and as a result, several studies see Shi
Zhecun principally as a Freudian author.28 Looking back at his writing in 1983, he wrote that
he indeed felt that it was his interest in “psychoanalytic methods” that was the connecting link
between his various writings.29 Second, Shi Zhecun’s writing shows a consistent awareness of
and experimentation with narrative technique, switching between various narrative modes and
styles, including interior monologue, stream of consciousness, free indirect discourse, unreliable

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 Christopher Rosenmeier

narrators, and the like. He was interested in the craft of writing and experimented with various
techniques.
Shi Zhecun’s earliest short stories were written as a teenager and submitted to popular lit-
erature journals like Saturday (Libailiu). He later disavowed them as plagiarism, claiming that
his first works worthy of consideration were those in the short story collection Spring Festival
Lamp (Shangyuan deng) published by Froth Bookstore in 1929. Most of these works are set in
the countryside and many of them deal with nostalgia, memory, and fetishism of various sorts.
His next short story collection, The General’s Head (Jiangjun di tou) from 1932, was far
more provocative. One of the short stories, “Shi Xiu,” recasts a chapter from the famous Ming
dynasty novel Water Margin (Shuihu zhuan), using much of the language from the original text,
but reproducing it into a first-person narrative.30 Shi’s altered version is shockingly violent and
brutal, and the original novel’s tale of righteous justice meted out to a cheating wife and her
lover is turned into a gruesome slaughter, in which the narrator takes sadistic, sexual pleasure in
seeing a woman he desired being cut to pieces. Other short stories in the collection are similarly
based on myths or legends, and they also feature violence, absurdity, and sexual lust. As a whole,
the collection appears to be a deliberate rejection of realism, delving into the darker sides of
human nature and imagination.
Shi Zhecun published two short story collections in 1933: One Evening in the Rainy Season
(Meiyu zhi xi) and Exemplary Conduct of Virtuous Women (Shan nüren xingpin). The two are
practically diametric opposites. The former features tales of neurasthenia, delusions, madness,
and displaced desire, often with a touch of gothic horror, while the latter collection features
petty bourgeois women and couples who are mostly dealing with mundane matters and various
issues in their lives. Shi Zhecun’s last short story collection came out in 1936, after the closing
of Les Contemporains, and features several tales vaguely based on traditional “storyteller’s scripts”
(huaben). They are generally more subdued in tone than his earlier works and they made less
of an impact.
Shi Zhecun’s most famous short story is “One Evening in the Rainy Season,” the title story
of the collection mentioned above.31 It was originally published in 1929, and compared with
the other works included, it is fairly gentle. The narrator is an office worker in Shanghai, and he
starts by explaining matter-of-factly that he quite enjoys strolling home in the rain rather than
taking the bus.With this, he presents himself to the audience as a typical flâneur who enjoys tak-
ing leisurely strolls through the city, taking in the sights and sounds of Shanghai while remaining
ultimately detached from the bustle of urban life. On his way home one evening, walking along
North Sichuan Road, he sees a young woman getting off a trolley bus. He watches from a dis-
tance as she gets soaked by the rain while trying in vain to hail a rickshaw in the empty streets.

I had an umbrella, and like a brave medieval warrior I could have used my umbrella
as a shield, warding off the attacking spears of the rain, but instead the top half of the
young woman’s body was periodically drenched. Her thin black silk dress was little use
against the rain and merely emphasized her soft, shapely arms. She repeatedly turned
and stood sideways to avoid the drizzle attacking her breasts. But, I wondered, didn’t
it matter that her arms and shoulders were exposed to the rainwater, letting her dress
cling to her skin?32

Envisaging himself as a noble knight while gazing upon her wet body, it is already clear that the
narrator’s thoughts are slipping into fantasy and sexual desire. More than an hour passes while
the narrator is observing the woman and speculating on what she might be thinking. One idea
follows another as he is considering whether or not to help her.

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 The new sensationists

Finally, he imagines that she is beckoning him over, so he summons the courage to approach
her and offers to accompany her with his umbrella. While they are walking, various fantasies
and delusions intrude, again in a stream-of-consciousness manner, as he is wondering what she
might be thinking or who she is. He thinks she might be his first girlfriend from school many
years ago, and soon after she reminds him of a Japanese painting and classical poetry. Only when
the rain stops does he seem to return to the present:

It seemed as if the form of the young woman beside me had already been released from
the confines of my mind. Only now did I realize night had fallen completely, and the
sound of rain was no longer to be heard on the umbrella.33

The girl declines to be accompanied any further. So they part company on the street and the
narrator takes a rickshaw home, wishing that the rain might have continued a little longer. His
fantasies and delusions seem to linger for a while, and when his wife opens the door for him at
home, he briefly imagines that she is the woman in the rain, or perhaps a woman they passed
on the street. Yet this delusion quickly vanishes. The female characters are not interchangeable,
and the short story ends with a return to everyday normality and the narrator pretending that
he ate with a friend in town.
The focus of this short story is entirely on the narrator’s thoughts and delusions. The rain
circumscribes the narrator’s dream world and after the rain stops, he slowly awakens to the
world of mundane reality. The absence of rationality is also associated with the narrator’s being
in a state of suspension during his commute between fixed locations: his office and his home.
These places are anchored in real space with colleagues and family around him, yet between
these familiar spaces, the urban protagonist is a detached voyeur, treating the city as a spectacle
for his enjoyment. Ultimately, it seems to be Shanghai itself which is the source of the narrator’s
delusions, fantasies, and displaced desire.
This short story is so reminiscent of Dai Wangshu’s symbolist poem “Rain Alley” (Yu xiang,
1927) that it is tempting to speculate that Shi must have had it in mind when composing his
own story. As in the poem, the male narrator is a Shanghai resident who gazes upon an unknown
beautiful woman in the rain. His sexual gaze likewise blurs the lines between reality and fantasy,
revealing the confusion of his eroticized psyche. And almost inevitably, the woman vanishes in
the rain without a trace.
The short story touches upon another common trope in New Sensationist fiction: the elu-
sive woman.The narrator is endlessly wondering about her identity and her thoughts, but in the
end, he learns almost nothing about her.The woman remains enigmatic and unattainable. But in
Shi’s rendition, she is not in and of herself a femme fatale who sets out to seduce him. On the
contrary, the woman is configured through a lens of irrational male fantasy and desire, with the
male gaze projecting its illusions onto the female character.
“Yaksha” (Yecha) from 1933 provides another example of this process, as well as providing
an example of Shi Zhecun’s gothic short stories in One Evening in the Rainy Season. The nar-
rator goes to a German hospital in Shanghai to visit his friend Bian who is recovering from a
nervous collapse. Bian tells the narrator – starting a story in a story – that he recently visited the
countryside to arrange the funeral for a grandparent. In this idyllic setting, he saw visions of an
otherworldly woman dressed entirely in white in a boat on a lake. After reading a local history,
he came to believe that this woman might have been a yaksha, a mythical creature who had ter-
rorized the area in the past. One night he saw her again and ran outside to follow her, imagining
that he was re-enacting a traditional zhiguai tale in which mortals encountered ghosts. After
reaching her lair, he strangled her and only then came to his senses, realizing that she was some

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 Christopher Rosenmeier

poor innocent woman. He rushed back to Shanghai in a terrified fervour of guilt and anxiety,
finally collapsing when he saw the narrator’s cousin who resembled the woman in white from
before. While this short story is not set in Shanghai, it does echo “An Evening in the Rainy
Season” in certain ways. Bian is very much a modern urbanite who considers himself healthy,
strong, and impervious to silly superstitions, but once in the countryside his rationality falls apart
and he is overtaken by delusions and madness. Several short stories in the collection see other
supposedly rational and modern well-educated men succumbing to nervous distress and panic,
often influenced by literature, tradition, or local myth.
“Madam Butterfly” (Hudie furen) can serve as an example of the short stories found in
Exemplary Conduct of Virtuous Women. It focuses on the slowly deteriorating relationship of a
young couple. The husband is an entomologist whose career is devoted to the study of but-
terflies – a traditional symbol of love – and he spends his time classifying dead specimens and
resorting to foreign books to name even native Chinese species. Unlike him, his wife is far more
vivacious, outgoing, and lively. Failing to understand her, he reproaches her for her frivolous
pursuits: shopping, visiting beauty salons, going to the cinema, and the like. She, on the other
hand, wishes that he would spend more time with her. Despite both husband and wife having
the best of intentions, they fail to connect (illustrated through parallel dialogue in which they
talk past each other) and gradually grow apart. The short story ends with the husband realizing
that his wife is having an affair with the handsome young sports professor on campus who
enjoys swimming, dancing, and partaking in all the pleasures of modern life.
Much like the other examples of Shi Zhecun’s work, this short story is about a man failing
to comprehend women, but it is gentler and more subdued, without their erotic fantasies, neu-
rasthenia, and delusions. Another short story about relationships is “Water Shield Soup” (Chun
geng) which features a husband who promises his wife to do the cooking one evening but
comes to feel embarrassed about his inability to do this.
A few short stories in Exemplary Conduct of Virtuous Women are told from the female perspec-
tive, and they are often about stirring sexual awakenings that ultimately do not come to pass.
“Spring Sunshine” (Chun yang) is about a well-off young widow who travels to Shanghai to
take care of a financial matter at the bank. Strolling about the city on a sunny day and seeing
young couples holding hands, she starts to think that she might have a more exciting life with
romance and passion.34 As opposed to “One Evening in the Rainy Season”, this short story sees
warm sunlight bringing about reveries. As the good weather ends, her dreams of a renewed life
vanish and she leaves the city counting her money.
These examples showcase several recurring elements in Shi Zhecun’s fiction. That which is
safe, well known, and reassuring is juxtaposed with that which is mysterious, incomprehensible,
and threatening – often through a change of setting or weather. This repeated juxtaposition
establishes a recurrent binary pattern which aligns certain symbolic concepts and mental states.
In simple schematic form, this alignment can be depicted as follows:

rational irrational
known unknown
conscious repressed
modern traditional
restrained uninhibited
home abroad

This divide recurs throughout Shi Zhecun’s stories in terms of sexual roles and gender
relations. The protagonist of “Yaksha” loses his grip on sanity and restraint as he crosses into

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the irrational in the countryside while pursuing an imaginary woman. Likewise, the inhibited
woman travels from her home in the countryside to the alluring unknown of the city. For both,
the crossing into the unknown brings the protagonists in contact with their repressed yearnings
and desires. In most cases, crossing back to “normality” and restraint is traumatic, resulting in
nervous fears or tantalizing illusions.
Yet the simple dividing line above is perhaps not the most appropriate graphic representation.
In Shi’s short stories, the world of the unknown is not an external reality but rather a mental
construction emerging from the unconscious. Perhaps, it should be viewed as a fictive space
within rational modernity, which challenges the characters’ conception of the world. In Shi’s
work, it is the very modernity and rationality of the modern mind that seems to bring about the
dreams and worries that undermine it. Modern rationality invariably crumbles of its own accord
and thereby notions of progress and modernity become questionable constructs that contain the
seeds of their own collapse.

The fiction of Mu Shiying and Liu Na’ou

The short stories by Mu Shiying and Liu Na’ou are similar enough that they might be discussed
together. In most of their works, the plot seems less important than a sensory mood achieved
through a staccato narrative style. They use all varieties of sensory impressions – colours, tem-
peratures, sounds, and smells – to describe the jumbled sensations of the metropolis.The discon-
tinuities in the text are meant to reflect the disjointed and chaotic urban experience.
The 1932 short story “Five in a Nightclub” is one of Mu’s more well known works and it can
serve as an example. The narrative switches between five principal characters as they separately
make their way to the Empress nightclub. The following quote shows how the narrative style is
the main focus and takes precedence over plot progression:

The world of a Saturday night is a cartoon globe spinning on the axis of jazz – just as quick,
just as crazed; gravity loses its pull and buildings are launched skyward.
On Saturday night reason is out of season.
On Saturday night even judges are tempted to lead lives of crime.
On Saturday night God goes to Hell.
Men out on dates completely forget the civil code against seduction. Every woman out on a
date tells her man that she is not yet eighteen, all the while laughing inside over how easy
he is to dupe. The driver’s eyes stray from the pedestrians on the road to admire his lover’s
scenic contours; hands move forward to probe.
On Saturday night a self-respecting man steals; a simpleton’s head fills with intrigue; a God-
fearing Christian lies; old men drink rejuvenating tonics; experienced women apply kiss-
proof lipstick.35

The plot in “Five in a Nightclub” mostly unfolds over the course of a single day: Saturday,
6 April 1932. It features five different characters, and the narrative shifts between them until they
converge in a nightclub to drown and forget their sorrows: an investor lost his fortune, a woman
tries to face the stark reality that men now see her as past her prime, a man has been jilted, a
scholar questions the relevance of his work, and a city clerk has been fired. At the nightclub,
they meet a band member, who learns that his wife has died in childbirth during the course of
the evening. Still, he is forced to smile and play music in the club as the guests dance, laugh, and
pretend to enjoy themselves. The short story ends with the investor killing himself and the four
others attending his funeral a few days later.

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The relationships between the characters are callous, hypocritical, and insincere. They are all
presenting various façades, laughing and deceiving themselves, trying to keep up with the times,
peppering their speech with English phrases. As in many of Mu’s other short stories, Shanghai
is presented as titillating and exhilarating, while also being exhausting, dehumanizing, and cruel.
The five characters are not so much individuals as representatives of different aspects of the
city. Compared with Shi Zhecun’s intricate character portrayals or, say, the writings of Western
modernists such as James Joyce, the various people in Mu’s short stories tend to have little psy-
chological depth. Instead, they are often stereotypes akin to those in popular literature, like the
femme fatale, the dandy, or the infatuated gullible male, yet this superficiality is also somehow
symptomatic of their modern lives. It seems to be the city and the constant demands it places on
the people in it that force them into predetermined roles, keeping up appearances.
Both Mu Shiying and Liu Na’ou frequently use the femme fatale stereotype as a symbol of
the new sexual mores in modern Shanghai. Mu Shiying’s short story “The Man Who Was Made
a Plaything” can be used as an illustration.36 The narrator is a university student in Shanghai who
falls desperately in love with an alluring beauty despite his complete awareness that she is deceit-
ful and dangerous. She professes to love him as well, but nevertheless, she is constantly flirting
with other men and this in turn drives the narrator to despair. She informs him that the others
are merely playthings to her, like chocolates to be chewed and spat out.37 After much jealousy
and misery, the narrator realizes that he too has merely been her plaything.
The femmes fatales of Mu Shiying and Liu Na’ou’s fiction were indebted to Hollywood’s
glamorous screen icons, frequently mentioned in their works. As confident New Women, flap-
pers, or femme fatale vixens, these women are well-known stereotypes also found in pulp fiction,
romances, calendar posters, and advertising. Likewise, sexuality is often highlighted as synony-
mous with the modernity of Shanghai. In one short story, “Platinum Statue of a Female Nude”
(Baijin de nüti suoxiang), Mu even uses Shanghai’s harbour as a metaphor for the female sex.38
Similar to Mu Shiying, Liu Na’ou’s short stories also take place in Shanghai’s nightclubs or
other places signifying modernity, e.g. the race track or canidrome, and they frequently deal with
naïve men, sometimes foreigners, who are jilted, duped, and dumped by bewitching modern
women. His staccato style of writing is laden with metaphor and juxtaposed images:

Everything in this “Tango Palace” is in melodious motion – male and female bodies,
multicolored lights, shining wine goblets, red, green liquid and slender fingers, gar-
net lips, burning eyes. In the center is a smooth and shiny floor reflecting tables and
chairs around it and the scene of people mixed together, making one feel as if one
had entered a magic palace, where one’s mind and spirit are both under the control
of magical powers. Amidst all this the most delicate and nimble are the movements of
those waiters clad in white. Vivaciously, like butterflies among flowers, they fly from
here to there, then from there to another place, without a trace of rudeness.39

The prose of Mu Shiying and Liu Na’ou is striking with its predominant use of sharp visual
imagery. The text aims to dazzle the reader with a barrage of sensory input that mirrors the
chaos of the city. To both writers, narrative style was more important than plot. The montage or
“camera eye” technique of switching from item to item to set the scene was adopted from the
Japanese New Sensationists and the French writer Paul Morand.40 Like the shop fronts, post-
ers, and neon signs on Nanjing Road, modernity is here represented in striking images. As Leo
Ou-fan Lee remarks, this narrative style was indebted to the visuality and speed of the cinema.41
Relying on the readers’ knowledge of billboards and neon ads, Liu and Mu count on visual

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cues to achieve their effects. The use of imagery carries from the billboards and dance halls to
women and sexuality.
Mu Shiying’s writing changed considerably over the course of his short career. His earliest
short stories, some written while he was still a teenager, were quite different from the modernist
works which made him famous.These initial works tend to feature impoverished male protago-
nists who rage against society and modern life, but they are not proletarian visionaries or victims
of social injustice. On the contrary, they are mostly misguided thugs and bandits who revel in
random violence while representing themselves as righteous heroes. They often cast themselves
as characters out of Water Margin, demonstrating their inability to comprehend modern society
and their entanglement in an imaginary vision of the past.
In Mu Shiying’s first short story, “Our World,” the narrator recounts how he became a pirate,
eventually joining a gang of outlaws who board a large passenger ship.42 The narrator is con-
stantly furious about social issues, but most of his anger stems from his sexual frustration and lust
for modern women who are out of his reach. After taking over the ship, he rapes an innocent
woman and throws her husband overboard in a rite of initiation. He describes this violence with
disturbing glee, and this narrative style makes for a remarkably unpleasant narrator. These early
works also demonstrate Mu’s ability to capture lower-class slang and vulgar language in a way
that had not been seen before in Chinese literature. Several other works in Mu’s first short story
collection, North Pole, South Pole, are equally disconcerting, and they show that Mu was already
quite mature as a writer of fiction.

Conclusion
New Sensationist fiction portrays the splitting forces of urban modernity – in subject matter
as well as style of writing. But unlike the League of Left-Wing Writers, these authors did not
moralize, nor did they offer solutions, political critiques, or noble ideals in their work. On the
contrary, the New Sensationists adopted an avant-garde stance based on a dual rejection of
political ideology and realist narrative modes.Their independence enabled them to create works
that were distinctly different from the other literature being written at the time. In their mod-
ernist works, the New Sensationists attempted to renew the language and form of narrative rep-
resentation. By mixing tropes and stereotypes from popular literature, traditional fiction, legend,
and myth, they present intertextual hybrids that often cross back and forth between different
genres and styles, deliberately undermining their own narrative coherence. Rather than seeking
verisimilitude, such short stories deliberately highlight their own status as artifice and fiction.
Through jarring language, juxtaposed imagery, and streams-of-consciousness, New Sensa-
tionist works set out to mirror the dizzying nature of modern Shanghai. The city becomes a
contested site of clashing opposites, exemplified in the oft-quoted opening and closing lines of
Mu Shiying’s short story “Shanghai Foxtrot” (Shanghai de hubuwu, 1932): “Shanghai. A Heaven
built on Hell.”43 More broadly, it is modernity itself that comes under attack. In Mu Shiying and
Liu Na’ou’s work, modern life is exhausting and dehumanizing, while in Shi Zhecun’s rendition,
the rational, educated outlook is always on the verge of collapse into fantasy, delusions, and mad-
ness. Modernity is thrilling, but it also invariably contains a darker side that is repressed, denied,
or hidden behind gay outward facades.
The New Sensationist writers revelled in the depiction of sexuality. As Yingjin Zhang notes,
“eroticism took the place of love in the majority of new perceptionist writings.”44 Sex was the
essential modern drive and symptomatic of urban dissolution. Like the other New Sensationist
writers, Shi Zhecun also used the idea of fleeting sexual encounters as representing Shanghai’s

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urban modernity, but he brought a new psychological depth to his characters, utilizing the full
Freudian armament of unconscious desires with repression and displacement. His soul-searching
characters are generally more rounded and engaging than those of Liu Na’ou and Mu Shiying.
Furthermore, he expanded the scope of his writings to include modern sexuality in other ways
than urban encounters. Many of his short stories have historical settings, playing on ideas of
popular myth and fiction.
The New Sensationist group played an important role in the literary field at the time. Shi Zhe-
cun in particular stands out for his many translations of foreign literature and his work as the editor
of Les Contemporains. Due to political exigencies, the New Sensationist writers were ignored or
forgotten for several decades, but Shi Zhecun and Mu Shiying are fairly well-known writers today,
and awareness of their work has improved in recent years alongside the rise in nostalgia for the
glamour of Republican Shanghai. More recently, studies have explored how the New Sensationist
writers had an impact on later Chinese literature, e.g.Wang Zengqi and Fei Ming as well as popular
literature during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945).45 The New Sensationist works are
endowed with a lasting impact as well as real literary value in their own right.

Notes
1 There is unfortunately little agreement on how to render xinganjuepai in English. Alternatives include
“New Sensibilities School,” “Neo-Sensationism,” “New Perceptionism,” and several others.
2 “Shinkankaku school,” in Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan, vol. 7, ed. Gen Itasaka et al. (Tokyo: Kodansha
Ltd., 1983), 116.
3 Lou Shiyi, “The New Sensationism of Shi Zhecun – On Reading ‘In the Paris cinema’ and ‘Demon’s
Way,’ ” (Shi Zhecun de xinganjue zhuyi: du ‘Zai Bali daxi yuan’ yu ‘Modao’ zhi hou), in Ying Guojing,
ed., Selections of Modern Chinese Authors: Shi Zhecun (Zhongguo xiandai zuojia xuanji: Shi Zhecun) (Hong
Kong: Sanlian shudian youxian gongsi, 1988), 306.
4 Ibid., 305.
5 Shi Zhecun, “The Course of My Creative Career,” (Wo de chuangzuo shenghuo zhi licheng) in The
Works of Shi Zhecun: Ten Years of Creative Writing (Shi Zhecun wenji: Shi nian chuangzuo ji) (Shanghai:
Huadong shifan daxue chubanshe, 1996), 803–804.
6 Shi Zhecun, “Two Years at Aurora University,” (Zhendan er nian) in Tang Wenyi and Liu Pin, eds., Ran-
dom Thoughts on Past Events (Wangshi suixiang) (Chengdu: Sichuan renmin chubanshe, 2000), 185–196.
7 Shu-mei Shih, The Lure of the Modern: Writing Modernism in Semicolonial China, 1917–1937 (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2001), 246.
8 Huang Xuelei, Shanghai Filmmaking: Crossing Borders, Connecting to the Globe, 1922–1938 (Leiden: Brill,
2014), 133.
9 Shu-mei Shih, The Lure of the Modern, 359.
10 Leo Ou-fan Lee, Shanghai Modern: The Flowering of a New Urban Culture in China, 1930–1945 (Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 148, 177.
11 Li Jin, “Chronicle of Mu Shiying’s Life,” (Mu Shiying nianpu jianbian) Journal of Research on Modern
Chinese Literature (Zhongguo xiandai wenxue yanjiu congkan) (2005), no. 6, 240.
12 Quoted in ibid., 240.
13 Leo Ou-fan Lee, Shanghai Modern, 134.
14 Qu Qiubai (pseud. Sima Jin), “For or against the God of wealth” (Caishen haishi fan caishen), Beidou
(1932), vol. 2, nos. 3–4. 489–500.
15 Shu Yue quoted in Christopher Rosenmeier, “The Subversion of Modernity and Socialism in Mu
Shiying’s Early Fiction,” Frontiers of Literary Studies in China (2013), vol. 7, no. 1, 17.
16 Mu Shiying quoted in ibid., 18.
17 Li Jin, “Mu Shiying nianpu jianbian,” 243–253.
18 Ying Guojing, “A chronology of Shi Zhecun’s life” (Shi Zhecun nianbiao) in Ying Guojing, ed., Zhong-
guo xiandai zuojia xuanji: Shi Zhecun (Selections of modern Chinese authors: Shi Zhecun) (Hong Kong:
Sanlian shudian youxian gongsi, 1988), 314.
19 Shi Zhecun, “Xiandai zayi” (Some thoughts on Xiandai), in Wangshi suixiang, 65.

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 The new sensationists

20 Complete lists of tables of content from all issues of Les Contemporains can be found in Zhongguo xiandai
wenxue qikan hui lu huibian (Compilation of tables of contents of journals in modern Chinese literature),
vol. 1, ed. Tang Yuan et al. (Tianjin: Tianjin renmin chubanshe, 1988), 1329 ff.
21 Shi Zhecun, “Some Thoughts on Xiandai,” 66.
22 Ibid., 99.
23 Wang-chi Wong, Politics and Literature in Shanghai: The Chinese League of Left-Wing Writers, 1930–1936
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991), 131.
24 Leo Ou-fan Lee, Shanghai Modern, 149.
25 Li Jin, “Chronicle of Mu Shiying’s Life,” 260.
26 Ibid., 267.
27 Christopher Rosenmeier, “Women Stereotypes in Shi Zhecun’s Short Stories,” Modern China (2011),
vol. 37, no. 1, 12.
28 Wu Lichang, Preface in Shi Zhecun, Shi Zhecun: Psychological Fiction (Xinli xiaoshuo: Shi Zhecun) (Shang-
hai: Shanghai wenyi chubanshe, 1992), 2.
29 Shi Zhecun, Preface in Selections of Modern Chinese Authors: Shi Zhecun, 2.
30 William Schaefer, “Kumarajiva’s Foreign Tongue: Shi Zhecun’s Modernist Historical Fiction,” Modern
Chinese Literature (1998), vol. 10, nos. 1 & 2.
31 Shi Zhecun, “One Evening in the Rainy Season,” in Joseph S. M. Lau and Howard Goldblatt, eds., The
Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature, 2nd edition, trans. Gregory B. Lee (New York: Colum-
bia University Press, 2007), 116–124.
32 Ibid., 119.
33 Ibid., 123–124.
34 Shi Zhecun, “Spring Sunshine” (Chun yang) in Shi Zhecun, ed., “The Works of Shi Zhecun: Ten Years
of Creative Writing.” 432–445.
35 Mu Shiying, “Five in a Nightclub,” in Andrew David Field, ed., Mu Shiying: China’s Lost Modernist, trans.
Randolph Trumbull (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2014), 42.
36 Mu Shiying, “The Man Who Was Made a Plaything,” (Bei dangzuo xiaoqianpin de nanzi) in Yue Qi, ed.,
Zhongguo xin ganjue pai shengshou: Mu Shiying xiaoshuo quanji (The Chinese Master of New Sensationism:
The Complete Fiction of Mu Shiying) (Beijing: Zhongguo wenlian chuban gongsi, 1996), 151–176.
37 Ibid., 153.
38 Leo Ou-fan Lee, Shanghai Modern, 216.
39 Translated in Shu-mei Shih, The Lure of the Modern, 288. From Liu Na’ou, “Youxi,” (Games).
40 Leo Ou-fan Lee, Shanghai Modern, 199.
41 Leo Ou-fan Lee, “The Urban Milieu of Shanghai Cinema, 1930–1940,” in Yingjin Zhang, ed., Cinema
and Urban Culture in Shanghai, 1922–1943 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 81.
42 Mu Shiying, “Zanmen de shijie” (Our world) in The Chinese Master of New Sensationism: The Complete
Fiction of Mu Shiying (Zhongguo xin ganjue pai shengshou: Mu Shiying xiaoshuo quanji), 17–29.
43 Mu Shiying, “Shanghai Fox-trot,” in Andrew David Field, ed., Mu Shiying: China’s Lost Modernist, trans.
Andrew David Field (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2014), 105.
44 Yingjin Zhang, The City in Modern Chinese Literature and Film: Configuration of Space, Time, & Gender
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), 176.
45 See Carolyn FitzGerald, Fragmenting Modernisms: Chinese Wartime Literature, Art, and Film, 1937–49 (Lei-
den: Brill, 2013) and Christopher Rosenmeier, On the Margins of Modernism: Xu Xu, Wumingshi, and
Popular Chinese Literature in the 1940s (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017).

Further readings
Braester, Yomi. “Shanghai’s Economy of Spectacle: The Shanghai Race Club in Liu Na’ou and Mu Shi-
ying’s Stories.” Modern Chinese Literature 9.1 (1995): 39–58.
Lee, Leo Ou-fan. Shanghai Modern:The Flowering of a New Urban Culture in China, 1930 – 1945. Hong Kong:
Hong Kong University Press, 2014.
Peng, Hsiao-yen. Dandyism and Transcultural Modernity: The Dandy, the Flaneur, and the Translator in 1930s
Shanghai,Tokyo, and Paris. Abingdon: Routledge, 2010.
Riep, Steven L. “Chinese Modernism: The New Sensationists.” In Kirk A. Denton, ed., The Columbia Com-
panion to Modern Chinese Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016.

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 Christopher Rosenmeier

Rosenmeier, Christopher. “Women Stereotypes in Shi Zhecun’s Short Stories.” Modern China 37.1 (2011):
44–68.
———. “The Subversion of Modernity and Socialism in Mu Shiying’s Early Fiction.” Frontiers of Literary
Studies in China 7.1 (2013): 1–22.
Schaefer, William. “Kumarajiva’s Foreign Tongue: Shi Zhecun’s Modernist Historical Fiction.” Modern Chi-
nese Literature 10.1 and 2 (1998): 25–69.
Shi Zhecun. One Rainy Evening. Translated by Wang Ying et al. Beijing: Panda Books, 1994.
Shih, Shu-mei. The Lure of the Modern: Writing Modernism in Semicolonial China, 1917 – 1937. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2001.
Zhang,Yingjin. The City in Modern Chinese Literature and Film: Configuration of Space, Time, & Gender. Stan-
ford: Stanford University Press, 1996.

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 SECTION IV

Old and new Chinese on

stage and screen
 13
EARLY MODERN DRAMA
Hong Shen, Ouyang Yuqian, Xia Yan
Xiaowen Xu

Early modern Chinese theatre is mainly defined by the emergence, formation, and maturity of
Chinese spoken drama (huaju) from the 1900s to 1940s.1 The theatre’s great power to change
society was first noticed by late Qing reformers such as Liang Qichao (1873–1929) and subse-
quently fully engaged by leading intellectuals in the New Cultural Movement in the 1910s and
1920s. During the first half of the twentieth century, the Chinese spoken drama challenges as well
as incorporates the Chinese traditional drama, introduces as well as localizes counterpart Western
and Japanese genres, and at the same time roots itself deeply into the social, historical, and cultural
soils in modern China. Xia Yan (1900–1995), a major spoken-drama playwright who survived
most of his contemporary Chinese dramatists in this dramatic period in modern Chinese theatre,
bequeaths the honor of “the three founders of Chinese spoken drama” to his friends Tian Han
(1898–1968), Hong Shen (1894–1955), and Ouyang Yuqian (1889–1962).2 Tian Han’s contribu-
tion to modern Chinese spoken drama is discussed in Chapter 19 by Ning Ma, and therefore I will
devote this chapter to the life and works of Hong Shen and Ouyang Yuqian. Xia Yan’s own career
as a playwright started a few years later than the three founders, but his decisive role in developing
realism in modern Chinese spoken drama is not unimportant. Besides, Hong, Ouyang, and Xia’s
joint work in the Shanghai Theatre Association (Shanghai xiju xieshe) in the 1920s set the key
tone for Chinese spoken drama for the next 30 years. In their common cause to shape and pro-
mote the spoken drama at historical moments of national crisis, they still display artistic individual-
ity because of their own life experience and psychological identity. Hong Shen literally named the
spoken drama as huaju in 1928. He introduced the American theatre tradition to stage direction
and performance. Borrowing the expressionist techniques from Eugene O’Neill in his early works,
in his later works he gave more considerations to local Chinese audience and paid closer attention
to contemporary political activities. Ouyang Yuqian’s skills in scripting and staging popular spoken
drama were closely related to his mastery of traditional Chinese drama’s aesthetics and techniques.
Xia Yan’s wide readings in Marxism, his political ideology, and his subsequent proletariat concerns
all made him a significant shaping force in the Chinese spoken drama ever since the 1930s.

Hong Shen
Hong Shen, also known as Hong Da, used two personal names, Qianzhai and Qianzai, and a
sobriquet Bojun in his career as a playwright, director, critic, and actor in early Chinese spoken

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 Xiaowen Xu

drama. He was born in a well-to-do family and sent to the United States to study ceramic engi-
neering at Ohio State University on a Boxer Indemnity Scholarship in 1916. His father, an offi-
cial involved in a political assassination case, was executed in 1919, and this changed his career.
He decided to stay away from both public offices and the so-called upper class, and devote him-
self to drama so as to expose and attack the evil in the upper class.3 He studied drama under the
supervision of Professor George Pierce Baker at Harvard University and systematically grasped
all techniques necessary to produce a modern drama on American stages. He returned to China
in 1922, and in 1923 Ouyang Yuqian introduced him to Shanghai Theatre Association. There,
as a playwright, director, and leading actor, he produced a nine-act spoken drama Yama Zhao
(Zhao Yanwang), in which he experiments with expressionist skills that he learned from Eugene
O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones. At the same time he also worked for the new-born Chinese film
industry and in 1922 wrote the first screen script in China, Mr. Shen Tu (Shentu shi). His close
cooperation with the left-wing and communist intellectuals in the 1930s finally affected his ide-
ology. He joined the China Leftist Drama Troupe Alliance (Zhongguo zuoyi jutuan lianmeng)
in 1930 and wrote The Trilogy of the Countryside (Nongcun sabu qu), i.e., Wukui Bridge (1930),
Fragrant Rice (1931), and The Black Dragon Pond (1932), for which he was praised by leftist crit-
ics for a tendency toward “realism,” a well-made play structure, and a sincere concern for the
victims of social injustice.4 Before and during the War of Resistance against Japan (1937–1945)
Hong was active in promoting National Defense Plays (Guofang xiju) in order to arouse the
Chinese people’s nationalism, and many plays written by him during this time are packed with
patriotism and nationalism. After 1945 he taught drama in several universities. When the Peo-
ple’s Republic of China was established by the Chinese Communist Party (the CCP) in 1949,
he eventually started to serve in public offices until he died of lung cancer in Beijing in 1955.
Hong Shen not only named modern Chinese spoken drama, but literally defined its production
system by introducing the important role of stage director. He also brought gender-appropriate cast-
ing to the precedent genres such as “amateur plays” (aimei ju) and “civilized drama” (wenming xi)
in the 1920s. When writing and directing his own script Yama Zhao in 1922/23, he completed the
written script before performance, established the rehearsal system, standardized actors’ performance,
and confirmed the irreplaceable importance of a director’s authority.5 He convinced both the troupe
and the audience the necessity of gender-appropriate casting by contrasting the performances of Hu
Shih’s One Thing That Matters for a Life (Zhongshen dashi) by gender-appropriate casting and Ouyang
Yuqian’s Shrew (Pofu) by all-male actors.6
Yama Zhao is Hong Shen’s first play after he came back to China from the United States and
bears evident traces of modern American theatre tradition as represented by Eugene O’Neill. It
tells how Zhao Da, a peasant soldier who acquired a nickname “Yama Zhao” for his ferocity in
the battlefields during the Warlord Era in the 1920s, was infuriated by his senior officer’s corrup-
tion, and then committed crimes of robbery and murder. He ran into a forest to avoid his arrest
and lost his mind by hallucinations there. Zhao Da was finally shot dead and his fellow soldier
Old Li took away his spoils before burying him in the forest. The first and the last acts contain
lively dialogues and actual actions, but the rest seven acts are all Zhao Da’s monologues in his
hallucinatory dialogues with his own haunting memories. The elements of “episodic structures,
‘stream of consciousness,’ and psychological drama” in the play resemble Emperor Jones, a play
written by Eugene O’Neill in 1920.7 Hong Shen nevertheless defends himself in an imagined
conversation with O’Neill he wrote in 1933, arguing that Yama Zhao is after all his own creation
because the play conveys a special message intended for the Chinese society in the 1920s and
because the characterization as well as the historical and social settings in the play are therefore
all unique and original.8 The title protagonist is certainly not an African American who is driven
crazy by his own hallucination, but evidently Hong echoes O’Neill’s certain scenes in Emperor

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Jones in order to reveal Zhao Da’s past to the audience. Exactly like O’Neill’s Jones, Hong Shen’s
Zhao Da walks in circles in the forest and gradually loses his mind when being haunted by
the soldiers’ drumming. What makes Zhao Da’s hallucination different from Jones’s is that it is
composed of Zhao’s downfall from a poor but innocent peasant to a murderer as he became a
soldier fighting for the warlords in the 1920s. As Old Li concludes in the last act, Zhao Da is
neither purely good nor completely evil, instead he is but a victim of the evil war. The plights
of Chinese peasants and the social trauma left by civil wars are thus exposed in Zhao Da’s
characterization. The play established Hong Shen’s significant status as a Chinese expressionist
playwright exposing war crimes, but it was not successful in its debut. Even with Hong Shen
himself playing the titular protagonist Zhao Da, the play failed to attract an adequate number of
local Chinese audience in 1923.
Yama Zhao did not achieve an immediate popularity due to Hong Shen’s lack of attention to
the local Chinese audience. He learned his lesson and in the following year revised his approach
to the Chinese stage when directing a Chinese adaptation of Lady Windermere’s Fan, an English
play by Oscar Wilde (1854–1900). The production displayed a perfect balance between modern
Western theatre conventions and “localized Chinese mise-en-scéne”9 because Hong Shen meticu-
lously catered to the Chinese audience’s aesthetic tastes in his production. Considering the fact
that the Chinese audience for the spoken drama in Shanghai in the 1920s consisted mainly of
the urban middle class, he localized the title, setting, time, and even characters’ names of the
English play for the sake of the audience’s interest. The moral message from Lady Windermere’s
Fan was anyway kept intact in this Chinese version entitled Young Mistress’ Fan (Shaonainai de
shanzi). Furthermore, Hong Shen required his actors to perform in a natural and realist manner
and strictly follow his adapted script and his director’s instruction.10 The production’s sensational
success boosted Hong Shen’s confidence in spoken drama, and his artistic style subsequently
started a shift from expressionism toward realism.
Among all his works, Wukui Bridge is the best example to illustrate Hong Shen’s “negotiation
between oppositional ideologies and between art and politics.”11 Written in 1930 as the opening
play of Hong’s The Trilogy of the Countryside, this one-act play describes the conflict between
two oppositional groups in the rural China in the early twentieth century. Wukui Bridge was
originally built and owned by the Zhou family to commemorate their ancestors’ success in the
imperial civil service examinations. Connecting important passes among several small villages, it
anyway blocks larger boats from travelling freely along the river, thus it is a symbol of the feudal
past to be challenged by the modern age. The clash between the poor peasants suffering from a
long drought and the rich gentleman Mr. Zhou broke out when the former needed to smash
the bridge to channel in a pumping boat and the latter tried every means to preserve it for his
own interests. The bridge was finally demolished by the villagers and a way of life was created
for the village people. The irreconcilable oppositions between Mr. Zhou and the villagers pro-
vide an ideal class struggle framework for the playwright, and the multilevel meanings involved
in such oppositions supply actors with a space to perform and audiences a space to perceive.
Hong Shen’s mastery of Western dramatic structure can be seen in the one-act presentation of
introduction, development, climax, and a short conclusion of major conflicts in plot; and his
concern for social problems in the rural China in early twentieth century is behind his realist
representation of the poor villagers and the rich gentry. Not only are the dialogues written in
line with the characters’ social status, but their actions are also presented with a logical develop-
ment of the plot. Mr. Zhou who stands for the rich gentry appears to be a civilized gentleman
and talks gently in a persuasive manner, claiming the importance to preserve the bridge for the
sake of his own ancestors, in the name of his benevolence toward the villagers, and because of
its symbolic power to resist the Western influence that is disguised in the form of the pumping

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technique. His hypocrisy, however, is laid bare by the actor’s performance. For example, while
he talks gently in fine words to the village girl Zhufeng, he unwittingly reveals his sensual desire
for her body. He takes advantage of the corrupted officials and makes them stand with him.
Framed in such an acting, his last burst of violence is naturally presented. All his previous efforts
to cover up his true self-interest were wasted when his goal to preserve the bridge at the cost
of the peasantry’s harvest was ultimately exposed. In contrast, Li Quansheng, the leading peas-
ant, shows more honesty in his character, his speech, and his behavior. Simple and outspoken,
he is a man of action and speaks up only for his fellow villagers. Mr. Zhou’s eloquence, like the
bridge his gentry family has decorated generation after generation, takes much space of stage,
but whenever Li abruptly cuts off Zhou’s long speech with brief statement of fact, Zhou’s bub-
ble of words collapses.The clash of language styles by the two typical characters goes along with
the collision of the two oppositional groups they respectively stand for. Short as the play is, the
penetrating power of Li and his group leaves dramatic effect on the audience.
As he gradually formed his own realist theory of drama in his long career, Hong Shen is
almost universally acknowledged as a “founding father of a realist theater most useful for politi-
cal propaganda.”12 Wukui Bridge materializes that “realist” drama by conveniently adopting the
theme of class struggle between the rich and the poor. It also summarizes his efforts to incor-
porate Western drama conventions into local Chinese spoken drama. Ideologically, Hong Shen
portrays in this play how poor peasants struggle against rich feudal gentry in the rural area in
order to survive a drought, and aesthetically he successfully writes a play that contains “structur-
ing dramatic conflicts between various characters in a ‘well-made play.’ ”13

Ouyang Yuqian
Ouyang Yuqian, originally named Ouyang Liyuan, had a sobriquet Nanjie. His grandfather was
Ouyang Zhonghu (1849–1911), a famous late Qing Confucian scholar whose disciples include
late Qing politicians and thinkers such as Tan Sitong (1865–1898) and Tang Caichang (1867–
1900).With a solid background in classical Chinese literature and classical Chinese drama, Ouy-
ang Yuqian left for Japan at the age of 13 to study business and literature in Meiji University
and Waseda University. In 1907 he joined the Spring Willow Society (Chunliu she), a Chinese
student organization dedicated to promoting new drama, and started his long career as a stage
actor. His passion for drama stayed with him after he returned to China in 1910. He combined
his new interest in the new drama with his old hobby of performing traditional Beijing Opera.
On one hand he actively played in the civilized plays; on the other hand he sought for strict
training in playing female roles in Beijing Opera. As a professional Beijing Opera actor he was
soon considered equal to Mr. Mei Lanfang (1894–1961).14 Feeling an urgency to reform tradi-
tional Chinese drama, he also started one project of drama education after another from 1919.
He established Nantong Actors’ School in 1919, joined Shanghai Theatre Association in 1922,
took an active part in Tian Han’s Southern China Society (Nanguo she), and in 1929 went
to Guangdong Province to establish more arts schools. He also extended his interest into the
film industry in 1926. Ouyang stayed in Guangxi Province most of the time during the War of
Resistance against Japan, but he continued his efforts to reform traditional local operas with a
political purpose to evoke nationalism. After 1949, his education projects in modern Chinese
drama culminated in his role as the founding President of Central Academy of Drama in 1950.
He officially joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1955 before his death in 1962.
Ouyang Yuqian’s role in the formation and development of modern Chinese drama is closely
related to his deep roots in classical Chinese literature and traditional Chinese drama. Unlike
most of his contemporary dramatists under the influence of the New Cultural Movement, he

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took a more liberal attitude toward traditional Chinese drama. He embraced the new drama,
and at the same time he justified and welcomed the continuation of some good conventions
in traditional drama. As such, he invested his knowledge of the old into the new, and vice versa.
His experience in film industry also enriched his techniques in writing, directing, and perform-
ing the new Chinese spoken drama. Among the three playwrights discussed in this chapter, he
might be the most popular to common audience because of his firsthand experience in both the
old and new forms of arts. In addition to his artistic efforts to combine the old and the new, he
adapted materials for drama from classical Chinese literature. Also, his concern for the problems
of Chinese women’s status saturated his production of some of the best modern Chinese spoken
drama in the first half of the twentieth century.
Ouyang Yuqian’s combination of the old and the new and his attention to Chinese women’s
social status can be found in his drama Pan Jinlian (1927). It was originally written as a modern
spoken drama, but debuted as a Beijing opera. In the play Ouyang subverted the clichéd image
of Pan Jinlian as a femme fatale, redefined her tragedy in terms of social injustice and sexual ine-
quality in pre-modern China, and resultantly created a new individualistic heroine who rebels
against the evil society and relentlessly pursues true love. Unlike the lustful female protagonist
who murders her husband in order to keep an adultery with a rich merchant as described in the
classical novels The Water Margin and The Plum in the Golden Vase, Pan Jinlian in Ouyang’s five-
act play is portrayed as a victim by her former master Zhang, a target of a lustful Ximen Qing,
and a hopeless woman in unremitted love for her brother-in-law Wu Song. Act One introduces
the background story via people’s gossip and Zhang’s conspiracy with Madam Wang to regain
Jinlian. Act Two shows how Jinlian, depressed by her status and resenting Ximen’s seduction,
scorns and teases Ximen. In Act Three Jinlian reveals her true love for Wu Song but is ignored
by him. Act Four is set in a small inn where Wu Song is told the reason for his brother’s death,
and this knowledge leads to the climax in the next and last act where Jinlian professes her love
to Wu Song and then is killed by him. The play’s neatly arranged structure and detailed written
instructions for acting show Ouyang’s mastery of stage performance and his familiarity of audi-
ence’s expected response to the acting. Also, the narrative focus in the five acts evidently shifts
from an external reproach of Jinlian to an understanding and at times sympathetic perspective
on Jinlian’s inner mind. With the minor characters’ gossips and dialogues, Jinlian’s past as a vic-
tim is revealed to the audience. Jinlian’s murder of her husband is thus partially retold as well.
Jinlian’s true thoughts, however, are openly expressed in her own words, both to Wu Song and
to the audience. In contrast with Wu Song who is only given partial knowledge from time to
time, the audience sees all. A dramatic irony is thus created and the audience is therefore swayed
by the play to a possibly sympathetic position to Jinlian’s perverted love and tragic death in the
end. With Ouyang’s own preface to remind his contemporary audience that there are still many
greedy master Zhangs, his social critique of women’s status is evident. Ouyang’s acceptance of
Western drama conventions is also shown in Pan Jinlian’s passionate declaration of her love for
Wu Song. Her last words before her death are often quoted in critics’ identification of Oscar
Wilde’s Salomé’s influence on Ouyang’s own writing. Besides, as Chen Ke comments, Ouyang
Yuqian’s skills in performing female roles in Beijing Opera might also play a role in this success-
ful exploration into a female character’s mind with such a subtlety and depth of perception.15
Ouyang Yuqian’s mastery of stage settings also characterizes his social comedies. Behind the
Screen (Pingfeng hou, 1929) is a one-act comedy full of ironies against the moral hypocrisy of
the wealthy class. The young wealthy Kang Zhengming seduced a female student and she bore
him a son named Wugou and a daughter named Mingyu. Kang later abandoned her in order to
marry a general’s daughter. He even changed his name to Kang Fuchi and became Chairman of
the Society for the Preservation of Morality in the upper class. The female student was driven

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to the south with Mingyu and became a singing girl, taking a new name Yiqing. Wugou grew
up with his father and often visited Mingyu for fun, without knowing that she is in fact his
own biological sister. All the dramatic irony is revealed to the audience when Kang Zhengming
the past seducer, eagerly pushing down the screen with an intention to uncover his son’s moral
blemish, found himself in direct confrontation with Yiqing, who now accused him of being the
evil root for all her tragedy. Shortly before the climax a minor character comments that the
screen holds “all the morality of thousands of years.” The exaggerated statement immediately
acquires another layer of irony with Kang Zhengming’s revisit to his own immoral past with
the collapse of the screen. The usage of the screen is not only symbolic in the drama’s narra-
tive, but plays an instrumental role on staging an ironic effect on the audience. In terms of plot,
Ouyang makes use of his knowledge of such traditional Chinese drama as The Lute and The Wise
Judge’s Decision16 as well as Western comedy conventions as seen in English comedies such as The
School for Scandals by Richard Sheridan (1751–1816).17 The characters in the play, however, are
all based on what Ouyang himself observed in Shanghai in 1928, and the play is thus a satirical
exposure of real social problems. Even the characters’ names are given an edge of irony.The male
protagonists’ two names, Zhengming (authentic name) and Fuchi (preservation) all signify what
he is not, and his son Wugou (spotless) doubtlessly displays his very spot of moral blemish. The
female protagonist’s name,Yiqing (remembering love), sounds nostalgic and yet forms an ironic
contrast with her true resentment against the male protagonist, who seduced her under a false
name, betrayed her to preserve his own future, and deprived her of her son. There is no love for
her to remember, only a memory of a past to be reclaimed. Exposing what is behind the screen
is ironically revealing all that ugly reality that has so far been covered under good names.
Ouyang Yuqian stayed in the southwestern provinces in China during the 1940s, and his deep
concern for national crisis in the War of Resistance against Japan found its expression in his pro-
duction of historical plays. His attention to social reality and his focus on women’s roles in mak-
ing history continued to shape his modern spoken drama such as the five-act play Li Xiucheng,
the Loyal Prince (Zhongwang Li Xiucheng, 1941) and the three-act play The Peach Blossom Fan, a
play that he had worked on from 1937 to 1957.18 Both were successful productions in the 1940s
and exemplified Ouyang’s artistic achievements as a playwright. Li Xiucheng (1823–1864), one
of the major leaders in Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864), is a convenient topic for modern Chi-
nese spoken drama in the 1930s and 1940s because of his military talents and his tragic death.
Previous to Ouyang’s play,Yang Hansheng (1902–1993)’s historical play The Death of Li Xiucheng
(Li Xiucheng zhi si, 1937) already elaborated on Li Xiucheng’s death in order to promote a
united spirit of nationalism against the Japanese invasion. When Ouyang picked up the topic in
1941, he was more concerned with the political division between the Kuomintang and the CCP.
Accordingly, he writes more about how corruption and distrust within the Rebellion led to Li
Xiucheng’s death. He engaged his skills that he had acquired from both the traditional Chinese
drama and the new film industry in the production of this modern spoken historical play to call
for a real union between the Kuomintang and the CCP in the War of Resistance against Japan.
In 1941 the play was debuted in Guilin, a provincial town with a population of 60,000, and
was an immediate sensational success that it was on stage 23 times during the 14 days without a
break.The political message is too evident to be ignored by the Kuomintang authority and later
the play was severely censored.19
Ouyang Yuqian’s The Peach Blossom Fan is more complicated compared with his Li Xiucheng
the Loyal Prince. In 1937 Ouyang first adapted this play into Beijing Opera script from the clas-
sical dramatic romance (chuanqi ju) with the same title by Kong Shangren (1648–1718). Kong’s
play is much longer and more traditional in form, and Ouyang crystalizes the play to a shorter
version more suitable for performance on modern stage. He also changes some characterizations

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in the play so as to foreground the theme of patriotism and nationalism. Ouyang’s constant con-
cern for women’s role in social and national issues is also represented in his adaptation. Different
from the talented and devoted singing girl in Kong’s script, the female protagonist Li Xiangjun
in Ouyang’s play is portrayed as a passionate woman with a clearly defined sense of patriotism.
Though he keeps the plot from Kong’s play, he shifts the focus on Li Xiangjun’s characteriza-
tion. The evidently modernized theme of nationalism is also of contemporary significance. To
Ouyang, historical plays should consist of more performance than historical records, and they
are indeed more relevant to present than to the past. In The Peach Blossom Fan he tried to keep
a balance between artistic presentation of real life on stage and political agenda that needs to be
realized in art. Unfortunately the latter takes an upper hand in the 1957 final version of the play.
Li Xiangjun’s death in the last act is presented with a perfect performative staging that intends to
be a political reproach against her lover Hou Fangyu, so that even Ouyang Qian’s master skills of
staging could not save it from lacking sincerity. The individualistic charms of a female character
that Ibsen’s plays inspired from the 1920s to 1930s faded with the necessity to bend art toward
political missions in the 1950s.

Xia Yan
Xia Yan was born as Shen Naixi and also widely known by his studio name Duanxuan. Of
the three dramatists discussed in this chapter, he joined the CCP the earliest. Born in a poor
gentry’s family to a mother who was fond of traditional Chinese drama and a father who
passed away early, Shen Naixi nevertheless kept his memory of them in his own pen name Xia
Yan, the two Chinese characters of which signifying his parents’ names respectively.20 He had
personally experienced hardships and social injustices in his early youth and thus was deter-
mined to devote himself to social activities against such injustices.21 Diligent and intelligent as
the top student in a vocational school, he was active during the May Fourth period and won
a scholarship to study in Japan in 1920. His political activities forced him to return to China
in 1927, by which time he was already a CCP member and had read some Russian and Soviet
Union literatures. He was the first Chinese translator of Maxim Gorky’s novel Mother. He was
the founding member of Shanghai Art Drama Society (Shanghai yishu jushe) in 1929 and of
the China Leftist Drama Troupe Alliance in 1930. He was also actively involved in the film
industry under a pseudonym Huang Zibu in 1932. His own career as a modern spoken drama
playwright did not start until 1935. From the beginning of his playwright career, his politi-
cal ideology has dominated his art of writing. He selects people from the lower class such as
the urban poor or the suppressed courtesan as the protagonists in his plays At the Corner of the
City (1935) and Saijinhua (1936); he borrows a touch of radical lyricism from his readings in
Russian and Soviet literatures and adds it to his plays The Fascist Germ (Faxisi xijun, 1942) and
Fragrant Flowers on the Horizon (Tianya fangcao, 1945); and he adeptly appropriates stage and
film techniques in his experiments in the new art of modern Chinese spoken drama. Started
late, he anyway became one of the most popular playwrights warmly received both by his
audience and his critics. After 1949, Xia Yan was appointed as the Deputy Minister of Culture
in the government, but soon suffered severe political persecutions and was imprisoned dur-
ing the Great Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). He was rehabilitated in 1978 and published
his memoir Leisurely Searching for My Past Dreams (Lanxun jiumeng lu, 1984) before he passed
away at the age of 95 in 1995.
Under the Eaves of Shanghai (1937), also known as Reunion, is the fourth play by Xia Yan, and
yet the playwright himself considers it his first good one written in the realist style.22 Written
at the critical moment before the Japanese invasion, the play presents a neatly structured slice of

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everyday life of the urban poor in Shanghai with a dramatic realism that is “worth study from
our next generation of playwrights.”23
Set at one location and in one day, the three acts of the play display the life of five common
families living in a small lane in Shanghai in the 1930s. At the center of the plot is Lin Zhicheng
and his common-law spouse Yang Caiyu, who is also his best friend Kuang Fu’s wife. Ten years
ago Kuang Fu asked Lin to take care of Yang Caiyu and his daughter Baozhen before he was sent
to prison for his communism belief and then no further news was heard from him until now.
The other four families are the Zhao family, of which the husband is as optimistic as Mr. Micaw-
ber in David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (1812–1870) and the wife worrying and complain-
ing about every meal of the family; the Huang family, of which the unemployed husband and
his young wife try their best to conceal their miserable living condition from their old peasant
father who comes to visit them for their newly born baby; a lonely old man nicknamed Li Ling
Bei (Li Ling Tomb Tablet, thus named after his frequent singing of one verse from the traditional
Chinese drama with the same title) hopelessly waiting for his son who had died of war long
time ago; and a young woman Shi Xiaobao who was abandoned by her sailor husband and then
constantly bullied by a hooligan Little Tianjing’er. Xia Yan borrows the montage technique in
filmmaking and installs the five family’s life on the stage at the same time. Act One takes place
in the morning, Act Two in the afternoon, and Act Three, the evening. All major characters and
their tensions are carefully and naturally laid out in the first act, and the dramatic conflicts are all
resolved in the last act: Kuang Fu left after reconciling with his wife and his best friend; Senior
Mr. Huang returned to his rural home after knowing his son’s difficult financial situation; and all
the residents’ life seems to be restored to its regular status in the depressive rainy season, except
for the final scene when every character joins the kids’ choir, singing “we are all brave little kids.”
Ideologically speaking, Xia Yan fully realizes his goal in writing a realist play about everyday
life of the so-called insignificant people so as to reflect the tempo of the time and to alert the
audience to a coming new age.24 The five families in the play all live a hard life at the time, suf-
fering from miserable experiences such as unemployment, separation from their beloved, bul-
lies from hooligans, and most commonly, stress and despair in a society that is full of injustices.
Each character tries to struggle with the plights in his or her own way: Lin Zhicheng and Yang
Caiyu manage to provide a stable life for Baozhen, the child and their hope for a future; Mr.
Zhao with his all-positive optimism comforts his family and his neighbors; Mr. Huang covers
his unemployment by borrowing money from neighbors to make his father’s visit in Shanghai
comfortable; Li Ling Bei lives in his own illusions about his lost son and persists in his hopeless
hope; and Shi Xiaobao offers her kindness to most of her neighbors, though they knowingly
show contempt toward her infidelity to her sailor husband. Life is as gloomy as the rainy season,
providing no feasible and foreseeable hope for a better future.The hardly maintained monotony
of struggling in a tedious and hopeless life is broken by the return of Kuang Fu, a revolution-
ary who used to fight for the urban poor and now is himself depressed by his past failures. His
presence forces Lin Zhicheng to face his guilty conscience, reminds Yang Caiyu of their youth-
ful love, and brings paternal love to Baozhen. Then one by one the monotony of the other
families’ seeming stability is broken in a chain effect and all the characters start to interact with
each other: in dialogues that gradually reveal what is underneath the surface composure and
in actions that allow actors and actresses to perform what is going on inside their minds. For
example, Lin Zhicheng’s loss of composure at seeing Kuang Fu is not shown in his words but
displayed in his panic to futilely pour water for Kuang Fu from an empty bottle; and similarly
Kuang Fu’s frustration and sorrow at the common marriage between Lin Zhicheng and Yang
Caiyu is revealed by his inability to speak complete sentences upon hearing the news: he is so
shocked that he could only repeat the fragments of words that he hears from Lin Zhicheng.

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The brevity of speech enriches the lyrical force of the acting and provides a further space that
is occasionally filled in by children’s innocent singing and Mr. Zhao’s encouraging words, both
pointing to a future hope.
Aesthetically the play wins applauses for its multisection structure and symbolic reference
to the mood of a rainy season. Its seemingly plain style also reminds the audience of the Rus-
sian playwright Anton Chekhov (1860–1904).25 The five families live separately in their own
miseries, and from time to time are brought together by one incident. It could be a stranger’s
appearance like Kuang Fu’s return, or Mr. Huang’s conversation with Shi Xiaobao regarding her
loans to him, or Baozhen’s helping the kids from the Zhao family with their school work, or
Mr. Zhao’s encouraging words to Lin Zhicheng about keeping hope for a better life, or even the
lonely old man Li Ling Bei’s frequent inquiry to Lin Zhicheng about military news.The vertical
independence of each family’s problems and the horizontal connection among all the characters
are thus presented on the stage within a frame of rainy season, and the few bright moments shine
through the intersectional frame through happy memories by Kuang Fu and Yang Caiyu, the
children’s innocent and courageous songs, and Senior Mr. Huang’s affections for his newly born
grandson with a force as enlightening and relieving as the short break of sunshine into the rainy
season. The close correlation between the season and the theme of depression and despair also
shows the lyrical force that is typical of Xia Yan’s writing. Hu Xingliang argues that the image
of rainy season used in Under the Eaves of Shanghai demonstrates that Xia Yan tries to dissolve the
Western impact on modern spoken drama with a return to the pre-modern Chinese aesthetics
of externalization of the internal.26 Xia Yan’s resemblance to Anton Chekhov is also noticed by
many critics, particularly in his strength of restraint in exhibiting the tension between power-
ful emotions in succinct words and actions. For example, it seems that Xia Yan tries to avoid
any dramatic confrontations of the characters involved in the complicated and parallel plot: the
expected climax caused by Kuang Fu’s reunion with his wife is revealed to the audience first
in neighbor’s gossips, and then buffed by Kuang Fu’s reunion with Lin Zhicheng. At the end
of the first act, Yang Caiyu comes to the stage with a bewildered expression at her neighbors’
strange behaviours, unaware of the fact that Kuang Fu is waiting for her at her home. However,
the audience is already fully prepared for their reunion. Then at beginning of the second act,
the dramatic climax is naturally muted to a scene where Yang Caiyu weeping in front of silent
Kuang Fu, an aftermath scene of the missed dramatic climax that paradoxically tells more about
the effect of such a reunion. Similar emotional moments in the play, like Kuang Fu’s reunion
with his daughter and the Huang couple’s affections for each other, are all displayed with such
powerfully lyrical restraint. Its effect on the audience is lasting and profound. Besides, Xia Yan
gives each character a speaking style appropriate to themselves and this also makes the play real-
ist in its performance. His choice of such a writing style as abiding by his selectin of the urban
poor for his play’s characters outshines some of his contemporary playwrights who are more
inclined to use a sublime and literary style in their plays. Xia Yan is certainly more of a realist in
his writing of Under the Eaves of Shanghai.
Xia Yan’s realist presentation of everyday life in Under the Eaves of Shanghai also finds its way
into his creation of women characters in the play.Women’s life is of special focus in this play and
arouses further debate even today. The four female adults in the play are portrayed with detailed
verisimilitude as well as representative characteristics of their own kinds. Yang Caiyu, a new
woman who bravely left her own family in order to marry Kuang Fu out of love many years
ago, is now a housewife who takes care of her daughter’s snack money and her spouse’s laundry.
However, even though she has to stay home due to the society’s unequal treatment to men and
women, her independent will to live a life significant and helpful to the needed remains the
same. It is her caring encouragement that revives Kuang Fu’s revolutionary ambition and inspires

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Lin Zhicheng to start a new life of actions. Mrs. Zhao is a typical housewife with curiosity in
everybody’s life, and yet she is also kind and helpful to the Huang family. Mrs. Huang is a typi-
cal loving wife and mother, even though she is vexed by the family’s financial plight. The most
piteous female character is Shi Xiaobao, who, though bullied by the local hooligan, still yearns
for warm feelings from her neighbors. Having said that, we have to admit that in the tug of war
of art and politics, Xia Yan finally gives the political voice a priority and thus decides to give a
bright ending to the play: the young girl Baozhen, resembling her father in her social concern
for the poor and her mother in her bravery to do what she believes right to do, becomes the
symbol of a utopian future for the neighborhood, for Shanghai, and for China.

Coda
Hong Shen, Ouyang Yuqian, and Xia Yan all actively held up the mission of the New Cultural
Movement and helped shape the modern Chinese drama from the 1910s to 1940s. All the three
playwrights have been exposed to both traditional Chinese drama and non-Chinese drama
conventions such as those from Japan, America, Europe, and Russia. They started from different
positions toward realism in modern Chinese drama, and converged in the 1930s leftist move-
ments in modern spoken drama. All nevertheless kept their own individuality in their playwrit-
ing, which might reflect the true May Fourth Movements’ mission to call for subjectivity in
social, historical, and political relations.

Notes
1 Siyuan Liu, “Modern Chinese Theatre to 1949,” in Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr., Siyuan Liu, and Erin B. Mee,
eds., Modern Asian Theatre and Performance 1900–2000 (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 75.
2 Xia Yan, “In Memory of Comrade Tian Han,” (Daonian Tian Han tongzhi) Harvest (Shouhuo) 1979, 4.
3 Chen Meiying and Song Baozhen, A Biography of Hong Shen (Hong Shen zhuan) (Beijing: Wenhua
yishu chubanshe, 1996), 39.
4 Chen Baichen and Dong Jian, eds., A Draft History of Modern Chinese Drama (Zhongguo xiandai xiju
shigao) (Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1988), vol. 1, 206–208.
5 Ge Yihong, ed., A Survey History of Chinese Drama (Zhongguo huaju tongshi) (Beijing: Wenhua yishu
chubanshe, 1990), 62–63.
6 Tian Benxiang, A Survey History of Chinese Drama Art (Zhongguo huaju yishu tongshi) (Datong: Shanxi
jiaoyu chubanshe, 2008), vol. 1, 135.
7 Chen Xiaomei, “Mapping a ‘New’ Dramatic Canon: Rewriting the Legacy of Hong Shen,” in Peng
Hsiao-yen and Isabelle Rabut, eds., Modern China and the West:Translation and Cultural Mediation (Leiden:
Brill, 2012), 227.
8 Hong Shen, “O’Neill and Hong Shen: An Imaginary Conversation (Ouni’er yu Hong Shen: yidu
xiangxiang de duihua),” in Zhou Jingbo ed., Dramatic Life: Prefaces and Postscripts to Modern Chinese
Drama (Beijing: Communication University of China Press, 2003), 11–12.
9 Siyuan Liu, “Modern Chinese Theatre to 1949,” 87.
10 Tian Benxiang, A Survey History of Chinese Drama Art, 138.
11 Chen Xiaomei, “Mapping a ‘New’ Dramatic Canon: Rewriting the Legacy of Hong Shen,” 230.
12 Ibid., 229.
13 Ibid., 230.
14 Chen Baichen and Dong Jian, A Draft History of Modern Chinese Drama, 68.
15 Chen Ke, A Critical Biography of Ouyang Yuqian (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2012), 147.
16 Bonnie S. McDougall and Kam Louie, The Literature of China in the Twentieth Century (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1999), 163.
17 Hu Decai and Zhang Chengchuan, “The Charms of the Screen: On Ouyang Yuqian’s Borrowing from
European Comedies (Pingfeng de meili: Ouyang Yuqian de pingfenghou jiqi dui houzhoushitai xiju de
jiejian),” Hanzhou shifan xuebao (1993), 1, 52–57.
18 Chen Ke, A Critical Biography of Ouyang Yuqian, 207.

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1 9 Chen Baichen and Dong Jian, A Draft History of Modern Chinese Drama, 79.
20 Chen Jian and Chen Kang, A Biography of Xia Yan (Xia Yan zhuan) (Beijng: Beijing shiyue wenyi chu-
banshe, 1998), 9.
21 Xia Yan, “The Paths That I Have Treaded (Zouguolae de lu),” Harvest (Shouhuo) (1958), 3.
22 Xia Yan, “Postcript,” Under the Eaves of Shanghai (Shanghai wuyan xia) (Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chu-
banshe, 1957).
23 Li Jianwu, “On Under the Eaves of Shanghai,” The People’s Daily (January 26), 1957.
24 Xia Yan, “On the Writing of Under the Eaves of Shanghai,” Scripts (Juben) (1957), 4.
25 Tian Benxiang, A Survey History of Chinese Drama Art, 321.
26 Hu Xingliang, Chinese Spoken Drama and Chinese Operas (Zhongguo huaju yu zhongguo xiqu) (Beijing:
Xuelin chubanshe, 2000), 264–265.

Further readings
Chen, Baichen and Dong Jian, eds. A Draft History of Modern Chinese Drama (Zhongguo xiandai xiju shi-
gao). 2 vols. Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1988.
Chen, Xiaomei. Acting the Right Part: Political Theatre and Popular Drama in Contemporary China. Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press, 2002.
———, ed. The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Drama. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010.
He, Chengzhou. Henrik Ibsen and Modern Chinese Drama. Oslo: Unipub Forlag, 2004.
Liu, Siyuan, ed. Routledge Handbook of Asian Theatre. London and New York: Routledge, 2016.
Luo, Liang. The Avant-Garde and the Popular in Modern China:Tian Han and the Intersection of Performance and
Politics. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014.
McDougall, Bonnie S. Fictional Authors, Imaginary Audiences: Modern Chinese Literature in the Twentieth Cen-
tury. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2003.
Peng, Hsiao-yen and Isabelle Rabut, eds. Modern China and the West Translation and Cultural Mediation.
Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012.

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 14
CAO YU’S PLAYS AND
THUNDERSTORM
Liangyan Ge

Life and career

Generally considered China’s most important playwright of “spoken drama” (huaju) of the twen-
tieth century, Cao Yu (1910–1996) has exerted a strong influence on modern Chinese theater.
Born as Wan Jiabao, Cao Yu grew up in a bureaucratic family in the coastal metropolitan city of
Tianjin. His father Wan Dezun was a senior officer in the army and then worked for some time
as a secretary for Li Yuanhong (1864–1928), a powerful warlord who was briefly the President
of the Republic of China. Despite the prestige and affluence of the family and its powerful con-
nections, however, Cao Yin’s childhood was by no means happy. Wan Dezun was a man of a hot
temper, who frequently rebuked his children. Bearing the brunt of the impetuous father’s verbal
abuse was often Cao Yu’s older half-brother, and the continuously strained father-son relation-
ship was probably partially responsible for the young man’s premature death in his thirties. Wan
Dezun married three times, and Cao Yu was his son by his second wife, who died a few days after
the boy’s birth. Soon afterward Wan Dezun married his third wife, Cao Yu’s mother’s twin sister.
Cao Yu’s father and stepmother were both opium addicts. As Cao Yu reminisced his boyhood
many years later, on many days, even when Cao Yu was back home from school around four
o’clock in the afternoon, his parents were still sleeping, having spent the entire previous night
smoking opium together.1 In Cao Yu’s memory, the Wans’ big house, with the entire family and
multiple servants living in it, was as silent and still as the inside of a tomb. His experience of the
suffocating setting in the household apparently had a significant impact on his theatric works,
especially Thunderstorm.
There was, however, a brighter side of Cao Yu’s boyhood. Among the servants in the house-
hold there was a nanny from the countryside with the family name of Duan, who was a good
storyteller. On many an evening, it was the nanny’s stories that sent the boy to sleep. She told
about the life in her village and the hardships for her family, and her stories opened up a dif-
ferent world for Cao Yu beyond his affluent but dull household. Apart from the nanny, Cao Yu’s
best friends in the household were books in his father’s library, which provided a haven for the
boy from the otherwise unpleasant domestic environment. He was an avid reader of works of
traditional Chinese fiction – especially Dream of the Red Chamber (Honglou meng) and Journey
to the West (Xiyou ji) – as well as translations of Western literary works such as Shakespeare’s The
Merchant of Venice and Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. As an important positive result of the privileged

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status of his family, Cao Yu received the best formal education, available at the time. He attended
Nankai Middle School, the best middle school in Tianjin, from 1922 to 1928.
Cao Yu’s boyhood coincided with the infancy of spoken drama in China as a newly imported
theatric genre from abroad. During the years around the May Fourth movement, the influ-
ence of Western drama was increasingly felt in major Chinese cities, including Tianjin. Initially
called “new drama” or “new theater” before the name “spoken drama” became accepted by the
public,2 Western drama was widely considered more progressive than the traditional genres in
indigenous Chinese drama. Hu Shi, for instance, extolled the advocacy of humanism and indi-
vidualism in Henrik Ibsen’s plays. Supported by leading scholars such as Hu Shi, the popular
spoken drama became part of the New Literature Movement. Unsurprisingly, in its fledging
years, spoken drama heavily depended on translations and adaptations of Western plays. Between
1918 and 1921 alone, thirty-three foreign plays were translated into Chinese, including Hu Shi’s
translation of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, which appeared in the magazine New Youth in 1918.
As a boy, Cao Yu found himself under a strong influence of this changing cultural and literary
milieu. Having read many works in Chinese fiction and drama at the family library and watched
traditional Chinese theatric performances several times with his stepmother, Cao Yu became a
lover of spoken drama as a student at Nankai Middle School. As a member of the New Drama
Club of the school, he participated in the performances of several plays, including Ibsen’s An
Enemy of the People and A Doll’s House, in which he played the role of the protagonist Nora.
His performances in the New Drama Club further enhanced his interest in spoken drama and
deepened his understanding of the new theatric genre. Many years later, Cao Yu considered his
experience in the club, which he dubbed “my initiator,” of crucial importance for his future
career as dramatist.3 During his years at Nankai Middle School, Cao Yu read avidly many West-
ern plays, and one of his favorite books was an English edition of The Complete Works of Henrik
Ibsen, which he received from a teacher at the school as a present. Cao Yu’s college education did
not have a smooth start. Under the influence from his father, Cao Yu had a long-standing interest
in medicine. He wished to attend Xiehe Medical School, but he was rejected twice. Following a
brief flirtation with political science at Nankai University, he eventually entered the Department
of Western Languages and Literatures of Tsinghua University in Beijing (called Beiping at the
time) in 1928. Just as in the case of Lu Xun, Cao Yu’s failure to pursue a medical career proved
greatly felicitous for modern Chinese literature.

Literary achievements
From his experience of dramatic performance as a student, Cao Yu developed a strong desire to
write plays himself. That desire felt like “an evasive mirage” or “a light-green tender sprout that
stubbornly extended its body from a crack of the rock.”4 Driven by that desire, Cao Yu’s long
playwright career started with Thunderstorm (Leiyu). The basic plotline and some of the charac-
ters were conceived when he was nineteen years old, as a student of political science at Nankai
University. The actual composition, however, did not start until after his arrival at Tsinghua
University. It was completed in 1932, Cao Yu’s junior year at Tsinghua. The young author was
not eager to have his maiden work published, but he presented the manuscript to Zhang Jinyi,
his former fellow student at Nankai Middle School and now a member of the editorial board
of Literature Quarterly (Wenxue jikan), an influential journal at the time. Zhang Jinyi shared the
manuscript with his fellow member of the editorial board Ba Jin, who was already a famous
novelist at the time. With Ba Jin’s enthusiastic support, Thunderstorm was published in Litera-
ture Quarterly in 1934 and became an instant success. The next year, it was staged by students
of Fudan University under the direction of Hong Shen and Ouyang Yuqian, both established

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dramatists by that time. In 1936, the Traveling Dramatic Troupe took Thunderstorm on a tour,
winning remarkable popularity for the play and an enormous reputation for the playwright.
Following Thunderstorm, Cao Yu’s Sunrise (Ri chu) was published in 1936, when he was
teaching at Hebei Women Teachers College in Tianjin, and The Wild (Yuanye) in 1937, when he
was teaching at the National Academy of Drama in Nanjing. Sunrise presents a snapshot of the
filths in a large city. The focal point of the play is Chen Bailu, a pretty, innocent, but vain cour-
tesan who is victimized by different types of men around her – including a lecherous banker, a
deceitful underworld magnate, and a complacent and pretentious intellectual with a doctorate
degree from a Western university – and eventually forced to commit suicide. The portrayal of
Chen Bailu may have been inspired by Cao Yu’s personal observation of a “social butterfly”
in a hotel in Tianjin and may also have received an impetus from the real-life story of Ruan
Lingyu, a famous actress in Shanghai who had killed herself under malicious slanders. An even
closer prototype for the character, however, was a certain Miss Wang that Cao Yu was personally
acquainted with.5 Indeed, just as Cao Yu stated, Chen Bailu may have many “shadows” in real
life but she is not a replica of any of them.6 Instead, she is a composite figure of all the insulted
and injured women in the lower strata of the playwright’s contemporary society.
In The Wild, Cao Yu for the first time set the action not in a city but in a rural area. After his
escape from prison, Qiu Hu arrives at the house of the Jiao family, trying to seek revenge on
Jiao Yanwang, or Yama Jiao.Years ago,Yama Jiao, a military officer-turned local tyrant, seized the
Qiu family’s land, buried Qiu Hu’s father alive, sold Qiu Hu’s younger sister to a brothel where
she was tortured to death, broke Qiu Hu’s leg and sent him to prison, and forced Qiu Hu’s
fiancée Hua Jinzi to marry his son Jiao Daxing. Now, as Qiu Hu finds out, Yama Jiao is dead,
survived by his blind widow, his son Daxing, and his baby grandson. Despite his fierce inner
struggle, Widow Jiao’s conciliatory gestures as well as his former lover Jinzi’s objections, Qiu
Hu vents his hatred for Yama Jiao on the latter’s offspring. He kills Daxing – an innocent man
with whom he was once on friendly terms – and tricks the blind old woman into killing her
own grandson. Haunted by fear and perhaps remorse after taking his revenge, Qiu Hu, taking
Jinzi with him, becomes a fugitive in the forest, where he turns deranged and experiences a
series of hallucinations. In the end, with the police approaching, Qiu Hu urges Jinzi to escape
and try to find his “brethren” for her better future before he takes his own life. In its intense
externalization of Qiu Hu’s psyche and inner conflict, The Wild has often been compared to
Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones.7 An indigenous source of influence, however, may be seen
in the figures from traditional Chinese fiction such as the bandit heroes in the sixteenth-century
novel Water Margin (Shuihu zhuan). Like his “brethren” in the novel, Qiu Hu, victimized by the
social environment, takes justice into his own hand. Focusing on Qiu Hu’s violent revenge and
its tragic consequence, the play demonstrates a profound quandary of the oppressed and bullied
peasant, and presents a nuanced picture of the class conflicts in rural China.
With Metamorphosis (Tuibian), published in 1940, Cao Yu’s career as a playwright took
another turn. For the first time, his work became closely related to the current affairs. Using
a wartime hospital as its setting, Metamorphosis glorifies patriotism in the heat of China’s anti-
Japan war and promulgates reform at a time corruption was running rampant. Under a corrupt
administration, the hospital is helplessly incompetent and ineffectual. A government inspector,
Liang Gongyang, arrives, but none of the people at the hospital, including Dr. Ding, the most
dedicated and principled member of the medical staff, believe that Mr. Liang will be able to
make any difference. The inspector, however, quickly proves them wrong. Following an inves-
tigation, he promptly replaces the corrupt officials with honest and competent people. That,
however, does not solve all the problems in the daily operation of the hospital until Inspector
Liang’s second visit. In the final act of the play, the hospital reaches an ideal state of efficiency

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and morale, as the wounded soldiers, including Dr. Ding’s seventeen-year-old son, have received
successful treatment and become sufficiently recuperated to return to the front. Metamorphosis
was a very popular play during the years of the war and after. While it is about the change of a
wartime hospital, it is perhaps not far-fetched to consider it a parable for a “metamorphosis” of
China, presented with an apparent optimism about the future of the country. That hypothesis is
consistent with Cao Yu’s own statement that his creation of Inspector Liang was inspired by his
meeting with Xu Teli, a Communist veteran who spoke at a rally about the outcome of the war
and the future of the nation.8
In October 1941, Cao Yu’s Peking Man (Beijing ren) had its premiere in Chongqing, China’s
wartime provisionary capital. The play is about the life of the Zeng family in Beijing during
the early 1930s, a family that has declined from its past prestige and prominence. The feeble
and decrepit old man Zeng Hao relies almost exclusively on the devoted care of Sufang, an
honest young woman whom Wenqing, Zhao Hao’s son, loves deeply, while Wenqing is shack-
led in an unhappy marriage to his domineering wife Siyi. Also living in the household are
Wenqing’s sister Wencai and her husband Jiang Tai. Wenqing’s seventeen-year-old son Zeng
Ting and his eighteen-year-old wife Ruizhen, another pair of victims of an arranged marriage,
are secretly planning a divorce. In the meantime, living as the Zengs’ tenants are Yuan Rengan,
an anthropologist, his daughter Yuan Yuan, and his colleague nicknamed Peking Man for his
physical resemblance to the archaic primitive man of that name. Additionally, the cast of the
play includes Nanny Chen, the Zengs’ servant of the past who returns for a visit and serves as a
reminiscence of the family’s lost power and wealth. Now the Zengs live in poverty and desola-
tion, and Wenqing, a product of the obsolete Confucian education like his father, cannot find
any job. Meanwhile, the family is under the siege of debtors, and even Zeng Hao’s lacquered
coffin, of which the old man has taken meticulous care for his eventual use of it, is taken away
as a substitute for repayment. In the end, Wenqing kills himself in despair by swallowing opium,
while Ruizhen and Sufang leave the household looking for a new way of life. The play presents
the degeneration of the Zeng family against the drastic change of the social environment in the
early twentieth-century China. While those who cling to the old system meet their demises,
symbolized by the coffin, others who are willing to make adaptations, such as Ruizhen and
Sufang, are able to survive and possibly prosper.The title of the play, Peking Man, is clearly a pun,
evoking both the luxury and extravagance of the imperial capital and the materialistic primitiv-
ism that the ape-man excavated near the city is often associated with.
Among Cao Yu’s plays, Peking Man is arguably the one with the most salient bond to the
playwright’s own life experience. According to Cao Yu himself, one of the prototypes of the
Zeng family was a certain Yu family in Beijing that he had lived with temporarily. Another
prototype could be Cao Yu’s own family. Zeng Wenqing, for instance, may be a composite figure
based on the young masters of the Yu family and Cao Yu’s own older half-brother. And the scene
in which Zeng Hao kneels down on the floor begging his son Wenqing to give up opium smok-
ing is actually a recapture of a similar episode between Cao Yu’s father and his half-brother.9
In terms of intertextual influence on the play, it has been said that Peking Man reveals Cao Yu’s
“acquisition of a Chekhovian artistry.”10 While that may be true, an indigenous influence from
Chinese fiction – especially the eighteenth-century novel Dream of the Red Chamber (Honglou
meng) and Ba Jin’s famous novel Family (Jia), may be just equally discernible.
Indeed, Cao Yu’s corpus includes Family (Jia), a play published in 1942. It was adapted from
Ba Jin’s novel of the same name. Cao Yu’s later works include Bridge (Qiao, 1944), Bright Skies
(Minglang de tian, 1954), and the historical play The Gall and the Sword (Dan jian pian, 1960)
coauthored with Mei Qian and Yu Shizhi. However, after the late 1940s Cao Yu was not as
productive as he had been before, nor did he ever reach the same level of artistry as he had with

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his early works. As a result, Cao Yu is known primarily for his “trilogy,” namely, Thunderstorm,
Sunrise, and The Wild. Among these three plays, Thunderstorm, his maiden work, has probably
remained the most staged and most studied among all his plays.

The masterpiece

A synopsis of  Thunderstorm
Act I of Thunderstorm starts with Lu Gui and his daughter Sifeng, both servants in the Zhou
household, having a conversation in the drawing room. Lu Gui divulges to Sifeng of the clan-
destine affair between Zhou Fanyi, wife of the old master of the household Zhou Puyuan, and
her stepson Zhou Ping. That shocks Sifeng, who is having a romantic relationship with Zhou
Ping herself. Lu Gui also informs Sifeng of the imminent visit by Sifeng’s mother at the invita-
tion by Fanyi. Soon Fanyi, a physically sickly but strong-willed woman, enters the scene. She
learns from Sifeng that Zhou Puyuan, a wealthy mine owner, has been back home from the
mine. Subsequently, all the other members of the household make their debuts one after another.
Following the exits of Lu Gui and Sifeng, Zhou Chong, Fanyi’s seventeen-year-old son, is back
home from playing tennis. He confides to his mother his growing sentiments for Sifeng, much
to Fanyi’s astonishment. Now Zhou Ping enters the drawing room, showing discomfort at the
sight of his stepmother and former lover. Finally, Zhou Puyuan joins the rest of his family, ire-
fully reporting the news of the strike at his mine. He wants Fanyi to take the liquid medicine
supposedly intended to cure her “mental illness,” but Fanyi refuses. The father then orders his
two sons to kneel down in front of her entreating her to obey, till she finally relents.
The drawing room continues to serve as the setting for Act II. Zhou Ping secretly meets
Sifeng and tells her of his plan to leave his stifling home for a job at his father’s mine. Sifeng
pleads not to be left behind but Zhou Ping refuses to take her along. The two lovers arrange
another rendezvous at Sifeng’s house in the evening. After Sifeng’s exit, Fanyi enters. She has a
heated argument with Zhou Ping over the latter’s decision to leave home permanently, which
she believes is for the purpose to get rid of her. They leave the room separately. Sifeng’s mother
Mrs. Lu arrives, and the décor and furniture in the room look surprisingly familiar to her,
which makes her feel uneasy. Sifeng shows her mother a young woman’s photo on the dressing
table, and Mrs. Lu recognizes it to be a photo of herself from many years ago. Now she realizes
that she is in the house of Zhou Puyuan. Thirty years ago, she, named Shiping then, was Zhou
Puyuan’s servant and bore two sons for him, the younger one being born after her survival of an
attempted suicide and before her marriage to Lu Gui. Fan Yi returns to the drawing room for
her appointment with Mrs. Lu. She asks Mrs. Lu to take Sifeng away from the Zhou household,
ostensibly for the purpose of terminating her son Zhou Chong’s growing love for a low-class
girl but actually to dismiss Sifeng as her rival for Zhou Ping’s love. Zhou Puyuan enters the
drawing room, and Fanyi leaves furiously at his remarks on her illness, leaving Zhou Puyuan
with Mrs. Lu. Mrs. Lu eventually reveals her identity as Shiping. She rejects Zhou Puyuan’s offer
of money to atone for his past sins, but informs him that their second son, now named Lu Dahai,
is working at his mine. As a representative of the striking miners, Lu Dahai arrives at the Zhou
house to confront Zhou Puyuan and ends up having a physical clash with Zhou Ping, neither
of them having any knowledge of their blood relationship.
The setting for Act III shifts to the Lu house. In the evening, after a heated argument with his
stepfather Lu Gui, Lu Dahai leaves with his mother to talk to a potential buyer of their furniture.
Zhou Chong arrives for a visit to Sifeng, apologizing for her dismissal and offering the Lu fam-
ily a sum of money as compensation. In an emotional moment, Zhou Chong tells Sifeng of his

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 Cao Yu’s plays and Thunderstorm

dream, in which he and Sifeng travel together to a remote land, an ideal world of joy, harmony,
and equality.The return of the impetuous Lu Dahai brings the romantic dreamer back to reality,
as Dahai rudely orders Zhou Chong to leave with the threat of breaking his legs. As his concil-
iatory effort has failed, Zhou Chong leaves and returns to the Zhou family mansion. Mrs. Lu
returns home. Mistakenly assuming that Sifeng is in love with Zhou Chong, she warns Sifeng
to stay away from the Zhou people. Around midnight, Zhou Ping arrives at Sifeng’s window.
Sifeng pleads with him to leave, but he gets in her room by jumping over the window. Dahai
returns home and knocks at Sifeng’s door, looking for bed planks. Zhou Ping tries to escape
through the window, but the window has been locked from outside by Fanyi, who has secretly
followed Zhou Ping to the Lu house. Dahai enters the room, and Shiping, now realizing what
has happened between Zhou Ping and Sifeng, desperately restrains Dahai from harming Zhou
Ping, who manages to escape. Sifeng also runs off into the dark raining night.
At the beginning of Act IV, members of the Zhou family – Zhou Chong, Zhou Ping, and
Fanyi – return to the Zhou Mansion separately after midnight. Zhou Ping plans to leave for
the mine before daybreak. He has another argument with Fanyi, who tries for the last time to
dissuade him from leaving and admits to having witnessed Zhou Ping’s rendezvous with Sifeng.
Lu Gui, who has arrived at the Zhou family mansion without being noticed, has eavesdropped
their conversation and blackmails Fanyi into promising reemploying him and his daughter. In
the meantime, Dahai, in search of Sifeng, also arrives. Encountering Zhou Ping, Dahai threatens
to kill him with his pistol. As Zhou Ping pledges that he will return to marry Sifeng, Dahai
relents and relinquishes his weapon to Zhou Ping. Sifeng enters the room, followed by Ship-
ing. Shiping tries to take Sifeng away, but Sifeng, reluctantly, confides to her mother that she
has become pregnant by Zhou Ping. Realizing that it is already too late to prevent the incest
between the half-siblings, Shiping urges them to go as far as possible and never to return. In the
meantime, Fanyi entices Zhou Chong to prevent Zhou Ping and Sifeng from leaving, but Zhou
Chong refuses to do so. Hearing the hubbub in the drawing room, Zhou Puyuan comes down
from upstairs. Unwittingly, he reveals that Mrs. Lu is the same person as Shiping who was once
assumed dead, and orders Zhou Ping to acknowledge his birth mother. That reveals the nature
of the relationship between Zhou Ping and Sifeng to all. Overcome by shame and agony, Sifeng
runs into the yard and is electrocuted by a dangling powerline. Zhou Chong dashed out trying
to save her, and is killed as well. Meanwhile, Zhou Ping shoots himself to death with the pistol
left by Dahai.
When Thunderstorm was published in 1934, it contained a prologue and an epilogue in addi-
tion to the four acts. Both the prologue and epilogue are set on a day ten years after the action
in the play proper, and the locale is the former Zhou family mansion, which has now become a
hospital operated by Catholic nuns. Fanyi and Shiping are now inpatients here for their mental
problems. In the prologue, Zhou Puyuan pays a visit to the two women, and the epilogue is a
continuation of the hospital scene in the prologue. In a controversial move, both the prologue
and epilogue have often been omitted in reprints of the script, stage productions, and foreign
language translations of the play.

A critical analysis of  Thunderstorm

Thunderstorm depicts the entangled relationships among the eight characters, members of two
families that belong respectively to the upper and lower echelons of the early twentieth-century
Chinese society. As the title of the play suggests, the accumulation of energy throughout the
plotline finally leads to the eruption of a “thunderstorm,” marked by multiple tragic deaths. As
Thunderstorm was written at a time when Western dramatists were being introduced to China

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with enthusiasm and Western plays staged frequently in Chinese cities, an influence from the
Western drama is easily discernible here. The stepmother-stepson incest between Fanyi and
Zhou Ping bears a resemblance to what happens in Euripides’ Hippolytus and later in Racine’s
Phėdre, in which Hippolytus rejects the advances from his stepmother and is subsequently killed
by the latter’s plot of revenge. The character of Fanyi, to some extent, may also be reminiscent
of Euripides’ Medea, the betrayed wife who turns dreadfully vengeful. The affair between Zhou
Ping and Lu Sifeng, which is exposed toward the end of the play to be another incestuous rela-
tionship involving Zhou Ping, parallels part of the plot in Ibsen’s Ghosts, in which Oswald falls
in love with the maid Regina, who turns out to be his late father’s illegitimate daughter and
thus his half-sister. Among Ibsen’s plays, another possible source of influence on Thunderstorm
might be A Doll’s House, a play Cao Yu was thoroughly familiar with. The defiant heroine Nora
could have provided inspirations for the creation of the character of Fanyi.11 Cao Yu’s own
attitude toward the discussion of the Western influence on Thunderstorm is interesting. While
on several occasions he acknowledges his indebtedness to Western dramatists, especially Ibsen,
he categorically denies any conscious imitation of any of their works. “I am just myself,” as he
proclaims. “While I indeed read a few plays and participated in a few productions over the past
few decades, I can’t recall intentionally imitating anyone at any point.”12
One does not need to be surprised by this seeming contradiction on Cao Yu’s part. While
there is undeniable evidence for a Western influence in Thunderstorm, that influence does not
manifest itself in a simple act of imitation but in a complex process of assimilation and re-
creation. Western plays – those by Euripides, Ibsen, and others – did not impact Cao Yu’s com-
position of Thunderstorm as individual and separate works. Instead, they became fused into the
general literary milieu of the time, or an intertext, that informed the plot and characterization
in Cao Yu’s play. Cao Yu has good reason to defend himself as not being “an ungrateful servant
who weaved an ugly jacket with the gold threads stolen from his master and denied the master’s
ownership of the threads in fading color,”13 for the “gold threads” that were woven into Thunder-
storm did not belong exclusively to any individual masters but to the treasure hoard of dramatic
literature of the world. By writing Thunderstorm, Cao Yu became not only another inheritor of
but also an important contributor to that treasure hoard.
What is Thunderstorm about? This is a question much more challenging than it may appear to
be. Like any good literary work, the play certainly accommodates multiple interpretations. Cao
Yu’s own reading of his masterpiece is, first of all, aesthetic: “I love Thunderstorm in the same way
I am delighted by the sight of a buoyant boy jumping in the sunshine on a warm spring day, or
in the same way I am pleased by the occasional croaking of a frog by a rippling pond.”14 As for
a thematic interpretation, however, the playwright seems much less committed. In his preface
to the 1956 English edition of Thunderstorm, Cao Yu offers to read the play as a work of social
criticism:

As a matter of fact, Thunderstorm is a drama taken from life as it was. Those bitter dark
days are gone for ever [sic] and the play remains only for its historical realism. Every
time I recall this, a wave of gladness lifts my heart because my fondest dream at the time
when I wrote Thunderstorm is realized today.15

This statement, written seven years after the victory of the Communist revolution in 1949,
suggests an interpretation of the play that conforms perfectly to the political agenda of the
Communist Party. Indeed, in his 1936 preface to the play, Cao Yu already embraced the view by
some critics that the play “exposes the evils in a Chinese upper-class family.”16 He reveals in the
same preface that, toward the end of the composition of the play, there seemed to be “a flow of

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surging emotion that urged me forward, making me vent my suppressed fury and defame the
Chinese family and society.”17 During one of his emotional outbursts, he even smashed some of
his valuable mementoes, including a porcelain statue of Bodhisattva Guanyin, a much-cherished
gift from his mother.18 Also in the 1936 preface, however, Cao Yu firmly repudiates the view that
Thunderstorm is a play about social issues, as he declares unequivocally that “I was not consciously
trying to rectify, satirize, or castigate anything.” Instead, he believes that the play “demonstrates a
kind of ‘ruthlessness’ between Heaven and Earth,” “the ‘ruthlessness’ or ‘brutality’ of the struggle
manipulated by a governing force behind it.” He continues to explain:

This governing force was revered as “God” by Hebrew prophets, and was called “Fate”
by Greek dramatists. People in the modern times have forsaken these abstruse notions
and called it simply “Law of Nature.” I have never been able to find a proper appel-
lation for it or give it a truthful description, because it is too large and too complex.
What my emotions compelled me to present was my imagination of this aspect of the
universe.19

In light of this declaration, it may be fair to say that the exposure of “the evils in a Chinese
upper-class family” in Thunderstorm is not so much conducted from a social perspective as pre-
sented in much larger and more metaphysical terms, namely, the meaning of human life and the
quandary of human civilization.
Running throughout the play are the conflicts between intractable human passions and the
ruthless rules of civilization that tend to tame and suppress those passions. It is these conflicts that
feed the accumulation of energy in the dramatic action, which eventually leads to the violent
“thunderstorm.” Indeed, it is possible to consider the Zhou family mansion an iconic locale for
these conflicts. Zhou Puyuan is the dictator of the rules, which have made his family – as he
chooses to believe – “one of the most satisfying and well-behaved families possible.”20 The tyran-
nical way in which he imposes his will upon the other members of his family is most vividly
seen when he forces his wife Fanyi to drink the liquid medicine. As Fanyi refuses to do so, he
makes both his sons, Zhou Ping and Zhou Chong, kneel down in front of her requesting her to
obey their father’s mandate. He wants his wife to take the medicine not so much for the sake of
her health as for setting an example of abiding by the rules for the children. Overwhelmed, the
resentful Fanyi eventually relents and does what she has been told to. By setting and implement-
ing the rules, Zhou Puyuan attempts to put his house in a certain kind of order. In that sense, the
president of the mining company may be considered an agent of the civilized world.
Zhou Puyuan is, of course, a hypocrite. He appears to be a model citizen and model family
man in the little world he creates. In Zhou Ping’s eye, his father is “almost a flawless character –
except for a certain amount of obstinacy and coldness.”21 Hidden in the depths of Zhou Puy-
uan’s mind is the memory of his own days of wild passions, when he seduced the maid servant
Shiping and fathered two sons with her. Even many years later, he still reserves a special place in
his memory for the woman he ruthlessly abandoned, as he orders to keep much of the furni-
ture and décor of the drawing room arranged the same way as in Shiping’s days. As he believed
Shiping was dead, he could afford to think of her over a safe distance. Shiping’s sudden arrival,
however, brings back to Zhou Puyuan his dissolute past. When Shiping informs her former
lover that “She led a rather irregular life,”22 referring to her own past, the word “irregular” (bu
shou guiju in the Chinese original, which literally means “not abiding by the rules”) applies per-
haps more properly to the life of the young master Zhou Puyuan. With Shiping now standing
before him, that safe distance is removed for Zhou Puyuan, who realizes that his “irregular” past
has become a threat to his current family, which he believes to be almost perfectly “regularized.”

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Zhou Puyuan’s current family, as he does not become fully aware until late in the play, is eve-
rything but “regularized.” Under the rumor about the drawing room being haunted is Fanyi’s
incestuous relationship with Zhou Ping. Incest is, of course, a taboo in many civilizations, which
has found numerous literary expressions ever since Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. In the case of Fanyi
and Zhou Ping, who have no blood relationship, the hypothesis that the fear of incest arises
from an instinctual aversion for the possibly adverse genetic effect of inbreeding apparently does
not apply.23 Nor does it have anything to do with the communal need to promote exogamy as
a means of expanding the civilization.24 It is, however, a horrible taboo in the Zhou household
nevertheless, because it subverts the established order of the family and disrupts the ethical ties
among its members. “It was you who made me what I am, half stepmother, half mistress,” as
Fanyi puts it while complaining against her former lover Zhou Ping.25 In the Chinese civili-
zation, where “rectification of names” – “The ruler should be treated as ruler, the minister as
minister; the father should be treated as father, and the son as son”26 – is believed to be the foun-
dation for social order and harmony, the incest taboo assumes augmented weight. That explains
the profound mental and psychologic repercussions of the incest on both parties involved in it,
Fanyi and Zhou Ping. For Fanyi, it is certainly a major cause for her to often behave impulsively,
which gives Zhou Puyuan the reason to believe that she is mentally ill. Entrapped in a loveless
marriage, Fanyi finds herself unable to sever her emotional bond to her stepson; in the mean-
time, she may also consider the incest her secret and solely potent weapon of revenge against her
tyrannical husband. On the other side, as his initial passion for Fanyi fades away, Zhou Ping feels
increasingly guilty and tries desperately to end the relationship with her. His newfound love for
Sifeng, which supposedly should facilitate his extrication from the incest with his stepmother,
actually leads him into another incestuous relationship, this time with his half-sister. For either
of them, there seems to be no way to get out of the swamp of forbidden love.
While Thunderstorm is not a play about incest or the incest taboo per se, the incestuous lov-
ers’ impasse is a powerful trope for the constantly futile efforts of the humans to regulate their
emotional lives. Zhou Puyuan and Shiping, the parents of Zhou Ping and Lu Dahai, have both
left Wuxi for the north for the same purpose of distancing from the memory of their union
that ended in tragedy over twenty years ago. Ironically, their attempts to bury that past end up
reenacting it. As a result of Shiping’s visit, the world of the past collides with that of the present,
and in an astonishing way the present is exposed to be just a déjà vu of the past. As both young
masters, Zhou Ping and Zhou Chong, fall in love with the maid Sifeng, they seem to be reliv-
ing their father’s life many years ago. Just like their father in his young days, they are driven by
an unbridled passion that shatters class boundaries. Again as in the situation with their father,
who abandons Shiping for the sake of a socially more “appropriate” match, the flames of their
passions are to be extinguished soon – in Zhou Ping’s case by the incest taboo and in Zhou
Chong’s case by the humility expected of a younger brother. The men of two generations find
themselves on a cycling orbit, from which there seems to be no exit.
This strong sense of futility is constantly heightened by the recurrent motif of failed depar-
ture. Repeatedly, the Zhou family mansion is described, by different characters, as an unbearably
suffocating place, in both literal and figurative senses. Different characters mention at different
times an imminent move into a new house, a move that never takes place, thus remaining an
unrealized ideal for the stifled Zhou people. Along that line, Zhou Puyuan’s order to keep the
windows closed assumes a symbolic meaning; so does Fanyi’s midnight act to lock Sifeng’s win-
dow from outside to block Zhou Ping’s way out from his secret rendezvous. While Zhou Ping
has been planning to leave home for his father’s mine, he is never able to take his departure. As
both Fanyi and Sifeng want to be taken along, he rejects the requests from them both. Later,
when he decides to leave with Sifeng, Shiping, now aware of the incestuous nature of their

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relationship, does not allow them to go. Finally, upon hearing of her daughter’s pregnancy by
her son, Shiping relents and urges them to “go as far as you can and never come back.”27 The
agonized and astonished mother knows clearly that her sinful children can only survive out of
the jurisdiction of cultural rules, but neither of them can leave the house, as each is completely
overwhelmed by the sense of shame and guilt, itself a cultural product. Demonstrated by what
they do finally, the only possible exit for them is by the route to death.
Death claims another casualty in Zhou Chong, the most innocent character in the play. Kind
and generous by nature, Zhou Chong has seen enough of the filth and falsehood in his house-
hold. Unlike Zhou Ping, however, the more romantic Zhou Chong does not have a practical
plan to leave for a specific destination but dreams of traveling to an idealized world: “. . . We can
fly, fly to a place that is truly clean and happy, a place, where there is no conflict, no hypocrisy,
no inequality.”28 Obviously, that place can exist only in his imagination and cannot be found in
the world of human civilization. In the end he is electrocuted while trying to rescue Sifeng, but
his death is treated more than just an accident in the play, for it is apparently portended by his
dreamed spiritual journey of leaving the mundane world. Nearly all members of the younger
generation in the play find themselves unable to leave the “civilized” world until they are taken
away by death. The only exception is Lu Dahai. As a rough and tough worker he has been on
the periphery of the cultured world to begin with, and as such he does not have to “get out.”
The fates of the members of the older generation are hardly better, as shown in the prologue
and epilogue. Both Shiping and Fanyi are to remain inmates in the Zhou family mansion, now
transformed, very meaningfully, into a mental hospital. It is virtually a prison house, of which
Zhou Puyuan, the dictator of rules, appears to be the warden and a prisoner himself as well.
Thus the play presents a group of people who, in Cao Yu’s own words, “roll madly in the fire
pit of passions like eels, struggling desperately to rescue themselves, without knowing that they
are falling into an unfathomable chasm.”“They are also like a feeble horse entrapped in a swamp:
the more it struggles to get out of it, the deeper it sinks into the swamp of death.” Readers and
audiences of the play, however, cannot afford to look down from a divine height at “these miser-
ably wriggling creatures on earth,” as the playwright suggests.29 They cannot escape the aware-
ness that being entrapped in their own civilization are not just the characters in the play but also
they themselves. By the effect of catharsis, they can always feel the awe-inspiring power of the
thunderstorm – in the depths of their minds.

Notes
1 Cao Yu, An Account in My Own Words (Cao Yu zishu) (Beijing: Jinghua chubanshe, 2005), 4.
2 John Y.H. Hu, Ts’ao Yu (New York: Tawyne, 1972), 16.
3 Cao Yu, An Account in My Own Words, 15.
4 Ibid., 45.
5 Tian Benxiang, A Biography of Cay Yu (Cao Yu zhuan) (Beijing: Dongfang chubanshe, 2009).
6 Ibid.
7 See, for instance, David Y. Chen, “Two Chinese Adaptations of Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones,”
Modern Drama (February 1967), vol. IX, 341–359; John Y.H. Hu, Ts’ao Yu, 59.
8 Cao Yu, An Account in My Own Words, 116.
9 Ibid., 128.
10 John Y.H. Hu, Ts’ao Yu, 96.
11 See Lo Qiansha, “Cao Yu’s Indebtedness to and Transcendence over Ibsen,”(Cao Yu dui Yibusheng de
jiejian he Chaoyue) in Young Literary Personages (Qingnian wenxuejia) (2016), vol. 18, 10–12.
12 Cao Yu, “Preface to Thunderstorm,” in his Thunderstorm (Leiyu) (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe,
1997), 178.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid., 179.

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15 Ts’ao Yu, Thunderstorm, trans. Wang Tso-liang and A.C. Barnes (Honolulu: University Press of the
Pacific, 1978), ii.
16 Cao Yu, “Leiyu xu,” 180.
17 Ibid.
18 John Y.H. Hu, Ts’ao Yu, 22.
19 Cao Yu, “Preface to Thunderstorm,” 180.
20 Ts’ao Yu, Thunderstorm, 41.
21 Ibid., 31.
22 Ibid., 68.
23 This aversion is often cited as an explanation of the incest taboo. See, for example, Arthur P. Wolf and
William H. Durham, eds., Inbreeding, Incest, and the Incest Taboo: The State of Knowledge at the Turn of the
Century (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004).
24 A theory on the origin of the incest taboo proposed b Claude Lévi-Strauss. See Lévi-Strauss, The
Elementary Structures of Kinship, revised edition, trans. James Harle Bell and John Richard von Sturmer
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), 492–496.
25 Ts’ao Yu, Thunderstorm, 51.
26 Confucian Analects, trans. James Legge (New York: Dover Publications, 1971), 254. Translation modified.
27 Ts’ao Yu, Thunderstorm, 142.
28 Ibid., 101.
29 Cao Yu, “Preface to Thunderstorm,” 181.

Further readings
Bao Guozhi, ed. Leiyu yu Cao Yu (Thunderstorm and Cao Yu). Tianjin: Tianjin guji chubanshe, 2014.
Chen, Xiaomei. “Performing the Nation: Chinese Drama and Theater.” In The Columbia Companion to
Modern East Asian Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003, 437–445.
Hu Shuhe. A critical biography of Cao Yu (Cao Yu pingzhuan). Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1994.
Li Yang. Cao Yu from a Modernistic Perspective (Xiandaixing shiye zhong de Cao Yu). Beijing: Renmin wenxue
chubanshe, 2004.
Li Yuru and Qian Yijiao. Listening to the Thunderstorm (Qingting Leiyu). Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi chu-
banshe, 2000.
Noble, Jonathan. “Cao Yu and Thunderstorm.” In Kirk A. Denton, ed., The Columbia Companion to Modern
Chinese Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016, 205–210.
Robinson, Lewis. “On the Sources and Motives behind Ts’so Yu’s Thunderstorm: A Qualitative Analysis.”
Tamkang Review 16.2 (1985): 177–192.
Tian Benxiang and Liu Yijun. Cao Yu. Beijing: Zhongguo huaqiao chubanshe, 1997.
Wan, Ning. “Desire and Desperation: An Analysis of the Female Characters in Cao Yu’s Play The Thunder-
storm.” Chinese Studies in History 20.2 (1986–1987): 75–90.
Zhao Huiping. Appreciation of Cao Yu’s dramas (Cao Yu xiju xinshang). Nanning: Guangxi jiaoyu chubanshe,
1989.

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 15
MASTERPIECES OF EARLY
CINEMA
Corrado Neri

Attractive shadows
The last phase of the nineteenth-century China was in a state of dramatic political instability,
caused both by foreign aggression and internal troubles. The fall of the Qing dynasty seemed
more and more likely, and the presence of the foreign (people, goods, ideas) on the imperial soil
aroused conflicting reactions: shame and pride, the desire to emulate and the desire to rekindle
“traditional” culture(s), as well as the evidence of the necessity of rapid modernization, at least
in the technical field. Stretched between these overlapping poles, cinema as a technical develop-
ment and as a new form of entertainment appeared very quickly as a formidable way to get to
know the West, as well as a medium to be appropriated by local standards. Early movies made
by the Lumière Company were travelling to China, and it was easy to understand the clamor
made by the depiction of contemporary Europe. La sortie des usines Lumière à Lyon (August and
Louis Lumière, 1895), for example, is a manifestation of a scientific accomplishment of the West
(a movie) and at the same time is showing where this new object was made (the camera factory):
spectators could see men and women coming out of a modern (soon to be Fordist) industry,
some of them riding bicycles. In The Last Emperor (1987) Bertolucci poetizes the seduction
of the newly imported (foreign) innovation of locomotion. Audiences could be in awe of the
epitome of the industrialization of Europe via an astonishing product of this progress, the movie
projector. This scientific curiosity is displayed as an attraction: movies are shown in theatres, tea
houses, expositions, and slowly contribute to the shaping of the fast-growing eastern metropolis
via the building of ad hoc modern cinema theatres. The local public showed a desire to appro-
priate the representational device, linking it to the shadow puppetry that they used to appreciate.
The debate is still ongoing to clarify how much the cultural appreciation of puppet theatre has
been a source of inspiration for the adoption of the term yingxi first, and dianying later. The for-
mer merges the “shadow (ying)” with the “spectacle (xi),” and the latter is a word that conjures
ideas of electricity (therefore modernity) and the theatrical/traditional visual apparatus. As Emi-
lie Yueh-yu Yeh states, the first film magazine used the title The Motion Picture Review;1 yet, in an
article published in the very same review, she cautions readers in remembering that “Central to
these dominant historiographical discourses lies the yingxi concept and its literal English transla-
tion ‘shadow play.’ ” Scholars of Chinese film history, in both China and the West, have adopted
the ideas of yingxi and its translated twin “shadow play” to frame the reception of cinema in late

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Qing and early Republican years. Almost without exception, they write that given that yingxi is
the earliest Chinese term for motion pictures, there exists a tie between shadow puppetry, opera
and early cinema. But she argues that “little evidence has been produced to link yingxi (motion
pictures) with shadow puppetry, or Peking opera in terms of production, exhibition and recep-
tion,” advocating therefore a new approach, namely “by super-imposing the core image of early
cinema yingxi with yinghua, I call attention to the import of film experiences in lesser-known
locales, such as Hong Kong and Guangzhou.”2
Other than relocating its origin to a familiar, reassuring visual practice, another strategy
to take possession of the medium, and free it from Western influence (in the struggle of the
negation of a local modernity), is to relate the camera to local and/or traditional subjects:
the familiar, the local, the repertoire, and the mirror. This process is very well described in
the movie Shadow Magic (Xiyangjing, Ann Hu, 2000), an historical melodrama that describes
first the stupor of the public, and later the acceptance that comes only when people start to
see themselves at the end of the beam of light. Only then is the foreign spectacle adopted
by the local public, when, in other words, they become the protagonists of the show and not
merely spectators. Opera is the immediate and obvious reference for modern cinematogra-
phers: Dingjun Mountain (Dingjun shan, 1905, with the Peking opera star Tan Xinpei as its
central character) is allegedly (yet to be factually proven) the first local movie, and it is relevant
that regardless of it depicting real events, or a post-facto interpretation of them, the eye of
the camera (or of its biographer) is defined as attracted by the costumed, stylized, and familiar
visual universe of the theatre. In proposing a different translation for yingxi, “shadow opera,”
Berry and Farquhar underscore how “opera film,” between documentary – filmed theatre –
and what we would today call “performance” (projected images, live orchestra, multimedia
art), with their stock of characters and formal strategies, will become the trademark of Chinese
cinematographic representations.3 Nonetheless, the first remaining Chinese film is a contem-
porary drama, Laborer’s Love (Laogong zhi aiqing, 1922) probably (as Zhang Zhen astutely
notes)4 survived by chance and not because of its peculiarity or status, yet still relevant for a
close analysis. Laborer’s Love is a simple story of a carpenter who doesn’t have the social status
to marry the impoverished doctor’s daughter he’s in love with, but, thanks to his cleverness,
accomplishes the mission of improving the doctor’s business and earns the hand of the girl.
Love and freedom, crossing social boundaries, class contradictions, and the central importance
of money in human relationships – these thematic elements make this short movie relevant
because they would become recurrent themes in Chinese movies of the time – and beyond.
Moreover, the movie already displays some specifically cinematographic techniques: subjective
shots and superimposed images shift the perception from the theatrical style of shooting just
from the front (as if watching a performance) to a movie-unique experience. The subjective
gaze here is particularly relevant: we literally see through the eyes of the protagonist, who uses
the doctor’s thick glasses by mistake and cannot see clearly anymore. The film reproduces this
blurred vision, introducing a specific technique of cinema and a central theoretical point in
many discussions on cinema. To stick to this peculiar subjective sequence, and following Tom
Gunning’s seminal definition, here we are in a “movie of attraction.”5 Gunning defines the
operative category of cinema of attraction using ideas from Serguei Eisenstein, but the latter
defines theatre and its effects, while the former appropriates it to underscore how cinema of
origin was not (yet) dominated by the desire of fiction and narrative that will categorize it in
its future development – and that is taking its revenge today, with IMAX 3D for example – but
rather focusing on the “astonishment” provoked by the spectacular visual element. Symboli-
cally, in Laborer’s Love an art is born, and exhibits its stammering but already astounding special
effects to the public.

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Special effects: the martial art film and the fantasy film are popular genres during the 1920s.
There are only a few frames left today of The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple (Huoshao honglian
si, 1928), but contemporary cinema still quotes them with longing and regrets (see for example
The Master or Shifu, 2015). After all, Red Lotus is the matrix of the burgeoning genre of martial
art historical (or chivalric) movie (wuxiapian), the Chinese film genre par excellence (with
the “opera film”). Red Lotus is also the symbol of the new, “fiery” art that can arouse public
debate via a physical response.6 These films exploit both the bravura of their stunts as well as the
rudimentary, Méliès-style special effects: flying heroes and heroines, monsters and ghosts, palms
shooting rays of energy, fantastic transmutations, and grand architectures. The wuxiapian is a
fusion of – as mentioned before – martial art bravura and historical epic, which shows empresses
and concubines, kings and soldiers retell and re-create national/imperial history for a newborn
republic.

Stars are born

This newly born, struggling republic (or at least its leaders) appears less and less keen on dwelling
in the “superstitions” of the past. Cinema gradually aligns with the different currents of intel-
lectual battles that struggle to find ways to reinforce an objectively weakened and feeble country
and in the meantime try not to lose the link with its long history and its heritage. What we
call – and it’s obviously largely arguable – the road to “modernity” becomes a key mode of rep-
resentation: psychological/family/social drama (wenyi pian) is the most influential and important
genre in the ’20s and ’30s, partly because the KMT censorship against the fantastic, supersti-
tious, and “reactionary” becomes more and more effective, especially with the launch of “New
Life” Movement by Chiang Kai-shek himself in 1934; and partly because the war with Japan is
entering a dramatic stage, Communist party intellectuals and ideas infiltrate the art world, and
the public is demanding realistic and committed movies that voice the sufferings of the people
and their hope for a drastic revolution. Overlapping with the official KMT directives towards a
Confucian re-foundation of the Republic, the “leftist cinema” struggles to find its own legiti-
macy between commercial drives and totalitarian censorship. The intervention of screenwriters
like Xia Yan and Tian Han is pivotal in the breeding of “cinema engagé.” The first half of the
1930s witnessed a battle fought on the silver screen and on the newspaper, where the advocates
of “hard film” (yingxing dianying) argue for the necessity of a social awareness in art that refuses
aesthetic and political compromise, an art that has the mission of changing society via critical
representations.They were opposed by the partisans of the “soft film” (ruanxing dianying), which,
on the contrary, believed in art for art’s sake, an aesthetic endorsement of cinema far from any
political preoccupations, “ice-cream for the eyes,” a quest for pleasure and refinement.
In the ’30s, we can legitimately talk about an industry: different companies were shaping a
new landscape for film production modelled after its loved and hated rival – Hollywood. Stu-
dios proliferated (being regularly destroyed by Japanese bombings), professional categories were
created (notably the figure of the director acquires its legitimacy), a star system was articulated
across various media. Stars like Ruan Lingyu, Hu Die, Li Lili, Wang Renmei, Jin Yan, and Zhao
Dan appeared on the pages of magazines and on advertising posters, contributing to the creation
of modern public opinion, enflaming scandals, and shaping the “new” urbanite subject.
Shooting techniques were changing as well: technical advancement could bring more fluid-
ity and facilitate the movement of the camera; cameras performed better and better and could
guarantee longer shots, and were more and more suitable for external shooting, enhancing the
liberation from the theatrical cangue. The advent of sound was unescapable, even if it took
longer and it was more problematic than in the West because of questions related to the extreme

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richness of Chinese dialects and/or languages, as well as economic difficulties for the studios
to keep up with Western technical progress. From 1930 to1936, talkies were produced with
silent movies, and hybrid forms lived ephemeral, yet fascinating lives: films with few sequences
with synchronized sound – often songs – were alternating intertitles in the outdated fashion of
silent movies. Despite all these technical and formal advances, local production strived to find
its audience.

America and realism

It is amply documented that in China (and in the Far East in general), the public was eager to
see Western movies, particularly Hollywood films, in the first few decades of the twentieth cen-
tury. Citing an American study published in 1938, Laikwan Pang reports that in 1936 “among
all films shown in China, only 12 percent of them were local productions, yet American films
comprised more than 80 percent, and Soviet movies represented a mere 2.4 percent.”7 Popular
taste was enthusiastic about and modelled by Hollywood production, often claiming disdain for
local creations, dismissing them as vulgar, technically inferior, and less daring. Sympathetic with
the Maoist revolution, later scholars harshly criticized the dominance of Hollywood movies and
their supposed brainwashing effects on the public. Regis Bergeron, for example, condemns all
American films available in China, claiming that they serve as a means to colonize the imagi-
nation of the Chinese people and to divert revolutionary production into light entertainment.
Bergeron notes, not without disdain, that China had not only produced its own versions of
Laurel and Hardy, but also versions of Charlie Chaplin – especially regarding the latter, arguably
without the disruptive energy and the harsh critique of the status quo typical of Chaplin.8 If on
the one hand, popular taste tended to indulge in treacherous Occidentalism,9 on the other hand,
filmmakers were more ambivalent. During the 1920s and ’30s, the Soviet model was popular
among intellectuals in China owing to translations of Soviet theories, the screening of movies
directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin and Dziga Vertov, and a much-celebrated séance introducing the
Battleship Potemkin in 1926 (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925).We need to note that this screening was not
public, but limited to a select list of cinematographers and intellectuals. While the impact of the
Battleship Potemkin’s visual force was arguably remarkable to a few politically committed artist
and journalists, yet the practice of Eisenstein-like montage was nevertheless seldom utilized in
a context where, in the first place, left-wing parties were repressed and censored and, secondly,
cinema had to depend heavily on public recognition to survive. Chinese cinema was struggling
between commercial and political models. These categories, even if imprecise and overlapping,
were discussed at that time by theoreticians, filmmakers, critics, journalists, audiences, and writ-
ers. By analyzing articles published in the newspapers and magazines, as well as more intellectual
studies on the (relatively) new art form, it is evident that Chinese national cinema was trying to
emulate Hollywood dominance in this field. Widespread dislike of national cinema was taken
for granted – the most immediate example that comes to mind is Lu Xun (1881–1936), consid-
ered to be the father of modern Chinese literature. As a writer who was extremely concerned
about the nation’s future, we should expect that he would have endorsed local production.Yet,
we discover from his diaries that he almost exclusively watched and enjoyed American movies.10
Although national cinema (a slippery term, within the context of a rapidly changing politi-
cal situation like the Chinese one at the beginning of the 19th century) was not being ignored,
it was sometimes difficult to differentiate between the “local” and the westernized cinemato-
graphic models. Cinematographers, scriptwriters, and critics periodically argued over the neces-
sity to endorse and sustain their national cinema in the face of the colonial cultural dominance
of the western model. However, this was much more closely related to production values and

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content ethics than it was to form or style. Producers and investors had to survive without state
subsidies (unlike post-revolutionary Russia); many of them found it more lucrative to speculate
on fluctuations of the market, by buying and selling equipment (including the very film itself)
and studio proprieties, rather than invest in the high-risk enterprise of movie pictures. On the
other hand, in the eyes of progressive filmmakers, the goal was the engagement of all citizens,
a coming to consciousness that would ultimately lead to radical changes in society and politics.
Thus, the most “Chinese/traditional” productions (those related to popular entertainment like
the wuxiapian/martial arts movies and the opera film) were loved by the public, but rejected by
the intelligentsia and pioneer filmmakers as suspicious – if not despicable – remainders from
feudal times. Yet even the more leftist productions, later acclaimed by official historiography as
the seeds of the new revolutionary consciousness in cinema, needed public recognition, box
office return, and a safe way through censorship’s control. The most practiced way to reach
public acclaim and to spread modernist and democratic values was through melodrama. As a
“new” genre, indebted to Western romantic and popular literature, Ibsen’s theater, Beethoven’s
symphonies and of course, Hollywood “Griffithiana,” melodramatic cinema was – in the late
’20s and ’30s– already a largely global language. Many critics argue that melodrama was one or
the principal characteristic of Chinese cinema in general.11 Others have tried to redefine this
idea using different concepts, such as the “vernacular.”12
One of the most prominent moviemakers of the golden age of Chinese cinema consciously
and admittedly introduced Hollywood techniques, styles, and aesthetics in national cinema, via
a lyrical yet realistic, popular yet informed, consistent yet variegated cinematographic style. I am
referring here to the pioneer director Sun Yu (1900–1990). Sun Yu was the only filmmaker at
the time to complete his education in the States. After a period at Qinghua University in Beijing
(where he studied theatre and literature), in 1923 he began his literary studies at the University of
Wisconsin, where he remained for three years, and later graduated from the New York Institute
of Photography. He also took evening classes at Columbia University (where he specialized in
photography and filmmaking). Sun Yu was there during the Roaring Twenties, when American
cinema was crafting its global appeal. The influence of a solid traditional Chinese literary edu-
cation, American-style filmmaking and firsthand experience in the New York of the Jazz Age
mingle in his works and writings. Sun Yu defines the cinema (and, indirectly, himself) as zasui or
chop-suey (which recalls the famous self-definition of Ozu Yasujiro as a tofu-maker).13 His most
accomplished films include Wild Rose (Ye meigui, 1932), Daybreak (Tianming, 1933), Little Toys
(Xiao wanyi, 1933), Queen of Sports (Tiyu huanghou, 1934), and The Big Road (Da lu, 1935).
Later, his famous and acclaimed Life of Wu Xun (Wu Xun zhuan, 1949) had the misfortune of
being one of first films to receive a direct and fierce critique from the People’s Daily, signed by
Mao Zedong himself, which almost put an end to his career. He still managed to produce a few
movies in the late ’50s, but they were pale works of propaganda, lacking any creative tension. In
his silent films, Sun Yu developed his own personal poetics, strongly influenced by his techni-
cal apprenticeship in the States and his practical experience as an avid moviegoer. Admittedly,
Sun Yu was influenced by the works of King Vidor, F. W. Murnau, and D. W. Griffith. Directing
techniques were one of the significant novelties introduced by Sun Yu. His actors stopped act-
ing with their eyes, and started acting with their bodies. The other major novelty popularized
by Sun Yu was unprecedented dynamic camera work. Sun Yu contributed to the spreading of
complicated pan movements, tracking shots, and crane shots. At the time, these techniques were
major innovations, shifting from static, theatrical representation, where the camera was at the
same height and angle as the spectator’s gaze in a theatre, staring fixedly at the scene.
The scenarios of his most classic movies decline, via melodramatic twists, the struggle of the
youth to define a mission during turbulent times: Daybreak tells the story of a young couple,

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Lingling (Li Lili) and her cousin (Gao Zhanfei) arriving from the countryside to Shanghai and
confronting corruption and decadence. The boy joins the revolutionary party, the girl is forced
into prostitution but eventually becomes a spy and, once caught, faces death as a martyr, becom-
ing an inspiration for the very same soldiers who are responsible for her execution. Anne Kerlan-
Stephens and Marie-Claire Quiquemelle see an homage to Marlene Dietrich herself in the final
sequence of Daybreak, particularly from Dishonored (Joseph Von Sternberg, 1931). In both movies,
the protagonists walk to their end – the firing squad – bravely defying the perturbed gaze of the
soldiers.14 If Marlene brandishes her mythical cigarette, Li Lili lets her beautiful smile shine over
her dark fate. Facing her destiny, Lingling does not betray her lover, and she accepts death by a fir-
ing squad. She does this with two conditions though, both related to her image. In the first place,
she wants to face death dressed in her village clothes. She refuses her evening dress, her refined but
corrupted camouflage, and chooses to return to her “original” identity, which represents purity,
innocence, and ultimately, the inner, original strength of the Chinese soul. Her second condition:
she wants to smile. She is going to die, but she wants her death to be a symbol of future hope, of
optimism, of a fighting spirit, of martyrdom. It is noteworthy that Lingling, in endorsing the revo-
lutionary cause, understood the importance of the image, of the symbol.Thanks to her village dress
and girlish smile, Lingling is not a simple individual girl, for she represents all of China’s youth.
In The Big Road, the young protagonists are building a road that will lead the Nationalist
army to fight the Japanese invaders. Their bodies are followed by a long and sensuous tracking
shot that expresses their youthful energy, as well as the idea of an entire nation marching towards
independence.There is a literal stretching out towards liberation, towards emancipation, towards
empowerment. The movement of the camera, the novelty of the tracking shot, the dynamism
never seen before of the interaction between the camera work and the muscular bodies of the
young characters, all lend a special, “modern,” blatant, energetic, and fresh meaning to the ideo-
logical image of the newly constructed social class, that is, young romantic rebels in a young
China.
It is both a call to arms addressed to a new generation of young people and a declaration that
insists that Chinese youth are not weak, and shall not be. Utilizing the “Western” technique of
cinematography, which he apprehended in loco, Sun Yu shifts the representation of the intel-
lectual heroes from that of a weak scholar and a submissive refined young lady15 to an image of
strength, energy, and engagement. Along the tragic path of his heroes and heroines – revolution-
ary martyrs, saint-like prostitutes, but also common young women who sacrifice their pride to
collective honor as in the Queen of Sport – Sun Yu elaborates a new ideal of battling youth. His
movies remain largely popular (or “vernacular”)16 and endorse the melodramatic mode to call
for public response and reaction. Like other members of intellectual circles of the time (to which
he was closely tied), the director, once called “the poet of the silver screen,” rejected Western and
Japanese imperialism while appropriating democratic ideals, romantic momentum, a fascination
with science and social progress, and Western-developed representational techniques. His visual
style, the way of filming young bodies that lean straight into the camera, and the idealization
of the (paradoxically) realistic push towards progress and rebellion, often interrupted by war,
society, and religion, portray the patriotic engagement of Sun Yu, as well as an aesthetic ideal
made of freedom, liberty, and sensuality, an ideal for the building of a new generation that may
embody the future of China itself.

The tragic star

Herself a masterpiece, Ruan Lingyu is one of the most important and influential actresses of
the silent era. Stanley Kwan filmed an avant-garde biopic in which she was interpreted by

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Maggie Cheung (Center Stage or Ruan Lingyu, 1992). Among her most representative films is
probably The Goddess (Shennü, Wu Yonggang, 1934). The protagonist is the archetype of the
saint prostitute, sacrificing herself for her child. This iconic figure recurs throughout the begin-
ning of the twentieth-century China, since it contains the strongest potential for melodrama. It
is an obvious sexual voyeuristic magnet, and at the same time is a powerful site of negotiation
of freedom for women’s still-under-construction new identity, and finally stands as a repre-
sentation of humiliation suffered by a China still “violated” by foreign invaders as well as the
“weakness” of the Chinese intellectual at the time. The movie has been largely analysed and
its contradictions are laid bare for a modern eye: on the one hand, society is clearly seen as a
weapon of oppression for women, where all divergence from a Confucian norm are stigmatized
by an angry mob of rumors and hypocrisy; on the other hand, the woman cannot but succumb
at the end of the movie, praying for her son to forget her (she’s spending time in prison for hav-
ing killed her cruel pimp). She hands him over to the school headmaster, a Confucian figure par
excellence, who is going to save him by writing a canonical path to redemption. Revolutionary
catharsis and conservative parables merge in this classic melodrama.
Sadly, Ruan Lingyu is also known for her tragic destiny: she committed suicide at 25 years
old, and her death and funeral become the illustration of the overlapping and contradictory
forces in the process of reshaping the media field of Republican China. She represented the
female casualty of a patriarchal society – her portrait by Lu Xun became a classic of women’s
emancipation literature; she transfigured into the sacrificial victim of the star system, long before
the Paparazzi character from Fellini’s La dolce vita established its figure as a ubiquitous poltergeist
of the Debordian spectacle society. Besides, her untimely death signaled the epochal, traumatic
passage from the silent era to the advent of talkies. Many actors’ and actresses’ careers didn’t sur-
vive the shift because of their untrained voices, and of course because of the lack of a standard
oral language capable of reaching all Chinese communities in the mainland and abroad.
To stay in tune with this para-cinematic note, the recent recovery of Love and Duty (Lian’ai yu
yiwu, Bu Wancang, 1931) is well timed and highly symbolic. A decade-spanning 153-minutes-
long epic love story between a young emancipated girl of Confucian background and a
college student disliked by her parents, Love and Duty can be viewed as the prototype of the Chi-
nese silent blockbuster in terms of content, form, and distribution. Starting from its very title:
“Love” reveals clearly that melodrama is and will be one of the genres par excellence of Chinese
cinema, where individual feelings must negotiate with the pressure of society and internal con-
tradictions. “Duty” is reminiscent of the famous phrase: “obsession with China” coined by C. T.
Hsia to describe the intellectuals and the writers of Early Republic: filmmakers had to negotiate
changing times and dramatic historic circumstances and continue to define, redefine, challenge,
or contribute shaping effort to the newborn republic of China. Along this short journey into
the masterpieces of early Chinese cinema, we have already found and continue to encounter this
recurrent dialogue between politics and the cinema medium in the prescient or programmatic
title “love and duty.”
Finally, the journey of the hard copy of the film itself reveals the adventure of early Chinese
cinema. Considered lost for quite some time, a 35mm copy was retrieved in an archive in Uru-
guay, and then sent to Taiwan, where an enthusiastic archivist found it in the vault of the library
and then had it elaborately restored. This intriguing story reveals the complexities of the circu-
lation of what we call now “Chinese” film, linking Shanghai to Hong Kong, Japan-occupied
Taiwan to mainland, Chinese communities abroad, and the international cinema market. And
it reminds us that most early Chinese masterpieces are lost, because of the wars, lack of proper
conservation methods, and the fatally belated idea that cinema is an art to be protected and
restored.

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It speaks, eventually
Sound film takes a long time to carve its dominion: the different languages spoken in the coun-
try made it hard to find a common practice among actors, written text on the other hand was
a better way to communicate; technological backwardness also slowed down the adoption of
sound films; but eventually there appeared some of the most highly regarded films of the time. At
the end of the ’30s two masterpieces were shot: Crossroads (Shizi jietou, Shen Xiling, 1937) and
Street Angels (Malu tianshi, Yuan Muzhi, 1937). These two films depict dramatic trajectories of
youth in Shanghai urban spaces. An array of characters – from the prostitute to the intellectual,
from the street artist to the failed journalist – are shown as struggling within the turmoil of the
time, caught in the despair of the impossibility to find a place in a society changing too fast. At
the same time, the energy of their vital force is represented as the true vehicle of possible social
and political change. Negotiating the new role of the woman, the to-be-reinvented place of the
individual, the elegy of the tragic artist and the virtuous poor, these films somehow are remind-
ers of the poetics of the sixth generation that started making movies in the 1990s: limited funds,
urban settings, and peer actors. Both tendencies were inspired by the frequent importation of
Western movies and by a keen gaze on local reality, a certain decadent aesthetics that can be seen
both as indulging in self-pity or as a denunciation of alienation and solitude of modernizing
youth in a struggling megalopolis.
Critics tend to underline the political values of films of the ’30s, their political relevance
and their political and leftist components. History reminds us that screenwriters and directors
had to cope with a highly unstable situation in terms of personal freedom and political turmoil,
and so many had to self-censor to avoid imprisonment, or worse. Thus, many movies tended to
be crowd-pleasers or popular dramas, where the sexiness of the actors, the erotics of the love
stories, and the attraction of the action sequences are much more important than the political
components.
The Wan brothers can arguably be seen as the pioneer of Chinese animation, with master-
pieces like Iron Fan Princess (Tieshan gongzhu,Wan Laiming and Wan Guchan, 1941) technically
modelled on Walt Disney’s successful Snow White and thematically inspired by the legendary
Monkey King’s (Sun Wukong) adventures during his (and his pals) journey to the West. Color, as
elsewhere, takes a long time to appear and cohabitates for many decades with black-and-white
films. In China, like the first feature films, color film came onto the scene via the threshold of
theatre: the first color movie is Remorse at Death (Shensi hen, Fei Mu, 1948), played by Mei
Lanfang, the iconic opera actor, whose figure inspires Bertold Brecht and Seguei Eisenstein in
their study of the Chinese performing arts, and in turn shapes their own artistic practices. Genre
films are both instrumental in taking the public into the theaters and as vehicles of ideologi-
cal struggles using history or theatrical repertoire as means to talk about the present and raise
the consciousness of the public. Mulan Joins the Army (Mulan congjun, Bu Wancang, 1939), for
example, clearly alludes to the resistance against a “barbarian” foreign power invading China
from the North. Based on the well-known story of the female soldier who pretends to be a man
to serve the army so as to take the place of her aging father, the film speaks about the reality of
the newsreel shown just before the feature presentation.
Sometimes the political message acquires an uncanny echo in very popular films like Song
of Midnight (Yeban gesheng, Maxu Weibang, 1937). Song of Midnight was able to exploit viral
modern mass communication marketing techniques: huge posters portraying the monstrous
protagonist loomed in front of the theatres, and newspapers reported shocking effects and prom-
ised never before seen thrills. The movie was heavily influenced by classic Western horrors such
as The Phantom of the Opera (Rupert Julian, 1925) or Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931). As Linda

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Hutcheon describes, we are confronted here with an adaptation similar to an inception of ideas.
The process of transcoding signs can be seen as a Darwinian process where forms and style
struggle to survive and disseminate.17 Here, the universe is derivative: in an abandoned theatre a
Cyrano de Bergerac–style deformed actor (believed dead) literarily sings in place of the young,
inexperienced protagonist. His ancient lover has gone crazy and lingers in her garden dressed up
with a white tunic, her hair disheveled, waiting every night to hear the song of her lover. The
mob finally hunts down with torches the “monster” who is but a victim of society’s blindness
and prejudices. The background is expressionist-gothic scenery filled with signs such as bats,
squeaking floors, candle-lit ghostly abandoned rooms. However, the local specificity is loud and
clear: the “phantom of the opera” has been persecuted because he was the representation of the
new intellectual elite trying to transform China, both on and off scene. In his youth he was act-
ing in modern plays representing the French revolution, hence advocating the socialist reform
of society, and was in love with the woman desired by the local warlord. The newly arrived
troupe is performing a Song dynasty story, where an “attack from the north” is mentioned, again
an explicit (yet censorship-wise safer) reference to the then-current invasion of Japan. Private
grief and public progressive forces mingle in a revolutionary drive that seems, at times, to serve
as an uncanny force that haunts generation after generation: the young actor not only receives
the training of the “phantom” but, at the end of the movie, promises that he will elope with
his master’s ancient lover – who, meanwhile, has recovered her spirits. But she’s never asked an
opinion about with whom to elope! In sum, the hero completely assumes the “phantom” role,
including accepting what can be described as an arranged marriage. The younger generation
has to submit to the ancients in Confucian obedience, even if chanting revolutionary slogans as
a promise of self-determination facing national crisis. The fact that the young character doesn’t
seem to have any decisional power, but that he slavishly follows the liberating (pun intended)
commands of his mentor, could be read as an expression of Maxu Weibang’s (and his public’s)
anxiety vis-à-vis the political dogma and revolutionary doctrine that will soon be imposed on
the whole nation. Is it a subtle text foreshadowing the authoritarian consequences of the Yan’an
forum talk? Or an expression of the restlessness vis-à-vis a foreign model (here: the codes of the
gothic/horror genre, the Broadway-style opera) that kindles desire but also provokes rejections
as an organ transplant? Or an unconscious revival of Buddhist retribution schemes, where the
cyclical repetition becomes a source of threat and a ghastly image of coalition to repetition? In
any case, the force of Song of Midnight is to be found exactly in this complexity, where multiple
readings and suggestions debate and struggle under a murky surface. The aforementioned mob
that blindly hunts the revolutionary character is another powerful representation of this subter-
ranean anxiety. This is far from a coeval representation of a happy, cheering, optimistic crowd
bringing the long-awaited liberation to the people. Here the mob is an unheimlich figure of
abdication – the masses abdicate their free will, acting as a totality – possibly also hinting at the
disturbing upload of Western ideas and lifestyle (including communism) that will shape future
China. The birth of a nation is a labor by fire.

Last spring

In the troubled times between 1945 and 1949 some films are made, and they are great docu-
ments of the civil war tearing the nation apart while still recovering from the Japanese invasion.
The Spring River Flows East is an outstanding achievement just in its making: an epic three hours
long, divided into three parts, the plot spanning from wartime to postwar, and from Chong-
qing to Shanghai. Regardless of how difficult it was just to achieve the filming because of the

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practical challenges of wartime, this blockbuster remains one of the most famous and influential
Chinese movies ever made, a matrix for further historical dramas, since it encompasses differ-
ent structures of feelings, highly cinematographic representations and melodramatic dilemmas,
family values confronting epochal turmoil, the display of the fierceness and greatness of Chinese
geography, and the harshness of its extreme climates, chanting a passionate elegy for the native
land and the sufferance of forced diaspora, the contrast between romantic love and Confucian
obligations, the struggle of changing gender roles, the coming of age of a generation during
war time, the contrasting ideological drives that will soon bring the Nationalist and Communist
parties to a dramatic showdown in 1949.
Still, probably the most important and cherished pre-1949 film remains a movie that was
hidden from the public by censorship for many years before being acknowledged and redis-
covered by the generation that started making movies during the Deng Xiaoping’s 1980s as a
source of inspiration and a drive to uncompromising, poetical creation. Spring in a Small Town
(Xiaocheng zhi chun, Fei Mu, 1948) keeps the war outside its frame, but yet the conflict is there,
pushing at the very limits of the setting and the consciousness of the characters. It is a liminal
film, standing on the verge of a ravine, keeping an elegant equilibrium just before the fall. The
story follows a doctor coming back home to his natal village – a figure reminiscent of a char-
acter from Lu Xun’s short stories: the intellectual, Westernized man that faces the retrogressive,
paralyzed ideological landscape of his native rural China. The encounter raises questions about
his own commitment to modernization and progress, and about the price he has paid or he’s
ready to pay in order to accomplish his modernizing objective, not to mention the doubt about
the possibility to change the nature of the sick cradle that still retains a luring, decadent attrac-
tion.The doctor visits his school friend, who’s sick and depressed, living in a rich but dilapidated
family mansion with his frustrated wife and fully-in-bloom younger sister. He discovers – along
with the public – that he and his friend’s wife used to be lovers. Their passion soon rekindles,
thus giving rise to a classic love triangle, further spiced by the young sister who’s fantasizing that
the doctor can be a way out of the claustrophobic small town.
The force of the movie goes beyond the stereotyped dichotomy of the political struggle and
enters the realm of the senses via languid camerawork and an evocative set design that visualizes
the respiration of vital qi – to use the expression by Anne Cheng18 – circulating among human
beings and architectures, vibrating on the desolate landscape and penetrating the cracks of the
decrepit walls of the family mansion. There is indeed a strong critical standpoint vis-à-vis the
sick, impotent, and suicidal husband, but the doctor is also stigmatized as a selfish individual who
doesn’t hesitate to abandon his love to pursue his career by himself alone in the city. Hence,
it is a difficult task to decipher a privileged ideological standpoint of the director, because all
the characters are painted with an affectionate yet critical look, soaked with weakness and vital
drives. Soon the spring will bring long-repressed desires and memories to resurface with force
and urgency. Maintaining elegant restraint, Fei Mu shoots iconic sequences of implicit seduction
and sensual tension using the most quintessential elements of everyday life, suddenly eroticized
by a camera that seems to gently pose layer after layer of voluptuous vibrations flowing among
characters. The dialogues between the ancient lovers are a precious example: the two characters
stand in the dimly lit room, discussing the watering of the plant or the comfort of the pillow,
when all of a sudden, the light goes out because of a blackout; when the light comes back, we
discover them with hands clasped in a brief, torrid, illicit embrace or in plain daylight, on the
ruined city wall, the woman engages in a dangerous game of seduction using her handkerchiefs to
repel and attract her old lover, displaying her own conflict between the nostalgia for past passion
and her duty as a faithful wife. One of the most iconic and vibrant sequences takes place at night,
around a table, where all the protagonists start to engage in a drinking game that soon reveals

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overlapping desires and tensions. Nothing is said explicitly, but the complicated psychological
relations among them – fear and desire, kindness and rage, hypocrisy and rebellion – always
threaten to explode, but remain hidden in plain sight, as if following the rhythm of the slowly
shifting movement of the camera, modestly situated outside the room.
At the end of the movie the doctor leaves the town and the other characters behind; a hollow
representation that doesn’t steer towards a clear-cut ideological standpoint. The family seems
back together (after a suicidal attempt by the husband), but no revolutionary seeds have been
planted. And is the young doctor heading to a brighter future or toward a moral compromise
where professional success will overwhelm ethical and political considerations? This conclusion
seems to be indebted to the poetics of Lu Xun: a clear diagnosis of the political situation of his
country, full of compassion and irony, where the “optimism” of the revolutionary drive is but a
stitch demanded by political necessity, while the feeling left by the movie is a decadent, pleasant
melancholy suggesting a contemplative attitude more than a proactive engagement. No wonder
that Spring in a Small Town, like the most controversial and subtle short stories by the “father of
the modern Chinese literature,” has been repeatedly submitted to censorship and denial – not
without leaving a burgeon for future blossomings. Such a slightly decadent indulgence in com-
plex emotional intertwining, painted with graceful chiaroscuro, would not find its place in the
development of Chinese socialist cinema (except for a few rare exceptions, like the exception-
ally apolitical and passionate Early Spring in February or Zaochun er yue, Xie Tieli, 1963), not
at least until the blossoming of the fifth generation of the late 1980s. Tian Zhuangzhuang, one
of the most important and controversial contemporary directors, directed a remake of Spring in
a Small Town. Filmed in lush colors, the movie is dedicated to the pioneer of Chinese cinema.
The rich heritage of early cinema enshrines precious gems to be discovered and rediscovered,
to be restored and preserved for further generations that seem, consciously or not – as the doc-
tor in Spring – to look back and to reproduce in a loop the visual practices of the republican
period: competing studios producing melodramas, comedies, wuxiapian, blockbusters, with few
but aesthetically relevant, small-scale productions, and literary adaptations.

Notes
1 Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh, “New Takes on Film Historiography: Republican cinema redux, an introduction,”
Journal of Chinese Cinemas (2015), vol. 9, no. 1, 1–7, doi:10.1080/17508061.2015.1005931
2 Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh, “Translating Yingxi: Chinese Film Genealogy and Early Cinema in Hong Kong,”
Journal of Chinese Cinemas 76–109, doi:10.1080/17508061.2014.994849, 77.
3 Berry Chris and Mary Farquhar, China on Screen: Cinema and Nation (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2006), 47–56.
4 Zhang Zhen, An Amorous History of the Silver Screen: Shanghai Cinema, 1896–1937 (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 2005).
5 Tom Gunning, “An Aesthetic of Astonishment: Early Film and the (In)Credulous Spectator,” Art and
Text (1989), vol. 34, 114–133.
6 Bao Weihong, Fiery Cinema: The Emergence of an Affective Medium in China, 1915–1945 (Minneapolis,
MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2015).
7 Laikwan Pang, Building a New China in Cinema: The Chinese Left-Wing Cinema Movement, 1932–1937
(Boston: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002), 148.
8 Régis Bergeron, Le Cinéma chinois: 1905–1949 (Paris: Alfred Eibel, 1977).
9 Chen Xiaomei, Occidentalism: A Theory of Counter-discourse in Post-Mao China (New York and Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1995) underscores the positive effects of using the “Other” as an inspirational
force to empower the subjected peoples; she is also aware of the risk involved in such an intellectual
enterprise.
10 Anne Kerlan-Stephens and Marie-Claire Quiquemelle, “La compagnie cinématographique Lianhua et
le cinéma progressiste chinois: 1930–1937,” in Arts Asiatiques (2006), tome 61, 5.

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11 Nick Brown, “Society, and Subjectivity: On the Political Economy of Chinese Melodrama,” in New
Chinese Cinemas: Forms, Identities, Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 40–56.Wimal
Dissanayake, ed., Melodrama and Asian Cinema (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), Stephen
Teo, “Il genere wenyi: una esegesi del melodramma cinese,” [The wenyi genre:The Chinese melodrama],
in Festival del cinema di Pesaro, ed., Stanley Kwan. La via orientale al melodramma (Roma: Il Castoro,
2000).
12 Zhang Zhen, An Amorous History of the Silver Screen: Shanghai Cinema, 1896–1937, 30. It is necessary to
note that since melodrama is to some degree a foreign concept, the Chinese translation is shifting. It is
often rendered as tongsu ju, where tongsu means “popular “and ju “play, drama.”
13 See Sun Yu, Floating on the Screen: Memories of My Life (Yinhai fanzhou – huiyi wo de yisheng) (Shang-
hai: Shanghai Wenyi chubanshe, 1987); and Sun Yu, Song of the Big Road (Dalu zhi ge) (Taibei:Yuanliu,
1990). Note that the “traditional” chop-suey dish is not traditional at all, but instead a “construction” of
the Chinese diaspora; see Gregory B. Lee, Chinas Unlimited: Making the Imaginaries of China and Chinese-
ness (Honolulu: Routledge Curzon Press and University of Hawaii Press, 2003).
14 Anne Kerlan-Stephens and Marie-Claire Quiquemelle, “La compagnie cinématographique Lianhua et
le cinéma progressiste chinois: 1930–1937,” in Arts Asiatiques (2006), no. 61, 11.
15 Song Geng, The Fragile Scholar: Power and Masculinity in Chinese Culture (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Uni-
versity Press, 2004). Stephen Teo, Hong Kong:The Extra Dimensions (London: BFI Publishing, 1997).
16 “Sun’s commitment to both social progress and cinematic innovation led him to create a particular film
language that may be called “unofficial/popular discourse,” which for my purpose, may be reformu-
lated as “vernacular discourse”,” Zhang Zhen, An Amorous History of the Silver Screen: Shanghai Cinema,
1896–1937, 296–297.
17 Linda Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation (New York and London: Routledge, 2006).
18 Anne Cheng, “Le souffle chinois,” in Cahiers du cinéma (Novembre 2003), n. 584.

Further readings
Bao Weihong. Fiery Cinema: The Emergence of an Affective Medium in China, 1915–1945. Minneapolis: Uni-
versity of Minnesota Press, 2015.
Berry, Chris and Mary Farquhar. China on Screen: Cinema and Nation. New York: Columbia University
Press, 2006.
Bettinson, Gary and James Udden, eds. The Poetics of Chinese Cinema. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
Pang, Laikwan. Building a New China in Cinema. The Chinese Left-Wing Cinema Movement, 1932–1937.
Boston: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002.
Rojas, Carlos and Eileen Cheng-Yin Chow, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Cinemas. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2013.
Zhang,Yingjin, ed. A Companion to Chinese Cinema. West Sussex: Blackwell Publishing, 2012.
Zhang, Zhen. An Amorous History of the Silver Screen: Shanghai Cinema, 1896–1937. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2005.

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 PART II

Middle modern literature

(late 1930s–1977)

Part II: introduction: war, revolution, and the individual

The second part of this handbook covers Middle Modern Chinese Literature (late 1930s–late
1970s). During this period, while the momentum of the first period continued to exert its
influence on literature of this period, most of the literary works were largely products gener-
ated under the impact of the Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), Second Civil War (1946–1949),
the Socialist Revolution (1949–1966), and the Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966–1976).
The literature of this period may be divided into two distinct sub-periods with Mao Zedong’s
Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art as its demarcation line. Before the Talks were pub-
lished, writers of all genres plunged themselves into the national movement of the anti-Japanese
invasion. Inspired by fervent patriotism, writers created a large number of literary works of all
genres with the predominant theme of national salvation. In the domain of poetry, Zang Kejia,
Tian Han, Ai Qing, and others composed a great deal of poetry which expresses the poets’ love
for their motherland, hatred for the atrocities of the aggressors, and criticism of the depraved
corruption of ruling classes, and deep sympathy for the broad masses suffering from death and
destruction, oppression and exploitation. Among these poets, Ai Qing’s Dayan River, My Nurse is
a representative work of this period. In this period, drama achieved significant artistic successes.
Playwrights like Guo Moruo, Tian Han, Chen Baichen, Yang Hansheng, and others produced
some of the most successful plays in modern history. Among them, Guo Muruo’s historical
plays Qu Yuan and Tiger Seal, and Chen Baichen’s social satire, A Picture of Official Promotion were
among the most influential of this genre.
Fiction, especially the novel, underwent a significant change in themes and aesthetic forms.
Under the direct influence of Mao Zedong’s Talks on Literature and Art, fiction writers self-
consciously worked on themes directly related to the war, revolution, and the life of the labor-
ing people, and created a style of fiction based on revolutionary realism with distinct native
characteristics. Among them, writers who wrote in this style include Zhao Shuli, Sun Li, Ding
Ling, Zhou Libo,Yang Mo, and others. Ding Ling’s The Sun over the Sanggan River, Zhou Libo’s
Hurricane,Yang Mo’s Song of Youth, Ouyang Shan’s Three Family Lane, and other novels presented
a panoramic view of various sectors of Chinese society and achieved an epic grandeur. While
revolutionary realism dominated the literary scene, fictional and poetic works as well as literary
essays which aimed at pure art also flourished. Feng Zhi, Mu Dan, and poets of the so-called
 Middle modern literature (late 1930s–1977)

Nine Leaves School turned out poetry, which went beyond the poetic themes and forms pio-
neered by early poets. Writers of literary essays like Yang Shuo, Qin Mo, Liu Baiyu, et al. not
only continued the tradition pioneered by early essayists in the early period but also created new
poetic vistas inspired by the new social conditions. In the second period, there appeared some
new trends in modern Chinese literature, characterized by what may be called proto-feminism
and literary liberalism. While proto-feminist writings were concerned with women’s issues in
Chinese society, liberalist writings attempted to maintain an independence from the predomi-
nant trend of revolution, nationalism, and realism. Among these writers, while Ding Ling did
not hide her feminist tendency in her literary works, Zhang Ailing (Eileen Chang) wrote her
fictional works as if social upheavals only touched her characters superficially and did not affect
their inner world. Shen Congwen, Qian Zhongshu, Zhang Henshui, and others wrote their
fictional works with themes remotely related to the dominant themes of their time, thereby
earning their categorization as independent writers.
The establishment of New China in 1949 brought fundamental changes to the literary scene
in this period. Mao Zedong’s Talks on Literature and Art now became the official guideline for all
literary creations, effectively putting an end to heterogeneity of styles of literary creation except
that of socialist realism and revolutionary romanticism. Although this official policy for liter-
ary creation had negative impact on literary creation, the seventeen years before the Cultural
Revolution did produce a large quantity of literary works of all genres, which show remark-
able breadth and depth in themes and literary achievements in aesthetic qualities despite their
conformity to the official guidelines. Even in the ten-year period of the Cultural Revolution,
which is widely regarded as a barren land for literary creation, works of literature and art did
not disappear. Apart from the state-sanctioned works of fiction, drama, and poetry following the
official guidelines, there was an impressive collection of unpublished poetic works and hand-
copied fictional works, which came to be called “Underground Literature.” It displayed remark-
able aesthetic sensibilities and paved the way for the re-emergence of refined literature freed
from ideological control after the Cultural Revolution. Literary production of the late phase of
the second period will be discussed in four overviews: “Fiction of New China,” “Poetry of New
China,” “Drama of New China,” and “Literature of the Cultural Revolution.”

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 SECTION V

Poetry and patriotism

 16
ZANG KEJIA AND TIAN JIAN’S
POETRY
A clarion call for national salvation

Bingfeng Yang

When the Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, Chinese poets found it difficult to continue
the debate on the artistic issues of poetry as the country was under the real threat of foreign
occupation. The experiments and diversity of poetry writing in the 1930s (usually referring to
the period 1927–1937 in Chinese literary history) soon gave way to a passionate call to arms and
for engaged realism in literary creations under the strong impulse of patriotism. Revolutionary
literature, if it was something debatable when it was advocated by the left-wing writers in the
early 1930s, was now not only intellectually necessary but morally desirable. The individualist
pursuit of personal freedom and artistic purity had been largely abandoned, while sorrow, anger,
and even hatred for the Japanese imperialism became legitimate subject matter in the light
of the new patriotic commitment. It was a unique period in the history of modern Chinese
poetry when the extreme social condition greatly changed the mentality and sensibility of the
poets who were still searching for new poetic language. What Tim Kendall said about English
war poetry is applicable in the Chinese situation: “poetry . . . makes nothing happen; but war
makes poetry happen.”1 Among the influential poets, Zang Kejia and Tian Jian, the two poets
discussed in this chapter, are both known for their popular patriotic verses during the war. It is
not a coincidence that they are also both known as peasant poets, or people’s poets, on account
of their similar rural background and strong interest in depicting the miserable life of the peas-
ants, who constituted the vast majority of the Chinese population and suffered most when their
land became battlefields.
The early advocates of modern Chinese poetry were often well-educated scholars. Many of
them were well versed in both Chinese and Western literature. When they turned to the new
poetic forms and modern topics, their language was sometimes unnatural and awkward because
of the powerful influence of classical Chinese syntax and/or Western languages.When a number
of young poets such as Zang Kejia and Tian Jian began writing about the brutal reality of the
peasants’ lives and the people suffering in the war in plain and clear vernacular, they were well
received as leading a new form of patriotic literature. Zang Kejia had been highly praised for his
well-structured vernacular poems and sincere sympathy for the suffering people. His poetry also
participated in the newly fermented zeal for folk literature initiated by Chinese anthropologists,
who were trying to rebuild national identity by discovering the lost treasure of the people when
traditional culture had been openly attacked by modernists.

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The main purpose of the wartime poetry was to mobilize people to patriotic actions.
Cleanth Brooks, an American New Critic, regards “sentimentality” as a fault of political
poetry,2 but in wartime it was natural that poets should appeal to patriotic sentiment in order
to stimulate the public and encourage resistance to foreign aggression. Hu Feng (1901–1985)
clearly expressed the special need for poetry during the war: “Poetry in its essence, though,
requires much from the reader, for he needs to have acquired a certain level of education.
But now the requirement for poetry is that it should move as many people as possible, and
poetry should be as close to the people as possible.”3 A consensus was soon reached that
poets should take up the responsibility of comforting and encouraging people in the time of
war. Tian Jian, widely known as “the drummer of the age,” was certainly not alone when he
claimed that “poetry and songs are weapons.”4 His powerful rhythm and passionate cry for
battle and victory may sound coarse and aggressive, but they were exactly what soldiers and
war refugees would like to hear at a time when China faced the danger of being subjugated
by the invaders.

Zang Kejia: life and career

Zang Kejia (1905–2004) was born into a well-educated rural family in Zhucheng, Shandong
province, in the year when the Chinese imperial examinations were officially abolished. Both
Zang’s grandfather and father were poetry lovers, and it had been a great delight for the child
to listen to them reciting classical verses. In 1923, Zang entered the Shandong Provincial First
Normal School in Ji’nan, where he read contemporary vernacular poetry and started writing
his own. It is also the period when he was exposed to revolutionary ideas, which resulted in his
journey to Wuhan in 1926, where he was trained at the Wuhan Branch of the Central Military
and Political School. When the revolution failed the following year, Zang had to escape and live
for a few months in exile in northeast China.
In 1930, Zang Kejia enrolled in Qingdao University, first as an English major, but he soon
shifted to the department of Chinese language and literature to study poetry under the guid-
ance of Wen Yiduo (1899–1946). His first poetry collection, The Brand (Laoyin), came out in
1933 with a preface by Wen Yiduo. It received positive reviews from established writers such
as Mao Dun (1896–1981) and Lao She (1899–1966). After graduation in 1934, Zang took a
teaching job at Linqing Middle School in the northwest of Shandong province. The teaching
days were happy and productive, and Zang would later remember them in his memoirs as his
“golden days.” This period saw the publication of three collections: The Evil Black Hand (Zui’e
de heishou, 1934), Self-Portrait (Ziji de xiezhao, 1936), and The Canal (Yunhe, 1936). When
the Sino-Japanese War broke out, the school was forced to close and Zang joined the Chinese
military as a civil officer. He travelled in the hinterland, visited the fronts, and published several
collections of patriotic verse. Songs of Soil (Nitu de ge), published in 1943 with mixed critical
reactions, contained his best pastoral poems on the peaceful life of peasants and the country-
side. In 1942 he arrived in Chongqing, the war capital, where he was unemployed for some
time. He wrote for newspapers and magazines and became an active voice on contemporary
political issues. Some of his best political poems were written in this period. In 1945, Zang
published a poem in praise of Mao Zedong after they met in Chongqing.When he was editor-
in-chief of Poetry (Shikan), a poetry journal launched by the Chinese Writers Association in
1957, Zang managed to have 18 of Mao’s poems published in the inaugural issue. These poems
of Mao appeared in book form with notes and annotations in the same year, with Zang as the
co-editor.

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Literary achievements of Zang Kejia

Zang Kejia held a close relationship with the Crescent Moon poets and later the Nine Leaves poets,
but he has never been regarded as one of them. The intricate craftsmanship displayed in his early
poems clearly showed the influence of Wen Yiduo, but his down-to-earth realism and particular
brand of solemnity distinguished him from his contemporaries who were much under Western
influence. Robert Payne, for example, believes that Zang is “uninfluenced by any foreign move-
ment.”5 Zang Kejia certainly read and studied Western literature, but deliberately modelled his own
on classical Chinese poetry and learned whole-heartedly from folk literature. His genuine sympa-
thy for the proletariat and unaffected vernacular style were unmistakable. As a result, Zhu Ziqing
(1898–1948), a prominent writer and critic, claimed that Zang’s works had opened a new direction
for Chinese vernacular poetry with their honest representation of the real situation of rural China.6
Allegedly the most prolific poet in the war period (1937–1945), Zang was a leading figure in
propaganda efforts against Japanese aggression. His large number of patriotic poems, though not
the most refined works, were widely read by soldiers and students. Zang’s dedicated love for the
rustic and the countryside was immediately recognized when his Songs of Soil was published in
1934, for which he earned the reputation as a modern tianyuan shiren (“pastoral poet” or “poet
of the countryside”).7 Stephen Field noticed a particular trend of ruralism in traditional Chinese
poetry and claimed that Zang Kejia, along with Ai Qing, was working in the same tradition and
“formed the core of the modern satiric mode of rustic poetry and paved the way for the post-
revolutionary experiment in peasant literature.”8 Like many poets, Zang’s artistic production
took a very different tone after 1949 as the overwhelming optimistic atmosphere made his bitter
criticism of social problems virtually impossible. He worked in various editorial positions, sing-
ing with great enthusiasm happy songs for the new culture. He continued producing volumes
of poems, but they seldom surpassed his early works.

Zang Kejia and Chinese rural tradition

Different from other influential poets in the first half of the twentieth century, Zang Kejia had
no overseas experience before he became a prominent poet. His genius was rooted in traditional
Chinese literature and folk art. In the preface to Zang Kejia’s first collection of poetry, The
Brand (Laoyin),Wen Yiduo compared the young poet to Meng Jiao (751–814), a Mid-Tang poet
known for his bitter verses and intricate craftsmanship.9 Zang Kejia apparently liked this com-
parison as he quoted Meng Jiao in his postscript to the second edition of the collection in 1934:

I am a serious man in writing as well as in life. I do not write easily. I would spend
an entire afternoon thinking about one word; or for a whole day I would not eat, as
my heart was aching for a poem. Sometimes I would wake up at midnight only to jot
down under the candlelight the lines that just popped into my head. I enjoyed these
moments so much but they did cause harm to my health. I am now a sick man physi-
cally as well as mentally, “my heart is my body’s enemy,” this perfectly describes me.10

The quotation is from Meng Jiao’s “On Painstaking Work” (Kuxue yin), in which Meng
described how he “worked at night and did not stop until dawn.” Zang likened himself to the
Tang poet for a good reason. The new vernacular poetry was still in its infancy; poets in the
1920s even debated on questions such as whether modern Chinese poetry should be rhymed as
in classical poetry. The “free verse poets,” or the poets who believed Chinese poetry should be
forever freed from the shackles of tradition, tended to rely on the extravagant use of vernacular

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Chinese for artistic innovation. Zang Kejia, under the influence of Wen Yiduo, took a much
more serious attitude to the undisrupted evolution of poetic tradition. He openly denounced
what he called “mystic” poetry, believing that Chinese new poetry was in need of the power
directly drawn from the reality of life. For Zang Kejia, poetry is an ethical as well as aesthetic
endeavor which he could even die for.
Like Meng Jiao’s unhappy poems, Zang’s works are full of suffering, conflicts, and pun-
gent depictions of social problems. Unlike Meng Jiao who lived a hermit life, Zang was
rather active in social life and political engagements, and ambitious in writing something
tough and great. In the title poem of his first collection The Brand he wrote “I live by
chewing bitter sap / Like a worm fed on croton seeds.”11 The metaphor is heavily loaded
with Chinese medical knowledge. “Croton seeds” (badou in Chinese) are commonly used in
traditional Chinese medicine as a purgative. Since croton seeds are poisonous, they should
only be used for some special diseases or in the situations that ordinary medicines fail to
heal. This theory is popularly known as yi du gong du (“to fight the poisonous with poi-
son”) and it is common knowledge that in a seriously dangerous situation, a good healer
has the right and responsibility to take some unusual measures for the good of the patient.
Zang Kejia, a poet fully aware of the social inequalities and a dissident who believed in
radical changes, used this image deliberately in its medical-political sense. Zang focuses on
the uneasy feeling of eating croton seeds, not only for the bitter taste, but for the coming
cathartic effect that the medicine is supposed to produce.
The idea of revolution which is embedded in “The Brand” becomes clear in “One Day In
the Future,” in which a “change” to the unjust world is surely to come: “Do not worry about the
present, let’s wait and see / One day in the future, / The world will touch its face and shock us
with a change!”(14) The personification alludes to the “face-changing” trick in Sichuan Opera,
in which the actor could change his colored masks almost instantaneously. The poet speaks in a
prophetic tone, announcing the coming of a “bright dawn” with full confidence:

 . . . Now you laugh at my stupidity,

As you would do to a loony
who says, “The sun rises in the West,
How could I prove these?
No shadows can be seen in cloudy days.
But would you please notice this:
Under the long wings of night
A bright dawn is hiding.
(“One Day In the Future”) (14–15)12

The revolutionary spirit is unmistakable in those lines, but Zang carefully avoids using
elevated words and wraps his heroic dreams within clichéd quotations. “The sun rises in the
West, / The Yellow River is clear” is an idiomatic expression in Chinese to describe something
which cannot possibly happen. The spiritual lunatic who believes in something impossible, or
the tragic hero who fights alone, was a specific cultural image attractive to the young poet.
It speaks well of the poet’s individualistic pursuit of freedom and explains a certain kind of
spiritual loneliness that had been felt by many of his contemporaries. The poem reminds us
of the madman in Lu Xun’s first story, “A Madman’s Diary,” who is also the image of a revo-
lutionary. A comparison with Lu Xun’s character shows a difference: while the madman who
sees through the nature of Chinese culture and society finally recovers and reconciles with the

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society by taking an official appointment, Zang Kejia’s lunatic is a revolutionary who is deter-
mined to fight to change his society.
The same sense of lack of satisfaction and disappointment with the present and the wish for
a radical change can be felt in Guo Moro’s The Goddesses and Wen Yiduo’s Dead Water. What
makes Zang Kejia’s poetic creation unique is the way he identifies himself with the depressed
individuals. He turns his eyes to the peddler, the coal miner, the wagon driver, the bar singer, and
many other poor people living in despair for his poetic imagination. In most cases, Zang would
focus on a dramatic moment of an individual who has been pushed by the pressure of life to the
edge of depression. In one of his most anthologized poems, “The Old Horse,” the poet takes the
burdened animal as a symbol of the people in crisis:

The cart is loaded to the extremity

The horse endures it without a moan
The straps cut into his flesh
His neck hangs down in pain
No time is for him to think of future
No tears for him to shed in vain
He raises his head and watches ahead
When the whip is before his eyes again.
(“The Old Horse”) (20)

Although the poet insisted that the poem is but a truthful depiction of his own experience
of coming across a poor horse in the street,13 the image of the overloaded animal has been
nevertheless widely interpreted as a perfect symbol for the heavily exploited Chinese peasants
in the Warlord Era (1916–1927).14 More than an icon of victim, the horse becomes a hero of
great endurance under the burden of life. The sympathetic identification with the suffering
horse reveals the basic attitude of the poet toward the persecuting master who is invisible in
the poem, but easily recognizable in the contrast that he made between the suffering country
fellows and the ignorant city people. Zang Kejia openly expresses his hostile attitude toward
the modern and corrupt cities, and proudly calls himself a villager: “In the foreign block I am a
dried fish, / In villages, can you tell me what I am not good at?” (“Eyes and Ears”)15 The “for-
eign block” (yang chang in Chinese) is a conventional term for the part of old Shanghai infested
with foreign adventurers, which the poet uses here referring to the modernized/westernized
city in general. This explicit contrast between the country and the city may sound familiar in
Western ears, as Raymond Williams has made it clear in his The Country and the City. As he
points out, the key to understand the contrast is nature against worldliness, and more impor-
tantly, it is an “ideological separation between the processes of rural exploitation . . . and the
register of that exploitation.”16 Zang Kejia wrote those lines in Chinese rural tradition much
earlier than Williams’s conceptualization of the contrast, but of course he spoke of this ideolog-
ical separation in a poetic way. For Zang, the city is the opposite to the rustic village, where he
found his best teachers and friends among the uneducated peasants. Writing in the traditional
pastoral tradition, Zang has produced some of the most lovely short lyric poems in modern
Chinese poetry:

The windlass
Swings a string of ringing pearls
Into the shining net of the morning sun.

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 Bingfeng Yang

Blessed are the ears of the man

Who gets up early.
(“Pearls”)17

In this tranquil beauty of rural life is a modern poet who takes his time keeping a distance
away from the real labor of lifting a water bucket from the well. The catching description
of water drops falling in the sunshine is quite alien to traditional Chinese poetic diction but
rather common in modern poetry, and the employment of religious ideas in the secular sense
(“blessed are the ears of the man”) skillfully resonates with the biblical verses of the Sermon
on the Mount, which he might have read as a college student. It is generally true that Zang is
a poet whose works show little Western influence, but he is certainly aware of the existence of
Western culture in China. In fact, the title of his second collection of poetry, “The Evil Back
Hand,” directly refers to the Christian church in China. The poet takes Christian missionaries
in Qingdao as accomplices who collaborated with Western cultural imperialists. His criticism of
Christianity, however, does not apply to its religious doctrine but to the ironic contrast between
the genteel atmosphere in the church and the stark poverty outside.18 For Zang, Christian
churches did not help the Chinese poor but supported the already corrupt ruling class in secur-
ing its social status by clearly distinguishing the inside from the outside. In the eyes of the young
student from the countryside, the unfamiliar services of the Christian churches are but another
component of the corrupt city.
Zang Kejia has no love for the Westernized city life, partly because of his own rural back-
ground, and partly because of his patriotic commitment inherited from the traditional attitude
toward the countryside. Deliberately picturing cities as hypocritical and alienated, Zang paints
the rustic and the uneducated in heroic colors. Peasants are “simple, diligent, tough, / with a
clear conscience” (“Sons of Farmers”);19 they are “giants of hands,” healthy, honest, and mor-
ally superior to the people in cities: “your eyes / that little pair of bright mirrors / make every
‘honorable’ person / see his true self.” (“The Giants of Hands”) (15) Even the highbrow culture
of the educated is foreign to him: “Beijing Opera does not strike my ears / country plays are
my crush” (“Iron Soul”). (25) He feels more comfortable with the language of the people of his
own: “I love to hear / one call stars / xingxing” (“Stars”).20 In formal Chinese, stars are indicated
by a single syllable “xing,” but in the vernacular the same thing is called “xingxing” with a rep-
etition of the same syllable.The poet is extremely sensitive to this delicate variation of words and
turns it into a sign of cultural difference.
To justify his indulging preference for the rustic life, he appeals to the idea of filial piety
which has been highly valued in Chinese culture, especially in rural society. When asked why
he is inclined to love the village, he replies: “I would ask: / ‘which child in this world / does not
love his mother?’ ” (“The Sea”)21 His love for the country people is thus unconditional: “I love
these: / their red hearts, / their black faces, / and the scars on their bodies” (“The Sea”) (19).
Situating himself in such an intimate relationship with peasants, he confidently speaks in their
voice and for their destiny:

Children
Bathing in the soil;
Father
Sweating in the soil;
Grandfather
Buried in the soil.
(“Three Generations”) (44)

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 Zang Kejia and Tian Jian’s poetry

This natural commitment to the soil/land could be easily translated into a patriotic love for the
nation and country, which was so appealing to the Chinese during the war against foreign invad-
ers. Zang worked as the leader of the Youth Training Squad, published short patriotic verses during
the war, and organized recital groups.22 His epigraph to Enlisted in the Army (Congjun xing) best
illustrates his wartime production: “Poets, / Open your mouths, / Aside from fiery songs of war, /
Your poetry shall be silence.”23 His most lovely pieces in the war, however, are still those focusing
on his familiar country life. In a poem portraying a soldier’s life, for example, when the hero is back
home on leave, his friends and family are gathering around him to listen to his adventures. In this
peaceful scene of merry gathering, the poet captures a warm moment: the little boy “happily but
timidly” reaches out a curious hand to touch the father’s revolver, while “his woman, / with face
shone in joy, / embraces him with her glances / stealthily” (“He Is Back Home”).24
Zang Kejia has also produced a large number of political poems in his long literary career.
Many of them have lost their critical power for modern readers as they were written in immedi-
ate response to contemporary issues. A few of them, however, were well accepted in the canon
of modern Chinese poetry on account of the catching language and dramatic tension:

Some people live

But they are already dead;
Some people died,
But they are still alive.
(“Some People: In
Memory of Lu Xun”)25

These plain, straightforward words helped establish the unparalleled fame of Lu Xun as a cul-
tural hero in modern Chinese history. Zang Kejia never met Lu Xun and he wrote this poem in
Beijing in 1949 for the thirteenth anniversary of Lu Xun’s death. The poem has successfully cap-
tured the delicate mood of a time when the country was celebrating liberation, while mourning
for the huge loss of life in wars. Lu Xun was the most visible monument in the sea of joyful tears,
and the great sorrow people felt for their lost friends and comrades could be perfectly projected
upon this outstanding figure of revolutionary literature. The poem has become an epigraph for
all the revolutionaries who are “living in people’s minds forever” for their sacrifice for the nation.

Tian Jian: life and career

Tian Jian (pen name of Tong Tianjian, 1917–1985) was born in Wuwei county, Anhui province.
Tian received his early education in classical Chinese literature in his native village and started writ-
ing poetry when a teenager. In 1933, he entered Kwang Hua University to study in the department
of foreign languages. While in Shanghai, he joined the League of Left-Wing Writers (Zuolian)
and started editing poetry journals. His first collection of poetry, It Is Not Yet Dawn (Weiming ji),
was published in 1935, followed by Chinese Pastorals (Zhongguo muge) and a long poem entitled
“Stories of the Chinese Countryside” (Zhongguo nongcun de gushi) in 1936. His works were
banned by the nationalist government and he had to flee to Japan in the spring of 1937, where he
read Petöfi, Byron, and Mayakovsky. Returning to China soon after the Sino-Japanese War broke
out, he traveled to Yan’an the following year, joined the Chinese Communist Party, and served as a
war correspondent with the Service Corps on the Northwestern Battlefield. When in Yan’an,Tian
Jian and his friends began a propaganda drive for “street verse” (jietou shi), writing and painting short
patriotic verses on walls and stones in public places to encourage Chinese people to fight against
foreign invaders. The idea was partly inspired by Mayakovsky’s “Rosta windows” posters.26 Two

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 Bingfeng Yang

volumes of patriotic poems, To the Soldiers Patrolling in Storms (Cheng zai da fengsha li benzou de
gangweimen, 1938), To the Fighters (Gei zhandouzhe, 1943) and a long poem Even She Wants to Kill
(Ta yeyao sharen, 1938) came out from his experience in the war.
From 1943, Tian Jian began working in various positions in local government and edited a
literary magazine, New Masses (Xin qunzhong). He continued to produce volumes of poetry,
including the first part of a long narrative poem The Cart Driver (Ganche zhuan, 1946) featuring
the ruined life of a peasant and his daughter resulting from the overexploitation of the landlord.
He held important positions in the Chinese Writers Association and taught at the Central Insti-
tute of Literature in Beijing after 1949. He published the rest of his voluminous narrative poem
The Cart Driver (Parts Two to Seven). During the Korean War (1950–1953), Tian Jian served
again as a war correspondent. He visited Eastern Europe and Africa in 1954 and Egypt in 1964.

Literary achievements of Tian Jian

In the words of Robert Payne, the editor of Contemporary Chinese Poetry,Tian Jian is a poet who
might have changed the course of Chinese poetry more than any other Chinese poet:

With Tien Chien [i.e.Tian Jian] we enter a world which passes almost beyond poetry alto-
gether, a world of simple hammer-beats, of emotion untrammeled by complexity, a world
where there are no lute players, no deceits, no diplomatic maneuvers. In that world,there
is nothing but clear honesty and purpose, vigorous life and the unending pursuit of good,
and all this expressed in the simplest possible and the most resounding terms.27

Tian Jian’s forceful verses were extremely popular in the war period and for which he was
widely known as “the drummer poet” because of Wen Yiduo’s influential review; he was also
known as the “battle buddy” for his inspiring war poetry. In Wen’s 1943 review, the critic called
Tian Jian “the drummer of the age,” and described his poems as drumbeats that are “uniform,
majestic, sturdy, brave, rough, rapid, depressed, heavy.”28 Tian Jian is more a passionate singer than
a craftsman. His poetry is full of “life desire,” which would “arouse your love, agitate your hate,
and encourage you to live.” (233) Encouraged by Tian Jian’s wholehearted embrace of a revolu-
tionary literature of the people, Wen Yiduo proclaimed Tian Jian to be “the poet of tomorrow,”
“a poet who has already been in the new world.”29 Tian Jian’s most ambitious narrative poem
is The Cart Driver, of which the first part is often regarded as the most successful. The poem is
structured as a modern folksong. It has been welcomed as the representative work of the new
proletariat literature in China by noted Western Marxist literary scholars such as Jaroslav Prusek
and F. C. Weiskopf, who also translated it into Czech and German respectively.

Tian Jian’s war poetry

When Hu Feng, an influential literary critic of the time, described Tian Jian as “a poet of war
and a poet of people who has shuffled off the soul of the intellectual,” (234) he meant to praise
the poet for his willing departure from the unhealthy sentimentalism that many of his contem-
poraries suffered from. In the foreword to the first issue of New Poetry, the official journal of
Chinese Poetry Association (“Zhongguo shige hui,” a group affiliated to the League of Left-
Wing Writers) launched in 1933, it was proclaimed that the purpose of the new poetry is “to
capture the new reality, / to sing for the conscience of the new century.” (234) To achieve this
goal, the foreword stated that “we should make our poetry sing for the people, / and we our-
selves be part of them.”30 As a young editor of the journal, Tian Jian accepted the theory and
guided his poetic creation according to the principles. Like Zang Kejia, Tian Jian derived much

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of his inspiration from his life experience with the peasants of his native village. He praised them
for their humble honesty and lamented the ruined beauty of the countryside. His early poems
had already shown his efforts to find a literary style modeled on Chinese folksongs:

The sun throws a torch

Upon the hilly field
We are picking cotton.
Picking cotton –
Our bellies hurt
Our backs ache
We cannot go home
The day is not end.
(“Song Upon
Hilly Fields”)31

The singsong rhythm and the transparent language remind the reader of the ancient bal-
lads in the Book of Songs (Shijing, the first anthology of poetry in the Chinese tradition). When
identifying himself with the common peasants, the poet finds his way of representing the soul
of the people.
When working as a war correspondent in the Service Corps on the Northwestern Battlefield
in 1938, Tian Jian started writing poems to capture the fighting spirit of the people in rapid
drumbeat-like verses. His wartime poems are composed in irregular, abrupt lines, some of which
containing only two or three characters. With a good use of repetition and parallel structures,
he successfully turns the horror of war into powerful messages of love and loyalty. In “To the
Soldiers,” the poet appeals to the patriotic sentiment at the crucial moment of national crisis:

. . .
Where
Shall we go?

In a world,
With no land,
With no seas and rivers,
With no soul,
To live
In crawling
Is to die.

Today
We will die,
But let us offer
Our last soul
To the sacred song
Of guarding our country.
(“To the Soldiers”)32

This is not the platonic reasoning of death, but a poetic explanation of an ancient moral code
famously explained in the Confucian canon The Book of Rites: “he [i.e. a scholar, or a gentleman]

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may be killed, but he cannot be disgraced.”33 The “scholar” (ruzhe in Chinese) in Confucian ide-
ology, or a decent man as it has been well accepted in the Chinese popular mindset, is by nature
a free and cultivated human being, who will keep his moral integrity even in the most hostile
situation. The fervent desire to die with dignity is not new in Chinese poetic tradition. The
best-known classical expression was made by the scholar-general Wen Tianxiang (1236–1283)
when he was captured by the invading Yuan armies of Kubla Khan: “Who in this world can
escape death? / To die a hero is to live in history” (“Passing the Lingding yang”). The “soul of
the intellectual” is to some extent regained by the poet by alluding to the patriotic tradition in
history. This dramatic rendering of shame for humiliation and slavery frequently appears in his
“street verses” written in Yan’an:

If we do not fight,
Our enemies will kill us
With their bayonets,
And point at ours bones and say:
“Look,
They are slaves!”
(“If We Do Not Fight”)34

The disgrace or shame that the Japanese invaders brought to the Chinese people was greatly
dramatized in “Even She Wants to Kill,” a long poem featuring a country woman named Bai
Niang. The name literally means “a woman named ‘white,’ ” which obviously implies her inno-
cence and purity. The title is meant to dramatize the worst condition of humanity: Even Bai
Niang, the last person to kill anyone or anything, wants to kill the wicked Japanese for their
atrocious crimes – even she wants to kill. She is created as a representative of the indomitable
spirit of the Chinese suffering under Japanese occupation.
In formal style, the poet tends to break the entire poem into a great number of very
short run-on lines. Considering the unnatural mental state of the main character, those
broken lines are perfectly suitable for the expression of her desperation, sorrow, and rage.
It is widely acknowledged that Tian Jian was under the influence of the Russian/Soviet
poet Mayakovsky, which he himself never denied, but it is only in verse lines that Tian Jian’s
chopped verses resemble those of Mayakovsky. It is more likely that the poet models his
specific rhythm not on drumbeats or hammer beats, but on the pulses or the broken utter-
ance of a woman heavily breathing in despair. The unusual character of Bai Niang makes the
harsh rhythm of the poem not a mere formal innovation but a poetic rendering of the most
unbearable emotional pain.
The dramatic characters of the poem are significantly modern as the poet refuses to estab-
lish the character within a plot in the traditional way. He bases his narrative on several crucial
scenes so that he can picture the development of the character’s emotional breakdown in a few
fragmental snapshots. The purpose of the poet is to find a new poetic language to represent the
psychological turn of the people from timid denial to fervent desire for revenge under the most
unnatural circumstances. Mao Dun, when commenting on Tian Jian’s narrative poems, said that
“it is as if I was watching a movie with all ‘actions’ taken away, leaving only a few ‘close-ups’ and
‘scenes’ hanging together.”35 Mao Dun made this comment not as praise (he believed that Tian
Jian sacrificed too many details to the grand picture), but his apt remarks on the poet’s cinematic
techniques are accurate and provocative. Tian Jian’s peculiar taste for visual languages is most
visible in his inclination of framing the narrative with different imaginative visual perspectives.

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 Zang Kejia and Tian Jian’s poetry

The poem opens with Bai Niang wandering and crying in the open field at night, followed by
a closeup image of the desperate young woman after being raped by the Japanese:

. . .
Her feet
Were bare,
Her eyes
Bulged.
With her dreadful fingers,
Twisted fingers that were never to be relaxed,
She felt her wounded breasts
And bleeding chest.
(“Even She Wants to Kill”)36

Not only does the poet use these haunting visual images to build up the tension between
the innocent victim and the war criminals, but he also directly invites the reader to see what Bai
Niang has seen: “In her pupils, / reflects the villains, / so many of them, / those devils in spiked
shoes . . .”With the repeating phrase “She saw it,” the poet recalls the destruction of the peaceful
life of the villagers, which culminates in the most horrible scene of the murder of her child by
the invaders. When the poet gives a flashback to show how lovely a woman she was before the
war, a chorus-like narrative sadly reveals that Bai Niang was the most kindhearted woman in
the village, the last to hurt anyone or to be hurt by anyone. With the help of Tian Jian’s typical
broken lines, the information is released in a voice choked with emotion:

. . .
Because she
Never
Kills anyone,
Not
Even an ant dies
Under her careful steps.
If
A dog,
Or a horse
Was whipped too hard
By her neighbor,
She will come up to the master
And protest:
“Drop your whip!”
(22–24)

The poet employs the theme of rape and child murder to expose the cruelty of the Japanese
invaders, which leads to the dominant motif of the poem: “She never kills anyone, / But the
wicked Japanese, / They burnt her child, / They violated her body.” (25–26) The narrative is
indeed a poetic drama, with flashing montages of killing enemies, suffering villagers, ruined
countryside, and the angry woman finally rising up to fight. The poet makes good use of the
extreme psychological condition of Bai Niang to frame the scenes of different time and space

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 Bingfeng Yang

into a coherent narrative. It is remarkable that the poet intentionally describes the whole situ-
ation as psychologically unnatural. When Bai Niang watches the fire in the field, she sees in
vision her child crawl out from the fire, “his fat little face, / brimming with toothless smile, / was
screaming: / ‘Mom! Mom!’ ” (39–40) For the heartbroken mother, the entire world is already
out of joint: “the knife was seducing her, and was leading her, . . . as if it was saying / ‘let me bring
your baby / back to you, / and show you how to live.’ ” (41–42) The process of this horrible
development naturally leads to the violence of revenge:

. . .
Don’t say
She is mad;
It is not she who is mad.
Don’t say
She is eager to kill;
If someone comes to kill us,
We have no choice but
To kill.
(87–88)

The madness of the woman is explained as the result of the brutal murder of her child,
which makes the psychological development of the character a reasonable support for her vio-
lent intention of killing. It justifies the anger and revenge of her country fellows, and illustrates
the basic logic of patriotism. It is only in this extreme condition that the poet could justify the
bloody violence of war against the invaders and celebrate in ecstasy the fighting and killing of
the soldiers:

Ho! What a snowy day!

Our guns
In the snow
Are shooting. . .
Great!
Beautiful!
Our enemy’s horseshoes
Are shot into pieces!
(“One Gun and
One Zhang Yi”)37

The poet’s undisguised thirst for revenge and victory becomes acceptable and even comfort-
ing for the Chinese readers in the great shadow of death. But he is quite aware of the harsh
truth that the glory of victory cannot be won without blood and tears, and death could be
everywhere even when soldiers could return heroes:

Somewhere in the Changbai mountains

Chinese sorghums
Are growing in blood.
In the dust of a windy day,
A volunteer soldier
Walks across his hometown on horseback.

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 Zang Kejia and Tian Jian’s poetry

He is back,
With an enemy’s head
Hanging on his barrel.
(“A Volunteer Soldier”)38

The poem could be easily read as a silhouette of a proud warrior ready to receive welcome
from his country fellows, but no flowers or celebrations appear; the survivor of a brutal battle
comes home a lonely man, only to find his sorghum plants stained with blood, and a dead man’s
head as his only reward. The scene of a soldier returning home with his enemy’s head on his
barrel is apparently a symbolic stance of patriotism, but the way the poet frames this picture tells
more about the insanity and cruelty of war.
Tian Jian’s detailed description of the psychological impact of the war upon the ordinary
people may be horrifying for modern readers, but his words are impressive and provocative;
considering the fact that they were once read as the most powerful voice of Chinese resistance
literature, the poet’s artistic depiction of the horrible truth of the war has helped chronicle the
inescapable pain of the Chinese memory. Tian Jian’s war poetry is a literary record of one of the
most dreadful moments in the modern history of China, when the individual has lost all possible
means of pursuing a meaningful life under the huge national crisis. The poem was meant to be
an effort of propaganda against the Japanese aggression, but it also shows how the poet endeav-
ored to explore the psychological depth of those impoverished peasants-turned-revolutionaries.

Notes
1 Tim Kendall, Modern English War Poetry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 2.
2 Cleanth Brooks, Modern Poetry and the Tradition (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
2017), 50.
3 Hu Feng, “Remarks on the Poetry Since the War Broke Out (Lue guan zhanzheng yilai de shi),” in
Collected Essays of Hu Feng (Hu Feng pinglun ji), vol. 2 (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1984),
52. The English translation of the Chinese quotations in this essay is mine unless specifically notified
otherwise.
4 Tian Jian, To the Fighters (Gei zhandou zhe) (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1978), 223.
5 Robert Payne, Contemporary Chinese Poetry (London: George Routledge & Sons Ltd., 1947), 107.
6 Zhu Ziqing, “The Advance of New Poetry (Xinshi de jinbu),” in Research Resources on Zang Kejia (Zang
Kejia yanjiu ziliao), eds. Feng Guanqian and Liu Zengren (Lanzhou: Gansu renmin chubanshe, 1990),
336.
7 Yao Xueyin, “Modern Pastoral Poems (Xiandai tianyuan shi),” in Research Resources on Zang Kejia, 533.
The Chinese term “tianyuan,” literally meaning “fields and gardens,” though often translated as “pas-
toral,” does not fit well with the Western idea. For detailed discussion of the term see Stephen Field,
“Ruralism in Chinese Poetry: Some Versions of Chinese Pastoral,” Comparative Literature Studies (1991),
vol. 28, no. 1, 1–35.
8 Stephen Field, “Ruralism in Chinese Poetry: Some Versions of Chinese Pastoral,” 30.
9 Wen Yiduo, “Preface to The Brand (Laoyin xu),” in Research Resources on Zang Kejia, 436.
10 Zang Kejia, “Postscript to the Second Edition of The Brand (Laoyin zaiban houzhi),” in Research
Resources on Zang Kejia, 148–149.
11 Zang Kejia, The Brand (Laoyin) (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2000), 8.
12 Unless indicated, all the translations of cited poems are mine.
13 Zang Kejia, “On My Poem ‘The Old Horse (Tan ziji de shi Lao ma),’ ” in Research Resources on Zang
Kejia, 160.
14 The poem was written in 1932, the year after the publication of the first Chinese translation of Fyodor
Dostoyevsky’s masterpiece Crime and Punishment. It is not known whether the poet read the novel or
not, but the image of the overloaded horse easily reminds us of the dreadful dream of Raskolnikov in
the novel, although the animal which was beaten to death in the story is not an old horse but a thin
sorrel nag.

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 Bingfeng Yang

15 Zang Kejia, Songs of Soil (Nitu de ge) (Shanghai: Xingqun chuban gongsi, 1946), 64.
16 Williams Raymond, The Country and the City (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 46.
17 Zang Kejia, Songs of Soil, 70.
18 Zang Kejia, Selected Poems of Zang Kejia (Zang Kejia shi xuan) (Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe, 1954), 20.
19 Zang Kejia, Songs of Soil, 18.
20 Zang Kejia, Selected Poems of Zang Kejia, 89.
21 Zang Kejia, Songs of Soil, 20.
22 Crespi, John A., Voices in Revolution: Poetry and the Auditory Imagination in Modern China (Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press, 2009), 111.
23 Zang Kejia,“Epigraph to Enlisted In the Army (Congjun xing tici),” in Research Resources on Zang Kejia, 199.
2 4 Zang Kejia, Songs of Soil, 59–60.
2 5 Zang Kejia, Selected Poems of Zang Kejia, 100.
2 6 Hung, Chang-tai, War and Popular Culture: Resistance in Modern China, 1937–1945 (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1994), 254.
27 Robert Payne,“Introduction,” in Contemporary Chinese Poetry (London: George Routledge & Sons Ltd.,
1947), 25.
28 Wen Yiduo, “The Drummer of the Age: On Reading Tian Jian’s Poems (Shidai de gushou: du Tian Jian
de shi),” in Tang Wenbin et al., eds., Research Resources on Tian Jian (Tian Jian yanjiu zhuanji) (Hangzhou:
Zhejiang wenyi chubanshe, 1984), 229.
29 Wen Yiduo, “Tian Jian and Ai Qing (Tian Jian he Ai Qing),” in Research Resources on Tian Jian, 234.
30 Cai Qingfu, “Chinese Poetry Association and its New Poetry (Zuoguo shige hui ji qi Xin Shige),” Journal
of Modern Chinese Literature Studies (Zhongguo xiandai wenxue yanjiu congkan) (1980), vol. 3, 309–318.
31 Tian Jian, Essays and Poems by Tian Jian (Tian Jian shi wen ji), vol. 1, (Shijiazhuang: Huashan wenyi
chubanshe, 1989), 69.
32 My translation is based on the original version published in 1943. The last several lines were different
in later version: “Today /Let’s Die! /Shall we die? / – No, never!” See Tian Jian, Selected Poems of Tian
Jian (Tian Jian shi xuan) (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1983), 23.
33 James Legge, trans., Sacred Books of China:The Texts of Confucianism, Part IV:The Li Ki, Xi-XLVI (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1885), 405.
34 Tian Jian, Selected Poems of Tian Jian (Tian Jian shi xuan) (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1983), 25.
35 Mao Dun, “The Future of Narrative Poems (Xushishi de qiantu),” in Research Resources on Tian Jian,
221–222.
36 Tian Jian, Even She Wants to Kill (Ta yeyao sharen), ed. Hu Feng (Shanghai: Haiyan shudian, 1949),
11–12. A different English translation of the poem entitled “She Also Wants to Kill A Man” can be
found in Robert Payne, Contemporary Chinese Poetry, 155–163. That translation made by Chu Chun-I,
however, is not an accurate rendering of the original, but a shortened version with many lines reorgan-
ized and omitted.
37 Tian Jian, To the Fighters (Gei zhandouzhe) (Shanghai: Xiwang she, 1947), 132–133.
38 Tian Jian, Selected Poems of Tian Jian, 27.

Further readings
Batt, Herbert and Sheldon Zitner, trans. The Flowering of Modern Chinese Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from
the Republican. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016.
Crespi, John A. Voices in Revolution: Poetry and the Auditory Imagination in Modern China. Honolulu: Univer-
sity of Hawaii Press, 2009.
Hsu, K.Y. Twentieth Century Chinese Poetry. New York: Doubleday, 1963.
Hung, Chang-tai. War and Popular Culture: Resistance in Modern China, 1937–1945. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1994.
Lee, Leo Ou-fan, “Literary Trends: The Road to Revolution 1927–1949.” In John K. Fairbank and Albert
Feuerwerker, eds. The Cambridge History of China,Volume 13: Republican China 1912–1949, Part 2. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Lin, Julia C. Modern Chinese Poetry: An Introduction. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1972.
McDougall, Bonnie S. and Kam Louie. The Literature of China in the Twentieth Century. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1999.

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 17
AI QING’S POETRY AND
DAYANHE, MY NURSE
Victor Vuilleumier1

Life and career

Ai Qing (1910–1996), pen name of Jiang Haicheng, is one of the most renowned Chinese poets
of the 20th Century. After graduating from secondary school in Zhejiang province, he enrolled
at Hangzhou’s National West Lake Academy of Art (today’s famous China Academy of Art) in
1928, founded by the prominent modern Chinese artist, Lin Fengmian (1900–1991), and began
studying modern painting. Encouraged by Lin Fengmian to study in France, he went to Paris
the following year. There, while earning his own livelihood, he kept studying painting in pri-
vate academies and exhibited his work at the Salon des Indépendants in 1931. While learning
painting, he started to read literary works by poets like Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891), Emile
Verhaeren (1855–1916), Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918), and French translations of Rus-
sian poets such as Sergei Essenin (1895–1925),Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893–1930), or Aleksandr
Blok (1880–1921). In the meantime, he came to know some compatriots involved in left-wing
and anti-imperialist movements. He returned to China in 1932, and participated in artistic and
political activities. He was arrested by the French concession’s police on grounds of seditious
activities, before being handed over to the Kuomintang authorities that imprisoned him, first in
Shanghai’s prison, and then in Suzhou’s House of Correction.
After being released in 1935, Ai Qing did some teaching and engaged in artistic and literary
activities. He collaborated with the left-wing journal July (Qiyue), edited by Hu Feng (1902–
1985). During the first years of the War of Resistance against Japan (1937–1945), he moved
from one place to another (Shanghai, Wuhan, Chongqing, Linfen, etc.) and finally settled in the
Communist base in Yan’an in 1941. He attended the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art in 1942.
There, he encountered the first political critiques of his literary creations. After 1949, he con-
tinued to publish poetry, while engaging in official duties and editing work. During the Anti-
Rightist Movement (1957–1959), Ai Qing was labelled a “Rightist,” and banished to Xinjiang,
and stayed there until his rehabilitation in 1979. He regained his literary reputation and position
as an official poet. He was respected for his patriotism during the war, his “liberal” artistic views
on the role of the poet, the personal emotions and subjectivity he dramatized in his literary
creations, as well as for being a victim of the Anti-Rightist Campaign. He occupies a prominent
place in the history of modern Chinese poetry. His complete works, which collect his poetry,
prose, essays, and poetic criticism as well as translations in 5 volumes, were published in 1991.2

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Literary achievements
Ai Qing published his first poem in 1932, and his first poetry collection in 1936. His first col-
lection of poetry, Dayanhe, My Nurse (Dayanhe, wode baomu) (on the title, see below, and note
46) was published privately in November 1936, and distributed by the Shanghai Masses Maga-
zine (Shanghai qunzhong zazhi).3 It included nine poems, presented in an order differing from
their actual chronological and editorial order: “Dayanhe My Nurse” (Dayanhe wode baomu),
“A Transparent Night” (Toumingde ye), “Listening” (Lingting), “Over there” (Nabian), “The
Death of a Nazarene” (Yige Nasalerende si), “The Ballad of a Painter” (Huazhede xingyin),
“Mirliton” (Ludi), “Marseille” (Masai), “Paris” (Bali); some of them were previously published in
different literary journals.4 As this collection, a milestone in his poetic career, came out before
the outbreak of the War of Resistance in 1937, and before Ai Qing started following the CCP’s
guidelines for literary creation in 1942, it rests upon an artistic tension between politics and art,
“realism” (xianshi zhuyi) and “modernism” (xiandai zhuyi). Thus, Ai Qing played a crucial part
in the birth of Chinese poetic avant-gardism. Many of the pieces he wrote prior to this period,
although composed along a clear political line, reveal a significant presence of foreign themes
and forms presumably at odds with politics. In his later collections, such as The North (Beifang,
1939), or Facing the Sun (Xiang taiyang, 1940), he kept displaying both poetic lyricism and politi-
cal commitment. He later experimented with “popular forms” to support the political cause. His
long poem “Wu Manyou” (1943),5 so named after a Yan’an’s exemplary peasant, is a representa-
tive work of this experimentation. Ai Qing managed in many of his later poems to preserve his
stylistic independence in spite of his political commitment.

The masterpiece

Poems from jail

Dayanhe, My Nurse is widely recognized as Ai Qing’s masterpiece. The collection may be called
“prison poetry,” as it was written in jail.6 The young imprisoned poet was not only very ill at
the beginning of his detention, but also too much under tight surveillance to move freely and
give vent to his emotions. For him, the outer world limited itself to his cell’s “iron window.”
Remembering his childhood (“Ballad of a Painter”) and his past travels in France (“Paris”)
arguably made up for his kinetic, emotional, and spiritual void. He could only read a few books
of Rimbaud or Verhaeren, which his friends brought him when they visited him at times. They
also helped him smuggle out his poetry manuscripts for publication outside the jail,7 thus creat-
ing a symbolic link all the stronger with an imagined community as he had already got himself
involved in political activities prior to his arrest. His poetry duly reflected his daily life in prison.8
It revealed how he had to cope with censorship. His “mirliton” (ludi), which symbolizes his
poetry, and was “forbidden” (jinwu) by the police of the Shanghai concession (29), reminds the
reader of Apollinaire, who made fun of the French authorities during World War I using the
same instrument (see note 32), that Ai Qing imported.
The prisoner’s enunciation is a literary topos, even a genre. Ai Qing’s actual experience con-
forms to the foreign literary conventions he found in Apollinaire’s poetry, which he was fond of,
and whose presence is obvious in Dayanhe. Ai Qing was not unfamiliar with At the [Prison] La
Santé (A la Santé), collected in Alcohols (Alcools, 1913),9 written by the detained French poet.
In his own poem, “Mirliton,” Ai Qing compared his situation with Apollinaire’s: “Now / Your
[Apollinaire] poetry collection Alcool [sic] is in the Shanghai police station / I have ‘committed
a crime’ ” (29). In Chinese, “crime” and “drunk” are homophonous (zui). The poem suggests

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 Ai Qing’s poetry and Dayanhe, My Nurse

that Ai Qing’s “crime” consists in nothing but reading Alcools, and the virtue of poetry lay in its
proper power of intoxication. With this pun, the reading of Apollinaire’s collection brings the
Chinese poet even closer to his foreign predecessor. The theme of detention occurs again in Ai
Qing’s later poems, for example in “Facing the Sun” (Xiang taiyang, 1938),10 which expresses
the poet’s physical and spiritual liberation in the context of the Resistance against Japan. Such
a formative jail experience allowed Ai Qing to perform the role of the so-called Western poète
maudit, a poet rejected by his own society on account of his moral virtues who created for him-
self a new identity. The quotation above plays upon words which not only refer to Apollinaire’s
hypotext, but also invites the reader to see the “I” as a figure reviving Apollinaire’s hell and
deserving in turn the rank of a poet.

Avant-garde poetry
After his release, Ai Qing did not give up all interest in fine arts (he was not allowed to paint in
prison). As a matter of fact, his 1936 edition of Dayanhe is illustrated with two of his own paintings,
and a reproduction of a Chagall’s picture.This poetic collection is generally viewed as being writ-
ten in a “realistic” manner. But, due to the poems’ obvious artistic and visual qualities, and given the
explicit mentions of “Van Gogh” (as well as of other painters), it is often labelled “impressionistic,”
and even “post-impressionistic.”This is, indeed, the overall impression one gets from reading many
of Ai Qing’s poems. However, the expression of “avant-garde” might be more appropriate than
“impressionistic,”11 because it pinpoints a particular set of formal, rhetorical, and stylistic character-
istics,12 as well as a series of specific literary and artistic references. One might even speak of a rather
futuro-cubist style, which also shares some techniques with symbolism and expressionism. One
ought to note that the term “avant-garde” in the modern Chinese context hints at the importation
of various aesthetic devices put into a single category, whereas in the European context the artistic
avant-garde is, strictly speaking, perceived as a resistance to symbolism or impressionism.
These stylistic features are often interwoven within a tight interliterary and transaesthetic
nexus. In “Over There,” the “black” (hei) color is imbued with a deeper signification, as it is
repeated as the poem unfolds; it largely contributes to producing an “expressionist” effect based
upon the contrast between the black color with the few and fragile “lights” twinkling in the
night and symbolizing the toiling masses in the city:

Black river, black air,

In the black, black centre,
Thin, thick,
Myriads of lights,
Look, over there, it’s:
The world of men striving forever.13
(My own translation)

This poem displays a strong intertextual connection with Verhaeren’s poetry collections The
Hallucinated Fields (Les Campagnes hallucinées, 1893) and The Tentacular Cities (Les Villes ten-
taculaires, 1895), which Ai Qing read and translated in prison.14 We may compare it with “The
City” (La ville),15 the opening poem of the Hallucinated Fields:

Over there,
(. . .)
It’s the tentacular city,

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 Victor Vuilleumier

(. . .)
A river of naphtha and pitch
Strikes the stone moles and the wooden pontoons;
The crude whistles of the ships that pass
Scream out of fear in the fog;
A green lantern is their gaze
At the ocean and the spaces.16
(My own translation)

Like Verhaeren, Ai Qing gives color an expressive meaning, and works out a decadent and
crepuscular imaginary of the modern city.17 Nevertheless, it seems that he focuses less on the
aurality than the Belgian poet does.
A more original and expressive use of color is displayed in the dramatic18 poem, “The Death
of a Nazarene” (63–70), which features a series of pictorial effects in the depiction of a sublime
landscape. Besides, this poem imports a foreign theme: Jesus is introduced as a revolutionary leader
announcing to the popular crowd behind him that “the victory” shall be “his” (Victory is always
mine!) (67).The link between the evangelic narrative and the revolutionary theme partially derives
from Blok’s The Twelve (Dvenadtsat, 1918), which Ai Qing read in French translation in Paris. Apol-
linaire’s innovative work “Zone” (collected in Alcools)19 might be another model for Ai Qing’s ren-
dering of urban wandering20 as well as of the figure of Jesus. Ai Qing’s poem exemplifies a trend of
modern Chinese literature in the 1920s, which displays a fondness for such intertextual references.21
Another transaesthetic experiment may be recognized in “Paris” (33–41).22 In this long nar-
rative poem, Ai Qing portrays Paris as a “profligate” (yindang) and “bewitching girl” (yaoyande
guniang) (41), an object of a desire to be conquered by the young poet. He also mentions the
painting, “Banban Dance” (Banban wudao) (35)23 by the Italian Futurist Gino Severini (1883–
1966).This is most likely the “Pan-Pan” Dance at the [Cabaret] Monico (La Danse du “pan-pan” au
Monico, 1909–11), which made a sensation when it was exhibited for the first time in Paris in
1912.24 In his monumental painting, the artist represented the bodily movements of the dancers
through a kaleidoscopic division of the shapes, forms, and colors. Likewise, in “Paris,” Ai Qing
resorted to the techniques of juxtaposition and catalogue; the most obvious example of this
device being the reduplication of a single word, “Wheel + wheel + wheel” (lunzi+lunzi+lunzi)
(36), that cuts and suspends the syntagmatic order of the sentence, while expressing the futur-
ist idea of concatenation and movement (“wheel”). He might have read the important epis-
tolary collection Cloverleaf (Sanyeji, 1920), coedited by Guo Moruo (1892–1978), Tian Han
(1898–1968), and Zong Baihua (1897–1986). A translation by Guo Moruo of Max Weber’s
(1881–1961) “Eye Moment,” collected in Cubist Poems (1914), used a very similar technique.25
In “Ballad of a Painter” (71–3), Ai Qing engages in an ekphrasis with vivid description of
an actual painting.26 In this poem written in jail, he mentions “Chagall’s painting” (Chagall de
huafu, 71 – “Chagall” written in Latin letters in the original), after a first series of remembrances:

Walking along the Seine

I remember:
Last night in the drums’ and gongs’ clamor of my dream
At the plazza of the village that bore me,
In the hand of the wandering acrobat who crossed South and North
This sad and gorgeous strip of red, . . .
– Only in a Spanish bullring
Is there such a strip of red!

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The Eiffel Tower

Stretches
The saddening memories of my distant childhood. . .
(. . .)
On the streets of this city
I am besotted with the lost time passed, – look
In Chagall’s painting
This lovesick cow,
At the horizon
Her two eyes staring powerlessly at past things,
On Russia’s field the bride
Sits under its belly,
Squeezing out a clear and perfumed milk. . .
(71–72) (My own translation)

This evocation of the “soil” (tudi) stems from the imaginary juxtaposition of the poet’s place of
origin as well as other fields (Russia, Spain), and from actual and contemporary wanderings in
the streets of Paris. This composite space thus becomes a “kingdom” for the “cosmopolit[an]”
vagabond, with whom the poet could identify himself. A single textual location is sufficient for
him to roam simultaneously through different countries and cultures. His personal memories
blend into “Paris” as an ideal melting pot for poetic writing, likely to provide the Chinese poet
with a cosmopolitan identity.
Ai Qing resorts to the technique of the cubist collage, the examples of which he could find
in some of the works of Marc Chagall (1887–1985), whose name appears in the poem. We
think of a particular painting, made in Paris by the Ukrainian artist: I and the Village (Moi et le
village, 1911).27 The first of a series of works, it reveals the sense of a multicultural identity that
blends the Vitebsk’s countryside of Chagall’s childhood with Yiddish culture and the Russian
world. Considered from an aesthetic perspective, the painter mixes the techniques of cubism
and of abstraction he discovered in Paris, together with the Russian primitivism he previously
practiced.28 In 1912, Chagall painted another canvas related to this first one, To Russia, to the
Asses, and to the Others (A la Russie, aux ânes et aux autres),29 displaying similar themes and
images. Ai Qing might have had this work in mind, as well as the well-known Self-Portrait with
Seven Fingers (Autoportrait aux sept doigts, 1912/3) in which the artist represents himself stand-
ing between Russia and France, while painting To Russia.30 A poem collected in Apollinaire’s
Calligrammes (1918), “Across Europe” (A travers l’Europe, 1914), refers to Chagall’s painting.31
In his own poem “Mirliton” (29–32), which is “Dedicated to the poet Apollinaire” (Jinian gu
shiren Apolinei’er), Ai Qing precisely inserts a verse of “Across Europe” as an inscription: “I had
a mirliton I wouldn’t have exchanged for the baton of a French marshal” (J’avais un mirliton
que je n’aurais pas échangé contre un bâton de maréchal de France).32 Did Ai Qing recognize
the indirect description of Chagall’s Self-Portrait in Apollinaire’s “Across Europe”? He might
have found in Apollinaire’s work some examples of transaesthetic relations between poetry and
painting, and in particular the depiction of an actual artistic work.33 Nevertheless, Ai Qing did
not passively quote foreign verses and images; nor did he servilely try to reproduce Apollinaire’s
depiction of a painting from Chagall. The crucial point is to understand how he consciously
mastered and adapted some of the European and Russian avant-garde’s techniques and themes.
He mainly fulfilled his artistic purpose by means of collage. He first adopted a series of dispa-
rate literary and pictorial images in his own poem with the aim to build intextual relations with
foreign works. Then, he merged them so as to create an original and new meaning of his own.

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Here are some examples: the colors, most notably the red one,34 pervades “Ballad of a Painter”
as a symbol of an intense life blended with tragedy; the Eiffel Tower,35 as the symbol of futur-
ist modernity; the countryside cow, and its milk, evoking the idea of native soil.36 Besides, the
kaleidoscopic representation produced by this device also recalls some poems by Blaise Cendrars
(1887–1961),37 who is actually mentioned in this poem (72), and perhaps of the “simultaneous
book” (livre simultané) which the Swiss poet published together with the artist Sonia Delaunay
(1885–1979), The Prose of the Transsiberian and the Little Jehanne from France (La Prose du Trans-
sibérien et de la petite Jehanne de France, 1913).38 Another poem of Dayanhe, “Transparent
Night” (17–20),39 displays the same fragmentary narrative of a drunk poet who wanders in
the countryside, in the form of a cubist and fragmented scene. Other devices contributing to
these aesthetics of fragmentation, instantaneity, and simultaneity include: the catalogue (Ai Qing
was not the first Chinese poet to read Whitman’s Leaves of Grass); the free-verse form, and the
absence or suspension of punctuation (Apollinaire, Cendrars), a use of which creates ambigui-
ties about the limit of a clause. We may add some other sources: the futurist Mayakovsky, whose
“A Cloud in Trousers” (Oblako v shtanakh, 1915) Ai Qing was particularly fond of,40 and the
surrealist Paul Eluard (1895–1952), whose famous verse “the earth is blue like an orange” (La
terre est bleue comme une orange)41 inspired another of Ai Qing’s poems, “Orange” (1934),
which quotes words from it.42
The primary function of these devices Ai Qing adopts is to break the linearity of verse.43
With these, he suspends the linguistic signifier’s chain, drawing the reader’s attention to the
fragmentary and dynamic elements of the text, and allowing the depictions of colors and move-
ments to be dissociated from any actual referentiality (see his later “Facing the Sun”). And yet Ai
Qing leaves open the possibility of expressing some political ideas, not doggedly following the
avant-garde project to its limits: his poems did not aim at breaking the language, as the Dadaist
experiments would. This is what Ai Qing later designated as his “realism.”
The multiplicity of these eclectic references, notably in “Ballad of a Painter,” constitutes a
form of a collage per se. By integrating these imported elements, Ai Qing shapes the themes of
memory and life, and creates his own personal lyrical expression of the experience of a modern
Chinese poet caught between different cultures and identities. He juxtaposes his souvenirs and
the imaginary elements with some actual images. He puts together the description of disparate
and dynamic scenes dated from different times. Similarly to what Chagall and Apollinaire did
in their own works, Ai Qing blends the memories of his childhood in the countryside with the
urban and modern Paris.

From the city to the countryside

Nevertheless, Ai Qing’s avant-garde aesthetics, despite its cosmopolitan meaning, is not devoid
of a strong political commitment, as is also the case for many other Chinese or Western poets.
The imported cultural cosmopolitanism, displayed in his poem “Mirliton,” plays a role in the
making of a modernist and internationalist self. His poetic work was also integrated into the cri-
tique of the imperialist “Europe[an] vile thieves” (30),44 and the association with the expression
of a rural identity, two features that culminated in his masterpice “Dayanhe” (23–28) in which
the Belgian and Russian countryside of Verhaeren or Essenin’s poetry turns into a Chinese rural
world. Similarly, the city in Dayanhe appears as an ambivalent place for international cultural
circulation, and for the exploitation of the world proletariat’s. In sum, the internationalist dis-
course, and the Chinese imagery of the national or nativist countryside, plays a major role in the
construction of Ai Qing’s poetic identity.

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Small wonder that the poet uses for the first time the pen name “Ai Qing” when writing
“Dayanhe” in January 1933.45 He offers the first one of the eponymous collection as a “tribute”
(jing) to the dead wet nurse of his childhood, Dayanhe. The place name, “Dayanhe,”46 refers to
a village in the Chinese countryside, which was used to name a peasant woman deprived of a
proper name. Ai Qing said later that his parents, for some superstitious reasons, entrusted him to
this nurse,47 whom he regarded as his real mother. What deserves our attention here is the way
the poet Ai Qing inscribes his identity within the text, and thus poetically reinvents both his
biography and his self-identity:

I am a son of a landlord;
And yet I am, having grown up drinking Dayanhe’s milk,
Dayanhe’s son.
Dayanhe raised her family to raise me,
And I was raised drinking your milk,
Ah you Dayanhe, my wet nurse.
(23) (my own translation)

Ai Qing forges a new filiation for himself, i.e. as a member of the peasants’ community. He
rejects his status as the “son of a landlord,” a political term with negative connotations, to
become the “son of Dayanhe,” who then replaces the role of his mother and father. It may
sound paradoxical that this identity he himself chose also designated a dead person, buried in a
“grave.” This can be explained as follows: since Dayanhe had no proper name, the poet tries to
make her more real through his poetical evocation. Dayanhe stands as a symbol of a common
origin grounded in a particular place: the native soil. By so doing, Ai Qing creates a new family,
not one based on blood ties, but on the sharing of the same peasant milk, and Dayanhe’s “tears,”
another secretion of hers, that nourished Ai Qing’s body and soul.The poet feels he owes a debt
to Dayanhe, and to her progeniture, as he was literally “brought up” on her milk and tears, an
image to be read as a classical allegory of the masses’ oppression by the class of the landlords Ai
Qing belonged to. Put into more politicized terms, Ai Qing was trapped between two opposing
classes: the capitalist exploiter and the exploited proletariat. The only way for him to overcome
this dilemma was to embrace fully his identity as a son of Dayanhe, the brother of her sons, in
a new brotherhood bounded by the soil, and by the working body of his wet nurse. Instead of
being a “thief,” he becomes the peasants’ foster child.
Ideologically, this poem calls for a classless rural society to be established after symbolically
removing the oppressive class of the landowners. Despite this political dimension, the poem is
not a dry piece of propaganda. The character of Dayanhe is invested with a strong emotive and
lyrical overtone: she is a full-blooded person, not an abstract or ideological figure. The poem
serves as an example of how to blend the use of concrete imagery with political themes. As he
writes later in his Treatise on Poetry (Shilun), poetry requires the merging of feelings with ideas,48
and lyricism with propaganda.49 In the present case, the “concrete” images were notably those of
Dayanhe’s body. The physical actions she was associated with were evoked in detail in the form
of a thanksgiving litany:

Dayanhe, today, your foster-child in jail

Writes a poem of thanksgiving in your homage,
In homage to your violet soul beneath the yellow earth,
In homage to your outstretched hand that embraced me,

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In homage to your lips that kissed me,

In homage to your sweet face dark like mud,
In homage to your breast that bred me,
In homage to your sons, my brothers,
In homage to everything on this good earth,
[. . .]
In homage to Dayanhe who loved me like her own son.
(27–8) (my own translation)

This series of poetic images implements another aspect of the poetic “concretization”: the sur-
realist or expressionist use of colors. Aesthetically, it might recall the palettes of Esenin,50 or of
Apollinaire.51 Similarly, the body is described in detail, made more present, while displaying the
lexical field of the soil (tu, ni, dadi). The focus on the colors turns some terms into a series of
living metaphors: the yellow color is highlighted in huangtu (“lœss,” literally yellow soil, v. 3 in
the selection), adding a potential cultural and national meaning, as is the case in “Yellow River,”
or “Yellow Emperor.” Similarly, the word for “mud,” heini (lit. black mud), is dynamically reversed
into ni hei (“mud black,” v. 6): “In homage to your sweet face, dark (or black) like mud.” The lan-
guage is supposedly made more concrete by producing the illusion that Dayanhe, the mother
soil, is palpable, as is her “soul,” the “violet” color of which makes it more visible and real (the
“soul” being what cannot be seen par excellence). Ai Qing is no longer the “son of a landlord,”
but one of the many sons of the earth52 that belongs to everyone.This poem is a nativist Interna-
tionale: Dayanhe is an orthodox Marxist image of the so-called historical primitive communism,
even of a primitive matriarchal society.
Ai Qing “wrote” his “poem” in “jail” (v. 1–2), which suggests that he became a poet by recall-
ing and summoning the phantasmagoric image of Dayanhe. She was nameless, voiceless, and she
had no knowledge of time, since she was already dead. The rural milk53 of the deceased one is
symbolically turned into a new mother tongue54 – a quest for a mother tongue, or for the lost
language. “Dayanhe” voices the tribute of a witness, testifying for Dayanhe’s life, and for her past
dedication to him. To some extent, the imprisoned poet was “the subject witnessing a desub-
jectification” (Agemben) at three levels: (1) neither Dayanhe nor himself could actually speak
as free subjects; (2) he was and was not a landlord or a son of Dayanhe; and (3) he was detained
when he wrote this poem. The fact that “Dayanhe” is the first poem bearing the pen name
produces evidence of this difficult and critical position: it could not have been signed by Jiang
Haicheng, since he chose Danyanhe as his name instead of his given name. This reversal of the
filiation signifies a reversal of the values, and a wish for a conversion to a new common destiny.
Ai Qing’s identity realizes itself through “Dayanhe,” not only as a poet, but also as a proletar-
ian, and a peasant. Was it possible for such a “landlord’s son” to identify with someone with no
name – with a female proletarian nobody?55 – or to overcome the paradox of being both lyric
and ideological? Ai Qing thought he could. Nonetheless, it could not prevent the real world
of politics from catching up with him: later on, he was accused of being a petty “intellectual”
by Zhou Yang (1908–1989)56 in 1942, and of “lacking revolutionary fervor” as well as being a
“formalist,” by his fellow poet Feng Zhi (1905–1993) in the 1950s.57
“Dayanhe” (written in 1933, published in 1934) was the first poem of the collection, but not
the first one Ai Qing wrote or published.58 Thus, in assembling his collection, he inverted the
original chronology and the thematic evolution of his poems.This necessitates a recognition that
Dayanhe must be considered as an organic whole. Dai Wangshu (1905–1950) once proposed to
name Ai Qing’s collection “Mirliton,” instead of “Dayanhe.”59 Interestingly, the poem “Dayanhe”
was rejected by Les Contemporains,60 for being too “realistic,”61 although Ai Qing had published

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several poems in this modernist journal. The poem “Dayanhe” marked a significant change
in his poetics, and in his positionality. He decided to retrospectively turn the reader towards a
more “realistic” and politicized understanding of his works, trying to minimize its undeniable
“modernist” dimensions (he would later deny any difference between the two), which are best
exemplified by “Mirliton.” The “realistic” themes covering the proletarian and peasant’s identity
and its rural grounding attest to the reterritorialization of the imported themes.The cosmopoli-
tan and westernized vagabond in “Ballad of a Painter” or “Mirliton” became for good a son of
the Chinese soil. In Dayanhe, the cosmopolitan poems are placed after the pieces, which display a
more proletarian and nativist thematic preoccupation.62 These different and apparently divergent
dimensions (lyricism and politics, internationalism and nativism) were present right from the
beginning of Ai Qing’s poetic career; the shift is just made more explicit through the prism of
“Dayanhe.” It is also noteworthy that “Dayanhe” displayed less direct intertextual relations than
some of his earlier poems. But even so, while from a stylistic and aesthetic perspective “Day-
anhe” is a “westernized” or “globalized”63 poem, it remains one of the most creative poems of
Ai Qing’s collection.64 In sum, this work, so lyrical and personal, not only paved the way for a
more ideological and collectivist poetic agenda, it also produced an artistic tension out of which
Ai Qing’s poetry is born.

Notes
1 The author is grateful to Prof. Ming Dong Gu for his editing work, and to Profs. Gérard Siary, and
Nidesh Lawtoo for their re-reading.
2 Ai Qing, Complete Works (Ai Qing quanji) (Guangzhou: Huashan wenyi chubanshe, 1991), 5 vols.
3 See Liu Fuchun, “Ai Qing’s First Poetry Collection,” (Ai Qingde diyiben shiji) Poem Magazine (Shikan)
(1999), vol. 5, 80.
4 In Les Contemporains (Xiandai) (“Over there,” September 1932; “Mirliton,” May 1933); Spring Magazine
(Chunguang zazhi) (“Listening,” April 1934; “Dayanhe,” May 1934); Poetry Monthly (Shige yuebao)
(“The Death of a Nazarene,” June 1934).
5 See Angela Jung Palandri, “The Poetic Theory and Practice of Ai Qing: Continuity and Change,” in
Mason Wang, ed., Perspectives in Contemporary Chinese Literature (Michigan: Green River Review Press
and University Center, 1983), 66.
6 See Chen Zengfu, “About the Lyrical Personality in Ai Qing’s Poetry,” (Ai Qing shige shuqing zhuti
ren’ge guanjian) Social Science Front (Shehui kexue zhanxian) (1999), vol. 5, 138.
7 On Ai Qing’s imprisonment, see Cheng Guangwei, Ai Qing (Beijing: Zhongguo huaqiao chubanshe,
1999), 46–49.
8 See Ai Qing, Complete Works, vol. 1, 16, 49–50.
9 Guillaume Apollinaire, Alcohols (Alcools) (Paris: Gallimard, 1966), 126–131.
10 See Ai Qing, Complete Works, vol. 1, 201, 203; Ai Qing, Selected Poems of Ai Qing, trans. Eugene Chen
Eoyang (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1982), 54–55.
11 To my knowledge, Ai Qing does not claim this label (he presents himself as a “realist”). “Avant – garde”
is ambiguous: it mainly embodies a posture in the field of the artistic world, and is often used by critics
and historians to make a value judgment: see Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel, The Artistic Avant – Gardes 1848–
1918, A Transnational History (Les avant – gardes artistiques 1848–1918, Une histoire transnationale)
(Paris: Gallimard, 2015), 19–39. I use it, as referring to a set of themes, forms, and techniques that are
quite distinctive in practice. Ai Qing is definitively not a “realist” poet, in the sense that western literary
criticism generally understands it.
12 Such as the free-verse, the use of spatiality and of typography, the disjunction of the poem’s elements,
instantaneous poetry, concrete poetry, association of writing and painting: Fernand Verhesen, “Poetry”
(La poésie), in Jean Weisgerber, ed., Literary Avant – Gardes in the 20th Century (Les Avant – gardes lit-
téraires au XXe siècle) (Amsterdam: John Benjamins 1984), vol. 2, 798–824.
13 Ai Qing, Complete Works, vol. 1, 14.
14 His translation of Ai Qing’s nine poems was published in 1948, under the title The Countryside and the
City (Yuanye yu chengshi): Ai Qing, Complete Works, vol. 1, 735–759. Despite this title, they were not
selected solely from these two collections (see the following note).

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15 Translated by Ai Qing under the title “Chengshi”: Ai Qing, Complete Works, vol. 1, 739–744. See also
“The Factories” (Les usines), in Emile Verhaeren, Les Campagnes hallucinées, Les Villes tentaculaires (Paris:
Gallimard, 1982), 119–122; or “The Mass” (La foule), from his collection, Life’s Faces (Les Visages de la
vie, 1899) (Paris: Mercure de France, 1916), 35–41, that Ai Qing translated as “Qunzhong”: Ai Qing,
Complete Works, vol. 1, 744–749. In 1940, he wrote a poem with the same title (423–424), expressing his
own anxiety about being confronted to the masses.
16 “Là – bas, / (. . .) C’est la ville tentaculaire, / (. . .) Un fleuve de naphte et de poix / Bat les môles de
pierre et les pontons de bois; / Les sifflets crus des navires qui passent / Hurlent de peur dans le brouil-
lard; / Un fanal vert est leur regard / Vers l’océan et les espaces.”: Emile Verhaeren, Les Campagnes hal-
lucinées, 21–22.
17 See Christian Challot, “Emile Verhaeren and Georg Heym, Painters of the Great Metropolis,” (Emile
Verhaeren et Georg Heym, poètes des grandes métropoles) Belgian Review of Philology and History
(Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire) (1999), vol. 77, no. 3, 751–764; He Qing, “The ‘Influential’
Dimension of the Urban Experience, About an Imported Element in Ai Qing’s Poetic Creation,”
(Chengshi jingyande “yingxiang” xiangdu, Ye shuo Ai Qing shige chuangzuo zhongde wailai yinsu)
Comparative Literature in China (Zhongguo bijiao wenxue) (2008), vol. 3, 103–111.
18 The “dramatization” (xijuhua) of poetry, along with its “prosification” (sanwenhua), is a major trend in
the Chinese as well as Western poetry from the 1930s and the 1940s.
19 See Apollinaire, Alcools, 7–14.
20 An archetypal wanderer and visionary poet in modern French literature appears in Rimbaud’s “Drunken
Boat” (Le bateau ivre, 1883), a model for Apollinaire’s “Zone,” or Cendrars’ “Transsiberian’s Prose.”
21 See Victor Vuilleumier, “Crucifixion and Torn Body in Modern Chinese Literature,” (La Crucifixion
et l’écriture du corps déchiré dans la Nouvelle littérature chinoise) Chinese Studies (Etudes chinoises)
(2011), vol. 29, 321–339.
22 English translation in Ai Qing, Selected Poems, 31–36.
23 Translated as “Shimmering Dance,” in Ai Qing, Selected Poems, 32.
24 This work was commented by Apollinaire: Didier Ottinger, ed., Futurism in Paris: An Explosive Avant –
Garde (Le Futurisme à Paris, une avant – garde explosive) (Paris: 5 Continents et Centre Pompidou,
2008), 162–163.
25 Guo Moruo, Complete Works, Literary Part (Guo Moruo quanji, wenxue bian) (Beijing: Renmin wenyi
chubanshe, 1990), vol. 15, 122–123.
26 Ai Qing also wrote on Lin Fengmian’s paintings. See David Der-wei Wang, The Lyrical in Epic Time,
Modern Chinese Intellectuals and Artists Through the 1949 Crisis (New York: Columbia University Press,
2015), 237–239.
27 See Marc Chagall, Les années russes, (1907–1922) (Paris: Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1995), 69.
28 Ibid., 60.
29 Ibid., 61; Brigitte Léal, ed., The Modern Art Collection: the Collection of the Centre Pompidou (Collection
Art moderne: la collection du Centre Pompidou) (Paris: Centre Pompidou, 2008), 129–131.
30 Marc Chagall, Les années russes, (1907–1922), 96–97.
31 Philippe Geinoz, Relations in Progress: Dialogue between Poetry and Painting in the Days of Cubism (Rela-
tions au travail: dialogue entre poésie et peinture à l’époque du cubisme) (Ph.D. thesis no. L 713, Uni-
versité de Genève, Genève, 2011), 306–309.
32 Actually, this verse appears in an earlier version of Apollinaire’s poem: The Storm (Der Sturm) (1914),
vol. 3, 19. This verse was later deleted by the poet, because of the wartime context: see Peter Read,
“Calligrammes and self – censorship” (Calligrammes et l’autocensure), Que Vlo  – Ve? (1983), vol. 2, no.
6–7 Proceedings of the Stavelot Conference 1982 (Actes du colloque de Stavelot 1982), 9. The “mirliton” is
an allegory of Ai Qing’s cosmopolitan and internationalist poetry: in French, the expression “mirliton
verses” (vers de mirliton) designates an unpretentious poem – besides, “mirliton” sounds like an irrever-
ent distortion of “military” (militaire).
33 See also “In Memory of Le Douanier [Rousseau],” (Souvenir du douanier, 1914) in Apollinaire, Poems
for Lou (Poèmes à Lou) (Paris: Gallimard, 1969), 63–66.
34 Apollinaire is a potential reference: in “Zone” (“sun cut neck,” soleil cou coupé), or “Across Europe.”
The latter was at first titled “Rotsoge, To the Painter Chagall” (Rotsoge, Au peintre Chagall); different
explanations have been given for this title, but “red” (rot, in German) is easily identifiable.
35 Apollinaire’s “Zone” (“Shepherdess O Eiffel Tower,” Bergère ô tour Eiffel), and many of Chagall’s
paintings (see below).
36 See Chagall, and for example Essenin’s “russet cow”: Sergueï Essenine, Journal of A Poet (Journal d’un
poète), trans. Christiane Pighetti (Paris: La Différence, 2014), 63.

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37 The futurist image of the “Transmission without wire” (TSF, quoted in Ai Qing’s text) appears for
example in one of the most famous poems of Cendrars, a long journey poem resorting to the tech-
nique of collage, “The Panama, or the Adventures of my Seven Uncles,” (Le Panama, ou les aventures
de mes sept oncles, 1918): Cendrars, From All Over the World, to the Heart of the World, Complete Poetry
(Du monde entier, au cœur du monde, Poésies complètes) (Paris: Gallimard, 2006), 72.
38 Cendrars wrote one of his “elastic poems” (poèmes élastiques) on Chagall, in two parts, “Portrait” and
“Studio” (Portrait et Atelier, 1914): Cendrars, Du monde entier, 96–98.
39 English version in Ai Qing, Selected Poems, 23–25; Kai-yu Hsu, ed., Twentieth Century Chinese Poetry
(New York: Doubleday, 1963), 275–277.
40 Vladimir Maïakovski, Aloud (A pleine voix), trans. Christian David (Paris: Gallimard, 2005), 15–46.
41 Paul Eluard, Capital of Pain, Followed by Love, Poetry (Capitale de la douleur, suivi de l’amour la poésie)
(Paris: Gallimard, 2007), 153.
42 Ai Qing, Complete Works, vol. 1, 53–55.
43 See Apollinaire, Calligrammes, ed. Gérald Purnelle (Paris: Flammarion, 2013), 28–29.
44 In 1932, Ai Qing attended in Paris a seance of the League against Imperialism, and wrote on that occa-
sion a poem, “Gathering” (Huihe), published a few months later, after his return in China, in Big Dip-
per (Beidou), a publication of the Chinese League of the Left-Wing Writers (Zhongguo zuoyi zuojia
lianmeng). It is his first published poem.
45 Ai Qing, Complete Works, vol. 5, 641. It was first used in a published poem in 1934 (“Mirliton”):
Zhu Donglin, Zhu Xiaojin and Long Quanming, eds., History of Modern Chinese Literature 1917–2000
(Zhongguo xiandai wenxueshi) (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2007), vol. 1, 324.
46 The original toponym is Dayehe (Big – leaved Lotus), but written Dayanhe (Big Dike River) by Ai
Qing, because of the local pronunciation: Cheng Guangwei, Ai Qing, 8; Ai Qing, Selected Poems, 211.
47 His horoscope being supposedly dangerous to his parents: Cheng Guangwei, Ai Qing, 2. Ai Qing also
reported that in order to be able to breastfeed him, since she already had four children, she had her
newborn girl drowned: Luo Hanchao, On Ai Qing (Ai Qing lun), quoted in Chen Sihe and Li Ping,
eds., One Hundred Modern Texts (Xiandai wenxue 100 pian) (Shanghai: Xuelin chubanshe, 1999),
vol. 1, 545.
48 See Victor Vuilleumier, “Body, Soul, and Revolution: The Paradoxical Transfiguration of the Body in
Modern Chinese Poetry,” in Tao Dongfeng et al, eds., Chinese Revolution and Chinese Literature (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 49.
49 See David Der-wei Wang, The Lyrical, 62–63.
50 See “To the Yellow Tunes of a Sad Accordion,” (Aux accents jaunes d’un accordéon triste) (Snova p’yut
zdes’, derutsya i plachut): Sergueï Essenine, Journal d’un poète, 101; Julia Lin, Modern Chinese Poetry: An
Introduction (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1972), 178.
51 See for example “Across Europe,” or “Windows” (Fenêtres, 1913), in Apollinaire, Calligrammes, 54–55,
88; Apollinaire, Calligrammes, trans. Ann Hyde Greet (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980),
397–398; Ann Hyde Greet, “ ‘Rotsoge’: Through Chagall,” (‘Rotsoge’: A Travers Chagall), in Que Vlo  –
Ve? 1.1–22 (1979), Proceedings of the Stavelot Conference 1975 (Actes du colloque de Stavelot 1975), 1–16.
52 The son of earth is a frequent motto in the Chinese poetry of the 1930’s: see among others Li Guang-
tian (1906–1968) or Zang Kejia (1905–2004).
53 For a later but similar connection between the nativist milk and the production of words in Mo Yan’s
works: Howard Choy, Remapping the Past, Fictions of History in Deng’s China, 1979–1997 (Leiden: Brill,
2008), 189–192.
54 Giorgio Agamben, Auschwitz, the Archive, and the Witness (Auschwitz, l’archive et le témoin, French
translation of Quel che resta di Auschwitz, 1998), trans. Pierre Alferi, in Homo Sacer, 1997–2015 (Paris:
Seuil, 2016), 924.
55 See Kirk Denton, The Problematic of Self in Modern Chinese Literature, Hu Feng and Lu Ling (Stanford:
Stanford Unversity Press, 1998), 63.
56 Yang Siping, Chinese New Poetry’s Main Trends in the 20th Century (20 shiji Zhongguo xinshi zhuliu)
(Hefei: Anhui jiaoyu chubanshe, 2004), 185.
57 Quoted in Angela Jung Palandri, “The Poetic Theory and Practice of Ai Qing,” 66.
58 He had published at least six poems by 1932.
59 Chen Shan, “Poetry Should Reach the People, Comrade Ai Qing Speaks About His Past Creation,”
(Shi ying shi tongxiang renminde, Ai Qing tongzhi tan ta guoqude chuangzuo) Journal of Modern Chi-
nese Literature (Zhongguo xiandai wenxue yanjiu congkan) (1981), vol. 3, 351.
60 This prominent “modernist” magazine in Shanghai during the 1930s, edited by Shi Zhecun (1905–
2003), published some other poems of Ai Qing, which fit probably better into the magazine’s agenda.

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 Victor Vuilleumier

61 Cheng Guangwei, Ai Qing, 52.

62 Ai Qing’s “Dayanhe My Nurse” shows a certain closeness to Guo Moruo’s poem “Earth My Mother!”
(Diqiu, wode muqin, 1920), but without the themes of pantheism and its universalist dynamics: see
Guo Moruo, Complete Works, Literary Part (Guo Moruo quanji, wenxue bian) (Beijing: Renmin wenyi
chubanshe, 1982), vol. 1, 79–83.
63 In a conference held in Paris in 1980, Ai Qing declared (maybe by simplifying things) that Chinese
“New Literature was mainly influenced by foreign literatures, and the same is naturally true of the
New poetry” (Xin wenxue dabufen shi waiguode yinxiang, xinshi ziran ye ruci): Chinese Literature at
the Time of the War of Resistance Against Japan (1937–1945) (La littérature chinoise au temps de la Guerre
de résistance contre le Japon, de 1937 à 1945) (Paris: Editions de la Fondation Singer-Polignac, 1982),
319.
64 See Tao Tao Liu Sanders, “Dayanhe,” in Lloyd Haft, ed., A Selective Guide to Chinese Literature, 1900–
1949:The Poem (Leiden: Brill, 1989), 30–31.

Further readings
Lin, Julia C. Modern Chinese Poetry, An Introduction. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1972, 172–188.
Lu, Yaodong. “Fifteen Years of Ai Qing’s Studies.” Modern Chinese Literature Studies (Zhongguo xiandai
wenxue yanjiu congkan) 2 (1995): 136–151.
Palandri, Angela Jung. “The Poetic Theory and Practice of Ai Qing.” In Mason Y. H. Wang, ed., Perspectives
in Contemporary Chinese Literature. Michigan: Green River Press, 1983, 61–76.
Sanders, Tao Tao Liu. “Dayanhe.” In Haft Lloyd, ed., A Selective Guide to Chinese Literature, 1900–1949:The
Poem. Leiden: Brill, 1989, 29–31.

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 18
FENG ZHI, MU DAN AND
THE NINE LEAVES
Gloria Davies

Feng Zhi (1905–1993) is often and well described as one of China’s leading modernist poets.
His name is also frequently mentioned in association with another nine poets collectively
known as the Nine Leaves (jiu ye), as he taught and mentored four of these younger poets. The
most prominent among the Nine Leaves was Mu Dan (1918–1977, male).The other eight poets
were (in alphabetical order): Chen Jingrong (1917–1989, female), Du Yunxie (1918–2002, male),
Hang Yuehe (1917–1995, male), Tang Qi (1920–1990, male), Tang Shi (1920–2005, male), Xin
Di (1912–2004, male),Yuan Kejia (1921–2008, male) and Zheng Min (1920–, female).
Fame came early for a young Feng. He was sixteen when his first published poem, “The Man
in Green,” attracted favourable attention in the elite Chinese intellectual circles of 1921. In the
autumn of that year, Feng began a foundation course at Peking University and lived for the next
six years in Beijing, enjoying the support of Lu Xun, Zhou Zuoren, Yu Dafu and other New
Culture luminaries who lived or visited there during this period. In 1935, Lu Xun praised him
as “China’s most outstanding lyrical poet.”1
Upon graduation in 1927, Feng worked as a high school teacher, first in Harbin and later
in Beijing. From 1930 to 1935 he lived in Germany, enrolling at the University of Heidelberg
where he studied German literature, philosophy and aesthetics as a scholarship student. He first
encountered the writings of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) in 1924 in Beijing. In
1931, he attended the University of Berlin where he read Goethe and German contemporar-
ies of Goethe. In 1933, Feng returned to Heidelberg where he pursued doctoral studies under
Ewald Boucke and was awarded his Ph.D. in 1935. In 1936, he accepted a professorial appoint-
ment at Tongji University in Shanghai, but fled a year later when Japanese troops invaded the
city. With his wife and young daughter in tow, Feng stopped at different places in Zhejiang and
Jiangxi for the next year before arriving in Kunming in August 1939. There he took up the
position of professor of German Studies at the National Southwestern Associated University
(known as Lianda), the wartime campus founded in Kunming by academic refugees from Peking
University, Tsinghua and Nankai.
For the duration of its existence (1937–1946), Lianda attracted academics and students from
different parts of China, all of whom had been displaced by the war. It was at Lianda that Feng
became a major influence on Mu Dan, Du Yunxie, Yuan Kejia and Zheng Min who were stu-
dents there: the first three were enrolled in the foreign languages department where Feng taught
while Zheng was a philosophy major who enrolled in Feng’s German language course. (A fifth

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 Gloria Davies

member of the Nine Leaves, Tang Qi, graduated from Lianda’s history department in 1942).
In 1946, Feng took up a position at Peking University’s department of Western languages and
literatures where he would remain for the next twenty years. By 1949, he had become an enthu-
siastic supporter of the Communist cause and his devotion to Mao Zedong in the 1950s helped
his career. From 1952, he served as head of his university department and was also appointed
to several senior roles on official committees. When many of his intellectual peers fell victim
to the Anti-Rightist campaign in 1957, Feng remained unscathed. Indeed, he published articles
in support of the campaign and wrote poems in 1958 praising Mao’s ill-conceived Great Leap
Forward.
It was not until the launch of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in 1966 that Feng
was subjected to severe criticism. In July 1970, he was sent to a “cadre school” in Xi county in
Henan to be re-educated through manual labour. At the age of sixty-eight in the spring of 1972,
he returned to Beijing on medical grounds. In 1977, shortly after Mao’s death, he was reinstated
to his former academic position at Peking University.
From 1977 on until his death on 22 February 1993, Feng enjoyed the rewards of his
renewed literary fame in China and internationally. In 1978, he was appointed President of
the China Society for Foreign Literature, and from 1979, he chaired the academic committee
overseeing the activities of the Foreign Literature Research Institute (FLRI) within the Chi-
nese Academy of Social Sciences, serving also as the institute’s nominal director. He received
numerous prizes from the German government for his contributions to research on German
literature and was awarded fellowships and honorary positions at prestigious research insti-
tutions in Sweden, Germany and Austria. In 1987, a biennial Feng Zhi Prize for Research
on German Literature was established under the auspices of the China Society for Foreign
Literature, with funds donated by Feng from a 10,000 Deutsch Mark award he received from
Germany in 1987.
After 1949, Feng ceased to write the modernist poems that had made him famous in the
Republican era. Throughout the 1950s, he confined himself to composing paeans to Mao and
the party. By 1959 he had stopped writing poetry altogether, returning to it only in 1985. The
poems Feng composed in the last twenty years of his life saw his reversion to modernist verse-
making. These poems and other writings of his later years brim with personal insights into the
process of literary creation. However, in these twilight years, Feng studiously avoided discussing
his erstwhile devotion to Mao and his experience of the Maoist years.2

The legacy of Feng Zhi, Mu Dan and the Nine Leaves

Today Feng Zhi remains best known as a poet even though his oeuvre consists of much else
besides. He wrote essays, fiction, a novella, a biography of the renowned Tang-era poet and
scholar-official Du Fu, and his translations of, and monographs on, modern German literature
have been highly influential in mainland scholarship. That Feng is studied today primarily as a
poet owes to the resurgence of modernist-inspired poetry in mainland China. Poetry was a sig-
nificant part of the underground cultural scene that grew rapidly in the first decade after Mao’s
death in 1976. Leading members of that scene included the so-called Misty poets whose rise to
fame coincided with the release of two poetry anthologies: one by Feng and the other by the
Nine Leaves.
The Selected Poems of Feng Zhi attracted widespread interest when it appeared in 1980 for it
included his critically acclaimed twenty-seven sonnets, written in 1941 and first published in
1942, which had not been reprinted on the mainland since 1949. Feng’s anthology was followed
by the 1981 publication of Nine Leaves, which consisted of poems written in the 1940s by the

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 Feng Zhi, Mu Dan and the Nine Leaves

nine poets mentioned at the outset. The nine had not seen themselves as a group in the 1940s,
let alone as members of a school. The name “Nine Leaves” was allegedly a jocular suggestion by
Xin Di when the retrospective anthology was in production in 1979. Xin had observed that the
poets’ great age disqualified them from being named the “Nine Flowers.”3
The “Nine Leaves” were in the early phase of their literary careers in the 1940s.Their poetry
explored diverse themes and drew on equally diverse literary precedents, including early twen-
tieth-century formalist, surrealist and symbolist writings produced in China and internationally
that they had encountered as students in the 1930s and early 1940s. Shortly after the end of
World War Two and Japan’s occupation of China, war broke out between the Nationalists (under
Chiang Kai-shek) and the Communists (under Mao). The civil war years (1946–1949) coin-
cided with the growing fame of these nine poets. Then in their twenties and early thirties, their
modernist verse and magazine activities reflected an urbane freedom continuous with the New
Literature of the 1910s and 1920s.
To the extent that people have grown accustomed to referring to these poets as the “Nine
Leaves,” the problem then arises of group traits being retroactively attributed to the individuals
so named. The nine poets were all left-leaning, as were a large majority of Chinese intellectu-
als and students of the day. (Chen Jingrong and Hang Yuehe were already Communists in the
1940s.) However, what gave their 1940s poetry an unusual flair owed to neither poetic collabo-
ration nor political preference but circumstances. In the late 1940s, all nine poets were either
living in Nationalist-controlled Shanghai or overseas. As Michel Hockx observes, this meant that
they “were in no way bound to observe the Communist Party literary standards like poets who
had joined Mao in Yan’an [the Communist Party headquarters]. This helps explain why among
leftist poets writing after 1945, their work stands out for its quality.”4
The key facts are as follows: from 1946 to 1948, the four whom Feng mentored (Mu Dan,
Du, Yuan and Zheng) contributed to Poetry Creation and Chinese New Poetry Monthly, under-
ground magazines founded in Shanghai by the other five (Chen, Hang, Tang Qi, Tang Shi
and Xin Di). The nine poets interacted with each other through these post-war magazines, as
authors and editors with a broad interest in developing “new poetry.” The six who were based
in Shanghai in the late 1940s (Chen, Hang,Tang Qi,Tang Shi, Xin Di and Yuan) met and social-
ised through their journal activities. Of the remaining three, Mu Dan studied literature at the
University of Chicago from 1945 to 1952; Zheng was away from 1948 to 1955, studying first
at Brown University and later living in New York; and Du worked as a reporter in Singapore
from 1947 to 1950.
The fame they enjoyed in the 1940s proved short-lived. Under the totalitarian conditions
that prevailed from 1949 to the mid-1970s, in which Party thinking dictated cultural produc-
tion, they either wrote very little poetry or ceased writing poems altogether. Instead, several
of them became translators and scholars of the foreign poets and writers they had admired or
studied, such as Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Alexander Pushkin, William Shakespeare,
Percy Bysshe Shelley and Rainer Maria Rilke. Mu Dan’s contributions to the translation of for-
eign literature have been especially significant. As a translator, he worked under his given name
Zha Liangzheng. His translation of Byron’s Don Juan, which he started in the early 1960s and
on which he worked for over a decade, was hailed as a tour de force when it was posthumously
published in 1980. This was because Mu Dan strove to be faithful not only to the original con-
tent but to its tone and style, which led him to translate with poetic verve, using the expressions
available to him in modern colloquial Chinese. His achievements as a translator are further
magnified by the fact that he completed a large part of Don Juan during the Cultural Revolu-
tion, when doing hard labour at different camps as part of his “re-education” while also being
subjected to numerous episodes of public humiliation.5

249
 Gloria Davies

Of the “Nine Leaves,” Mu Dan has enjoyed the widest recognition.The posthumous interest
he attracted in the 1990s surpassed that of even his mentor Feng Zhi. The resulting “Mu Dan
fever” produced an abundance of commentaries and papers about his oeuvre and his poems and
translations remain widely studied to this day. In 1946,Wang Zuoliang, a fellow poet and former
Lianda student, published an essay in English on Mu Dan’s poetry in the London-based journal
Life and Letters, praising him, among other things, for his “daring use of the spoken idiom” and
for saying “things with a bang where other Chinese poets are vague and mealy-mouthed.” Most
importantly, Wang wrote, Mu Dan had breathed such life into “new Chinese literature” as to
have created “a God” for it, adding:

The God he eventually arrives at may not be a god at all, but Satan himself. The effort
is laudable and the artistic process to climb such forbidding heights of the soul, almost
totally new in China, will be worth watching.6

Although the “artistic process” of verse-making became inaccessible to Mu Dan and his fellow
poets in Maoist China, literary translation provided them with an alternative means to develop
their artistry. The Misty poet Bei Dao observed of the “translation style” created by the “Nine
Leaves” that it gave his generation “a vehicle for expressing creative impulses and seeking new
linguistic horizons.”7
In the Selected Poems of Feng Zhi and Nine Leaves, readers born after the founding of the Peo-
ple’s Republic in 1949 discovered the poetic experimentations of Republican-era China while
older readers became reacquainted with the modernist idiom and symbolic language of pre-
1949 New Poetry that the Maoist state had banned.8 The two anthologies became a source of
inspiration for artists, poets and writers, active in the first post-Maoist decade, in their struggles
to break free from the pervasive grip of Party language on contemporary discourse.
Of the writings produced by Feng Zhi and the Nine Leaves poets over their lifetimes, their
poems of the 1940s have continued to attract the most attention and commentary in mainland
scholarship. Part of the reason is that these poems present a whole realm of creative expression
utterly at odds with the doctrinal prescriptions of Mao Zedong Thought which were imposed
less than a decade later.The historical poignancy of these poems of the 1940s is further accentu-
ated by the fact that their authors’ creative lives were brought to an abrupt halt after 1949 and
resumed only in the late 1970s. Frequently discussed in present-day Chinese scholarship as a
last burst of expressive brilliance before the onset of Maoist rule, these poems have also come to
represent a Chinese modernism cut off before its prime.

The sonnets of Feng Zhi

The Fourteen-Line Collection (Shisihang ji) is arguably Feng’s best known and most lauded work.
Consisting of twenty-seven sonnets written over several months in 1941, the anthology was
published in 1942 by Tomorrow Press (Mingri she) in Guilin. It appeared “with neither a pref-
ace nor an afterword,” as Feng later pointed out in the preface he wrote for the work’s second
edition, published by Shanghai’s Cultural Life Press in January 1949. In the second edition, he
recounted the circumstances that had led him to compose the individual poems.9
Feng and his family reached Yunnan in August 1939 and lived in various places over the next
year. In October 1940, they were given a two-room thatched cottage on a farm owned by the
family of one of Feng’s students from Tongji University, Wu Xiangguang.10 Feng soon settled
into a regular routine of walking some four and a half miles [“fifteen li”] from the cottage in
mountainous Yangjiashan to the provincial capital Kunming, to teach at Lianda and shop for

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 Feng Zhi, Mu Dan and the Nine Leaves

groceries. On one of these twice-weekly perambulations on a winter’s afternoon in early 1941,

he “saw several silver-coloured aeroplanes flying in a sky so blue it looked just like crystal.” This
vision led him to “think of the Peng bird dreamt up by the ancients.”11
The Peng bird appears in the first chapter of the fourth-century B.C.E. Daoist classic,
Zhuangzi, as an image of transcendent freedom. The back of this mythical creature, says the
Zhuangzi, spans unknown “thousands of li” and its wings “shroud the sky like clouds” when it
soars to a height of “ninety thousand li.”The Zhuangzi continues: “The blueness of the blue sky:
is that its true colour? Is it because the sky extends so far and is without limit? The one [Peng
bird] who looks down from on high likely sees the very same thing.”12
By recounting how the bright blue sky reminded him of lines about the Peng bird from the
Zhuangzi, Feng retranscribed an ancient expression of wonder from classical language (guwen)
into modern vernacular (baihuawen). In one sense, Feng’s cosmopolitan education in China and
Germany had afforded him a Peng-like capacity to traverse diverse literary realms in pursuit of
his own soaring poetic voice. The image of the Peng, however, is double-edged. The “silver-
coloured aeroplanes” Feng saw were deadly weapons designed to kill on an industrial, which is
to say Peng-like, scale. Kunming was subjected to periodic Japanese air raids which, as observed
by the renowned social scientist Fei Xiaotong (1910–2005) who arrived at Lianda in 1944,
“invariably occurred on fine days.”13
Feng wrote that being reminded of the Peng bird caused him “to blurt out a rhymed poem
in time with his footsteps”; when he got home, he wrote out the poem and discovered that
“quite incidentally, it was a version of the sonnet.”14 He added that he placed this first poem as
the eighth in his collection of sonnets and “being the earliest it was also the least eloquent.”This
was because he had grown unaccustomed to writing poetry and had produced “no more than
around ten poems” in the preceding decade. However, once he had written that first sonnet in
early 1941, other poems soon followed:

Sometimes I would write two or three in a day, at other times I would get stuck
halfway through and would then need a long time to complete the poem. I wrote
twenty-seven altogether in this manner. In autumn, I fell seriously ill. When I recov-
ered, I felt all alone and as though I had nothing. As my strength returned, I took out
the twenty-seven poems so as to go over and edit them once more. As I did so, I felt a
lightness of spirit because I was achieving what I had set out to do.
(Ibid.)

Feng’s Fourteen-line Collection was acclaimed by his literary peers upon publication. The
renowned writer Zhu Ziqing (1898–1948) enthused that the work had “built a foundation for
the Chinese sonnet, such that even hardened skeptics are now convinced that this genre will
thrive in Chinese poetry.”15 Zheng Min, one of the Nine Leaves, recalled in a 2015 interview
that she “worshipped” Feng’s book of sonnets when it appeared in 1942. Zheng said that the
book taught her that poetry must “express not only feelings but insight and reflection” and in so
doing, shaped her “poetic style” thereafter.16
Most scholars of modern Chinese poetry would agree with Michelle Yeh’s description of
Feng’s twenty-seven sonnets as “a modern landmark not only because it is the first collection of
original sonnets in Chinese but also because of its supreme artistry and philosophical depth.”17
Of the twenty-seven sonnets, the first four explore human existence in relation to things of
nature (such as dust, flowers, grass, insects, leaves, mountains, mud and trees), natural and cosmic
phenomena (comet, sounds, wind) and the workings of nature (the changing of the seasons, life
and death), the subject of the fifth is Venice and the next four return to the theme of human

251
 Gloria Davies

existence and human experience, with sonnets eight and nine focusing on human ambition,
hubris and mortality. Sonnets ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen and fourteen are, respectively, odes
to Cai Yuanpei, Lu Xun, Du Fu, Goethe, and Vincent van Gogh. The next seven sonnets reflect
on the complex emotions aroused in the poet by his encounters with scenic and sublime land-
scapes, with sonnets eighteen to twenty-one focused on emotional attachments, the human
desire to belong and the inevitability of separation. Sonnet twenty-two was partly inspired by a
statement Feng had read in the Koran, sonnet twenty-three was composed to mark the birth of
a litter of puppies, and the four last sonnets revolve around scenes of nature, everyday life and
the creative impulse.
Traversing all twenty-seven sonnets is the overarching idea that immortal art springs from
mortal preoccupations. In every poem, plain wordings are used to imbue lived experience with
poetic significance. As Feng puts it in the first two quatrains of Sonnet One:

We prepare ourselves ever so deeply to receive

Those miracles we are incapable of imagining.
Amid the languid passing of days and months, there is suddenly
The appearance of a comet. A wild wind gusts forth.
At this very instant, our lives become
Akin to the feeling of the first embrace.
Past joys and sorrows loom suddenly before our eyes
Congealed into majestic and unmoving bodies.18

It is no accident that Feng chose to start The Fourteen-Line Collection with these eight lines.
He never explained why the poems were not chronologically arranged. That he placed the very
first sonnet he wrote at number eight and that he grouped the ones composed as eulogies at
numbers ten to fourteen indicates that the ordering of the poems was not arbitrary.We can thus
attach some significance to the first eight lines of the poem with which the work begins. Was
Feng suggesting, with this opening gambit, that the poems that matter, the ones that move or
thrill us, should be regarded as “majestic and unmoving bodies” of a kind? It does seem so as his
twenty-seven sonnets are, after all, careful arrangements of words by means of which the poet
“congealed” his impressions of given events, moments and places.
In the remaining six lines of Sonnet One, Feng used small and large “bodies” to illustrate the
types of experience to which poetry should attend. He presented images of “tiny insects” at their
most alive to achieve a correspondence between the brevity of insect life and human finitude.
This is followed by a reiteration in the poem’s final two lines of the first quatrain’s “comet” and
“wild wind,” differently inflected and stated in reverse order.

We praise those tiny insects

For having undergone a singular bout of copulation
Or having withstood a dangerous threat
Before their splendid lives came to an end.
We spend the whole of our lives enduring
A wild wind gusting forth, a comet appearing. [1]

The experiential terms, “copulation” and “dangerous threat,” complement the figures of “the
first embrace” and “past joys and sorrows” introduced in the second quatrain. The last two lines
of the sonnet extract, from these various references to heightened sensation, a general state-
ment about poetic insight: namely, that it is through intensity of experience and feeling that life,

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 Feng Zhi, Mu Dan and the Nine Leaves

however briefly lived, becomes imbued with meaning and value. Here we must note that the
repetition of “a wild wind gusting forth” and “a comet appearing” at the poem’s end differs in
tone from the presentation of the same imagery at the start. In the poem’s first line, Feng evokes
the cosmic sublime as a blessing by using the verb “receive” (lingshou). The final line, conversely,
suggests the sublime is a burden or an ordeal one must “endure” (chengshou).
Feng greatly admired Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926). His translation in 1936 of a 1921
poem by Rilke on the function of the poet offers helpful clues to the underlying impulse behind
Feng’s twenty-seven sonnets. The opening lines of Rilke’s poem read:

Oh tell us, poet, what it is you do?

– I praise.
But in the midst of deadly turmoil, what
helps you endure, and how do you survive?
– I praise.19

Feng published this and other translations of Rilke in 1936, in commemoration of the tenth
anniversary of the Austrian writer’s death. In an accompanying essay, Feng extolled Rilke’s
poetic achievement of a “commingling [jiaoliu] of the self and the myriad things of nature.”
Reflecting on what he had learned from Rilke, Feng stated:

We often hear someone say of some material that it is unsuited for poetry or that it
isn’t a candidate for poetry. However, Rilke’s reply is that all things, so long as they
genuinely exist, can be admitted into poetry. Most people also say that emotions are
what poetry needs but Rilke tells us that we have long been equipped with emotions:
what we need is experience. The kind of experience he means resembles what disci-
ples of Buddhism regard as “the body transformed into the myriad things” [huashen
wanwu], by means of which one becomes able to taste the pain and suffering of all
living creatures.20

The proposition that experiential intensity makes life meaningful is implicit in the last two
lines of Sonnet One. Against these statements from Feng’s 1936 essay, Sonnet One lends itself
to being read as Rilkean- and Buddhist-inspired: both a celebration of powerful experiences
(the ones capable of affecting us as much as “a wild wind gusting forth” or filling us with the
wonder of “a comet appearing”) and an endorsement of the attitude required for receiving such
experiences (as that which we must be prepared to “spend the whole of our lives enduring”).
Moreover, by using the Buddhist expression huashen wanwu (the original Sanskrit for huashen is
nirmānakāya) to explain the type of experience verse-making requires, Feng endows poetry with
a transcendent purpose.
For Feng, the poetic urge to pursue and praise “all that is true in the world” was also a form
of self-reckoning (Ibid., 76). In his preface to the 1949 edition of The Fourteen-Line Collection,
he wrote that although he composed the first sonnet in 1941 for “no particular reason,” he had
nonetheless “felt a growing demand deep within” to give voice to “several experiences that are
forever repeating themselves in my mind, several people from whom I have continued to draw
nourishment, and natural phenomena that I have found instructive.” He then asked himself:
“Why don’t I leave a record of my gratitude to all these?”

It was this idea that led me to write a poem about each thing that has had an impact
on my life or mattered deeply to me: from immortal historical figures to nameless

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 Gloria Davies

village children and farmers’ wives, from a renowned ancient city far away to flying
insects and mosses on the hill slope here, from a short period in one’s personal life to
the things many have encountered in common.21

These remarks reveal the extent to which Rilke’s views, and language, shaped Feng’s concep-
tualisation of his own poetic intent. It was only in 1989 that Feng acknowledged the influence
of Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus on The Fourteen-Line Collection.22 However, as studies to date of
Feng’s 1941 sonnets have demonstrated, he also took inspiration from diverse authors for his
poetic art and vocabulary, including, among others, Tao Yuanming (d. 427), one of the most
revered literary figures of premodern China, the Tang-era poets Du Fu (712–770) and Jia Dao
(779–843), Lu You (1125–1210) from the Song era, Goethe and Lu Xun.
Many of the images Feng employed in his sonnets are staples of premodern Chinese lit-
erature. For instance, the “chain of mountains, silent and verdant” in the final line of Sonnet
Two resonates with the evocative power of landscape imagery in traditional Chinese paint-
ing and poetry. Of this line, Eric Yu has commented that it recalls “Li Bai’s famous line ‘blue
mountains stretch beyond the northern city wall’ and Huang Xiaomai’s ‘empty goblets weep-
ing at night, blue mountains speechless.’ ” Feng’s early poems (predating his sonnets) similarly
reflect the significant influence of “Tang poetry and Song Dynasty song lyrics in terms of
diction and the use of figures.”23 Moreover, Lloyd Haft has observed that the rhyme patterns
of Feng’s sonnets reflect the influence of the “Thirteen Tracks” or “Thirteen Rhyme Groups”
(shisan zhe), a northern Chinese rhyming scheme dating from the Qianlong era widely used
in Peking Opera.24
Feng’s sonnets are a cosmopolitan fusion of modern vernacular syntax and vocabulary, pre-
modern Chinese diction and rhythm, and European literary aesthetics. The elegance and econ-
omy of his language calls attention to the novelty and effectiveness of this fusion. That Feng’s
poetic art is most often described as “modernist” owes partly to the tensions created in his
poems by these disparate elements, which are never fully resolved in favour of one or another
element. In language and imagery, all twenty-seven sonnets affirm situations of modern flux and
transformation over those of a classical organic harmony.
Sonnet Two is a prime example of this modernist sensibility at work. The poem begins with
a proposition plainly stated and with such conscious adherence to syntax as if to exemplify a
modern clarity of expression in which every word must be made to count:

Whatever can be shed from our bodies

We will let it turn to dust.

The next five lines transpose this proposition into an evocative image of trees in autumn
which the poet likens to human existence. However, he does so to accentuate the difference
between the unconscious workings of nature and conscious human will.The next two lines after
that reiterate this difference via the figure of molted cicadas. Lines three to nine are as follows:

We place ourselves in this age

Like trees in autumn, one by one,
Whose leaves and late blooming flowers
Are all given to the autumn wind. Thus eased, the bodies of trees
Stretch toward a severe winter. We place ourselves
In nature, like molted cicadas
Leaving behind their discarded husks in mud and soil.

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Having figured death and metamorphosis as the cycle of seasons, trees shedding their leaves,
molted skins and things turned to dust, the poet then shifts in the sonnet’s last five lines to extol
the capacity of the human mind to imagine death and to create art out of what it imagines.

We place ourselves in relation to that

Death yet to come, like a part of a song
Whose tune has fallen off the body of music.
Finally, the music’s outer form is all that remains
Transformed into a chain of mountains, silent and verdant. [2]

This elevation of “music,” or poetry, to a “chain of mountains, silent and verdant” is a different
sentiment to the poem’s opening proposition that all that is mortal must “turn to dust.” Scholars
writing on Feng’s sonnets frequently describe them as “philosophical” because these are poems
whose wordings invite reflection on the relation between art and life, the cosmic and the human,
infinity and finitude.
The recurring use of the verb anpai (to “place,” “arrange,” “order”) in Sonnet Two reminds
the reader that humans, unlike other creatures, are equipped with free will: to “place ourselves in
this age” is to choose a way of being. Similarly, to “place ourselves in relation to that death yet
to come” is to attempt to make sense of one’s life as an act of will, in the knowledge of certain
death. To turn these modern self-conscious “placings” into a song is to make poetic sense. To
first picture death and then turn that picture into a work of art is, as Feng implies, to produce a
“majestic and unmoving” body that will endure long after the artist is dead.
Given the redemptive powers Feng accorded to art, it is not surprising that he should devote five
of his sonnets to chosen exemplars whose textual legacy he regarded as “immortal.” He did not eulo-
gize Rilke in a sonnet, perhaps because he had written extensively on Rilke five years earlier and
translated several of his poems. However, in the first edition of The Fourteen-Line Collection in 1942,
he made a point of noting that it was Rilke’s words he borrowed to mourn Cai Yuanpei in Sonnet
Ten, written on 5 March 1941 on the first anniversary of Cai’s death.25 To commemorate Cai’s role
in guiding and accelerating cultural change in Republican-era China, Feng began with these lines:

Your name is placed mostly among

Other names, indistinguishable
from theirs. Nonetheless you will forever
Quietly preserve your own radiance.

This succinct foregrounding of Cai’s eminence as an official and scholar whose legacy was insti-
tutional rather than textual is developed in the sonnet’s last four Rilkean-inspired lines.

We deeply feel how you can no longer

Join in the work of humanity’s future –
If this world is to be renewed
If things gone awry are to be put straight. [10]

In a letter to his wife Clara dated 19 November 1917, Rilke had expressed the distress he felt
on learning of the death of his mentor Augustine Rodin two days earlier:

I do not know what Rodin’s death would have meant to me in normal circumstances
perhaps something after all reconcilable; for the present, I am dominated by perplexity

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 Gloria Davies

that something so close should come to pass without standing out at all sharply defined
against the chaos of the time, that behind the unnatural and terrible wall of the war
these clearly known figures sink away from one, somewhere Verhaeren, Rodin, those
great wise friends – their death becomes indistinct and indiscernible . . . I only feel that
they will not be there any more when the horrible vapor clears away, and will not be
able to stand by those who will have to raise the world up again and nurse it.26

Rilke’s remark about how the war in Europe had exacerbated the sorrow he felt when Rodin
died evidently struck a deep chord with Feng.The conditional statements in the last two lines of
Sonnet Ten convey uncertainty, suggesting that, without enlightened leadership, the end of war
might not usher in the longed-for recovery.
Living amid the devastation caused by Japanese bombs and the occupying Japanese army,
Feng felt keenly the loss of Lu Xun as a mentor. When Feng reached Shanghai in Septem-
ber 1935, following the completion of his studies in Germany, Lu Xun was among the first
people he called on. He and his wife spent an afternoon with Lu Xun on 6 September in the
writer’s favourite bookstore, the Uchiyama Shoten, before travelling on to Beijing.27 By then,
Lu Xun’s health was failing. A year later in October 1936, Feng returned to Shanghai to attend
the writer’s funeral. We know from Feng’s diary jottings that when he moved into the thatched
cottage in Yangjiashan outside Kunming in October 1940, he embarked on a program of read-
ing which included works by Goethe, poems by Du Fu and Lu You, letters by Kierkegaard and
Rilke, a few of Nietzsche’s writings and Lu Xun’s personal essays.28
In 1941, Feng wrote Sonnet Eleven to honour Lu Xun’s memory, of which lines five to nine read:

I feel the deepest gratitude, always,

When gazing upon you, because of this era of ours.
It has been destroyed by several fools
Its protector lived his days
Outside this world, abandoned by it. [11]

As arguably China’s best-known and most acclaimed writer, Lu Xun was much sought after
by acolytes, officials, academics, artists, writers, publishers, reporters and Communist operatives,
whether to grace an event, deliver a speech, give an interview, write an essay, endorse a book,
read or edit a manuscript, and so on and so forth. Feng clearly admired Lu Xun. However, his
description of the writer in line eight as the world’s “protector” and in line nine as “abandoned”
by the world is perhaps overwrought and even unintendedly burlesque. However well meaning,
this confusion of writer and writing veers toward hagiography.
Lines five to nine of this poem make clear that Feng had sought, in an act of reverential com-
memoration, to conflate the flesh-and-blood Lu Xun with the figure of the “warrior” (zhanshi),
which the writer had used in several of his prose poems and essays. The first four lines of the
poem similarly characterise Lu Xun using the title of one of his prose poems, “An Awakening.”

At dusk one day many years ago

You experienced an awakening because of a few young people
You were disillusioned who knows how many times
But that awakening has never dissipated. [11]

These lines, which draw on the many references in Lu Xun’s essays to young people who had
either inspired or disappointed him, are more cogent than the later ones praising Lu Xun as the

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world’s “protector.” Line four suggests that Lu Xun’s “awakening,” as a textual legacy, provided
readers with a permanent source of inspiration.
Feng also extemporised on Lu Xun’s favourite tropes in several of the sonnets. For instance,
Sonnet Nine evokes numerous images from Lu Xun’s prose poems in the anthology titled Wild
Grass, of which the warrior is one. In his 1925 prose poem “Such a Warrior,” Lu Xun presented
a figure of primal independence, single-mindedly focused on hunting down his enemies, to
suggest the type of attitude a writer must adopt to wage verbal war against false claims. That Lu
Xun meant a discursive rather than a physical war is clear from the statement that the warrior
“enters the ranks of the incorporeal” to fight the good fight.29 Feng retranscribes this idea of the
textual-as-incorporeal into an act of communion between the reader and the text. He does so
by speaking directly to the warrior, to suggest that the imagery of Lu Xun’s poem has a lasting
evocative power:

You stand in the battlefield like an immortal hero,

In another world, forever turned toward heaven’s blue dome. [9]

Unlike Sonnet Eleven’s confusion of writer and writing, in this poem, gratitude is expressed
through rhetorical emulation, producing a fusion of the master text (“Such a Warrior”) with its
derivative (Feng’s Sonnet Nine).Two other poems in The Fourteen Line Collection are evocative of
Lu Xun’s favourite tropes. Sonnet Four, on the mountain plant Edelweiss, which Feng rendered
in Chinese as shuqu cao, with the attendant connotation of a weed or wild grass, lends itself to
being read as a response to the preface Lu Xun wrote for Wild Grass.
The central image in Sonnet Seventeen of unknown country roads recalls Lu Xun’s figura-
tion of hope as so many “roads across the earth. For actually the earth had no roads to begin
with but when many people pass one way, a road is made.”30 The semantic resonance between
this remark of Lu Xun’s and Sonnet Seventeen seems unmistakable:

You say that on this wild plain what you like best is the sight of
These many little roads so filled with life.
The footsteps of countless unnamed travellers have
Trodden out these active roads.
In the wild plain of our souls
There are also little winding roads.
Of those who have walked on them, however,
More than half have travelled to destinations unknown.
Lonely children, white-haired couples,
There are also a few young men and women
And friends who have died. They have all
Trodden out these roads for us.
We commemorate their footsteps
To prevent these roads being turned into a desolate wilderness. [17]

More immediately, however, the road imagery in Sonnet Seventeen recalls the perilous road
journeys made in haste by academics and students, with many accompanied by their families, as
they fled Japanese-occupied China in the late 1930s for the relative safety of either the south-
western hinterland, controlled by Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government, or the Communist
headquarters in Yan’an in north-central China. Feng’s own journey to Kunming was a difficult
one for his wife had contracted a serious illness en route.31 In October 1940, Mu Dan, Feng’s

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poetic protégé at Lianda, published a poem to commemorate his own long journey to Kunming.
He had set out from Beijing on 20 February 1938 with 240 fellow male students and several
academics. Titled respectively “Departing: Traversing Three Thousand Li on Foot, part 1” and
“Walking in the Wilderness: Traversing Three Thousand Li on Foot, part 2,” Mu Dan’s two-part
poem presents an exuberant account of the sights and scenes the then twenty-year-old poet
encountered in 1938.32
Carolyn Fitzgerald writes that this and other poems composed by Mu Dan around this
time “all feature a poetic speaker passing through wide swathes of countryside and expressing a
newfound sense of connection with the common people” (Ibid., 39). Mu Dan’s poem includes
these lines:

We walk on the paths which were walked by our beloved ancestors;

For so many years it has all been the same endless wilderness.

This image is further developed in the poem’s last three lines:

That hope, which once burned in the hearts of countless generations of ancestors.
This inestimable hope is so stubborn and persistent.
Ah, China’s road is so free and vast. . . (Ibid., 41)

Feng was thirty-seven when he wrote his twenty-seven sonnets. Was Sonnet Seventeen, written
months after the publication of Mu Dan’s road poem, partly an elegiac response to the younger
poet’s patriotic optimism: more anxious than hopeful about the future? This question yields
no conclusive answer but I raise it here to highlight the closeness, even camaraderie, between
students and teachers at Lianda, as the recollections of the university’s faculty and alumni attest.
The convergence at Lianda of China’s leading scholars, writers and intellectuals, together
with students from Beijing’s top universities, created a unique environment between both artis-
tic and intellectual endeavours. Lianda was “a center of liberal education, liberal in its pluralism
and tolerance of diversity.”33 Moreover, the exigencies of war meant there was a general lack
of library resources which, in turn, produced a highly personalised and non-textbook-oriented
approach to pedagogy on the part of Lianda’s distinguished teaching faculty, which included
celebrated writers like Shen Congwen (1902–1988), Wen Yiduo (1899–1946) and Zhu Ziqing
(1898–1948) and eminent scholars such as Feng Youlan (1895–1990), He Lin (1902–1992), Jin
Yuelin (1895–1984), Tang Yongtong (1893–1964), Wu Mi (1894–1978) and Zheng Xin (1905–
1974). There were also several other modernist writers and poets at Lianda besides Feng Zhi,
such as Bian Zhilin (1910–2000) and Shi Zhecun (1905–2003).
In the aforementioned 2015 interview, Zheng Min remarked that the makeshift nature of
Lianda as a wartime campus afforded the faculty and students a unique freedom:

There wasn’t anyone to check on the students or to enforce discipline. However, we

were all very keen to attend our classes.There were famous professors in every depart-
ment, all of whom were highly innovative, who felt that it was a great honour to give
lectures using their own work as teaching materials.

Zheng remembered Feng Zhi as an energetic teacher who had a “youthful air about him” and
“always wore a smile.” However, he was extremely serious and “never chatted with the stu-
dents”: she did not recall him ever having told a joke.34

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 Feng Zhi, Mu Dan and the Nine Leaves

Lianda’s liberating environment is a crucial context for reading The Fourteen-Line Collection
as modernist experimental writing in a time of war. As David Wang points out, although war is
“the only subject he does not confront directly,” Feng’s sonnets abound with indirect symbolic
references to it, particularly in the form of poetic representations of death and metamorphosis,
of which many were inspired by Feng’s reading of Goethe.35 Modernism flourished at Lianda
because the combination of an absence of political interference and loose institutional arrange-
ments allowed talented poets and writers to give free rein to their imaginative and expressive
capacity.
The concept of modernism is hard to pin down for it accommodates many styles and per-
spectives. Nonetheless, as aesthetic responses to times of unprecedented social change from the
late 1890s to the 1950s and to the violence of the two World Wars, modernist works do share
distinctive traits such as a privileging of the subjective experience of time and space, a height-
ened awareness of human social existence as dislocated from nature and tradition alike, and a
corresponding yearning for self-transformation. These are traits that Feng’s sonnets share with
the sonnets of Rilke and W.H. Auden: these three twentieth-century poets each adapted the tra-
ditional fourteen-line poetic form to suit his own unique purpose yet all drew from a common
vocabulary of modern anguish and wonder. Their twentieth-century sonnets are, accordingly,
self-consciously individualistic yet discernibly modernist in execution: for instance, enjambment
(where a line of verse runs into the next to complete its meaning), caesura (where there is a
pause mid-line) and the use of irregular lines and non-iambic rhymes are features as much in
Feng’s sonnets (1941) as in Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus (1923) and Auden’s verses on China, In
Time of War: A Sonnet Sequence (1939).36
Feng pointedly excluded his sonnets from The Selected Poems of Feng Zhi (1955), the first
anthology of his representative works to appear under Chinese Communist rule. In the preface
to this anthology, he accused his previous literary efforts of self-indulgence and narrow-minded
thinking. He stated: “In particular, the twenty-seven sonnets I wrote in 1941 indicate how
deeply influenced I was by Western bourgeois literature such that in form and content they are
all pretentious and contrived and therefore, none of these poems have been included here.” It
was not until the post-Maoist 1980s, when avant-garde literature was all the rage and the Misty
poets were celebrities, that Feng retracted his 1955 remarks about his twenty-seven sonnets.
In the preface to The Selected Works of Feng Zhi, published in 1985, which included the entire
Fourteen-Line Collection, Feng now described his 1955 disavowal of his sonnets as “extreme words
that bore no relation to reality.”37
As the subject of a very large number of research articles since the 1980s, The Fourteen
Line Collection now enjoys canonical status in mainland literary studies.38 However, Feng’s
metamorphosis from modernist poet to Maoist orator has been, and remains, an important
subtext in the work’s reception in mainland intellectual circles, not least because quite con-
trary to the sentiments he expressed in Sonnet Seventeen of preserving the roads that people
have made, his denunciation of his own and other people’s literary achievements during the
Maoist years helped to turn Chinese literature into “a desolate wilderness.” Feng went from
describing his creative stance in 1943 as that of “an individual facing an entire universe” to
declaring in 1949 that he wanted only to serve “the needs of the people” and to “wash off
all narrow intellectual habits as [he] faced the people.”39 In 1949, Feng evidently embraced
Chinese Communist Party rule under Mao as a longed-for miracle. However, if political
faith could be likened to the experience of “a wild wind gusting forth, a comet appearing,”
it also deprived the awe-struck poet of creative and intellectual independence for the next
twenty-five years or more.

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 Gloria Davies

Notes
1 Lu Xun, “Preface to Compendium of Modern Chinese Literature: Fiction,Volume Two,” (Zhongguo xin wenxue
daxi: xiaoshuo er ji xu), completed 2 March 1935 in The Collected Works of Lu Xun, Volume 6 (Lu Xun
quanji 6) (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1991), 243.
2 Biographical details drawn from several sources, notably Yao Ping, “A Chronological Biography of
Feng Zhi,” (Feng Zhi nianpu) Historical Materials for New Literature (Xin wenxue shiliao) (2001), no.
4, 83–114; Zhang Hui, Feng Zhi: an incomplete self (Feng Zhi: weiwancheng de ziwo), (Beijing: Wenjing
chubanshe, 2005).
3 Michelle Yeh,“Chinese Literature from 1937 to the Present,” in Kang-I Sun Chang and Stephen Owen,
eds., The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature,Volume 2: From 1375 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 2010), 577.
4 Michel Hockx, “The Nine Leaves: Introduction,” in The Flowering of Modern Chinese Poetry: An Anthol-
ogy of Verse from the Republican Era, trans. Herbert Batt and Sheldon Zitner (Montreal and Kingston:
McGill-Queen’s University Press), 339.
5 Xu Wang, “The Poetry of Mu Dan (1918–1977),” (Ph.D thesis, Australian National University, Can-
berra, 2016), https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/110961/1/Wang%20Thesis%
202016.pdf
6 Ibid.
7 Chee Lay Tan, Constructing a System of Irregularities: The Poetry of Bei Dao,Yang Lian, and Duoduo (New-
castle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016), 14.
8 Feng Zhi, Feng Zhi: Selected Poems (Feng Zhi xuanji) (Chengdu: Sichuan renminchubanshe, 1980); Xin
Di, ed., The Nine Leaves Collection (Jiu ye ji) (Nanjing: Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 1981).
9 Feng Zhi, “Preface to the Fourteen-line Collection,” (Shisihang ji xu) in The Collected Works of Feng Zhi
(Feng Zhi quan ji, hereafter FZQJ), vol.1 (Shijiazhuang: Hebei jiaoyu chubanshe, 1999), 213.
10 Liu Yiqing, A Unique Romance: A Record of Everyday Life at Southwestern Associated University (Juedai feng-
liu: Xinan lianda shenghuo shilu) (Beijing: Beijing hangkong hangtian daxue chubanshe, 2009), http://
read.dangdang.com/content_565576
11 Feng Zhi, “Preface,” 214.
12 Zhuangzi, chapter one, http://ctext.org/zhuangzi/enjoyment-in-untroubled-ease. The translation is
mine.
13 Quoted in Lincoln Li, Student Nationalism in China, 1924–1949 (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1994), 87.
14 Feng Zhi, “Preface,” 214.
15 Zhu Ziqing, “Shi de xingshi,” (Form in Poetry), 1943, www.qingshiwang.com/xinshililun/807.html
16 Hou Xinying, “Zheng Min, the Sole Surviving Member of the Nine Leaves,” (Jiu ye pai weiyi jian-
zai shiren Zheng Min) Huanqiu renwu (10 June 2015), http://renwu.people.com.cn/n/2015/0610/
c357069-27133575.html
17 Michelle Yeh, “Chinese Literature from 1937 to the Present,” 575.
18 Feng Zhi, The Fourteen-Line Collection (Shisihang ji) (Beijing: Jiefangjun wenyi chubanshe, 2007), 1.
Subsequent quotations from this work will be indicated by the relevant page number enclosed within
square brackets. All translations from this work are mine.
19 Rainer Maria Rilke: Selected Poems, trans. Albert Ernest Flemming (New York: Routledge, 1990), 209.
20 Quoted in Zhang Hui, Feng Zhi, 75–76.
21 Feng Zhi, “Preface,” 214.
22 Feng Zhi, “My Destined Relationship with the Sonnet,” (Wo he shisihangshi de yinyuan) in FZQJ,
vol. 5, 94. Noted in Eric Yu, “Ideas, Emotions and Poetic Devices: Philosophical Lyricism in Feng Zhi’s
Sonnets,” Quarterly Journal of Chinese Studies (2012), vol. 3, no. 3, 2.
23 Yu, “Ideas, Emotions and Poetic Devices,” 5.
24 Lloyd Haft, “Some Rhythmic Structures in Feng Zhi’s Sonnets,” Modern Chinese Literature (1996), vol.
9 no. 2, 303–304.
25 Wang Bo, “A Critical Review of Different Editions of Feng Zhi’s Fourteen-Line Collection,” (Feng Zhi
Shishihang ji ide banben piping” Xinan shiyou daxue xuebao: shehui kexue ban (2011), vol. 20, no. 1, 83.
26 Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke, 1910–1926, trans. Jane Bannard Greene and M.D.
Herter Norton (New York: W.W. Norton, 1969), 167.
27 Yao Ping, “A Chronological Biography of Feng Zhi,” 92.
28 Ibid., 93.

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29 Lu Xun, Selected Works of Lu Xun, vol. 1, trans.Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang (Beijing: Foreign Languages
Press, 1985), 354–355.
30 Lu Xun, Selected Works, vol. 1, 101.
31 Yao Ping, “A Chronological Biography of Feng Zhi,” 93.
32 Carolyn Fitzgerald, Fragmenting Modernisms: Chinese Wartime Literature, Art and Film, 1937–1949 (Lei-
den: Brill, 2013), 37.
33 John Israel, Lianda: A Chinese University in War and Revolution (Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1998),
373.
34 Hou Xinying, “Zheng Min, the Sole Surviving Member of the Nine Leaves,” http://renwu.people.
com.cn/n/2015/0610/c357069-27133575.html
35 David Der-wei Wang, The Lyrical in Epic Time: Modern Chinese Intellectuals and Artists Through the 1949
Crisis (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015), 139, 140–143.
36 On Rilke and Feng, see Haft, “Some Rhythmic Structures in Feng Zhi’s Sonnets,” 303–314. W.H.
Auden, “In Time of War: A Sonnet Sequence with a verse commentary,” in Auden and Christopher
Isherwood, eds., Journey to a War (London: Faber and Faber, 1973), 247–258.
37 Wang Bo, “Feng Zhi Shishihang ji ide banben piping,” Journal of Southwestern Shiyou University (Xinan
shiyou daxue xuebao) (2011), vol. 20, no. 1, 83.
38 The National Index to Chinese Newspapers and Periodicals (Quanguo baokan suoyin) database lists
116 Chinese-language scholarly articles and monographs published in mainland China (1976–2016)
with titles featuring “The Fourteen-Line Collection.” (Information accessed March 30, 2017). Research
publications that discuss this work, presenting it as an important part of the literary legacy of Republi-
can-era China number in the thousands.
39 Quoted in Zhang Hui, Feng Zhi: An Incomplete Self, 84–85, 151.

Further readings
Batt, Herbert and Sheldon Zitner, trans. “Feng Zhi”, “Nine Leaves.” In The Flowering of Modern Chinese
Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from the Republican Era. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University
Press, 2016, 140–148, 343–412.
Cheung, Dominic. Feng Chih. Boston: Twayne, 1979.
Gálik, Marián.“Feng Zhi and His Goethean Sonnet.” In Masayuki Akiyama and Yiu-nam Leung, eds. Cross-
currents in the Literatures of Asia and the West: Essays in Honour of A. Owen Aldridge. Newark: University of
Delaware Press, 1997, 123–134.
Hockx, Michel. “Introduction, Part 5: The Nine Leaves Poets.” In Herbert Batt and Sheldon Zitner, trans.
The Flowering of Modern Chinese Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from the Republican Era. Montreal and King-
ston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016, 339–342.
Hsu, Kai-yu, ed. and trans. “Feng Chih.” In Twentieth Century Chinese Poetry: An Anthology. Ithaca and New
York: Cornell University Press, 1970, 139–158.
Wang, David D. “Of Dream and Snake: He Qifang, Feng Zhi, and Born-again Lyricism.” In The Lyrical in
Epic Time: Modern Chinese Intellectuals and Artists Through the 1949 Crisis. New York: Columbia Univer-
sity Press, 2015, 113–154.
Wang, Xu. “The Poetry of Mu Dan (1918–1977),” Ph.D. Thesis. Canberra: Australian National University,
2016, at https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/110961/1/Wang%20Thesis%20
2016.pdf
Yip,Wai-lim. “Modernism in a Cross-Cultural Context”, “Feng Zhi.” In Lyrics from Shelters: Modern Chinese
Poetry 1930–1950. New York and London: Garland Publishing Inc, 1992, 1–14, 69–73.

261
 SECTION VI

Topical plays and modern essays

 19
HISTORICAL PLAYS OF GUO
MORUO AND TIAN HAN
Ning Ma

Born through the iconoclastic New Culture (May Fourth) Movement of the 1910s and 1920s,
modern Chinese literature appears to be a radical antithesis to China’s classical tradition. The
genre of the historical play, by its creative evocation of the past, nonetheless foregrounds the
ambiguous intersections across the tradition-modern divide. The two authors at the center of
this chapter, Guo Moruo (1892–1978) and Tian Han (1898–1962), are both founding figures
of the historical play in modern Chinese literature. As two literary stars from the New Culture
Movement, they lived through the violent vicissitudes of twentieth-century Chinese history,
and were deeply involved in the country’s major political events. This chapter addresses their
historical plays as indicators of forgotten or masked linkages between China’s literary past and
present. In particular, it highlights the significance of what I call “lyrical Confucianism” to Guo’s
and Tian’s historical plays. Through reinventing the traditional legacy of lyrical Confucianism,
Guo’s and Tian’s plays dramatize the past into a rich figure of both the Chinese revolution and
the limits of the revolution. An understanding of the hybridization of the past and the present
in their works is thus essential for reading the historical play as a distinctive genre in modern
Chinese literature.

The playwrights
Like many other intellectuals from the May Fourth period, Guo and Tian both travelled to
Japan for higher education. Guo started to study and live in Japan in 1914 and later married
Tomiko Satō. Tian was educated at the University of Tsukuba. In 1921, Guo Moruo and Tian
Han became key members of the Creation Society (Chuangzao she), which ran between 1921
and 1929 and featured literary works inspired by Western Romanticism and modernism. Later,
many of the society’s members, including Guo and Tian, allied themselves with the Communist
Party and wrote to promote the cause of the proletariat revolution and the project of national
self-strengthening. In this context, Tian Han penned the famous lyric to the song “The March
of Volunteers” (Yiyong jun jinxing qu), which was adopted as the Chinese national anthem after
1949. As a renowned dramatist, Tian Han assumed many important cultural positions, including
serving as the head of the PRC’s National Dramatist Association. Guo Moruo was an even more
prominent intellectual figure, known both as a leading historian and a prolific author of poetry,
drama, and fiction. Honored as the “national poet,” Guo took on the prestigious position of the

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president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, an office he held from 1949 up to his death in
1978. After the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, Guo and Tian nonetheless expe-
rienced different fates. Similar to many other renowned cultural figures of the period, Tian Han
was arrested and persecuted, which resulted in his death in 1968. Guo, on the other hand, was
spared of such ordeals, and passed away due to illness in 1978.
Treading on shared ground across the turbulent history of modern China, Guo Moruo and
Tian Han both penned highly influential historical plays. Over his lifetime, Guo produced an
impressive list of nearly twenty works in the genre. Since Guo’s creative vision altered alongside
major shifts in modern China, we can divide his writing career in the genre into three periods:
first, the peak years of the New Culture Movement between 1919 and 1925; then, the wartime
years between 1941 and 1943, amidst the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and internal
struggles between the Nationalist Party and the Communist Party; and, finally, from the estab-
lishment of the PRC in 1949 to 1963, shortly before the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution.
During the May Fourth phase, Guo first authored several short “poetry dramas” (shiju) that fea-
ture historical or mythical topics: The Flowers of Brotherhood (Tangli zhihua) (1920), Death on the
River Xiang (Xianglei) (1920), The Rebirth of the Goddess (Nüshen zhi zaisheng) (1921), The Moon
Palace (Guanghan Gong) (1922), and The Two Sons of Lord Guzhu (Guzhu Jun zhi Erzi) (1922).
Afterwards, Guo created his best-known historical plays from the period – that is, the trilogy
of “Three Rebellious Women,” a set of plays that retell the stories of famous female figures in
history, including Zhuo Wenjun (1923), Wang Zhaojun (1924), and Nie Ying (1925). The second
period during the WWII years, despite being a short span of three years, witnessed Guo’s crea-
tion of his most influential historical plays – namely, his six “historical tragedies” that include
The Flowers of Brotherhood (Tangli zhihua) (1941), Qu Yuan (1942), The Tiger Tally (Hufu) (1942),
Gao Jianli (1942), Peacock’s Gall (Kongque Dan) (1942), and A Draft from the Southern Captive
(Nanguan Cao) (1943). Guo’s creativity in historical plays decreased after 1949, although he did
write during the last phase the celebrated play Cai Wenji (1959), as well as Wu Zetian (1962) and
Zheng Chenggong (1963), the last of which being intended as a film script.
Tian Han wrote considerably fewer historical plays. His works in the genre include only
Guan Hanqing (1958), Princess Wencheng (1960), and an earlier unpublished play Chen Yuany-
uan (1946). The difference in number apart, Tian’s Guan Hanqing is comparable to Guo’s most
renowned work in the genre, Qu Yuan, as a founding example of the historical play in modern
Chinese literature. The two writers’ plays responded to a shared national environment, and
sometimes to one another. Focusing on Guo’s Flowers of Brotherhood and Qu Yuan and Tian’s
Guan Hanqing, this chapter emphasizes these plays’ inheritance of the traditional legacy of “lyri-
cal Confucianism” through a set of themes: that is, the power of the people, the ills of political corrup-
tion, and the social meanings of literary creativity. Thus overlapping the past and the present, Guo’s
and Tian’s historical plays portray their central events as affective figurations of the revolution
and its limits. Their works in the genre hence assumed tremendous appeal to the audience of
twentieth-century China.

Lyrical confucianism from the Analects to Historical Records

Twentieth-century accounts typically present the New Culture Movement as a passionate rejec-
tion of Confucian social hierarchies and classical learning.What is flattened out in this prevalent
account is that Confucianism, similar to any other religious or cultural system, has many facets
and ramifications. Neither was the New Culture Movement, for that matter, a monolithic or
uniform process. For all their eager embracement of Western modernity, May Fourth intellectu-
als were thoroughly educated in the classical tradition, and many of them remained avid readers

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and researchers of past history and literature. Tian Han, given his tireless efforts at preserving
traditional theatrical forms, was profoundly invested in China’s own cultural heritage. Guo
Moruo’s prolific output in historical plays was a direct extension of his even more productive
career as a historian. In fact, against May Fourth iconoclasm, Guo often argued on behalf of
the past cultural heritage, such as when he wrote that, “I prefer the philosophy of Confucius
and Mengzi, since their teachings are the most attentive to the people’s interests among all the
philosophical schools.”1 Confucianism, in this light, contains aspects that parallel the goal of the
proletariat revolution. As we shall see, the people-first Confucian framework is crucial to turning
the image of past into an affective allegory for the present in Guo’s and Tian’s historical plays.
Beyond any parochial forms of nativism or nationalism, these playwrights’ creative inheritance of
lyrical Confucianism was due to this traditional legacy’s tragic, proto-revolutionary spirit, which
poignantly answered to the anxieties and hopes of twentieth-century Chinese intellectuals.
To a degree, my thesis echoes the argument of David Der-wei Wang’s recent book, The Lyri-
cal in an Epic Time, which situates the lyrical mode as a neglected bridge between traditional and
modern Chinese literatures. In Wang’s words,

Lyricism in the Chinese literary culture has always implicated an interaction between
the self and the world, and during [the twentieth century] there emerged waves of
literary and aesthetic practices that sought to identify individual options in the face
of the atrocities. Lyricism can be seen as a poetics of selfhood that informs the historical
moment and helps define Chinese modernity in a different light.2

In my reading, the lyrical aspects of Guo’s and Tian’s historical plays rest precisely in their
expression of a “poetics of selfhood” embodied by the central literary figure, who is confronted
with historical atrocities that mirror the crises of twentieth-century China. Here, I further relate
this lyricism to the Confucian principle of moral self-cultivation, which obtains a lyrical nature
when it emerges as a passionate and self-sacrificial insistence on personal integrity in a hostile
political environment. As well known, Confucius (551–479 BCE) was not successful in imple-
menting his philosophy in actual politics. This situation of political failure contextualized a
strong emphasis on personal integrity in his teachings as recorded in the Analects. Acknowledg-
ing the problem of bad leadership, the Analects demands a morally cultivated person (junzi) to
maintain personal integrity in a degraded political environment, and to take on social leadership
in place of the corrupt government. In these senses, the Analects anticipated the lyrical Confu-
cianism that ran through the Chinese literary culture and came to be inherited by Guo’s and
Tian’s historical plays.
Later, Mengzi (372–289 BCE), the Confucian philosopher next in importance to Confucius,
developed lyrical Confucianism in three significant ways. First, Mengzi’s philosophy explicitly
places the people’s welfare above the ruler’s self-interest, as manifested by the famed statement
from Mengzi, “The people are the most precious; the state is the next in importance; and the rul-
er’s own person goes last.”3 Second, following on his “people first” position, Mengzi acknowl-
edged the right to rebellion under oppressive rulership. Famously, when answering whether the
founder of the Zhou dynasty was justified to overthrow the tyrannical last king of the previous
Shang dynasty, Mengzi stated that the last king of Shang, given his vice behaviors, had lost his
kingly entitlement and become a “mere fellow.” Consequently, everyone was justified to dispose
of him.4 The subtext of Mengzi’s answer is that the last king of Shang was divested of the “Man-
date of Heaven” (tianming) that sanctions legitimate and virtuous rulership. Importantly, the Chi-
nese term for “revolution,” geming, derived from this classical sense as “changing the Mandate” or
“transferring the Mandate.” Mengzi’s right to rebellion founded a proto-revolutionary discourse

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that continued to inform twentieth-century Chinese politics.5 Third, Mengzi foregrounded

personal integrity or “yi” as a fundamental principle of moral self-cultivation, and argued that
this principle means to sacrifice worldly gains and even one’s life for what’s right.6 Set against
a degenerated environment and bordering on martyrdom, the Mencian notion of integrity has
an inherently lyrical inclination.
The lyrical spirit of Confucian classics from the Analects to Mengzi notably informed the
poetic genre and the images of the poets in Chinese literary history. An obvious case in point
is Qu Yuan, the protagonist of Guo Moruo’s most important historical play. According to tradi-
tional accounts, Qu Yuan was a courtier in the southern kingdom of Chu during the late War-
ring States period (475–221 BCE). Exiled due to his pro-resistance stance against the powerful
Kingdom of Qin, he composed his poetic masterworks that were later collected in The Songs
of Chu (Chuci), before drowning himself as a gesture of protest. To a large extent, the legend of
Qu Yuan launched the age of poets in the Chinese tradition, and situated the poetic personality at
the heart of the meaning of poetic works. The lyricism of Qu Yuan’s poetic personality stems
from his extreme alienation from his environment, and his moral passions that verge on madness.
Given his sacrifice of life for the principle of personal integrity, Qu Yuan is a perfect embodi-
ment of lyrical Confucianism.
Whereas lyricism by nature implies the poetic genre, we must also attend to the legacy of
Sima Qian’s Historical Records, which manifests a similar tendency and directly inspired a num-
ber of modern historical plays. In fact, Historical Records is the very source that preserved the
legend of Qu Yuan. In addition to Qu Yuan, Guo’s many other plays are based on accounts from
Historical Records – such as The Flowers of Brotherhood, a story Guo revisited three times in his
dramatic works. Sima Qian’s tremendous influence on Guo Moruo is inseparable from Histori-
cal Record’s strong lyrical Confucianism, which is linked with the historian’s own experiences.
Serving in the court of the formidable Emperor Wu (re. 141–87 BCE) of the Han dynasty, Sima
Qian offended the emperor when speaking on behalf a convicted general, and was subsequently
sentenced to either commit suicide or accept castration. Although suicide would preserve his
honor as a courtier, Sima Qian chose the humiliating penalty of castration due to his deter-
mination to complete a book of history he had been composing. The finished magnum opus is
Historical Records, which covers the entire known past, from legends about ancient sage kings to
Sima Qian’s lifetime. In his preface to the book, Sima Qian juxtaposes his own tragedy with the
ordeals of a succession of ancient worthies, including Confucius and Qu Yuan, and argues that
these worthies were spurred by their grievances to create their masterpieces of history, philoso-
phy, and poetry. In other words, writing is a compensation for, and a correction of, a historical
reality wherein the virtuous often remains unrewarded. The unfairness of life motivates the
virtuous people to express their frustrations in writing, and to shed light on the hidden moral
truths.
Inside Historical Records, the main literary form that conveys Sima Qian’s vision is the “zhuan”
or individual biographies. Inaugurated by Historical Records, the biographical form later became
fundamental to Chinese historical writings. In contrast to the chronological or spatial organi-
zations of earlier histories, the biographical form situates the image of the individual at the
center of historical memory. Furthermore, as opposed to the categories of “Benji” (“Kingly
Chronicles”) and “Shijia” (“Hereditary Households”), which Historical Records employs to por-
tray emperors and noblemen, the category of “zhuan” is devoted to the deeds of non-aristocratic
individuals. Thus, as the largest and most influential section of the book, the “zhuan” category
commemorates individuals who are historically significant not because of their high births, but
because of their own characters and actions. It is worth mentioning that the Chinese original

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for “zhuan” is a polyphone which, when pronounced as “chuan” in modern Mandarin, has the
meaning of transmission and tradition. In this sense, Sima Qian’s biographies opened up a new
way of viewing history as being shaped not entirely by the powers that be, but – in vital albeit
not always successful ways – by anyone who is worthy of commemoration due to their own
qualities and resolves.
Of seminal importance to Chinese literary culture, Sima Qian’s correlation between litera-
ture and suffering and his creation of the biographical form expressed the essence of lyrical
Confucianism as a passionate insistence on personal integrity and a rejection to corrupt power.
Persistent through Chinese literary culture, this essence continued to emerge through the revo-
lutionary allegories in Guo Morou and Tian Han’s historical plays, as we shall see in the follow-
ing section.

Guo Moruo’s Flowers of Brotherhood and Qu Yuan

For our purpose, it is significant to note the lineage between Sima Qian’s biographical form
and Guo’s and Tian’s historical plays, which are typically named after the leading character.
This naming practice diverges from the traditional theatrical convention of entitling a play
after its central setting or event, rather than the character. Although this emphasis on the
individual in the two playwrights’ works was surely influenced by the example of the Western
drama, we must also attend to the roots of their dramatic form in Historical Records’ individual
biographies.
With regard to Guo Moruo’s plays, their indebtedness to Historical Records is obvious.To enu-
merate, Guo’s plays that draw sources from Historical Records include The Flowers of Brotherhood
(Tangli zhihua) (1920), Death on the River Xiang (1920), The Two Sons of Lord Guzhu (1922), Zhuo
Wenjun (1923), Nie Ying (1925), The Flowers of Brotherhood (1941), Qu Yuan (1942), The Tiger Tally
(1942), and Gao Jianli (1942), which together account for over half of his works in the genre.
Among these plays, Nie Ying (1925) and the two versions of The Flowers of Brotherhood from
1920 and 1941 are all based on the story of Nie Zheng in Sima Qian’s Biographies of Assassin-
Retainers (Cike liezhuan). According to Sima Qian’s account, Nie Zheng initially turned down
his mission in order to fulfill his filial duties to his aged mother. After the death of his mother,
Nie Zheng accomplished the mission and defaced himself before committing suicide, for the
purpose of protecting his sister Nie Ying. Nonetheless, Nie Ying, in order to pass on his brother’s
name, traveled a long distance to identify his body, and then died by his side.
As the topic of three of Guo’s plays, the story of Nie Zheng and Nie Ying possesses several
features that may account for its appeal to the author. First, as members of the lower class, their
heroic images correspond to the revolutionary emphasis on the power of the people from
the May Fourth Movement to the Communist era. Second, the tragic nature of their story
dramatizes the theme of martyrdom that rested at the heart of patriotic passion during the New
Culture Movement and the anti-Japanese war. Third, Nie Ying, the sister who became the pro-
tagonist in Guo’s 1925 play, implicitly occupies the position of a historian and an author, since
she sacrificed her own life in order to pass on the name and deeds of his brother. In this sense,
her action echoes the historiographic lyricism of Sima Qian, and mirrors the mission Guo saw
in his own writing.7
In Flowers of Brotherhood, Guo further creates the image of Chun Gu (the Spring Maid), the
daughter of an innkeeper, as Nie Ying’s double. Having developed a romantic feeling for Nie
Zheng after seeing him off from the inn, Chun Gu travels with Nie Ying to find her brother. In
the end, Nie Ying commits suicide by Nie Zheng’s side, and Chun Gu becomes the one who

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confronts the guards and tells the story of Nie Zheng and Nie Ying. Her lines, while resembling
Nie Ying’s words in Historical Records, bespeak the revolutionary agenda Guo invested in his play:

To introduce a real hero is a cause that deserves the sacrifice of one’s life. If this hero
can become immortalized in the people’s memory, and emerges as a role model for
all the men in our Chinese nation, I am more than willing to give up my own life.8

After these words, Chun Gu commits suicide, and her words move the soldiers around to kill the
corrupt officers on site, and to vow to carry on the resistance project against the invading Qin
army. The play concludes by showing the soldiers solemnly carry the bodies of Nie Zheng, Nie
Ying, and Chun Gu up the hills, where the sun starts to rise.
The fictional image of Chun Gu fulfills Guo’s reinvention of the theme of Nie Zheng’s story
from “private” (si) to “public” (gong) vengeance. According to Guo’s postface to the play, he
created it after having witnessed the foreign occupiers’ firing at Chinese protesters on May 30,
1925.9 In Flowers of Brotherhood, the women’s cross-dressing evokes an overarching theme of
brotherhood, which symbolizes a genderless national fellowship. The play opens with Nie
Zheng and Nie Ying’s visit to the ruined tomb of their mother, a setting that suggests the image
of a damaged motherland. Nie Ying’s farewell song in this opening scene directly calls forth the
ongoing cause of national resistance, with lines as follows:

Farewell, my brother!
I wish that from your blood
Bloom the flowers of freedom,
All through our land of China,
All through our land of China.
Farewell, my brother!

Our land of China needs brothers;

Our land of China needs brothers;
To destroy the chains of enslavement,
To awaken the master of our own nation,
To unite all, and to raise the banners of liberation!10

Following the national theme, The Flowers of Brotherhood attributes Nie Zheng’s assassination not
to the private grievance of his lord, but to the broader purpose of resisting the Qin invasion. In
this context, Chun Gu’s image expands Nie Zheng and Nie Ying’s story outside the family itself,
and reveals the greater moral and emotional impacts of their actions. The soldiers’ reactions to
Chun Gu’s last words bear out the revoltionary power of her tragic yet heroic account about
the siblings. Upon the play’s conclusion, the soldiers reprise Nie Ying’s farewell song.This refrain
implies that the sacrifices of one family have ignited a national revolution. Rewriting the story
of Nie Zheng as a parable of national resistance, in its celebration of the power of the people
and the virtue of self-sacrifice The Flowers of Brotherhood has evidently inherited the lyrical Con-
fucianism from the Analects to Historical Records.
In addition to Nie Zheng and Nie Ying, Qu Yuan is another historical figure Guo revisited in
his plays. Before writing Qu Yuan in 1942, he already wrote a poetry drama, Death on the River Xiang
(1920), on the pathos of the poet’s suicide. Like the case of Nie Zheng and Nie Ying, Qu Yuan’s story
appealed to Guo and wartime Chinese audience for its tragic nature. As mentioned, the historical
plays Guo wrote during the 1940s, the peak years of his creativity in the genre, are all tragedies. In

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one of his comments on Qu Yuan, Guo thus notes: “I see in front of me numberless tragedies of the
times, big and small are suffering from a sense of rage. That is why I resurrected the anger the times
to the epoch of Qu Yuan. In other words, I have borrowed Yuan’s times to symbolize our own.”11
This statement characterizes Qu Yuan as an allegory both of the wars and chaos of 1940’s China, and
of an author’s missions under such a historical crisis. Although the play surely assimilated elements of
Western Romanticism, its interfusion of art and political criticism had long-running traditional roots.
This lyrical Confucian subtext instilled Qu Yuan’s central drama with exigent meanings to a Chinese
audience engrossed with the passions of revolution and national resistance.
In Qu Yuan, madness acts as a primary figure of the protagonist’s moral independence. Simi-
lar to Lu Xun’s famous short fiction, A Madman’s Diary (Kuangren riji), Qu Yuan’s madness
in Guo’s play delivers a radical social and political critique. Whereas the theme of madness in
modern Chinese literature has often been attributed to foreign influences, it can be traced far
back in Chinese literature and philosophy. For instance, the “Madman of Chu” (Chu kuang),
Jie Yu, appears in the Analects as a prophet-like figure who warns the sage about the decays of
the world.12 In traditional Chinese literature, madness or “kuang,” while denoting abandoned
behaviors, has positive connotations as expressing political criticism, and as manifesting a state of
transcendence above worldly gains and losses. Madness of this kind, as a matter of fact, rests at the
heart of the poetic personality in the tradition. Although the Daoist idea of transcending worldly
illusions is often present in the poetics of madness, the theme of political protest that tends to
accompany these expressions implies underlying Confucian preoccupations. Madness or kuang,
then, is an inherent aspect of lyrical Confucianism. Qu Yuan, the first strong poetic personality
in the tradition, is a cultural prototype of this poetic madness.
In Guo’s play, Qu Yuan is driven to the point of madness after being persecuted by cor-
rupt powers at the court. The play’s climax occurs when the imprisoned protagonist delivers
the passionate “Thunderstorm” monologue, which displays what Yi Zheng terms the “anger
of the times.” As Zheng further notes, “The image of the bounded and boundless might of
nature, which Qu both celebrates and identifies with, may well symbolize the terror and rage of
the ‘people’ and the ‘times.’ ”13 In the monologue, Qu Yuan’s celebration of destruction clearly
invokes the idea of a revolution. The celestial powers he condemns are symbols of the degener-
ated political power. In place of the ruling authority, Qu Yuan aligns himself with the common
people. Following on lyrical Confucianism’s assertion of a virtuous man’s bond with the peo-
ple, Guo’s play reveals that the poet gains the respect of the commoners despite being charged
against.The maidservant Chan Juan, a character fictionalized by the play, embodies this respect –
and even love – the poet receives from the people. Admiring Qu Yuan in a romantic fashion,
Chan Juan in the end drinks the poisonous wine the court has prepared for the poet and dies
in his stead. Chan Juan’s pure and self-sacrificial image stands in sharp contrast to those of the
upper-class villains in the play, such as the wicked Queen Nanzi and Qu Yuan’s weak-willed
student Song Yu. Chan Juan being the true heroine of Qu Yuan, her death brings to the fore the
play’s tragic nature. Resembling Chun Gu’s admiration for Nie Zheng, Chan Juan’s devotion to
Qu Yuan is a romance built on moral comradery.Through this moral romance, the maidservant’s
image fully dramatizes the play’s lyrical Confucianism, since her role simultaneously expresses
the power of the people, the ills of political corruption, and the affective appeal of a writer who
stands up against corrupt authorities.

Tian Han’s Guan Hanqing

As exemplified by The Flowers of Brotherhood and Qu Yuan, Guo Moruo’s wartime historical plays
are profoundly tragic and critical of the power that be. After 1949, his works in the genre started

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to take a different turn. Cai Wenji, completed in 1959, represents this transition. While centering
on the return of the female poet Cai Wenji after she had been kidnapped by the Xiongnu army
for decades, the play reinvents in a positive light the image of Cao Cao, who was traditionally
regarded as a usurper of the Han throne. In lieu of his scheming image in traditional works
such as the famous novel The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Cao Cao in Cai Wenji is a capable
leader who appreciates the heroine’s literary talent, and succeeds in persuading her to leave her
Xiongnu family behind in order to finish the book started by her father, The History of Han. In
the setting of 1950s China, during the years of the “Great Leap Forward,” the play’s rosy picture
of the relation between the political authority and the author offered an assuring account of
the intellectual’s ties to the Party, as exemplified by Guo’s own leadership position in the PRC.
A few years after the first performance of Cai Wenji in 1959, however, the intellectual’s rela-
tions to the Party fell into a fateful crisis with the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution. Tian
Han’s 1958 play Guan Hanqing foreshadowed these impending troubles. On many levels, Guan
Hanqing’s themes parallel those of Qu Yuan. Focusing on the Yuan playwright Guan Hanqing’s
(ca. 1241–1320) creation of his best-known work, The Grievance of Dou E (Dou E yuan), Tian’s
play is equally indicative of the themes of lyrical Confucianism: the power of the people; the ills
of political corruption; and the independent moral character of an author. Furthermore, similar
to Qu Yuan’s self-referentiality, Guan Hanqing’s play-within-a-play structure overlays the image of
the past dramatist with that of Tian Han himself. In effect, in the words of Tian’s colleague Xia
Yan (1900–1995), who was himself a famous playwright, “Tian Han is the modern-day Guan
Hanqing . . . the ‘spirit of drama’ in China.”14 The doubling relation between Tian Han and
Guan Hanqing instills his play with strong allegorical implications. Once, when commenting on
The Grievance of Dou E,Tian thus remarked: “Obviously, in terms of its intention and its method,
Guan Hanqing used the past as an allegory (yi gu yu jin). He stood by the victimized woman
as well as the ordinary people, and he vehemently cursed the rulers.”15 The usage of the phrase
yi gu yu jin, “to use the past as an allegory,” is somewhat strange here, since the event of Dou E
was contemporaneous with Guan Hanqing. Although Tian might have used it as a set phrase
to refer to the broader meanings of Guan’s play beyond the wrongs suffered by one victim, the
term appears to be more pertinent to his own play, which interweaves images of the present and
the past. The ambiguity of the play’s message then rests in whether its allegory of repression and
resistance applies to the Chinese society before or after the success of the Communist revolution.
The different interpretations Guan Hanqing received along these separated lines resulted in the
play’s and the playwright’s roller-caster fates in the 1950s and the 1960s: initially canonized as a
paean to a great “world cultural figure” in the Chinese tradition, the play was later censured as a
thinly veiled criticism to the Party, a critique that led to Tian’s arrestment and death.16
In itself, Guan’s Grievance of Dou E tells the story of a virtuous woman named Dou E, who
was framed by a scoundrel as the murderer of her mother-in-law. In a corrupt legal system, Dou
E was wrongly executed. Yet, Heaven sent down snow upon the moment of her death, which
occurred during the summertime, to reveal her grievance. The tragic nature of the play diverges
from the convention of happy endings in traditional Chinese theatre. At the heart of the play’s
tragedy are the injustices suffered by innocent people, a theme that harks back to Sima Qian’s
biographies. The most famous lyric from The Grievance of Dou E, “Rolling the Embroidered
Ball” (Gun Xiuqiu), powerfully states this theme of injustice, as the heroine condemns Heaven’s
incapability at distinguishing right from wrong in the following words: “Earth, how do you
deserve to be Earth when you confuses the good and the bad; Heaven, how do you deserve to
be Heaven when you misjudges the virtuous and the evil!”17 At one point of the lyric, Dou E
refers to Heaven’s failure in telling apart Yan Yuan, a most virtuous man who was Confucius’s
disciple and died early in poverty, and Robber Zhi, and evildoer who lived up to a ripe old age.

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Notably, this reference has its origin in Sima Qian’s “Biographies of Bo Yi and Shu Qi,” when
the historian questions why the virtuous remains unrewarded in reality. This linkage implies
that Guan’s Grievance of Dou E is a continuation of the cultural lineage of lyrical Confucianism.
Tian Han’s Guan Hanqing carries on the same legacy, albeit in a changed historical environment.
Bearing proto-revolutionary messages, the lyric “Rolling the Embroidered Ball” from Griev-
ance of Dou E occupies an important dramatic position in Guan Hanqing. In Tian’s play, Guan
writes the lyric to express his rage at the wrongful execution of Zhu Xiaolan, the prototype
for Dou E. At the completion of the lyric, he receives the visit of a fellow dramatist,Ye Hefu. In
resemblance to the image of Song Yu in Qu Yuan, Ye is a weak-willed intellectual who betrays
the principle of moral integrity for political convenience. The parallel images of Song Yu and Ye
Hefu indicate Guo’s and Tian’s common concerns about the intellectuals’ moral degeneration in
a turbulent national context. At the same time, the two dramatists’ critical attitude echoes a crucial
element in lyrical Confucianism: that is, the overriding importance of inner qualities over the
external status. An intellectual who gives away the principle of moral integrity is but an “inferior
man” (“xiaoren”), the opposite to the morally cultivated man (“junzi”) in Confucian thinking.18
In contrast to Ye Hefu’s image as the degraded intellectual,Tian Han creates the image of the
actress Zhu Lianxiu as the play’s heroine. Similar to the maidservant Chan Juan in Qu Yuan, Zhu
Lianxiu is a virtuous and heroic lower-class woman who develops romantic feelings for Guan
Hanqing due to their shared moral sentiments. Whereas the analogous images of Chan Juan and
Zhu Lianxiu denote the twentieth-century projects of women’s liberation and the proletariat
revolution, they also have traditional literary antecedents such as Dou E, and manifest lyrical
Confucianism’s prioritization of the inner moral personality above outside appearances. In Guan
Hanqing, Zhu Lianxiu is the dramatist’s most faithful partner and his moral double, as she bravely
takes on the role of Dou E despite political persecution. This mirroring relation is reflected by
her line: “If you risk your life to write it, I risk my life to act it.” To express her resolve, Zhu fur-
ther cites a line from Qu Yuan’s “On Encountering Sorrow” (“Lisao”): “No regrets even if I die
nine deaths.”19 In the original poem, this quote is preceded by the line, “For the ideal cherished
by my heart . . .” To follow one’s own moral sentiments despite an adverse environment is the
defining virtue of Qu Yuan’s iconic lyrical Confucianism. Celebrated in Guo Moruo’s historical
plays, this lyrical Confucian legacy embodied by the ancient poet is also reiterated in Tian Han’s
Guan Hanqing through the images of the dramatist and the actress.
As to Guan Hanqing’s image in the play, one noteworthy point is that he is shown to be
serving as a doctor for the poor people. Nonetheless, after witnessing the execution of Zhu
Xiaolan, Guan realizes that healing the body is less important than writing to fight against the
evils of the time. The play dramatizes Guan’s transition through the following dialogue between
him and Zhu Lianxiu:

Guan Hanqing (solemnly): Y

 ou have your difficulties, but, even though I have received some educa-
tion, how far can I actually go? . . . Personally, I have my complacencies.
According to the common saying, “Read up a thousand books and you
can write as if being aided by divine powers.” So I believe that I have good
thoughts to share. However, today, I looked on hopelessly at an innocent
woman, who’s dragged to the execution ground by a bloodthirsty gang,
and couldn’t do anything to help . . . Our neighbor Madam Liu censured
me for only being able to cure people’s colds and coughs. She’s perfectly
right. I am only a prescriber of cold medicine. The ancients “draw up a
sword to help, when seeing an injustice on the road.”Yet, I have no sword
to draw, only a tattered pen.

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 Ning Ma

Zhu Lianxiu: But the pen is your sword! Writing a play is like drawing up a sword! You have
cursed the corrupt Magistrate Yang in your play. Why don’t you expose the
crimes of evildoers like Li Lu’er and Hu Xin, and reveal the grievance suffered
by this innocent woman?
Guan Hanqing: But there are more than just one or two of them. They have ganged up to eat
people. How can I bare all their evils? Previously, I felt that this world is unjust,
but Heaven, Earth, and the spirits are just. But today I know that they are like-
wise unjust and have lost their eyesight.
Zhu Lianxiu: If there are too many evildoers, write about the worst ones. If Heaven, Earth,
and the spirits are unjust, then curse them!”
Guan Hanqing: That’s right! In fact, I was just thinking on my way to write a play about Zhu
Xiaolan and expose the evils of the corrupt officials.”20

In this scene on the birth of The Grievance of Dou E, Guan Hanqing transitions from a doc-
tor of the body to a doctor of the soul. Notably, this plotline is reminiscent of Lu Xun’s famous
essay on his abandonment of the study of medicine in order to write to cure the people’s souls,
an autobiographical account that became a seminal manifesto of the May Fourth movement.21
Guan Hanqing’s comparison of the evildoers to cannibals further strengthens the resonance,
given that cannibalism is the well-known metaphor Lu Xun uses in A Madman’s Diary to por-
tray an oppressive society.Yet, whereas Lu Xun’s writings aim at condemning the benightedness
of the Chinese tradition,Tian Han’s play situates Guan Hanqing’s transition within the legacy of
lyrical Confucianism.This contrast implies that the genre of the historical play, by its doubling of
the past and the present, offers a window into the tradition-modern continuities that have been
marginalized by a dominant May Fourth discourse of progress and revolution. Instead of dichot-
omizing tradition and modernity, the historical play unveils the uncanny symmetry between the
political and aesthetic implications of lyrical Confucianism and the May Fourth revolution, and
hence unleashes the multifaceted allegorical powers of the past for twentieth-century China.
Similar to the revolutionary force of Chun Gu’s words in Guo Moruo’s Flowers of Brother-
hood, Tian Han’s Guan Hanqing indicates that the dramatist’s creation has a tremendous social
influence. As the play reports, a commoner named Wang Zhuo assassinated a corrupt official
after having watched The Grievance of Dou E. However, likely owing to the increasingly unsta-
ble political environment of the late 1950s, Guan Hanqing represents this influence with some
ambivalence. In the play,Ye Hefu rushes in to inform Guan about the assassination, and his dia-
logue with the dramatist goes as follows:

Ye Hefu: Many heard that he shouted out “Kill this evildoer for the sake of
the people!” when he watched The Grievance of Dou E at the Yux-
ian Tower. Later, when he was executed in the capital, he shouted
out again, “I, Wang Zhuo, killed this evildoer for the sake of the
people.” And, shockingly, your play actually says “To kill off all the
corrupt officials” . . .
Guan Hanqing (indignantly): So you think that the corrupt officials shouldn’t be killed?

Whereas Guan endorses the assassination, his words afterwards deliberately separate his work
from the event. As he reasons to Ye:

Our playwrights must praise and condemn. In the past, we praised the good mag-
istrate Bao Zheng, and condemned the corrupt courtier Chen Shimei. We praised

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the patriotic general Yue Fei, and condemned the traitor Qin Hui. If anyone who
has watched these plays goes on to kill people like Chen Shimei and Qin Hui out of
indignation, is that the responsibility of our playwrights?22

Intriguingly, the above lines simultaneously acknowledge and deny literature’s link with reality.
Without criticizing the violent actions that have taken place, the dramatist takes pains to dis-
sociate the author from any legal accountability related to the possible effects of his work. In this
manner, although Guan Hanqing implicitly affirms the power of literature to ignite a revolution,
it treats this relation with a self-protective subtlety. This cautious attitude is likely a reaction to
the political and cultural transition that was taking place, a transition that forcefully opposed the
intellectual to the people’s revolution. Such a turn of events shattered the trope of romance that
symbolizes the intellectual’s ties to the people in Tian Han’s Guan Hanqing and Guo Moruo’s
Qu Yuan, as represented by the attachments between Zhu Lianxiu and Guan Hanqing, and
between Chan Juan and Qu Yuan. Along with this shattered romance, the presupposed target of
“revolution” became the intellectuals themselves, in sharp contrast to the traditional pattern of
lyrical Confucianism, which revolves around the intellectual’s alliance with the people against a
residing political power, if it has gone corrupt.
Indicative of the changing meaning of “revolution,” the Cultural Revolution was foreshad-
owed by criticisms in the mid 1960s against Wu Han’s historical play Hai Rui’s Resignation
(Hai Rui baguan) and the “Upright Official Drama” (“Qingguan Xi”) it represents – that is, a
play that celebrates historical figures who are defiant of political authorities. Tian Han’s Guan
Hanqing was soon categorized the same and came under censorship.23 The backslash against the
“Upright Official Drama” cracked down on the lyrical Confucian legacy that implicitly guided
a more positive construction of historical memory in twentieth-century Chinese culture. Under
this crisis, the lyrical Confucianism of plays such as Qu Yuan and Guan Hanqing ended up being
a figure of both the revolution and the limits of revolution. In other words, lyrical Confucian-
ism is a cultural legacy that entails a constant vigilance against the closure of any revolution into
absolutism. On this account, one tends to agree that the historical heritage Guan Hanqing rep-
resents has universal meanings, and the dramatist should be viewed as a “world cultural figure”
without irony. As we see from the modern historical plays, lyrical Confucianism connotes the
power of literature as a force of political criticism and social influence, a connotation that instills
the past with an affective allegorical power for the revolutionary present. On this note, historical
plays such as Qu Yuan and Guan Hanqing reveal new possibilities for reading across the tradition-
modern divide in Chinese literary history. Likely, on a broader level, the lyrical Confucian values
these plays celebrate are resonant with the themes of other revolutions and resistance projects
outside the borders of Chinese history. In this light, the legacy of lyrical Confucianism even
promises a new way to situating Chinese literature within the sphere of world literature – not
just as a historical and national specificity, but as a transculturally meaningful philosophy of poli-
tics, history, and art, one that answers to the problems and hopes of today’s world in profound
and affective ways.

Notes
1 Guo Moruo, “Postface to Ten Criticisms,” (‘Shi pipan shu, Houji’) in The Complete Works of Guo Moruo:
History (Guo Moruo Quanji. Lishi Bian), vol. 1 (Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 1984), 615. My translation.
2 David Der-wei Wang, The Lyrical in an Epic Time: Modern Chinese Intellectuals and Artists Through the 1949
Crisis (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015), ix. My emphasis.
3 Mengzi, 7B60. In Annotated Mengzi (Mengzi zhushu) (Beijing: Beijing Daxue chubanshe, 1999), 387. My
translation.

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 Ning Ma

4 Mengzi, 1B15. In Annotated Mengzi, 53. My translation.

5 For the classical origin of “geming,” see S.J. Marshall, The Mandate of Heaven: Hidden History in the Book
of Changes (London and New York: Routledge, 2015), 29. For a discussion of the modern meaning of
“geming” as “revolution,” see Jianhua Chen, “Chinese Revolution in the Syntax of World Revolution,”
in Lydia H. Liu, ed., Tokens of Exchange:The Problem of Translation in Global Circulations, trans. Hui Zhang
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999), 355–374.
6 Mengzi, 6A10. In Annotated Mengzi, 310.
7 See Martin Huang’s analysis of Nie Ying’s (also known as Nie Rong) reflection of Sima Qian’s own
image in Negotiating Masculinities in Late Imperial China (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2006), 28.
8 Guo Moruo, “Flowers of Brotherhood,” (Tangli zhihua) in The Complete Works of Guo Moruo: Literature
(Guo Moruo Quanji.Wenxue Bian) (Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 1984), vol. 6, 267. My translation. Guo
changed the ending to let Chun Gu survive in the 1958 performance of the play.
9 Guo Moruo, “How Did I Write The Flowers of Brotherhood,” (“Wo zenyang xie Tangli zhi hua”) in The
Complete Works of Guo Moruo: Literature vol. 6, 64.
10 Guo Moruo, Flowers of Brotherhood (Tangli zhihua), 197. This song was originally published in the 1920
poetry drama of the same title. My translation.
11 Guo Moruo, “Ten Years of Creation,” (“Chuangzuo shinian”) in Collected Works of Guo Moruo (Moruo
Wenji) (Beijing: Renmin Wenxue Chubanshe, 1959), vol. 7, 158.Translation from Yi Zheng, “The Figu-
ration of a Sublime Origin: Guo Moruo’s Qu Yuan,” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture (2004), vol.
16, no. 1, 177.
12 The Analects, 18.5. In The Analects (Lunyu) (Shenyang: Liaoning minzu chubanshe, 1996), 203.
13 Yi Zheng, “The Figuration of a Sublime Origin: Guo Moruo’s Qu Yuan,” 187.
14 Xia Yan, A Lazy Search for Past Dreams (Lan xun jiu meng lu) (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 1985), 167.
15 Cited in Li Zhiyan, A Side Look at Tian Han’s Creative Process (Tian Han chuangzuo ceji) (Chengdu:
Sichuan wenyi chubanshe, 1994), 70.Translation from Laikwan Pang, “The Allegory of Time and Space:
Tian Han’s Historical Drama in the Great Leap Forward Period,” in Carlos Rojas and Andrea Bachner,
eds., The Oxford Handbook of Modern Chinese Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 250.
16 Guan Hanqing was named a great cultural figure of the world, alongside the likes of Longfellow, Blake,
and Comte, by the World Peace Council in 1957.This designation motivated Tian Han’s writing of the
play. See Rudolf G. Wagner, The Contemporary Chinese Historical Drama: Four Studies (Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1990), 8 and Laikwan Pang, “The Allegory of Time and Space,”
249.
17 My translation. For Guan Hanqing’s scene on the dramatist’s creation of these lines, see “Guan Han-
qing,” The Complete Works of Tian Han: Spoken Dramas (Tian Han Quanji. Huaju) (Shijiazhuang: Huashan
wenyi chubanshe, 2000), vol. 6, 134.
18 The classic statement on the contrast between junzi and xiaoren comes from the Analects, 4.16: “A junzi
is concerned with the principle of integrity (yi); a xiaoren is concerned with his own profits (li).” See
The Analects, 39.
19 “Guan Hanqing,”140. My translation.
20 “Guan Hanqing,”117–118. My translation.
21 Lu Xun’s preface to The Call to Arms (Na Han). For a translation, see Modern Chinese Literary Thought:
Writings on Literature, 1893–1945, ed. Kirk A. Denton (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996),
238–242.
2 2 “Guan Hanqing,”164–165.
2 3 Rudolf G. Wagner, The Contemporary Chinese Historical Drama, 106.

Further readings
Chen, Xiaomei. Acting the Right Part: Political Theater and Popular Drama in Contemporary China. Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press, 2002.
Chen, Xiaoming. From The May Fourth Movement to Communist Revolution: Guo Moruo and the Chinese Path
to Communism. Albany: SUNY Press, 2007.
Croizier, Ralph. “Qu Yuan and the Artists: Ancient Symbols and Modern Politics in the Post-Mao Era.” The
Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 24 (1990): 25–50.
Durrant, Stephen, Wai-yee Li, Michael Nylan and Hans van Ess, eds. The Letter to Ren An and Sima Qian’s
Legacy. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2016.

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 Historical plays of Guo Moruo and Tian Han

Luo, Liang. The Avant-Garde and the Popular in Modern China:Tian Han and the Intersection of Performance and
Politics. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014.
Pang, Laikwan.“The Allegory of Time and Space: Tian Han’s Historical Drama in the Great Leap Forward
Period.” In Carlos Rojas and Andrea Bachner, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Modern Chinese Literature.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2016, 245–262.
Wagner, Rudolf G. The Contemporary Chinese Historical Drama: Four Studies. Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1990.
Wang, David Der-wei. The Lyrical in an Epic Time: Modern Chinese Intellectuals and Artists through the 1949
Crisis. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015.
Yang, Fenggang and Joseph Tamney, eds., Confucianism and Spiritual Traditions in Modern China and Beyond.
Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012.
Zheng, Yi. “The Figuration of a Sublime Origin: Guo Moruo’s Qu Yuan.” Modern Chinese Literature and
Culture 16.1 (2004): 153–198.

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 20
PLAYS OF CHEN BAICHEN
AND YANG HANSHENG
Letizia Fusini

Life and career

Throughout the history of modern Chinese literature, few authors share so many reciprocal
similarities in terms of biographical profile and professional career as Chen Baichen (1908–
1994) and Yang Hansheng (1902–1993), who belong to the second generation of May Fourth
writers and whose literary output, marked by a suffused eclecticism and spanning fiction, drama
and screenplays, has been largely informed by their political views and socio-political concerns
related to the realities of the historical period in which they lived and worked. As we shall see
in the course of this chapter, Chen’s and Yang’s tendency to turn the immediate present into
the main subject matter of their works, and to disseminate even their historical plays with ele-
ments of contemporary (political) relevance can be regarded as a merit rather than a fault, espe-
cially because this characteristic can be deployed to better delineate the two writers’ position
within the realm of modern world literature. Below, I will briefly illustrate the salient traits of
Chen’s and Yang’s lives and literary achievements1 and, subsequently, I will provide an original
and detailed analysis of three of their most significant plays, outlining first the reasons for my
selection.
Chen Baichen was born in Huaiyin, Jiangsu province, into a middle-class family of mer-
chants. Although he did not receive a sophisticated education and did not attend university, he
manifested and cultivated a literary talent from an early age through writing fiction in the form
of short stories, one of which was published in 1925 in Xiaoshuo Shijie (Fiction World) counting
as his first publication. Furthermore, he had the opportunity to study stagecraft under the egis of
Tian Han by attending the Shanghai Institute of Arts and the Southern China Institute of Arts.
Yang Hangsheng (pen name of Ouyang Benyi) was born in Luochang, Sichuan province, into
a family of the same socio-economic background as his future colleague. He studied sociology
first in Beijing and then in Shanghai and he too began his literary career by publishing short sto-
ries and medium-length novellas as well as articles on Marxism and essays on revolutionary art.
Chen and Yang’s leftist political orientation was officially sanctioned when they both
became involved in the founding of the Left-wing Association of Chinese Writers, formally
opened in March 1930. In 1925, Yang had joined the then 4-year-old Chinese Communist
Party whereas Chen would not become a member until 1950. Moreover, in 1927 Yang had

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entered the Creation Society led by Guo Moruo.Yang’s early attempts at fiction writing in the
years 1928–1932 were put off by Mao Dun’s and Qu Qiubai’s severe criticism of his stylistic
choices and that would partly explain his turning to screenplay writing and dramaturgy from
the mid-1930s onwards. During the period 1933–1935 he worked as a screenwriter first for
the Yihua Film Studio in Shanghai (with Tian Han) and then for the Ming Xing Film Com-
pany until he was arrested by the Guomindang and put under home arrest for nearly two
years in Nanjing. Similarly, Chen was imprisoned by the Guomindang in 1932 after joining
the Communist Youth League and was not released until 1935. In 1937, at the outbreak of the
Second Sino-Japanese War, both writers fled to the south: Chen moved to Sichuan and Yang
to Wuhan where he established the New Drama Association. During the anti-Japanese war of
resistance (1937–1945), theatre productions flourished greatly across China’s liberated areas. As
a result, drama became a means of representing the vicious conditions of the time and society
and inspired the common people to contribute to the war effort by raising their sense of pat-
riotism and national pride.
Most of Chen’s and Yang’s best known plays, which can be subsumed under two main cat-
egories – historical dramas, and satirical and social comedies – were written and staged in this
period.
Generally speaking, the historical plays, which are all concerned with exposing the outstand-
ing links between a similarly tumultuous and uncertain historical situation and the tribulations
of the present, are set in different stages of the great anti-Qing Taiping Rebellion. In chronologi-
cal succession, we can enumerate four plays: Chen’s Shi Dakai’s Road to Ruin (Shi Dakai de molu,
1936), Jintian village (Jintian cun, 1937), and The Dadu River (Dadu he, 1946 but written in 1941
with the title The Assistant King [Yiwang]), and Yang’s The Death of Li Xiucheng (Li Xiucheng
zhi si, 1937) and Annals of the Heavenly Kingdom (Tianguo Chunqiu, 1941). All these plays are
characterized by a tragic ending and convey a hybrid view and a demystified narrative of the
Taiping Rebellion, which I shall thoroughly investigate in this study.
Conversely, the comic dramas, which poke fun at the status quo of the Chinese society on the
eve of and during the early years of the war or denounce relevant social ills of the time, present
several human portraits in an attempt to provide a complete picture of everyday life in wartime
Chinese cities. Chen’s Men and Women in Wild Times (Luanshi nan nü, 1940), which is the only
play currently available in English translation, is a case in point, as the author uses techniques
such as the grotesque, mob scenes and witty dialogues to construct a sort of vivid “human
comedy” of Balzacian flavor, centered around a group of people fleeing Nanjing on a train after
the occupation. Other plays of this kind include Congratulations upon making a fortune (Gongxi
facai, 1936) and How to get promoted (Sheng guan tu, 1945), which both satirize the corruption
of officialdom, as well as Yang’s The Double Dealer (Liangmian ren, 1943), which is set in a tea
plantation in the wartime and follows the vicissitudes of its owner who feigns several different
identities as a means of survival.
In 1941 Chen and Yang created the Chinese Society of Theatre and Arts together with the
theatre director Ying Yunwei. After the war, they both devoted themselves to writing scenarios
for films and upon the Maoist take over, after 1949, they worked for the Communist Govern-
ment in cultural and administrative roles. However, unlike Chen, Yang was severely persecuted
during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) being accused by Jiang Qing (Mao’s third wife)
of being part of an anti-revolutionary clique alongside Tian Han, Xia Yan and Zhou Yang, all
together nicknamed as “The Four Villains”. After spending ten years in prison he was rehabili-
tated in 1978, the year in which Chen became a professor of dramatic arts, a post which he
retained until his retirement.

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Wartime historical dramas: a reassessment

Despite all the above-mentioned drawbacks due to both Guomindang and Communist cen-
sorship pressure, Chen and Yang were very prolific writers and dramaturgs and they made a
significant contribution to the development of modern Chinese theatre (huaju) by intensifying
its public, communitarian dimension, which, I argue, was most manifest in their historical plays.
What follows is a study of three of Chen’s and Yang’s wartime historical dramas, which will
be scrutinized through the lens of tragic theory and with particular attention to how they may
thematize the relationship between tragedy and history. The plays in question are Shi Dakai’s
Road to Ruin,2 The Dadu River3 – both by Chen Baichen – and The Death of Li Xiucheng4 by
Yang Hansheng, which I have selected because, taken together, they represent an interesting case
study in the long-lasting process of China’s search for modern tragedy following the end of the
Qing empire.
With the exception of Shi Dakai – not included in her study – these plays have been previ-
ously classified as “tragedies” by Chen Xiaomei who has argued against the reductionism of
interpreting them merely as political allegories of the Guomindang’s ambiguous behavior during
the second Sino-Japanese war.5 She has further proposed that these dramas would cast a shadow
on the positivity of the revolution advocated by the Communist party. Chen’s revisionist inter-
pretation of these “Taiping rebellion tragedies” – as she calls them – has the merit of questioning
the received criticism of these works as contemporary political satires in historical disguise and
it is from her critical proposition that this analysis will take its cue. However, and expanding on
Chen’s essay, I will argue that, rather than simply expressing “a dark view”6 of the revolution, the
aim of these plays might consist in compelling the audience to think through fundamental ques-
tions of existence such as the dynamics of human destiny and the origin of evil. Furthermore,
they shed a problematic light on the issue of historical progression – and regression – by present-
ing historical reality as the outcome of specific – and therefore amendable – human decisions. As
further explained below, these plays seem therefore to offer a tiny glimpse of hope with regard
to the alterability of the present in light of a powerful lesson that can be drawn from history and
that proves of immediate application in the present circumstances.
Interestingly, it is the link between the historical past and the current situation that enables
us to go beyond certain interpretive stereotypes and reframe Chen’s and Yang’s historical plays
as an artistic response to a new conception of history that Ban Wang has termed “critical his-
torical consciousness in the tragic mode”.7 Taking shape in the critical debates of the late Qing
and May Fourth periods, this theoretical construction became closely intertwined with the
discourse surrounding the so-called “modern tragedy complex” (xiandai beiju qingjie), based on
the general assumption that China had failed to produce tragedies due to the serene pragmatism,
the long-standing secularism and the happy-go-lucky attitude which were said to characterize the
Chinese people’s approach to life and death.
Two seminal ideas will be useful for this study. First, the equation of dramatic tragedy with
modernity. By discarding the old aesthetic principle of the so-called “great reunionism” (da
tuanyuan zhuyi) diagnosed by Wang Guowei, tragedy focuses on dramatizing conflicts and con-
tradictions thereby boosting people’s willpower and impulse to self-determination. Second, the
re-definition of modernity as a form of existential tragedy. Tragedy becomes the true form
of the real, which manifests itself as a crisis at all levels of human experience: social, political,
cultural and historical. History is reconfigured as a linear succession of fractures, which replace
the traditional view of the closed dynastic cycles and which underlies the dramatic device of
“roundness”. As Wang summarizes, since the first attempts at modern spoken drama in the early
1900s, dramatic tragedy was celebrated for its ability to grasp the problematic nature of the

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“real condition”8 and, therefore, the locus of the tragic was to be found in the concrete human
experience.
Chen’s and Yang’s selected plays, I argue, express a modern view of history by subscribing
to the aesthetic paradigm of tragic realism. In order words, for them tragedy was first of all a
factual reality, emerging from history and equaling a critical historical consciousness or struc-
ture of feeling, and secondly a form of drama. As we shall see next, although both authors take
several poetic licenses in their rendering of historical facts, they do not try to aestheticize or to
transfigure historical reality. Rather, they problematize it by effecting the transition from epic to
tragedy, that is, by depriving the Taiping Rebellion of its mythical aura. Rather than arbitrarily
falsify documentary history in order to mock or criticize the adverse political faction in a less
overt manner and to escape censorship, these works seek to interpret the fractures of the present
reality by refashioning it in historical perspective. In other words, the real intrudes into the per-
formance of history and becomes historicized, thereby acquiring the status of myth.
The three plays under investigation in this study were composed within a time span of five
years between the mid ’30s and the early ’40s. This was a crucial moment in the history of
modern China; the nation was experiencing an unprecedented period of political disunion as
the country was virtually split into three separate areas of control: the Japanese in the north, the
Nationalists in the South and the Communists in the northwest. The population was prostrated
by living in a continuous state of war whose early origins could be traced back to the numerous
conflicts and rebellions that had marred the bulk of the previous century and had contributed
to the fall of the Qing dynasty, thereby marking the tumultuous transition from the empire to
the Republic and from tradition to modernity.
The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), which would later intersect with WWII, repre-
sented the acme of a long-lasting period of unprecedented political, social and moral crisis, and
bore striking similarities to the situation of China in the years of the Taiping Rebellion. Overall,
this historical predicament required an equally unprecedented response by the whole nation,
cultural workers and common citizens alike. The existence of a common public sphere of inter-
est fostered the development of theatre arts, which enjoyed immense popularity for its ability to
engage all sorts of people and to get its message through in a more direct way. The establishment,
in June 1936, of the Association of Chinese Writers and Artists, which replaced the previous
League of Left-wing Writers, coincided with the adoption of new guidelines for literary and artis-
tic creation.These were aimed at inaugurating the so-called “National Defense Literature”, which
was due to aid the formation of the Second National United Front against the Japanese invaders.9
Chen Baichen’s first Taiping rebellion drama – Shi Dakai – came out around that time, whereas
Yang Hansheng’s correspondent – Li Xiucheng – was composed shortly after the start of the war.
Chen’s subsequent rewriting of Shi Dakai in a new play initially titled The Assistant King, then
renamed The Dadu River in 1946, dates back to 1941 when the Nationalists broke up the Front.
All these works dramatize different phases of the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864) and express
different interpretations of the historical events as seen through the angle of selected human
vicissitudes. As previously anticipated, it is my intention to go beyond the stereotype of the
wartime propaganda plays and to challenge the idea that these works, which Edmund Wilson
defined as “the literature of patriotic gore”, have nothing meaningful to offer “when read out
of context”.10

Between history and contingency: Chen’s and Yang’s path to tragedy

Chen’s two plays revolve around the quasi-mythical figure of Shi Dakai (1831–1863), a.k.a.
the Assistant King, who has been consigned to history as the most righteous of the Taiping

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 Letizia Fusini

leaders. The second play qualifies as a rewrite of the first, which was made possible thanks to
the increased availability of relevant historical sources.11 Both versions dramatize the parable
of the hero’s short life but differ in the presentations of the reasons that led to Shi’s downfall.
Specifically, the first play portrays Shi as a hesitant leader, disclosing his excessive clemency as
bad faith and his willingness to negotiate with the enemy as a sign of incapacity. The final scene,
where Shi seems ‘frozen’ in his inability to choose whether to escape or to fight on is the icing
on the dramatic cake. If this play ends by underscoring Shi’s indecisiveness, in the second version
Shi commits suicide upon realizing the catastrophic effects of his decisions. Arguably, this is where
the tragic lies: in the theme of decision-making as a catalyst for history and in its relevancy to
the plays’ fruitors.
Focusing on this theme, the German jurist Carl Schmitt proposed an interesting, non-literary
interpretation of the Shakespearean tragedy of Hamlet which, if appositely adapted to our case
study, can assist in examining Chen’s “road to tragedy” in his writing and rewriting of Shi Dakai.
Simply put, Schmitt argues that Hamlet is a tragedy because of a formidable correlation or
‘mirroring’ between the staged story and the historical circumstances of late-Elizabethan Eng-
land. In Hamlet, he sees James I, Elizabeth’s successor to the English throne, whom Shakespeare
secretly supported, and in his mother Gertrude he sees a reflection of Mary Stuart – James’ own
mother – who married her husband’s killer and whose involvement in the murder was unclear.12
This “inexorable reality that [. . .] no genius can invent” and that Schmitt compares to “a mute
cliff, against which the sea of the [pure] play shatters, releasing the foam of the substantial trag-
edy”13 would explain both Hamlet’s proverbial hesitancy to avenge his father and his mother’s
ambiguous role in the assassination of her husband but would also contribute to transforming
a simple mourning play (Trauerspiel) into a full-fledged tragedy (Tragödie). The “hamletization of
the avenger”,14 whereby the authenticity of the Danish saga is altered, anchors the play to the
historical contingency and smashes the fourth wall that would separate the world of theatre
from that of the audience. Historical reality, therefore, “intrudes” into the play transforming the
theatrical experience into a political event. What for the twentieth-century critics are “dark
areas” in the plot, for the Shakespearean public were clear references to the historical period in
which they were living.
Chen’s Shi Dakai plays, though based on history and not on fictional material, contain sev-
eral dark areas, or nuclei of fictionality, that can be only explained through temporal influences
which would the viewers would immediately recognize and that “in a time of political tension
and agitation, were completely inevitable”.15 In Shi Dakai, fictional additions such as Shi’s stub-
born refusal to restore the alliance with the Heavenly King that he had voluntarily broken and
his dishonorable plan to ally with the Hunan army of the traitor Zeng Guofan, which have no
relation to documentary history, do not stem from the playwright’s own imagination but can
only be explained through what was happening at the time of the internecine war between
Nationalists and Communists. The “hamletization” of Shi Dakai, indeed constitutes a significant
deviation from past history but contributes to demystifying the received image of the incor-
ruptible and selfless hero. Moreover, in capitalizing on his clemency, it provides a model of the
like of the Shakespearean Hamlet, “a king, who, in his destiny and character, was the product of
the brokenness of his time”.16 The value of this historically unfaithful portrait of Shi, however,
goes well beyond the simple “mirroring” of Chiang Kai-shek’s “wait-and-see” attitude towards
the Japanese and unwillingness to reconstitute the united front with the Communists.The tragic
distortion of the hero, which would apparently resonate with a case of ideological refashioning
and political satire, can be further elucidated through the second stage of Schmitt’s theory. For
the latter, Hamlet is ultimately a tragedy because Shakespeare uses the protagonist’s predicament
to reflect on a historical crisis that was far greater than the family and dynastic crisis embodied

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by the individual characters of James I and Mary Stuart. The historical catastrophe that hangs
over James’ intronization coincides with “the whole conflict of his historical age”,17 the reli-
gious split between Catholics and Protestants, as well as with the transition from a land-based
to a maritime economy. Schmitt calls this epochal fracture that silently intrudes into the play
marking it with the imprint of the tragic as a “terrible historical truth”, “a concrete state of his-
torical emergency that requires a decision”.18 Similarly, by altering the dynamics of Shi Dakai’s
downfall to reflect Chiang’s contemptible behaviour, Chen Baichen’s play urges the audience to
confront the cracks of the present time, knowing that history is not a matter of fate but a man-
made phenomenon, and stigmatizes pernicious attitudes such as procrastination or the inability
to put the common good before any individual interests.The tragic, here, lies therefore in raising
the consciousness of the historical resonance of individual decisions.
This tragic discourse is further developed in The Dadu River, which shows a more mature
historical consciousness alongside with a tragic aesthetics that I will discuss at a later stage of
this analysis. Compared to the four-act early version, this five-act play embraces a much longer
timeframe. The action starts in 1851 at the time of the Jintian uprising and follows Shi Dakai’s
vicissitudes throughout the tumultuous progression of the Taping rebellion until his death in
1863. The protagonist’s characterization is psychologically richer and is laid bare through the
numerous dialogues and verbal confrontations that punctuate the dramatic texture of the play.
Shi’s initial idealism and enthusiasm for the revolution are soon met with the difficulties of
sharing the decisional power with the other leaders, the East and North King.Vis-à-vis his fel-
low leaders’ greediness, reciprocal accusations and the crazy succession of murders that ensues,
Shi Dakai senses that not only his life but also the foundations of the Heavenly Kingdom are
in danger. As a result, a form of tragic disillusionment pervades him and he decides to leave the
Heavenly Capital to lead a punitive expedition to Sichuan. As the play reveals, it is precisely this
crucial decision that marks the beginning of his disgrace and which is irrevocable as none of his
generals succeeds in persuading him to change his mind. Neither Han Baoying, the young lady
that Shi had rescued from secure death many years before and who loves him as if he were her
father, nor Li Xiucheng, a.k.a. the Loyal King, can convince this man, who is “the last pillar of
the Heavenly Kingdom”.19
Shi’s irrevocable decision enacts a personal revolt within the broader but limited framework
of the historical rebellion. Arguably, this revolt, which attempts to push the rebellion forward
yet away from its original centre, can be read through the lens of Albert Camus’s definition of
tragedy as swinging “between the two poles of extreme nihilism and unlimited hope” and the
tragic man as the one who struggles, “at the same time both a warrior and a refugee”.20 Shi
Dakai, himself both a warrior and a refugee, has in fact lost trust in the cooperative aspect of the
institutionalized rebellion but still wants to believe in the effectiveness of individual initiative.
Still, as Camus further notes, the tragic revolt is “tragic” because it has “limits”.21 And the “limit”
in this play is incarnated by the Dadu river as a threefold barrier: natural, moral and historical.
The fifth act, which is entirely played around the aborted attempt to transgress this limit, is
where the action precipitates and the dramatic plot becomes a liminal situation with no way out.
In terms of action plan, Shi changes his mind repeatedly and shows a contradictory personality,
torn between excessive self-assuredness and a profound insecurity.The tragic impasse is tied to a
combination of adverse circumstances: the rising tide, the approaching enemy in the front, and
the mountains looming at the back do not seem to offer an immediate escape route. Moreo-
ver, the local guides, who guaranteed their support, have betrayed them. Everything, including
nature, seems to plot against the realization of Shi’s plan, whereby the limit acquires cosmic
proportions. Shi’s final suicide is in fact preceded by a hearty invocation to Heaven whose will
he proclaims not to understand.22 Capitalizing on the experience of the limit, this second play

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on Shi Dakai intensifies the source of the tragic, equaling it with a sense of ontological finitude
that encompasses both humankind and history and extends beyond the confines of the Chinese
experience.
Overall, in Chen’s two plays on Shi Dakai, the tragedy emerges from the encounter of past
and present, of history and contingency. In the limits of historical characters and in the errors
descending from their decisions, in all these “holes”, the audience can find a suitable “paradigm
for the interpretation of human existence and reality”.23
A similar discourse can be constructed with regard to Yang Hansheng’s 1938 historical drama
The Death of Li Xiucheng, which tackles the final two years of the Taiping Rebellion (1862–1864)
through the personal vicissitudes of Li Xiucheng, another quasi-mythical Taiping general who
became the commander-in-chief in 1862.
Although ostensibly “dominated by contemporary considerations”24 – like Chen’s Shi Dakai,
Yang’s play proves no less tragic, according to Schmitt’s framework. The core of current histori-
cal reality intrudes through several fictional dialogues – mostly between Li and his officials and/
or his wife, and, occasionally, with bunches of commoners – and violent altercations with the
enemies. These animated verbal exchanges, which include bold “patriotic speeches”, have been
criticized as mere “battle of stereotypes”25 devoid of psychological depth. However, rather than
investigating the complexities of human nature, this play pursues the dramatization of urgent
historical circumstances requiring a prompt and lucid decision – akin to Schmitt’s “state of
emergency” – which parallel the predicament of the Chinese nation during the War of Resist-
ance. The characters, far from embodying individual personalities, exemplify conflicting view-
points that help us analyze the specific historical situation which they inhabit. Like Shi Dakai,
Li Xiucheng too is caught in a quagmire of political disunion, both external and internal to
the Taiping coalition. Externally, he has to face three enemies: the Qing, their foreign allies and
the Hunan army; internally, his worst opponent is the Heavenly King. Never materializing on
stage, yet powerfully present, his non-negotiable commands – which Li opposes – will drag the
Taiping and his most loyal general into the abyss of ruin. Throughout the play, Li often has to
issue an urgent order or choose between two different solutions to an emotionally compelling
dilemma. In the first act, which is set in a battle camp during the Taiping siege of Songjiang, Li’s
predicament consists in deciding how to proceed with his military operations aimed, ultimately,
at taking Shanghai, and his final decision involves dealing with the foreign enemies. One of his
officials, Song, advises him to break the alliance between the Qing and the foreigners; on the
other hand, the latter, represented by the arrogant British emissary Martin, offer to collaborate
with the Taiping against the Qing army. They pose humiliating conditions that Li had foreseen
and whose acceptance is, obviously, out of the question.
Another emergency situation is when Li is implementing his plan to attack Songjiang. Unex-
pectedly, the Heavenly King commands him to return to the Heavenly Capital and defend it
from the assaults of the Hunan army. On the one hand, Li forestalls the catastrophe that will
happen upon leaving Songjiang in that crucial moment, but on the other hand, he is reluctant
to lose his reputation of loyal Taiping leader. Therefore, having to choose between pursuing his
individual initiative and submitting to a higher will, he opts for the latter, thereby signing his
future condemnation to death. Unlike Shi Dakai, whose downfall descends from enacting his
personal revolt, Li’s disgrace stems from putting aside his right to revolt, which is complemented
by his excessive faith in a resolution based on blind obedience rather than on a judicious military
strategy.
In act II, set eighteen months later, Li Xiucheng is once again in the midst of a predicament,
a new state of emergency that requires yet another decision. He must decide between evacuating
the now besieged Heavenly Capital or remaining and fight a hopeless battle, as Hong Xiuquan

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had advocated. He exposes his dilemma to his wife and his closest generals who put forward
diverging ideas, which increase the dramatic tension. Despite someone’s advice to negotiate
with the foreigners, Li is resolute not to surrender. When explaining that he does not want his
name to be forever cursed by the posterity, the fourth wall is shattered and the relevancy of his
on-stage crisis to the current, off-stage plight in which the audience is immersed is tremen-
dously heightened. Subsequently, a crowd of commoners, gathered outside his palace, vocifer-
ously urge Li to remain and lead the battle against Zeng Guofan’s fratricide army. Li solemnly
proclaims his decision to stay, and once again the boundaries between play and reality collapse
as he incites the masses to firmly embrace the decision to fight strenuously till martyrdom for
the defense of the Heavenly Capital.
The roller coaster of decision-making continues its race well into the third act, set in
May 1864, and which presents an even more appalling situation than before. The people are
starving, the enemy is more active than ever and all dreams of victory are shattered. Li talks of
“unbearable predicament”,26 and, after learning that one of his closest generals has left the city,
he calls it “a massive plight”.27 He further notes that the true responsible for this no-exit situa-
tion is not the usual enemy but the Heavenly King who has stubbornly refused to listen to his
recommendations and to sanction his action plans. To say it through the language of tragedy,
Hong has committed a blatant act of hybris whereby the fate of the Taiping has befallen onto Li
Xiucheng’s sole shoulders. However, Li is not immune from hybris either. Another misguided
decision taken in act IV and dictated by excessive pride sweeps away any remaining illusion of
re-joining his scattered troops. When absconding from the Capital, Li bumps into a group of
peasants who, having observed the fire of the city from afar, advise him to cut his hair to elude
the enemies. Deeming it a shameful resolution, Li opposes a downright refusal and, as expected,
he is soon captured by the Qing troops.
Reconsidered through Schmitt’s framework, Li Xiucheng is a tragedy because it offers a key
to interpreting the real as a succession of emergencies that demand the audience to intervene.
“What is there to be done?” (yinggai zenme ban?) is, as a matter of fact, an incessant leitmotif in
this drama. Through such a repetitive question, the contingency infringes the performance so
that the present becomes itself history.
Moving from history and politics to questions of aesthetics, Chen’s and Yang’s plays resonate
with Aristotle’s formulation of tragedy. By focusing on the private world of the Taiping lead-
ers, they adhere to the Aristotelian principle of portraying people of high rank to ensure the
seriousness of the action and intensify the breadth and effects of their plight. By dramatizing the
hero’s defeat, they embrace Aristotle’s idea that tragedy equals a reversal of fortune (peripeteia),
due not to the workings of an irrational fate but to specific errors of judgement for which they
are themselves responsible.
Unlike Chen’s plays, Li Xiucheng also features a large group of villagers who take centre stage
in act IV. Observing the fire of the Capital as external spectators, they examine the present situ-
ation seeking to predict the impact of the catastrophe on their life. From a dramatic perspec-
tive, they resemble the chorus in Greek tragedy, in their being both “an inactive spectator of
the events” and a “collective character”, an “integral part of the whole who intervenes in the
action”.28 The villagers are simultaneously external and internal to the action, for some of them
are related to two soldiers enlisted in the Taiping army. Although they have individual identities,
they show a strong collective determination to remain united in carrying out armed resistance
against the Taiping’s adversaries. Enacting Li Xiucheng’s early exhortation to be “one heart and
soul”,29 they shut their shops down, refusing to serve the invaders. Their coalition counteracts
the disunion characterizing the highest ranks of the revolution and it proves so formidable
that the Qing commander Xiao Fusi calls it an “unfathomable mystery”.30 As a chorus, when

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addressing directly Li Xiucheng and his wife once they flee to the mountains, the villagers per-
form an immersive function which consists in mediating between the lofty world of the Taiping
leaders and the audience, which they ideally represent.
Furthermore, according to Aristotle, a tragedy requires the hero to make a shocking discov-
ery (anagnorisis) about fundamental questions of existence. Compatibly with this description,
both leaders come to gradually realize two important lessons. In Dadu River, due to the unex-
pected tensions and hostilities harbored by his fellow leaders toward each other and himself,
Shi Dakai realizes the inconsistence of human nature. In act III, scene I, upon arriving in the
Capital, the North King tells Shi about the recent evildoings of the East King – once deemed a
model of virtues – and shows him an official document with details of all his criminal charges.
Flabbergasted, Shi wonders: “Is the human heart really so hard to fathom?”31 Subsequently, after
a meeting in which the East King accuses the North King of commanding his troops to rape
and loot, he expresses his stupefaction at the sudden change of heart of the two Kings, for whom
the revolution seems to have become a private interest instead of a national goal: “Baoying” – he
cries – “can there not be a perfect person between heaven and earth?”32 Similarly, in the follow-
ing scene, Shi reiterates his grief in another conversation with Baoying, saying that no one could
predict such a U-turn to happen and endanger the future of the Heavenly Kingdom. Baoying’s
leniency towards the Kings and awareness that every human being has defects because no one is
holy, are, however, not enough to correct Shi’s irreversible (tragic) verdict.
In Yang’s play, when Li Xiucheng is jailed by the Hunan army, he has his last conversation
with Lin Fuxiang, a Qing official that he had once captured and who respects him because Li
treated him humanely during his imprisonment. During their dialogue, Li asks the following
question:“Why has our nation silently issued such horrible traitors of the Chinese?”33 This is not
a sudden realization but rather the culmination of a series of considerations expressed over the
course of the entire play.The fact that people sharing the same roots, children of the same nation,
and therefore “brothers” kill each other ruthlessly, is tragic not only because it mirrors the spe-
cific historical calamity of national disunion characterizing the audience’s present situation, but
also because it exemplifies an existential condition embracing humankind as a whole. Interpret-
ing tragedy through Schopenhauer’s nihilistic philosophy, Wang Guowei argued that the source
of tragedy is human desire, which generates all sorts of conflicts and traumas, and that this is an
inescapable truth.34 Yang Hansheng and Chen Baichen seem to cast a similar message through
the plight of Li Xiucheng and Shi Dakai as revolutionary leaders. In both cases the tragic coin-
cides with the real, both historical and psychological, and this tragic vision amply resonates with
Raymond William’s definition of tragedy as a man-made experience of catastrophic events,
which links up with the recognition that all disorders “can be reduced to symptoms of the only
kind of disorder we are prepared to recognize: the fault in the soul.”35
In Li Xiucheng, another tragic realization is put on the lips of Li’s wife who, shortly before
dying at the hands of the Qing army, cries: “God is cruel! He encourages us to construct the
Heavenly Kingdom on earth, but why does he allow the enemies to destroy it?”36 This question
casts a doubtful eye on a teleological view of history, which could be equally applied to Marxist
historicism. If we read it through a secular framework, replacing God with some sort of Hegelian
spirit, it seems to say that human and historical progress do not necessarily proceed on a linear,
rational line and also seems to confirm Williams’ claim that the tragedy of the revolution – far
from being a form of liberation from the evils of society – lies in the inevitable irrationality of
the individuals, whence arises its subsequent degeneration, and in the revolution (i.e. recogni-
tion) that ensues, which Williams calls “the energy released by it, [and] the spirit learned in it.”37
This energy is what the audience should assimilate from watching both Chen’s and Yang’s
Taiping tragedies. As a matter of fact, instead of identifying with Shi’s and Li’s sufferings and

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weeping for the dying heroes, the spectators are expected to develop the tragic attitude that
is encapsulated in the modern Chinese view of tragedy, as reflected in the words of, among
others, Zong Baihua, Zhu Guangqian and Guo Moruo. For them, this tragic attitude consists,
respectively, in “searching for the meaning of one’s destiny in the void of destruction”,38 in
“exalt[ing] herculean toil and heroic resistance”39 and in stimulating the audience concretely
rather than saddening them.40 The modernity of these plays, therefore, lies in this seemingly
Brechtian intent, which disfavors emotional identification by simultaneously historicizing the
present and actualizing the past and by enabling the audience to make prompt resolutions in a
time of historical emergency, impending catastrophe and socio-political crisis. In this respect,
these plays show an essential feature of the “parabolic structure” that has been conceptualized in
association with the European Theatre of the Absurd. This feature is the so-called “performativ-
ity”, namely an agenda of transformation.41
Chen’s and Yang’s Taiping tragedies are “performative” because they compel the audience to
act and transform the real. Furthermore, the mechanism of emotional identification is eluded by
violating the classical unities of time and space, whereby the focus of the dramatic action is less on
the heroes’ individual passions than on the development of the events and on the concrete circum-
stances that determined their crucial decisions. By decompressing and dispersing the world of the
protagonists’ interiority, the audience’s attention is naturally turned towards what the nineteenth-
century Italian writer Alessandro Manzoni, discussing his two historical tragedies Carmagnola and
L’Adelchi, pragmatically termed “the historical system”, namely the logic of historical progress,
which inheres in reality and that the human mind can only ascertain but not invent,42 akin to the
core of historical reality theorized by Schmitt as the source of the tragic in Hamlet. The only dif-
ference is that while in Shakespeare’s play the historical present “intrudes” into the legend thereby
leaving some sort of inexplicable “dark areas”, in Chen’s and Yang’s dramas, the historical present
intrudes into the myth of the Taiping rebellion thereby dismembering it and contaminating it
with equally perplexing black holes that I hope this essay has contributed to dignify.
It is therefore helpful to briefly refer to Schmitt’s comparison between Shakespeare’s and
Schiller’s historical dramas to better understand the hidden gem of the Taiping heroes’ tragedies.
For Schmitt, Schiller’s historical dramas are not tragedies because they are unrelated to the world
of the spectators. They belong to the higher realm of artistic creation and are romantically con-
ceived as independent organisms whose function is to form and entertain people, teach a history
lesson and provide a temporary form of escape from reality.43 In Shakespeare’s historical plays,
instead, history is not deployed as a mere literary source but as a “mouthpiece” of the present
public sphere.44 The same holds true for the plays examined here, where history and reality are
deeply interconnected in a sort of multilayered theatrum mundi, another symptom of modernity
for a Chinese audience, normally used to enjoying the beauty of a dramatic performance rather
than viewing in it a message of historical urgency.
To conclude, paraphrasing Schmitt, the “contemporary considerations” allegedly marring the
historical authenticity and literary quality of these plays – these apparent fallacies – are “not a
minus but a plus”45 as they enable us to redefine them as tragedies, precisely not because they
endorse the myth of the Taiping Rebellion but because they intensify the historical value of the
present contingency, elevating it to the status of myth.

Notes
1 Details of Chen’s and Yang’s biographies have been synthesized from the following sources: Bonnie
McDougall and Louie Kam, eds., The Literature of China in the Twentieth Century (London: C. Hurst,
1997), 304; Li-hua Ying, The A to Z of Modern Chinese Literature (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2010),

287
 Letizia Fusini

17–18, 379; Yuwu Song, Biographical Dictionary of the People’s Republic of China (Jefferson, NC: McFar-
land & Co., Inc., Publishers, 2013), 28; Jacques De Goldfiem, “Mort de Yang Hansheng: San Mao, le
petit vagabond, de nouveau orphelin,” Perspectives Chinoises (1993), vol. 17, no. 1, 21–24. All translations
from languages other than English are by this author unless otherwise stated.
2 Shi Dakai, hereafter.
3 Dadu, hereafter.
4 Li Xiucheng, hereafter.
5 Xiaomei Chen, “Six Taiping Rebellion Tragedies: Heroes, Traitors, and the Discourse of the Chinese
Revolution,” in Joseph Roach, ed., Changing the Subject: Marvin Carlson and Theatre Studies, 1959–2009
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009), 278–300.
6 Ibid., 291.
7 Ban Wang, Illuminations from the Past: Trauma, Memory, and History in Modern China (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 2004).
8 Ibid., 67.
9 Leo Ou-fan Lee, “Literary Trends: The Road to Revolution 1927–1949,” in John K. Fairbank and
Albert Feuerwerker, eds., The Cambridge History of China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1986), 440–441.
10 Quoted in ibid., 469–470.
11 Chen Baichen, “History and Reality” (Lishi yu xianshi), in Dong Jian., ed., Chen Baichen on theatre
(Chen Baichen lun ju) (Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1987), 218.
12 Carl Schmitt, Hamlet oder Hekuba: der Einbruch der Zeit in das Spiel (Hamlet or Hecuba:The Intrusion of
Reality into the Play) (Düsseldorf: E. Diederichs, 1956), 36.
13 Ibid., 47.
14 Ibid., 24.
15 Ibid., 37.
16 Ibid., 31.
17 Ibid., 28.
18 Ibid.
19 Chen Baichen, “The Dadu River” (Dadu he), in Complete Works by Chen Baichen (Chen Baichen wenji)
(Nanjing: Jiangsu Wenyi, 1997), 541.
20 Albert Camus, “On the Future of Tragedy,” in Philip Tody, ed. and trans., Selected Essays and Notebooks
(London: Penguin Books, 1970), 200.
21 Ibid.
22 Chen Baichen, “Dadu he,” 581.
23 Annamaria Cascetta, Modern European Tragedy: Exploring crucial Plays (London: Anthem Press, 2014), 1.
24 Lars Ragvald, “The Death of Li Xiucheng,” in Goran Malmqvist and Milena Doleželova-Velingerova,
eds., A Selective Guide to Chinese Literature 1900–1949.Vol 3:The Drama (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1988), 288.
25 Ibid., 290.
26 Yang Hansheng, “The Death of Li Xiucheng” (Li Xiucheng zhi si), in Complete Plays by Yang Hansheng,
Part I (Yang Hansheng juzuo ji) (Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1982), 166.
27 Ibid., 167.
28 Albert Weiner, “The Function of the Tragic Greek Chorus,” Theatre Journal (1980), vol. 32, no. 2, 19–20.
29 Yang Hansheng, “Li Xiucheng zhi si,” 135, 173.
30 Ibid., 190.
31 Chen Baichen, “Dadu he,” 508.
32 Ibid., 516.
33 Yang Hansheng, “Li Xiucheng zhi si,” 199.
34 Ban Wang, Illuminations from the Past, 64.
35 Raymond Williams, Modern Tragedy (Peterborough: Ont. Broadview Press, 2006), 87.
36 Yang Hansheng, “Li Xiucheng zhi si,” 186–187.
37 Williams, Modern Tragedy, 108.
38 Zong Baihua, Yi jing (The Realm of Art) (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1997), 81–82.
39 Zhu Guangqian, The Psychology of tragedy (Beiju xinli xue) (Hefei: Anhui jiaoyu chubanshe, 1989), 282.
40 Tang Zhengxu, Basic Theory of Literature and Art (Wenyixue jichu lilun) (Chengdu: Sichuan danxue
chubanshe, 1994), 34.
41 Michael Y. Bennett, Reassessing the Theatre of the Absurd: Camus, Beckett, Ionesco, Genet and Pinter (New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 20.

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42 Cristina Della Coletta, Plotting the Past: Metamorphosis of Historical Narrative in Modern Italian Fiction
(West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1996), 58.
43 Carl Schmitt, Hamlet, 50.
44 Ibid., 50.
45 Ibid., 46.

Further readings
Chan, Lai-Yam Aileen. “A Study of the Plays of Chen Baichen,” Ph.D. Dissertation. London: SOAS, 1991.
Malmqvist, N. G. D. and Milena Doleželova-Velingerova, eds. A Selective Guide to Chinese Literature 1900–
1949.Vol 3,The Drama. Leiden: Brill, 1988.
Tung, Constantine. “Experience and Conviction in China’s Wartime Drama, 1937–1945.” In Fondation
Singer-Polignac, ed., La littérature chinoise au temps de la guerre de résistance contre le Japon (de 1937 à 1945):
colloque international. Paris: Editions de la Fondation Singer-Polignac, 1982, 377–394.
Weinstein, John B. “Ding Xilin and Chen Baichen: Building a Modern Theater through Comedy.” Mod-
ern Chinese Literature and Culture 20.2 Special Issue on Comic Visions of Modern China (Fall 2008):
92–130.
Wetmore, Kevin J., et al, eds. Modern Asian Theatre and Performance. London: Bloomsbury, 2014.
Xie, Zhixi. “The Historical Tragedy and the Human Tragedy – the Depiction and the Discussion of the
Historical Plays during the War of Resistance against Japan.” Frontiers of Literary Studies in China 3.1
(2009): 64–96.

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 21
MODERN CHINESE ESSAYS
Zhou Zuoren, Lin Yutang and others
Tonglu Li

The rise of modern Chinese essay

Modern essay, or creative nonfiction prose, whose success almost surpasses that of poetry, theater
and fiction,1 was born out of the marriage of traditional Chinese and Western culture.2 On
a superficial level, it distinguishes itself from traditional essay by using vernacular instead of
classical or literary Chinese, and thus is more accessible to the masses. In terms of genre, it is
narrower in scope than traditional essay which includes all non-verse writings, literary or not.
More importantly, as Yu Dafu points out, modern essay values the expression of individuality
and personality more than any other writings.3 By contrast, traditional essay assumed a political
and ideological mission to assists state operation, or to uphold the Way (zaidao) by such figures
as Cao Pi (187–226), Liu Xie (465–520), and Han Yu (768–824). In the eyes of modern essayists,
traditional essay would be propagandist.
Despite the substantial differences, many modern essayists are open to the influences from the
aesthetics of traditional essay, and “[f]iction, drama, and poetry do not enjoy the same comfort-
able relationship with tradition as the essay.”4 Lu Xun (1881–1936), for example, acknowledges
the deep connections between his essay and the Wei-Jin writers such as Ruan Ji (210–263) and
Ji Kang (223–262). Meanwhile, Western influences, particularly those from the essay works by
the 18th-century British essayists such as Charles Lamb (1775–1834) are indispensable for the
birth of modern essay in China. According to Lu Xun, the British essayists’ influences brought
modern essay a humorous and poised attitude, and a beautiful and deliberate style.5 In tracing
the etymology of modern essay, Zhou Zuoren (1885–1967) goes back to the individualistic and
expressionist late Ming (1550–1644) literature. In the meantime, for the formation of mod-
ern essay’s own spirit he gives credits to the inspirations from Western philosophy, science and
literature.6
Receiving inspirations from various sources, modern essay is highly versatile and flexible in
handling different topics by integrating lyrical, narrative, argumentative and informative ele-
ments. The most successful subgenre of essay from the first decade (1917–1927), xiaopin wen,
however, centered on the celebration of individual self,7 which had often been repressed in tra-
ditional essay. The two figures who established the paradigms for modern essay are Lu Xun and
Zhou Zuoren, both wrote highly individualized essays besides their numerous zawen (miscella-
neous essay), or satirical and polemic sociocultural commentaries. In his poetic prose collection

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 Modern Chinese essays

Wild Grass (Ye cao, 1927), Lu Xun presents a modern soul struggling between the individual
and the crowd, hope and desperation, resolution and hesitation, darkness and brightness, and
dream and reality. His Morning Flowers Plucked at the Sunset (Zhaohua xishi, 1928) turns to rec-
ollect his early and recent memories about people crucial to his life, such as his father, teacher,
Japanese professor, maid and friend among others. It blends a strong nostalgic sentiment with
sociocultural criticism. Zhou Zuoren introduced belles lettres into China and exemplified it
with his casual, simple yet profound essays such as “Tea Drinking” (He cha, 1924) and “Bitter
Rain” (Kuyu, 1924). In a manner of Rousseauian confession, Yu Dafu (1896–1945) exposes
his agonistic inner world in “Home-returning” (Huanxiang ji, 1923) and “A Man’s Journey of
Solitude” (Yigeren zai tushang, 1926). Zhu Ziqing (1898–1948) gives masterful depiction of
natural sceneries in embellished language, and later turns to write with unadorned expressions
about family life, such as his father’s unexpressed love in “Back Shadow” (Beiying, 1925). With
childlike innocence, Bing Xin (1900–1999) extensively elaborates the theme of love for nature,
mother, and homeland in her Letters to Young Readers (Ji xiaoduzhe, 1926).
The self-centered orientation faced challenges during the second decade (1927–1936) with
the looming political and national crises. The pro-liberal writers such as Zhou Zuoren, Lin
Yutang (1895–1976),Yu Pingbo (1900–1990) and Shi Zhecun (1905–2003) continued to write
about the self in an apolitical, humorous manner, but the Leftists called for a more politically
engaging approach. Lu Xun insisted on writing essays with political and social concerns, and
labeled what Zhou advocated as trivial decorations.8 To him, promoting the leisure, the humor-
ous, and the individualistic in an era of darkness meant distorting the harsh reality and shedding
off one’s social responsibility. Rebuffing Lu Xun, Zhou called the Leftist literature “sacrificial
utensil” serving the political causes (ineffectively),9 and explained that the literature of leisure
was the result instead of the cause of the political and social crisis.
This overarching debate is rather productive for both sides. Lu Xun continued to produce
polemic essays to the extent that a new genre zawen was established. Besides, the essays he wrote
to remember the loss of his friends such as “Remember to Forget” (Weile wangque de jinian,
1933) are of high influence. Mao Dun (1896–1981) symbolically called for a cleaner world and
brighter future in “Before the Thunderstorm” (Leiyu qian, 1934). Viewing the world through
the eyes of an innocent child, Xiao Hong (1911–1942) documents her suffering and struggle
in poverty in Manchuria in her Market Street (Shangshi jie, 1936). Meanwhile, Zhou Zuoren
turned further away from the immediate social reality to write on folk culture and everyday life
as his way to understand people, and to construct a new way of life for them. Promoting the
literature of humor and leisure, Lin Yutang tried to bring back the late Ming essay style to mod-
ern life. Many others, who did not declare to belong to either camp, also produced numerous
masterpieces. In his “To My Late Wife” (Gei wangfu, 1932), Zhu Ziqing lamented the death of
his late wife and reiterated her dedication to the family.Yu Dafu continued his melancholic tone
to memorize the autumn of the old capital city Beijing (1934), which implied a limpid, quiet,
and sad atmosphere. Overall, in the 1930s, the authors acquired broader visions, more diverse
interests, and deeper insights, even when they wrote about the everyday matters.10
In the following decade of the war against Japan, however, literary production was further
divided. In areas occupied by the Japanese, Zhou Zuoren, who had started his collaboration
with the Japanese in 1938, played a leading role in setting the tone of essay writing. He and his
followers such as Wen Zaidao (1916–2007) and Fei Ming (1901–1967) devoted themselves to
writing about the everyday, folk culture, and anecdotal accounts of historical and personal events
with an apolitical tone. In the areas respectively controlled by the Nationalists and the Com-
munists, the concern for the fate of the nation dominated literary production, and the expres-
sion of the self and the quotidian was further overshadowed by the central mission of national

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salvation. Therefore, Liang Shiqiu (1903–1987), Lu Xun’s old rival, was harshly criticized when
he proposed that matters indirectly related to the war of resistance should also be allowed.11
However, he adhered to his apolitical opinion and published a serial of short essays on everyday
topics, such as shaking hands, taking bath, haircut, and manner at dinner table, etc. Liang have
them published as Yashe xiaopin in 1949. Nevertheless, just as She Shusen points out, the lyrical
essays highlighting the self, the affect, and the aesthetical gave way to the narrative essays high-
lighting the collective, the realistic, and the pragmatic aspects.12 As a rapid way to cover social
reality, reportage (baogao wenxue) a subgenre of the broadly defined essay genre that combines
literature and journalism prospered.

Zhou Zuoren: essay and the formation of modern self

Life and career

Born in Shaoxing, Zhejiang in a declining gentry-scholar family, Zhou followed his elder
brother Lu Xun to Nanjing in 1901 and attended the Jiangnan Naval Academy, and then went
to Japan in 1906 on a government scholarship. There, in addition to literature, he developed
lifelong interests in cultural anthropology, folklore studies, Greek mythology and the psychol-
ogy of sex. Coming back to his hometown in 1911, he focused on folklore and fairy tales
besides working in the field of public education. In 1917, Zhou started to teach at Beijing
University, and soon became a key figure in the May Fourth enlightenment movement. He
set the humanistic tone for the new literature in 1918, arguing that humans evolved from ani-
mals and it is problematic to indulge in sensual desires, or to repress such desires with ascetic
religious disciplines. In 1921, he made it clear that literature is for life’s sake.13 Nevertheless,
after sensing its irrational and violent tendency in such campaigns as the Anti-Christianity
movement starting 1922, Zhou decided to withdraw from the New Culture Movement and
turned to cultivate his personal artistic garden. In a 1925 essay, he declared to stay away from
the masses and live in his Ivory Tower located at the crossroads to observe the society from a
distance.14 He struggled between a split self, which was occupied by two demons: the ruffian
pushing him to challenge the preexisting social order, and the gentleman admonishing him
not to do so.
The 1927 White Terror pushed Zhou further away from social intervention. Next year he
proposed to read history behind the closed door, regarding the violent reality as the enchanted
reincarnation of history: progress leading to a new epoch became unlikely.15 In the early 1930s,
he involved in the debate with the Leftists, and considered literature to be for self-expression,
not for propaganda.Viewed as a modern hermit by the Leftists, Zhou became the leader of the
Beijing School – a group of liberal intellectuals who wanted to stay away from the conflicts
between the Communists and the KMT regime. During his collaboration with the Japanese
started from 1938, he held several posts including dean of the Liberal Arts College at Beijing
University, curator of the University library, supervisor of the Ministry of Education, and coun-
cilor for the Nanjing puppet regime. After the war, he was sentenced to ten years’ in prison
by the Nationalist government. In August 1949, he moved back to Beijing with the defeat of
the KMT. In the coming years, Zhou made a living on translating classical Japanese and Greek
literary works, and writing about Lu Xun’s life and works. He also published many short essays,
sometimes recycling much of his earlier works, hoping they would be useful in the new China,
but with a much less critical tone. Zhou died in May 1967 after being tortured by the Red
Guards.

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Literary achievements
Besides introducing the genre belles lettres to encourage a style featuring non-decorative genial-
ity and personal taste in early 1920s, during the 1930s, Zhou promoted the individualist yanzhi
(expressing one’s genuine intent) literature. He continuously stated the importance of leisure,
comic and obscene as an antidote to the Leftist zaidao (sustaining the dogma) literature.16 To
him, the culturally repressed features such as leisure, comic and obscene represent the genuine
emotions of common people. Therefore, he identified the zaidao literature’s lacking jokes as a
symptom of unauthenticity, as well as an indication of the Neo-Confucianism’s domination of
human mind.17 Comparing the folk paintings of Japan and China, Zhou found that the Japanese
woodblock painting Ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world) are able to represent the richness
of the mundane world. However, by contrast, with a focus on the imposed auspicious meaning,
the Chinese folk arts are unrealistic and merely allegorical. Zhou admires Miyatake Gaikotsu’s
(1867–1955) genuine interest in the obscene subject matters, because they directly contested
the seriousness of Confucianism. He also praised the erotic literature of the Renaissance for its
anti-moralism.18 With a playful attitude, Zhou challenged the traditional ethical codes and the
Leftist literature’s ideological premises following François Rabelais’s (1494–1553) example.19
In the 1930s and 1940s, against Lu Xun’s polemic miscellaneous essay, he promoted another
type, which “literally means the mixed-up collection of essays with mingled thoughts and
styles.”20 Zhou’s essay writing thus became more miscellaneous, fragmental and hybrid. His
playful manipulation of language in his hands became a strategy to resist and mock the ideo-
logically overloaded literature. Beneath his seemingly plain language, we often see allusions to
historical and contemporary affairs, mixture of colloquial and classical phrases, and European-
ized syntax, intertextual references. One major strategy Zhou used to construct the labyrinth of
his textual world is similar to what Walter Benjamin plans to achieve – writing purely consisted
of the mosaic of quotations of others’ works.21 Before the 1930s, Zhou mainly quoted from
Western thinkers such as Havelock Ellis and James Frazier. Afterwards he turned to quoting
from pre-modern thinkers to examine the problems in Chinese intellectual and cultural history.
As a result, the “center” of his essays became difficult to locate, and even the subjective voice of
the author became only one thread among the Bakhtinian polyphonic voices he quoted. Such a
writing style raised doubts among his contemporary critics. Even Lin Yutang could not under-
stand its significance and mocked Zhou as “Mr. Plagiarist” (Wenchao gong). Only until after the
1980s that scholars reassessed it as an “unprecedented invention”22 that assisted Zhou to create
a decentered intertextual world in which the textually constructed “self ” acquired a historical
depth and intellectual broadness going beyond the confined individual subjectivity.

The masterpiece: “Tea Drinking” and the art of life

During his lifetime, Zhou published over 3,000 essays, covering a wide range of topics from
literature and art, everyday life, folk customs, current affairs, medical, religious and intellectual
history, to philosophy, psychology, biology and anthropology. Almost anything related to human
life became his subject matters. Appealing to the public, he intended to create a rationalist ver-
sion of commonsense by blending the informative and affective factors. In 1945 he categorized
his highly diverse writings into “serious” or “formal” essays and leisure essays, and regarded the
former as staple food (rice and bun) and the latter as drinks (tea or wine.)23 This metaphor is
central in understanding Zhou’s promotion of “the art of life” starting from the mid-1920s.
As he himself reflected, he held a missionary mindset when first joined the New Cultural

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Movement in 1917, but soon became aware of its religiosity (for being irrational, fanatic and
violent) and jumped out of such utopian dreams to cultivate the art of life, whose significance to
him had long been marginalized in mainstream culture. In Zhou’s eyes, besides the “significant”
cultural, social or political movements, or revolution, cultivation of the art of life dealing with
the everyday should also become an indispensable part, or even the central part in improving
the overall human condition.
As Zhou repeatedly writes, tea drinking, a seemingly unsubstantial activity beyond necessities
perfectly embodies such an art of life. Published at the end of 1924, the year after his disillusion-
ment with the increasingly repressive mainstream enlightenment movement, “Tea Drinking”
begins with introducing chadō, the Japanese tea ceremony. He explains it as “stealing a moment
of leisure from heavy workloads, and finding happiness from misery,” or “to enjoy a little bit
beauty and harmony in the imperfect world, and to experience eternity from an ephemeral
moment.”24 However, while Zhou agrees with this sentiment, he intends to illustrate his own
view on the Chinese way, which is less ritualistic and mystic than chadō. After dismissing the
mystic Japanese way, he disapproves the pragmatic Western approach of taking tea drinking as
having a meal.Then, referring to Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft by George Gissing (1857–1903),
he implicitly mocks the pragmatic approach, which regards the English afternoon tea with but-
ter and bread as more enjoyable than the dated Chinese way of tea drinking.
Zhou suggests that, in tea drinking, green tea is preferred, while the black tea that often
comes with added sugar and milk is not because the former provides an opportunity to appreci-
ate tea as tea itself. To him, tea drinking is “to drink the tea itself, to appreciate its color, scent
and flavor. It is not intended for quenching one’s thirst, needless to say filling the stomach.”
Then he describes it as “the exquisite taste of nature” based on the Book of Tea by Okakura
Kakuzō (1863–1913). Unfortunately, due to the rapid westernization, this style of tea drinking
has been disappearing. Next, Zhou imagines the ideal occasion of tea drinking, what can serve
as tea snacks, and the procedures of preparation. In his imagination, “tea drinking should happen
under the paper-covered window of a tile-roofed house. Using a set of simple but elegant teapot
and cups, one, with two or three acquaintances, should drink the green tea prepared with clear
spring water. Such a moment of leisure is worth ten years’ dusty dreams.”25 This poetic, natural
scene, which is devoid of the influences from modern industrial civilization, reminds us of the
lifestyle of such traditional hermits as Tao Qian (365–427). In the end, Zhou introduces the Jap-
anese chazuke (tea-soaked rice) and compares it with its Chinese original, concluding that unlike
the Japanese, Chinese people seldom pay attention to the intrinsic taste of such simple dishes.
In this short essay of 1,500 words, Zhou manages to situate his version of tea drinking into
a broader cultural context. Although he himself established his worldview based on Western
culture (biology, sex psychology and anthropology), he is not satisfied with its materialistic and
pragmatic orientation. To him, Westerners cannot apprehend the subtlety of the Chinese way, in
that the Western way of tea drinking is close to satisfying the basic, material needs and thus is
less spiritual. In his view, even tea snacks are not completely material: “the culture and history of
a country will leave traces on the everyday life. Such traces, being it splendid or delicate in style,
should be refined in nature.” He complains that the outcome of the modernization in China – a
vulgar copycat of the Western counterpart – is rather horrible.26 On the other hand, the Japanese
way has deep historical connections and thus can shed light on the understanding of the Chi-
nese way. However, the Japanese way is more of religious implications, as he elaborates twenty
years later in his Preface to the Chinese version of The Book of Tea: Tea drinking is originated in
China, but chadō (the Way of Tea) is not. The reason, according to Zhou, is that, Chinese people
are less religious than the Japanese is, and what they pursue is the worldly pleasure through tea

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drinking instead of transcendental enjoyments.27 Being spiritual yet still worldly, with a flavor of
simplicity, austerity and even nostalgia, the Chinese way, therefore, is a middle way.
Of course, even before writing this essay, Zhou had been already aware that due to the haste
of modern life such a leisure moment was difficult to achieve.28 The difficulty here, as men-
tioned before, partially lies in the fact that the everyday leisure activities have become marginal
in the nation-state centered modern culture. Questioning this marginalization, Zhou insists
that, “it is necessary to have the short moment of carefree leisure.”29 To him, all human activi-
ties are equally important, and as a part of life, including leisure activities such as drinking tea.30
The leisure activities come with an aesthetic nature, which is “purposive without purpose” in
the Kantian aesthetic framework, or in Daoist terms, has the usefulness of uselessness. He even
complained about the quality of Beijing’s tea snacks, arguing that,

Besides daily necessities, we have to have some useless games and enjoyment to make
us feel that life is interesting. We appreciate the sunset, the autumn river, and the flow-
ers, listen to the rain, and smell the scent of the incense. We drink wine not intended
for quenching one’s thirst, and eat delicate cookies not intended for satisfying one’s
hunger. All these are necessary in life – even though they are useless – and the more
refined they are the better.31

Cultivating the art of life beyond necessity is a constant thread of thinking in Zhou’s writings.
In a public letter to the abdicated emperor Puyi also written in 1924, Zhou argues that civili-
zation is a necessary luxury beyond necessity, and the emergent tasks facing China is survival.
However, it is still important to pay attention to these leisure activities in that the ultimate goal
is to make it possible for people to enjoy them in the future.32 In the 1930s, Zhou continues to
promote the rational understanding of tea in such essays as “Further Discussion on Tea Drinking
Again” (Zailun chichi, 1934) and “On Bitter Tea” (Guanyu kucha, 1935).To Zhou, leisure activ-
ities, such as tea drinking and traditional festivals provide a temporary escape for those people
toiling in the tedious quotidian world. However, in the bifurcated literary field, his views became
the target of the Leftists’ criticism. For example, Lu Xun questions Zhou’s view by emphasizing
the central mission China was then facing: survival. He argues that the meticulously refined sense
cultivated through such activities as tea drinking might become obstacles for the nation to survive
and evolve in the chaotic and harshly competitive world.33 In this sense, Zhou was born too early
for his time, and it was only after the 1980s that his proposals regained their market.

Lin Yutang: creation of the literature of humor

Life and career

Born into a rural family in Longxi, Fujian, Lin Yutang is arguably the most cosmopolitan writer
in modern China. As a son of a priest, Lin had a happy childhood. He finished his Western edu-
cation, first at church schools in his hometown, and then in Shanghai at St. John’s University
(1912–1916). Afterward he taught at Tsinghua School and soon realized that attending church
schools deprived his opportunity to learn about the Chinese heritage. Believing in a total Euro-
peanization for China’s future, he participated in the New Cultural movement with his writings
on language reform.34 Starting from 1919, he studied comparative literature at Harvard Univer-
sity, and then went to Europe to study linguistics at Leipzig University, where he made up his
education in Chinese traditions. In 1923, he returned to China and started teaching at Peking

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and Tsinghua University. Equipped with his Western education Lin endeavored to rediscover
Chinese society.
Next year he joined the Yusi (Threads of Talk) camp led by Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren and
wrote numerous polemic essays on various social and cultural phenomena, such as national
character, intellectuals’ ethics, and student movements. Lin fled from Beijing in 1926 for fear
of political persecution and taught at Amoy University, where he established closer relationship
with Lu Xun. After briefly serving in the Nationalist Government, he settled in Shanghai in
1927. Hesitating long between “being revolutionary and anti-revolutionary,” in the 1930s Lin
turned to promote the literature of humor, self-expression and leisure. With the success of his
English work My Country and My People (1935), Lin moved to the United States in 1936 and
started publishing widely to introduce Chinese culture and society with such works as The
Importance of Living (1937), Moment in Peking (1939) and The Gay Genius:The Life and Times of Su
Tungpo (1947).35 In 1966, Lin moved to Taiwan, and died in Hong Kong in 1976.

Literary achievements
Lin is the key figure who made possible the prosperity of a literature of humor, self-expression
and leisure in the 1930s with his theoretical and creative writings, as well as with his founding of
the three literary magazines Lunyu (Analects), Renjianshi (The Human World) and Yuzhou feng
(The Cosmic Wind). If his writings in the 1920s often come with a straightforward, elaborative,
and polemical style, in the 1930s he pursued a style of nuance and subtlety, with a lighthearted,
humorous and witty style in a language mixing vernacular and classic elements. His praise of the
late Ming individualistic essayists echoes the view of Zhou Zuoren. Although they came from
the same camp of the individualistic literature, they have different emphasis. As Laughlin puts it,
“If Zhou Zuoren promoted an aesthetics of bense (original color) and quwei (fascination) that he
perceived in late imperial xiaopin wen, Lin Yutang wished to do the same, but add to it a new and
important component he called youmo [humor].”36
The differences can be traced back to the different cultural resources they borrowed. Zhou
mainly relied on the examples of Japanese literature and reinterpretation of the Confucian tra-
ditions as devices to make his argument for an individualistic literature. Lin, on the other hand,
mainly based his proposals on the works in Western literary theories, such as George Meredith
(1828–1909)’s “Essay on Comedy,” which regards humor as a mixture of ridicule and pity on
someone.37 To Lin, it is not the ridicule of the mocked object, but the presence of pity that
makes humorous literature humane. Based on the theories of Benedetto Croce (1866–1952) and
J. E. Spingarn (1875–1939), Lin also argues that being innate to human life, humor is often a trait
of the expressionist literature. Lin’s literary practice was so influential that the year 1933 became
“The Year of Humor.” It aligns well with Zhou’s individualistic theory, but directly opposes Lu
Xun’s socio-politically orientated approach. Out of a sense of emergency, Lu Xun states that,
there is no room for humor in China and a literature of humor and leisure can only obscure
the oppressing classes’ ruthlessness.38 To counter the literature of humor, the Leftists established
a new journal Taibai (Morning Star) in 1934 with polemic social criticism and promotion of
scientific essay (kexue xiaopin) as emphasis.

The masterpiece: “Touring Hangzhou in a Spring Day”

Published in May 1933, “Touring Hangzhou in a Spring Day” (Chunri youhang ji) represents
Lin’s typical style in the 1930s.39 Promoting a literature of humor, Lin was attacked by the Leftists
as an escapist closing his eyes in front of the harsh reality. However, a close reading of this essay

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reveals that such factionist charges might be unfounded. The essay first introduces the chaotic
and depressing social environment: The Japanese just occupied the northern city Qinhuangdao
and he could not focus on his job, but the Nationalist government will label protesting as pro-
Communist. Touring Hangzhou thus becomes the only alternative. Meanwhile, Lin and other
advocates of humorous literature are to blame for the fall of the state in the eyes of the Leftists.
However, he would be happy to resume such responsibilities if China can be saved that way.
Then the essay describes in details his two VIP neighbors on the train about their gluttonous
and rude behavior. In the following space, Lin describes the artwork-like sceneries: “Arriving at
the West Lake, it drizzled. (We) then settled in a room. Looking far out of the window, the inner
lake, the Solitary Hill, the causeway, the pagoda, yacht, and tourists, all are like a painting.”40 This
succinct and carefree style resembles that of the Late Ming hermit essayists.
Nevertheless, Lin demonstrated a tension between his theoretical declaration and literary
creation, as the essay turned out to be a critical commentary on political, cultural and social
issues disguised by the relaxing appreciation of nature. The Lin family’s tour always meet dis-
turbance from the vulgar tourists who do not have any aesthetic tastes. He comments that
with such citizens China is doomed. After appreciating the unique teapot used in the Buddhist
monks and studying its mechanism, Lin even turns to discuss with the monk how they deal with
sexual desire, which is not usually included in this type of writings. Through their conversation,
Lin concludes that the monk’s rationalization of asceticism resembles that of St. Paul, Kant and
Plato. Interestingly, Lin observes that the monks hired a maid to help them, implying a problem-
atic sexual relationship. Toward the end, Lin records a conversation with a peddler selling fake
antiques. After purchasing a volume of sutra, Lin ridicules that they both got what they wanted
through the transaction: it is money to raise family for the peddler and a book to read for him-
self. Following that line, Lin uses reduction to absurdity, arguing that people should understand
the warlords’ killing of people only as a profession to bring bread home instead of regarding it as
a crime. Mixing elements of poetic and profane, pity and irony to create a comic style, the essay
constitutes a subtle political protest that is not fundamentally different from the Leftist literature
in spirit. Unfortunately, in some later versions, the beginning and ending parts of the essay were
deleted to avoid censorship from the Nationalist government. This “textual castration” made it
more difficult to discern Lin’s critical voices.

Odes to the socialist mirage – Yang Shuo, Liu Baiyu and Qin Mu
Following the decree of Mao’s 1942 Yan’an Talk, literature production of 1949–1966 in main-
land China acquired an unprecedented ideological uniformity. With the foundation of the Peo-
ple’s Republic in 1949, an optimistic and heroic atmosphere prevailed in cultural production.
The essay writing largely fall into the following categories: odes to praise the heroes from both
wartime and the era of socialist construction, the collective-oriented lifestyle according to the
new customs, or the grandeur of natural landscape – the physical embodiment of the social-
ist state. Consequently, the writing of the individual self, the quotidian and the leisure that
celebrated by Zhou Zuoren and Lin Yutang was not only regarded as irrelevant to the heroic
sociopolitical struggle and the socialist construction, but was also dismissed as expressions of the
unhealthy “petite bourgeois sentiment.”41
To put it simply, essay writing is “nationalized” and politicized to elaborate and praise the
new collective Self. It thus “differs from Republican period forms in its characteristically friendly
yet didactic second-person rhetoric, and its tendency to build verbal monuments for national
heroes.”42 In terms of style, it often uses the “old society” as the contrasting backdrop, and pro-
motes “a dispersed textual body with a concentrated spirit” becomes the new formula,43 and the

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casual and decentered styles seen in Zhou Zuoren’s essays disappeared. Seemingly, just a formal
requirement, this formula became problematic when the “spirit” became exclusively dogmatic
and predefined by the Party. In the process, with the individual self of the authors fades away
from their essays, they often merely functioned as the technician to organize the subject matters
around the “spirit,” the aforementioned grand themes of socialism. Nevertheless, this ideological
uniformity does not imply any across-the-board monotonous aesthetic style in essay writing.
Yang Shuo (1913–1968), Liu Baiyu (1913–2005) and Qin Mu (1919–1992) are the three para-
digmatic essayists with distinctive aesthetic styles during the 1950s and 1960s.

Yang Shuo: common working people as true heroes

Yang Shuo was born in Penglai, Shandong. At his youth,Yang received training in classical learn-
ing. He worked as a clerk for ten years since 1927. Starting from 1938, he participated in the
anti-Japanese war as a journalist and writer, and created numerous war-related short stories and
news report, often in a sketchy and rushed style. In early 1950s, he went to Korea as a journalist
to report the war, and wrote a famous novel The Three-Thousand-Mile Territory (Sanqianli Jiang-
shan, 1953), in which the exuberant and sublime war heroes are highlighted. Since 1956, Yang
started working in diplomacy and turned to focusing on essay writing based on his personal
travel experiences. Much indebted to his early training in classical poetry, in his essays of the
1950s and 1960s Yang was able to develop a lyrical style of essay writing. Being persecuted dur-
ing the Cultural Revolution,Yang committed suicide in 1968.
Combing the classicist aestheticism and the orthodox ideological message, Yang’s “flamboy-
ant lyrical style re-defined essay writing and reading in socialist China.”44 Although mainly
based on his firsthand travel experiences, his essays are not down-to-earth recount of these
experiences as such. Rather, Yang often constructed his most celebrated essays, such as “Red
Leaf of Mt. Fragrant” (Xiangshan hongye, 1956), “The Mirage” (Haishi, 1959), “Apex of Mt.
Tai” (Taishan jiding, 1959), and “Litchi Flower Honey” (Lizhi mi, 1960) as allegories and/or
eulogies. They became the testimony of the Maoist version of historical materialism: the masses
are the true heroes in creating the new socialist reality through their dedicated hard work and
struggle. Introduction to the beauty of the Nature or natural objects often serve as the prelude
and background.With the narration goes on, the true protagonists, often veteran revolutionaries,
ordinary workers or farmers, are presented, during which process the “old society” is brought
in as a contrast to the new society. The “I” narrator (the author) becomes the humble learner,
observer, and recorder of their stories. The ending of the essay often comes with an explicit
enunciation of the intent for his writing. Artistically refined, structurally formulated, and thus
easy to model on,Yang’s writing style has been popular in middle and high school curriculum,
but has also been questioned since the 1980s.45
Written in 1959, “The Mirage” delineates the author’s re-search for the legendary mirage –
an optical phenomenon that has long been regarded as the realm of the immortals in ancient
China – in his hometown Penglai. The essay begins with his childhood memory about the
miracle phenomenon, and then turns to describe his research of it, which leads us to the dis-
covery of the fishermen’s life on the fishing village located on the Changshan archipelago. With
well-designed and constructed households, charming natural scenery, and inexhaustible seafood
harvest. . ., the villagers are living a fairy-like happy life. To highlight the idea that such a life can
only become possible in the socialist new China, Yang gives much space to his conversation with
Old Song, the production team leader. Old Song has harsh experiences of suffering and eventu-
ally becomes a revolutionary. Therefore, only through such experiences does he become a true
hero and gain the credit to lead the village. This might help explain some scholars’ observation

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that, “no matter how transparent the symbolism and fervent the message of his essay, there is
almost always slight ambivalence introduced by negative elements at the fringes.”46 The dark past
is to make the present stand out, and the future promising. Ultimately, it is with the working
people’s defeating of their political and natural enemies through revolution and collectivization
that their home of happiness – visualized as the true mirage on Earth – is constructed.

Liu Baiyu: nature as the symbol of the nation

Born in Beijing, Liu Baiyu is affiliated with the PLA. He once temporarily joined a local army
out of passion for resisting the Japanese in 1931, and then withdrew to attend college in 1934,
when he started learning writing. He started publishing literary works in 1936, focusing on
social problems, often with a sentimental style. In 1938, he went to Yan’an, and turned to write
about the military and the war of resistance in northern China with a new style that is full of
grandeur and exalted spirits. Since 1946 he worked as a military journalist for Xinhua News
Agency and wrote numerous news correspondence and reportage and about the life of soldiers
during the civil war against the Nationalists, and later the Korean War. If war is a time for cel-
ebrating genuine comradeship to Sun Li (1913–2002), to Liu, it is the sublime marching lyrics
toward the ultimate triumph of the future. After 1955, he became an official in the institutions
in charge of cultural and literary affairs, and gained his reputation for essay writing. After the
Cultural Revolution, Liu continued publishing works of essay and fiction, and won the “Award
for Outstanding Essay” by Chinese Writer’s Association in 1989, and the Mao Dun Prize on
Literature for his novel The Second Sun (Di’er ge taiyang) in 1991.
Carrying over the heroic, combative spirit of the wartime as well as a deep faith in the soci-
ety’s progressing into a bright future to the era of socialism, Liu Baiyu’s essays often come with
explicit political orientation. He overtly eulogizes – often with hyperbolic tone – the socialist
construction, the struggle against Taiwan, and the political movements – even including the
Great Leap Forward, which later turned out to be disastrous. However, what distinguishes Liu as
an essayist is his expression of the political consciousness through a symbolic use of such natural
imageries as the sun, the red color, blaze, light, monstrous wave and thunderstorm. Therefore,
his best essays from the 1950s and 1960s include those dedicated to the depiction of the mag-
nificent power and beauty of natural scenery such as the Kunlun Mountain, the Pacific Ocean
and the Yangtze River. “Sunrise” (Richu, 1959) writes about the author’s preference of sunrise
to sunset, in that while the latter gives people the impression of sorrow and decline, the sunrise
indicates the coming into being of a bright new life along with the light and heat after defeat-
ing the darkness.
Resembling a style of Beethovenian symphony,“Three Days on the Yangtze River” (Changji-
ang sanri, 1960) is a detailed journal on Liu’s cruising on the long Yangtze River, which is full
of “hidden rocks” and “turbulent currents” that all may endanger the course. Nevertheless, Liu
suggests that the bright, splendid scenery will be awaiting ahead after overcoming such obsta-
cles through the dark nights. The first day’s trip starts on the turbulent river covered by thick,
turbid fog, and then goes through the reefs in the dark night. However, the author sets the tone
of opportunism and combating spirit, arguing that a life worth living is the one that struggles
through such difficult situations. The second day then focuses on the sublime natural scenery
(the unfathomable river, the steep mountains on the riverbank and the splendid sunrise) which
comes along with the difficult course of the boat. The third day is about the tranquil moments
after the boat going through the thrilling course, and the author’s contemplation on the coming
into being of a life of freedom out of perseverant struggle and sacrifice. This essay thus is not an
objective travelogue, but a political allegory of the progressive course of socialist construction.

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Qin Mu: knowledge and its political implications

Born in the British colony Hong Kong, Qin Mu spent his childhood in Southeast Asia where he
established a lifelong interest in exploring nature. As oversea Chinese, he also had abundant oppor-
tunities to observe the society that was full of inequality and violence, especially towards the migrant
Chinese. Returning to China in 1931 to attend high school, Qin Mu extensively read modern,West-
ern and classical literature. Since 1938, he engaged in the anti-Japanese efforts as actor, teacher and
editor in southern China, and started his writing career. From 1941 to 1944, Qin Mu stayed in Guilin,
and demonstrated his talents by writing satirical essays to criticize the atrocity of the Japanese and the
corruption, treason, poverty and violence under the Nationalist regime. After the war, he stayed in
Hong Kong for three years as a professional writer, and joined the PLA in 1949. Qin mainly worked
as editor for Zhonghua Press and Yangchen Nightly News, and as professional writer and officer in the
local and national Chinese Writers Association in New China.When the satirical style-writing famil-
iar to him started to cause him troubles in the 1950s, he changed his focus to write on topics welcome
to the new society.A proliferate essayist, Qin published more than forty collections during his lifetime.
Qin Mu is widely known for his capability to summon knowledge from natural sciences,
social sciences and humanities into his essay writing during the 1950s and 1960s. This consti-
tutes one of the keys to his popularity.47 Meanwhile, in his hands the boundless, encyclopedic
knowledge is not for parading his learning. Rather, his passionate, exhaustive enumeration of
knowledge on a specific topic serves to constitute a political ode to the new socialist era and its
heroic people, or a philosophical reflection on the nature of everyday and social life based on the
Marxist dialectical thinking. This way of using knowledge is quite different from the Hellenic
attitude “knowing for knowing’s sake” that Zhou Zuoren promoted in the 1930s and 1940s.
For example, in his “Collection Sea Shells on the Beach” (Haibian shibei, 1959), he discusses the
function of seashell in human history, and eventually contemplates that in the endless process of
evolution within the boundless world, the individual life is so trivial that, it has to associate itself
with the collective or larger community. Still, Qin Mu belonged to the most cosmopolitan and
intellectually reflexive writers of his generation.
An ordinary yet sacred element in human history, the land in Qin Mu’s eyes becomes a con-
centrated stage for the historical dramas of social oppression and resistance. In his essay “The
Land” (Tudi, 1960) that abounds with passion, Qin Mu first argues about the symbolic impor-
tance of the land through describing a scene of 2,600 years ago in northern China, when the
offer of dirt by a farmer to the fleeing prince ominously forebodes his eventual success in power
struggle.Then he discusses how the emperors used the dirt in the ritual for appointing provincial
officials, and how the Western colonizers forced the colonized to surrender by putting dirt on
their heads. Then he turns to bring up the other side of history by discussing how the diasporic
Chinese carried the dirt of their motherland to their oversea destination, the struggle and suffer-
ing of the poor farmers over the issue of land, and the sacrifice people has been making to defend
their own land. Finally, the essay comes back to reality, and proposes that the epoch-making social
changes and mega construction projects can only happen when the land returns to the hands of
the working people in the new socialist era.The essay then ends with open-ended questions: how
to defend the land, and how to build a better home on it for the whole humanity.

Beyond the socialist heritage

The vicissitudes of the fate of these three essayists’ works reflected the dramatically shifting para-
digms of cultural production and political atmosphere.They were highly acclaimed in the 1960s,
and then in the early 1980s as a way to criticize the literary inquisition during the Cultural

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Revolution. With the transformation in political climate during the 1980s, however, critics
started to question the gap between the glorious, sublime textual world of socialism they created
and the disastrous political practices of the 1950s and 1960s, and then challenged the genuine-
ness in their representation of historical truth. Nevertheless, it is fair to conclude that their
political odes to the new socialist era are not sheer propagandist performances. Rather, their
genuine optimism is rooted in the vivid contrast between the new society and the previous dark
era of history, including the miseries, wars and natural disasters they experienced or witnessed.
The problems, therefore, are not necessarily within their writings per se, but with the teleologi-
cal vision of history and the utopic view of the future that mesmerized the whole nation: the
promised arrival of the glorious new era itself ultimately turned out to be dystopic. Soon in the
late 1980s and 1990s, the nation-centered, ideology-charged, teleology-oriented mode of writing
gradually became obsolete, and the individualistic, heteroglossic mode of writing from the May
Fourth enlightenment resurrected. Besides such veteran writers as Ba Jin (1904–2005), Bing Xin,
Sun Li and Wang Zengqi (1920–1997) who remembered and reflected their past life, new genera-
tion writers such as Yu Qiuyu (b. 1946) and Jia Pingwa (b. 1952) expanded the territory of essay
writing by making it more ideologically detached, culturally relevant and stylistically diverse.

Notes
1 Lu Xun, “The Crisis of xiaopin Essay” (Xiaopinwen de weiji) Collected Works of Lu Xun (Lu Xun
Quanji) (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2005), vol. 4, 592.
2 Martin Woesler, “The Aesthetic of Marginalism and the Impact of the West on the Chinese Essay,” in
Martin Woesler, ed., The Modern Chinese Literary Essay: Defining the Chinese Self in the 20th Century
(Bochum: Bochum University Press, 2000), 27–37.
3 Yu Dafu,“Introduction to Essay Collection II” (Sanwen erji xu), Compendium of Modern Chinese Literature:
1917–1927 (Zhongguo xinwenxue daxi) (Shanghai: Liangyou tushu gongsi, 1935), vol.7, 5–6.
4 Charles Laughlin, The Literature of Leisure and Chinese Modernity (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,
2008), 7.
5 Lu Xun, “The Crisis,” 592.
6 Zhou Zuoren, “Introduction to Essay Collection I” (Sanwen yiji xu) Compendium of Modern Chinese
Literature: 1917–1927 (Zhongguo xinwenxue daxi) (Shanghai: Liangyou tushu gongsi, 1935), vol. 6, 10.
7 Yu Dafu, “Introduction,” Compendium, 7–12.
8 Lu Xun, “The Crisis,” 590–593.
9 Zhou Zuoren, “On Essay Writing” (Guanyu xie wenzhang) in Zhong Shuhe, ed., Complete Essays of
Zhou Zuoren (Zhou Zuoren sanwen quanji, hereafter as SWQJ) (Guilin: Guangxi shida chubanshe,
2009), vol. 6, 461–463.
10 Wu Zuxiang, “Preface to Prose Work, Part I” (Xu), Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature, 1927–1937
(Zhongguo xinwenxue daxi 1927–1937) (Shanghai: Shanghai Wenyi chubanshe, 1986), vol. 10, 2.
11 Kirk Denton and Michel Hockx, eds., Literary Societies of Republican China (Lanham, MD: Lexington
Books, 2008), 401.
12 She Shusen, A Study of Modern and Contemporary Chinese Essays (Zhongguo xiandangdai sanwen yanjiu)
(Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1993), 39.
13 Zhou Zuoren, “Manifesto of the Literary Research Society” (Wenxue yanjiuhui xuanyan), Complete
Essays of Zhou Zuoren, vol. 2, 296.
14 Zhou Zuoren, “The Ivory Tower on the Crossroads” (Shizi jietou de ta), Complete Essays of Zhou
Zuoren, vol. 4, 75–77.
15 Zhou Zuoren, “Reading Behind the Closed Door” (Bihu dushu lun), Complete Essays of Zhou Zuoren,
vol. 5, 509–511.
16 Zhou Zuoren, “Wenfan xiaopin,” Complete Essays of Zhou Zuoren, vol. 6, 367.
17 Zhou Zuoren, “The Japanese Rakugo,” (Riben de luoyu) SWQJ vol. 7, 139–140.
18 Zhou Zuoren, “Pure View,” (Jingguan), Complete Essays of Zhou Zuoren, vol. 4, 78–80.
19 Zhou Zuoren, “China’s Comic Literature” (Zhongguo de huaji wenxue), Complete Essays of Zhou
Zuoren, vol. 7, 236–242.

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20 Zhou Zuoren, “The Road of the Miscellaneous Essay” (Zawen de lu), Complete Essays of Zhou Zuoren,
vol. 9, 422.
21 Hannah Arendt, “Introduction to Walter Benjamin” Illuminations (New York: Schocken Books, 1968), 47.
22 Shu Wu, “An Overview of Zhou Zuoren” (Zhou Zuoren gaiguan) Zhou Zuoren: Merits and Faults
(Zhou Zuoren de shifei gongguo) (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1993), 137.
23 Zhou Zuoren, “Articles by Two Demons,” Complete Essays of Zhou Zuoren, vol. 9, 644.
24 Zhou Zuoren, “Tea Drinking” (He cha), Complete Essays of Zhou Zuoren, vol. 3, 568–570.
25 Zhou Zuoren, “Tea Drinking,” 568–569.
26 Zhou Zuoren, “Beijing’s Tea Snacks” (Beijing de chashi), Complete Essays of Zhou Zuoren, vol. 3,
376–377.
27 Zhou Zuoren, “Preface to Book of Tea” (Chazhishu xu), Complete Essays of Zhou Zuoren, vol. 9, 323–324.
28 Zhou Zuoren, “Preface to A Book of Rainy Days” (Yutian de shu xu), Complete Essays of Zhou Zuoren,
vol. 3, 242.
29 Zhou Zuoren, “Tea Drinking,” 568–569.
30 Zhou Zuoren,“The Upper and Lower Body” (Shang xia shen), Complete Essays of Zhou Zuoren, vol. 4, 40.
31 Zhou Zuoren, “Tea Snacks,” 377.
32 Zhou Zuoren, “A Letter to Puyi” (Zhi Puyi jun shu), Complete Essays of Zhou Zuoren,vol. 3, 537–538.
33 Lu Xun, “Drinking Tea” (He cha) Collected Works vol. 5, 331–332.
34 Lin Yutang, “A Letter to Qian Xuantong” (Gei Xuantong xiansheng de xin) Collected Works of Lin Yutang
(Lin Yutang mingzhu quanji) (Changchun: Dongbei shida chubanshe, 1994), vol. 13, 10–11.
35 Qian Suoqiao, “Representing China: Lin Yutang vs. American ‘China Hands’ in the 1940s,” Journal of
American-East Asian Relations (2010), vol. 17, no. 2, 99–117.
36 Charles Laughlin, The Literature of Leisure, 109.
37 Lin Yutang, “On Humor” (Lun youmo) Collected Works vol. 14, 12.
38 Lu Xun, “Anniversary of Lunyu” (Lunyu yinian) Collected Works vol. 4, 582.
39 Lin Yutang, “Touring Hangzhou in a Spring Day” (Chunri you Hang ji) The Analects (1933), vol. 17,
615–618.
40 Ibid., 616.
41 Yuan Ying, “Preface to Prose – Part I” (Xu), Chinese New Literature Series, 1949–1976 (Zhongguo xin-
wenxue daxi 1949–1976) (Shanghai: Shanghai Wenyi chubanshe, 1997), vol. 9, 4.
42 Charles Laughlin, “Incongruous Lyricism: Liu Baiyu,Yang Shuo and sanwen in Chinese Socialist Cul-
ture” in The Modern Chinese Literary Essay, 115.
43 Xiao Yunru, “A Dispersed Textual Body with a Concentrated Spirit,” (Xingsan shen busan) People’s
Daily (Renmin ribao), sec.8, May 12, 1961.
44 Zheng Yi, Contemporary Chinese Print Media: Cultivating Middle Class Taste (London: Routledge, 2013),
108.
45 Zhang Yuanfen, “Beauty Is Valueless Without Being Truthful: On Yang Shuo’s Essays During the Three
Years’ of Difficulty in the 1960s,” Jiangsu shida xuebao (1980), vol. 3, 83–85.
46 Charles Laughlin, “Incongruous Lyricism,” 122.
47 Ibid., 127.

Further readings
Daruvala, Susan. Zhou Zuoren and an Alternative Chinese Response to Modernity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Asia Center, 2000.
Laughlin, Charles. The Literature of Leisure and Chinese Modernity. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press,
2008.
Li, Tonglu. “To Believe or Not to Believe: Zhou Zuoren’s Alternative Approaches to the Chinese Enlight-
enment.” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 25.1 (Spring 2013): 206–260.
Pollard, David, ed. and trans. A Chinese Look at Literature:The Literary Values of Chou Tso-jen in Relation to the
Tradition. London: C. Hurst and Co., 1973.
———. The Chinese Essay. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000.
Qian, Jun. Liberal Cosmopolitanism: Lin Yutang and Middling Chinese Modernity. Leiden: Brill, 2011.
Woesler, Martin. ed. The Modern Chinese Literary Essay: Defining the Chinese Self in the 20th Century. Bochum:
Bochum University Press, 2000.

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 SECTION VII

Literature of revolutionary realism

 22
NOVELS OF ZHAO SHULI
AND SUN LI
Chronicles of new peasantry

Tonglu Li

From “Old Peasantry” to “New Peasantry”

Peasantry has been a constant concern for modern Chinese fiction writers. Traditionally, this
social class has been enjoying a symbolically high status (lower than scholars but higher than
artisans and merchants), but in reality it is often the opposite. Within the cultural climate of the
May Fourth enlightenment during the late 1910s and early 1920s, writers shared an attitude
towards the peasantry, which in Lu Xun’s words, is a mixture of compassion for their miserable
sufferings and outrage with their submissive attitude and slave-mindedness. In his “Hometown”
(Guxiang, 1921), Lu Xun describes how the narrator “I” is shocked upon seeing his childhood
friend Runtu, a once lively, healthy and eloquent boy who now becomes numb, silent, supersti-
tious and obedient.1 The shock “I” experience therefore comes from not only the actual suf-
fering created by the miserable living conditions Runtu has been going through, but also the
spiritual and psychological barrenness he demonstrates.The “home-returning” for “I” thus is not
a celebrated process to fulfill a nostalgic sentiment, but a traumatic encounter through which the
urgency of enlightenment for the peasantry is highlighted.
Inspired by Lu Xun, a group of rural-rooted young writers, including Xu Jie (1901–1993),
Tai Jingnong (1902–1990), and Jian Xian’ai (1906–1994), created a school of nativist literature
(xiangtu wenxue), which mainly reflects on the harshness and ignorance of the peasantry life in
their hometown through the lens of enlightenment discourses.2 It is worth noting that, how-
ever, unlike the 19th-century Russian writers such as Lev Tolstoy (1828–1910), these Chinese
writers seldom resorted to religion to express their sympathies toward the peasantry: to the
enlightenment-minded writers, religion can only provide a false hope for the hopeless. Under
the gaze of the enlightenment, which intended to create a secular modernity based on science
and democracy, the peasantry is a social class associated with slave-mindedness, backwardness
and ignorance, a class to be awakened with modern knowledge.
Nevertheless, the problem regarding the peasantry is first a political one: when action resisting
the social injustice imposed on them was urgently demanded from the peasantry, the Leftist lit-
erature voiced the call to arms after the White Terror in 1927. Therefore, contrary to the passive
peasantry images of the 1920s literature, the 1930s saw much positive creative accounts of the
peasantry. Representation of their awakening and resistance can been found in the works of such
leftist writers as Mao Dun (1896–1981), Ding Ling (1904–1986), Zhang Tianyi (1906–1985)

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 Tonglu Li

and Wu Zuxiang (1908–1994). In Mao Dun’s Village Trilogy (Nongcun sanbuqu, 1932–1933),
for example, when old Tongbao still relies on his superstitious beliefs and his conventional way
of life in dealing with their financial crises caused by the capitalist and imperialist forces, his
younger son Ah Duo eventually chooses to resort to armed resistance.
What, then, constitute the “new peasantry” created by the writers in the communist occu-
pied areas during the 1940s and then the 1950s? Based on the works of Ding Ling (1904–1986),
Zhao Shuli (1906–1970), Zhou Libo (1908–1979), Liu Qing (1916–1978) and Sun Li (1913–
2002) who have been regarded as the representative writers of rural life, we note that such
“newness” first lies in the political agency assigned to the peasantry, who even “cannot represent
themselves.”3 Now portrayed as political activists who educated themselves to take initiative in
pursuing a different way of life against the oppressive social classes and conventional ideologies,
they are no longer sheer objects of the writers’ compassion, or passive figures awaiting to be
enlightened or saved. The dream of the May Fourth enlightenment seems to have been realized
in their proactive struggle for free marriage, women’s liberation, modern education, economic
rights, and for eradicating superstition and political oppression. Eventually, through this process
they are no longer isolated as what Marx called a “sack of potatoes,” but well organized as a class
with distinctive political objectives: self-liberation in line with national salvation. As the previous
“subaltern,”4 they now can speak on behalf of themselves, and can act confidently with clear
agendas in mind. These substantial changes lead to their becoming more optimistic and humor-
ous, as can be seen in Zhao Shuli and Sun Li’s works.
Genealogically speaking, therefore, the “new peasantry” images are the decedents of the
earlier literature on peasantry rather than a pure political fabrication created in observing the
decree of Mao’s 1942 “Yan’an Talks.”5 Yet, it is undeniable that, underlying this progressive ten-
dency in portraying the peasantry, there is the conscious endeavor of the Communist Party
to institutionalize literature as a political and ideological instrument in mobilizing the masses.
Under the new literary regime in Yan’an, workers, peasants and soldiers become the center of
literary production and consumption. Characters and plots turn to be more dichotomous with
the struggle between the progressive poor and the backward rich forces becoming the structural
guideline.
Criticism of the peasantry in literary works is discouraged. As Mao says, “the workers and
peasants were the cleanest people, and, even though their hands were soiled and their feet
smeared with cow dung, they were really cleaner than the bourgeois and petit-bourgeois intel-
lectuals.”6 Consequently, the May Fourth cosmopolitanism gave way to the cult of the national
(constituted with the traditional and the folk) culture, within which the peasants became not
only morally “clean,” but also a fundamental political force, and producers of true knowledge.
Advocating folk literary forms and aesthetic taste welcomed by the peasantry became the new
norm, and the richness and ambiguity in literary works gave place to simple and straightforward
rhetoric to cater the taste of the peasants.
However, embodying the “correct” political thought and representing the direction of social
progress, many of such “new peasantry” characters – such as those created by Zhao Shuli, Sun
Li and Liu Qing – tend to be unrealistic. Ironically, the most impressive characters are often
those “middle characters” (zhongjian renwu) standing in a grey zone who are neither heroes
nor villains.7 In the 1950s and 1960s, socialist realism, an ideology-bound literary theory bor-
rowed from the Soviet Union became the dominant.What it demanded from writers is faithfully
reflecting the reality while correctly imagining the teleological future. In this process, the peas-
antry gradually acquired the status of ideal political agents as the socialist “New Man.”8
When the directives to write peasantry in light of the ruling ideology were pushed to the
extreme, even the “model” peasant writers Zhao Shuli and Sun Li were unable to adapt. They

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had to reconcile between the political call of the Party and their inner call for being truthful.
In many of their writings, there are easily discernable traces of inconsistency, contradictions
and ruptures. When things went extreme, these writers paid high prices for their “incorrect”
representation of peasantry life during the Cultural Revolution. Consequently, what readers
could read about peasantry life was a novel by Hao Ran (1932–2008) titled The Golden Avenue
(Jinguang dadao, 1972), in which the protagonist Gao Daquan (meaning sublime, grand and per-
fect) leads the villagers to construct the socialist countryside. Starting from the 1980s, this utopic
depiction of the peasantry has first been replaced by the more realistic works of Gao Xiaosheng
(1928–1999) and He Shiguang (b. 1942). Later on, in the dystopic fictions of Liu Heng (b. 1954),
Mo Yan (b. 1955) and Yu Hua (b. 1960), etc., peasantry absurdly becomes the victim of historical
violence that intended to emancipate them.

Zhao Shuli: writing on behalf of the peasantry

Life and career

Zhao Shuli was born into a peasantry family in Qinshui, Shanxi, in 1906. At his young age, he
received heavy influence from his grandfather, who was a member of a local cult that mixed
Confucian, Daoist and Buddhist beliefs. He also learned farming, fortune telling and traditional
medicine from his father, and developed a life-long enthusiasm for local theater. Since 1923
Zhao taught at elementary school, and in 1925, he attended a teachers’ school, where he exten-
sively read in May Fourth literature and wanted to share it with his father. He was surprised
to discover that his father did not appreciate it. He also engaged in anti-Nationalist political
activities. He was arrested in 1929 by the Nationalist government, but soon was released. Later
on, he wandered for a few years working as substitute teacher, editor and freelance writer. Being
paranoid of political persecution, he even attempted suicide in 1934. In 1936, he joined the anti-
Japanese effort as a cultural worker. During that period, Zhao started writing fiction and plays.
He explored ways for his literary works to reach the less-educated peasantry like his father, and
consciously rejected the Europeanized literature style of the May Fourth period.
Zhao’s call to creating a literature for the peasantry readers did not get much attention until
Mao’s “Yan’an Talks” were delivered in 1942. In 1943 he became widely known for publish-
ing the short stories “Little Erhei Got Married” (Xiao erhei jiehun) and “The Rhymes of Li
Youcai” (Li Youcai banhua), both focused on the new social changes in the rural area with a
style familiar to the peasantry readers. To the general readers he provided a mode of literature
that is distinctively different from the May Fourth paradigm. Soon he was “discovered” by Zhou
Yang (1908–1989) as the representative writer who had put into practice Mao’s literary theory
through creating “the collective image of the new peasantry.”9 In 1946, he published a novel The
Changes in the Li Village (Lijiazhuang de bianqian). It illustrates how the underdog peasant Tiesuo
grows into an enlightened veteran fighter in the political struggles between the rich and poor
before and during the anti-Japanese war. Mao Dun praises Zhao’s fiction as “a milestone toward
the national form of literature.”10 After 1949, Zhao invested much of his energy in promoting
folk and popular culture in Beijing, but still maintained close contact with peasants by observing
their life, working with them, and participating in their social and political life.
A loyal follower notwithstanding, Zhao was by no means a blind follower of the Party policy
in his writing. Rather, proud of being a “peasant writer,” he believed that he could faithfully
represent peasantry’s interest, which was why he encountered increasing challenges to maintain
a subtle balance between being faithful in representing peasants’ life and giving appropriate
response to the increasingly radicalized political mandate. Nevertheless, it was no longer possible

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for him to speak truth to power on behalf of the peasantry. Since the mid-1950s, a rupture
between the explicit message and the implied meaning in his works can often be observed.11
Based on his first-hand experiences, he published a novel Sanliwan Village (Sanli wan, 1956) to
question the radical measures of collectivization.To make it worse, instead of regarding the Party
as the omnipotent, progressive force to fight against the “feudalistic” conventions, Zhao tried to
reveal the problems of corruption within the Party itself. Zhao was occasionally criticized by
the Writers’ Association for distorting the reality of the new countryside, and eventually, he was
accused of vilifying the peasantry class by the public. Targeting on the corruption of the rural
Party leaders, his 1964 play Ten Miles Town (Shili dian, 1965) could not even get approval for
public performance. After years of criticism and persecution in the Cultural Revolution, Zhao
died in 1970.

Literary achievements
To a large extent, Zhao did successfully present the power dynamics of an “earthbound China”
unseen in previous generation writers’ works. In his hands, literary writing became part of actual
political struggle. However, his becoming the new paradigm of Maoist literature is rather unfor-
tunate. For a long time, the evaluation of Zhao’s writings has been ideologically charged. Despite
his independent endeavor to popularize literature for the peasantry since the 1930s, his writings
have been regarded as the direct embodiment of Mao’s literary theory.12 Leading literary figures
such as Guo Moruo and Mao Dun all praised his achievements in transcending the urban and
elite-oriented May Fourth paradigm. His status rose to such a point that during a symposium in
1947, the literary critic Chen Huangmei proposed for writers to follow “the Zhao Shuli direc-
tion,”13 which is an honor only second to Lu Xun, who, according to Mao, represents “the direc-
tion of Lu Xun is the direction of the new Chinese culture.”14 However, in C.T. Hsia’s wholesale
dismissal of the Communist literature, Zhao’s writings are regarded as valueless propaganda. He
writes, “Chao Shu-li’s clumsy and clownish style is utterly incompetent to serve the purposes
of narration, and his so-called new subject matter is merely a rehash of the familiar themes of
anti-feudalism and Communist benevolence. ‘The Marriage of Hsiao Erh-hei’ is a simple tale
designed to discredit superstition and praise the new marital freedom under Communism.”15
On top of the obvious traces of the Cold War narrative in Hsia’s comments, we can sense the
typical condescending attitude toward the peasantry-based culture.
Nevertheless, the literary heritage of Zhao is too complex and problematic to sacralize or dis-
miss.16 In a way, the opinions of Zhao’s contemporaries, especially those of the outside observ-
ers, might help us understand the historical context in which his works were received. The
American Journalist Jack Belden, who interviewed Zhao in 1947, provided a middle ground.
To him, the “beggar writer” Zhao’s stories “contained no propaganda. I saw no mention of the
Communist party. His descriptions of village life were charming, his humor piquant, his verses
highly original and some of his characters were salty.” Meanwhile, he was unsatisfied with the
literary quality of Zhao’s writings, complaining that, “the plots were mere outlines, the charac-
ters often bare types labeled with a name, but possessing no personality, and none of them were
fully developed. Worst of all, his stories dealt with outlined events and not with actually felt
emotions. Those deep passions which I found out from personal experience were stirring the
whole Chinese countryside found no record in his pages.”17 These comments are fair, at least
judging from Zhao’s most important works in the 1940s. Belden attributed these problems to
Zhao’s being occupied with multiple tasks in actual social works, and hoped that he would be
able to produce better quality works when the war was over.

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Masterpiece: “Little Erhei Got Married”

Published in 1943, “Little Erhei Got Married” is Zhao’s first best-known work. The story is
based on two lovers’ tragic story Zhao overheard: the village government intervened in the
lovers’ relationship and tortured the young man to death. Zhao was shocked by the tragedy,
especially by the fact that it happened one whole year after the new marital law had been put
into force in the communist occupied areas. He decided to bring this issue up with his writing.
However, Zhao transformed its tragic course into a story with a happy ending:18 In the small
village Liujia Jiao, the young peasants Little Erhei (Blackie) and Little Qin love each other, but
they have to face their conservative parents’ objection. In addition, they have to deal with the
local government. Appropriating the political power of the village, the villain Jinwang wants to
harass Little Qin and arrests Little Erhei, accusing him of having an illicit affair with Little Qin.
After continuous rebellion against their parents and unyielding struggle against Jinwang, the two
lovers finally get together with the intervention from the district government. Due to the pub-
lisher Xinhua Bookstore’s reluctance to recognize its artistic value, its publication was delayed.
It was published only after Peng Dehuai, a top commander of the army praised its quality. It
was an immediate success, and made its author a household name in the communist regions.19
Nevertheless, the success of “Little Erhei Got Married” cannot be entirely attributed to the
adaptation that Zhao has made to cater to the aesthetic taste of peasants who enjoy storytelling
and happy endings. It is also because that he writes with a problem-solving orientation: the story
does touch upon “down-to-earth, practical matters set against the background of wider political
and national developments.”20 Zhao’s rewriting of the story into a light comedy made it easier
for the peasants to seek practical instructions when encountering similar problems, and based
on readers’ response he is successful in this regard. Unlike many love stories that often come to
a tragic ending in world literary history, such as Romeo and Juliette, or Liang Shanbo and Zhu
Yingtai, whose obstacles mainly come from the parents or the feud between their families, Little
Erhei and Little Qin have to overcome multiple impediments related to family relationships,
cultural conventions and political power. Therefore, what lies beneath the story about freedom
of marriage is a story about the transformation of rural power structure. As Zhao has shown,
this power structure is sustained by the three teachings of Confucianism, Daoism, and Legal-
ism, whose change becomes the predicament for the individualistic dream of free marriage.
Through demonstrating how the rural power is structured and the ways through which it can
be changed to better serve the peasants’ life, this short story inherits, and goes beyond the May
Fourth enlightenment ideas.
Within the domestic sphere, Zhao presents an unstable power relationship that is much
more sophisticated than the textbook version of Confucian hierarchy on the male-centered
generational and gender relationships. A submissive figure facing unjust treatments, Little Erhei’s
father Er Zhuge relies on fortune telling to make a living, and regards The Book of Changes and
astrology as his philosophy of life. However, as his words repeatedly prove to be ineffective, he
loses authority and becomes a laughing stock in the family and village. Having no respect for
his superstitious beliefs and timidity, Little Erhei refuses to follow his commands on break-
ing up with Little Qin. To Zhao Shuli, these qualities represent the hope for transforming the
superstition-laden rural culture.
The conflicts between Little Qin and her mother San Xiangu are more intense and subtle
due to their intrasextual competition. Having an unsatisfied marriage, San Xiangu performs
Shamanistic rituals only for making money and attracting young men into her house. Her age-
inappropriate dressing and application of makeup make her a comic figure.21 However, what

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is new in this mother-daughter conflict is not that she wants Little Qin to have a happy life
according to her criteria, but that she is jealous of Little Qin in that the young men are attracted
to her house mainly because of her daughter. Instead of a religious faith, her philosophy that
“marriage is predestined” thus becomes a pure excuse to send Little Qin away. Similar to Little
Erhei, Little Qin is also rebellious and does not accept the arranged marriage. Meanwhile, the
conventional gender relationship is reversed in her family: although being unable to defeat her
daughter, San Xiangu has absolute authority over her husband, a hardworking but silent peasant
who even tolerates her being surrounded by other men.
“Little Erhei Got Married” demonstrates the author’s confidence that the power deciding
marriage is to shift from private to public, from the hands of religious practitioners to the secu-
lar government. The superstitious beliefs (often categorized as Daoist religion) has been run-
ning into bankruptcy for being ineffective, and their believers and ritual performers are being
caricatured as clownish figures in Zhao’s hands. It seems that, with the dramatic social changes,
the May Fourth proposal of science and democracy are ready to reign. Yet, it has to be on the
condition that they serve as part of the new ideology for a dramatic social transformation, which
in Zhao’s writings means the communist revolution. In discussing Zhao’s another short story
“Fugui”, Jack Belden acutely noticed how revolution replaced religion as the motor of social
transformation. He writes that, in a story “about a village bum who became a good man during
the ‘overturning’ movement,” “instead of God reforming man, it is the revolution that does so.”22
Some May Fourth thinkers were aware of the importance of religion in people’s life, but instead
of proposing to reform and incorporate it into the new culture, they suggested to replace it with
atheistic education, philosophy, science or arts,23 but none of these proposals got materialized.
As Zhao illustrates, forcing San Xiangu and Er Zhuge to give up their superstitious practices,
revolution assumes the authority to defeat such beliefs and bring happiness to the young couple.
Ironically, however, while Zhao optimistically dismissed the superstitious beliefs and mocked its
performers on behalf of enlightenment and revolution, things eventually turned to their oppo-
site: not only have the long-repressed superstitions revived to haunt rural China in post-Mao era,
but even the revolution itself has gradually revealed its nature of religiosity.
The transformation of people’s consciousness and domestic power relationships all rely on
the endorsement of the political and legal power from above. Therefore, regardless of the story’s
optimistic tone, what Zhao wants to caution against is the fact that without mobilizing the
masses, political enemies can appropriate and subvert revolution from within. Even though the
new administration has already been established, the former time vanillin Jinwang, along with
his wife and Xingwang, takes an important post and continues to bully and punish the villagers
at his pleases, and has the two lovers arrested. This happens because on one hand, the villag-
ers have suffered from wars and they want to mind their own business and thus are politically
inactive, and on the other, the village chief as a cadre coming from outside does not actually
understand the real situation. However, the solution comes conveniently from the district gov-
ernment’s intervention instead of the two lovers’ own effort. With authority as well as patience
in explaining the new policy, the strict director easily dismisses Er Zhuge and San Xiangu’s
request for not granting the marriage.
The critical challenge, however, is not about the marriage, but the mobilization of the vil-
lagers to complete the power transition through removing Jinwang and his followers from the
power structure. While many timid peasants are worried about retaliation, toward the end, the
young generation breaks the silence to tell the public the evildoing of Jinwang. Here Zhao
insightfully stresses the importance of the public ceremony of pidou, which provides the peasants
a platform to speak out their suffering and denounce the evildoers (the landlord class). In revo-
lutionary literature, this ceremony becomes the prerequisite for the suffering peasants to seek

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revenge and thus become the active agents of revolution. Eventually, through this ceremony the
power legitimately returned to the hands of the people. In the works of Ding Ling and Zhou
Libo we see more vivid descriptions of this form of popular justice/violence, which sometimes
could turn into an extremely arbitrary and violent carnival that eventually goes against the for-
mer revolutionaries including Zhao during the Cultural Revolution.
“Little Erhei Got Married” is an “architype” of his works. Overall, Zhao’s literary practice
represents the nativist sentiment of the peasantry pursuing subjectivity through establishing an
earthbound, homegrown modernity against the “borrowed” or “translated” modernity favor-
ing the elite classes. Competing with the May Fourth paradigm, Zhao ardently experimented
with adopting the art forms of the people, i.e., the native popular and folk arts such as drum
lyrics, story-telling, and local theater as a way to establish the new national literary form as Mao
demanded. In his late years, he further devoted himself to playwriting and reforming the local
theater from his hometown, because he believed that drama was a more popular art form among
the peasants than fiction. His popular writing style was so influential in his home province that
the literary school “The Potato School” came into being. However, although it was politically
correct during the 1950s and 1960s to stress the value of the popular and the folk forms, and his
works are still widely read today, his populist obsession with putting new wine into old bottles
received criticism for being less cosmopolitan than the May Fourth writers. As Sun Li points
out in 1979, while Zhao’s success in popularizing literature is unprecedented, no literary form is
superior to others by nature, and it has to be open to further development and to the influence
of other forms.24 Zhao’s unique practice does pose questions on the life of peasantry in modern
China: By what means can the peasants’ have a voice in national salvation and modernization?
How can a writer integrate the traditional, the local and the popular culture into modern cul-
ture? And, is a nativist-populist modernization without Westernization feasible.
While being occupied with such questions as women’s liberation, free marriage, social injus-
tice, and the harm of religion and superstition done to people’s consciousness, Zhao is still the
ardent spiritual heir of the May Fourth enlightenment. These recurring themes debuted in
“Little Erhei Got Married” are not simple “rehash” of pre-existing ones. Rather, if the May
Fourth writers focused more on the compassionate descriptions of the peasants’ suffering and
the vague hope for change, Zhao, initiating a “call to action,” highlights how such changes are
carried out by the peasants themselves. Further developing the Literary Research Society (and
Lu Xun)’s motto “literature for life’s sake” into a way to intervene reality, he proudly declared
his writings as “problem fiction.”25 He even hoped that his works could serve as instruction
manuals on political resistance and social reform for the peasants. While the prominent political
agenda made his writings exceptionally popular among readers at the time of publication, his
heavy pragmatic considerations and the hasty way of writing to respond to the ever-changing
political conditions turned his works into the opposite of literary creation. To make it worse, it
became detrimental when his literary creation became part of the political juggernaut driven by
the fanatical pursuers of a utopia.

Sun Li: a mainstream writer who stays on the margin

Life and career

Born into a peasant-merchant family in Anping, Hebei in 1913, Sun Li started to read the May
Fourth literature in high school. After graduation in 1933, he worked briefly in Beijing as a clerk
and elementary school teacher near his hometown before joining the Self-defense Army (led by
the Communist Party) in 1938. In this period, Sun mainly worked as writer, literary professor

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and journal editor to promote the idea of national defense against the Japanese invasion. From
1944 to 1945, he studied and taught at the Lu Xun Academy of Literature and Arts in Yan’an, the
Mecca of the communist revolution. There he gained his fame for his short stories, “The Lotus
Lake” (Hehua dian, 1945) and “The Reed Marsh” (Luhua dang, 1945). During the civil war, Sun
returned to work near his hometown, and continued to write about young peasant women’s
new life. In 1949, Sun settled in Tianjin as the editor of Tianjin Daily’s literary supplement.
Witnessing the numerous persecutions of his colleagues starting from the 1950s, Sun learned
to stay away from the political struggle. Working as an editor and writer, he mentored many
younger generation writers including Liu Shaotang and Cong Weixi. As a result the “The Lotus
Lake School” was allegedly formed around him, although Sun denied its existence.26 By 1966,
he published The Blacksmith and the Carpenter: A Prequel (Tiemu qianzhuan, 1956), a novella on
the collectivization movement, and The Stormy Years: Preliminary Records (Fengyun chuji, 1963),
a loosely structured novel on the anti-Japanese war in northern China. Suffering from a chronic
neurasthenia as a consequence of increasing political pressures, Sun never finished the second
halves of these works. He gave up writing during the Cultural Revolution. Since 1977, he wrote
ten collections, including essays, short stories and literary criticism. Naming his last book As the
Curtain Falls (Quzhong ji, 1995), Sun stopped writing, and died in 2002.

Literary achievements
Recently, scholars have noticed the irresolvable contradictions in his writings composed as
specimen of socialist literature, arguing that he is a “superfluous man” who does not actu-
ally agree with the approach of the revolutionary/socialist literature.27 In terms of style, unlike
Zhao, who was fascinated with the peasantry taste and chose his down-to-earth language and
story-centered style, Sun held an open attitude. He endorsed d the May Fourth literary style,
its humanistic value, and cosmopolitan vision, which can be seen through his learning from
Lu Xun and such foreign writers as Aleksandr Pushkin (1799–1837), Prosper Mérimée (1803–
1870) and Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) in creating his lyricized narrative style in his early
works. Both Sun and Zhao are renowned for writing on peasantry life. However, while Zhao
calls himself a peasant writer, Sun is believed to be a peasant-intellectual who observed the
peasants’ life through the lens of intellectual inquiry.28 Unlike Zhao who has a strong political
agenda to intervene in reality with his “problem fiction,” Sun has consciously maintained a criti-
cal distance from politics.This stance allows him to interpret “literature for life’s sake” differently:
writing from an individualistic perspective with a focus on the ethical and affective aspects.What
occupies the center in his works is not politics, but the effect of politics on peasants’ everyday
life, behavior, and consciousness. Nevertheless, we need to be cautious not to reduce the revolu-
tionary/socialist literature as something monolithic, or to regard Sun’s ideological and political
position as unchanging.
Sun Li’s writings in the 1940s depicted a world of young peasant women, and were close to
the themes of national salvation. To him the war and revolution as emancipatory forces were
sacred and sublime rather than cruel and violent. Nevertheless, it is inaccurate to state that
“t[T]he general tendency of Sun’s art is to lean heavily toward creating positive characters to inspire
his readers and to offer them stories that glorify the spirit of the nation, which fit the templates
of socialist realism.”29On the contrary, his fiction extols less the nation than the common people,
particularly young women, whose personality is transformed by war and revolution.The historic
events only function in his fiction as the milieu in which the mobilized and enlightened peasants
make changes to their life and thought, and meanwhile engage in reforming the society and sav-
ing the nation. Delving into conjugal relationships, everyday conducts, friendship, and nature, he

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explores the patterns of people’s life, especially the patterns of their thought and feeling,30 which
are both “heroic and quotidian”31 during the war and revolution. His best stories in this period
include “The Lotus Lake,” “The Reed Marsh,” “Glory” (Guangrong, 1948) and “Wu Zhaoer”
(Wu Zhaoer, 1949). As exemplified in “The Lotus Lake,” featuring the young peasant women
in their engagement in political, social and domestic life, his works acquire certain romantic and
lyrical features, which won them the name “poetic fiction.”
A fissure gradually appeared in Sun’s writing in the socialist era.To him, the war years were an
era of glory and sublimity, and the revolution formed a stark contrast to the banality of the peace-
ful days.32 With the coming of peace, he sensed the alienation of interpersonal relationships. The
aura of the secular divinity added to the everyday life, the communal solidarity and selfless devo-
tion faded away. People indulged in leisure seeking, social climbing, and calculation for personal
interest. More problems came from the political sphere. Apart from the political sword of Damo-
cles which he had to avoid, in writing itself he also needed to struggle between his political obli-
gation of concretizing the Zeitgeist of the new society following the doctrines of socialist realism,
and his artistic penchant of representing the reality as he observed and understood it. Dissatisfied
with the simplistic but popular ways of writing about rural life during the 1950s,33 he evinced
much hesitation and uncertainty when it came to writing about the collectivization movement,
its impact on human relationships and individual psyche. As such, a nostalgic lamentation of the
past and a deep apprehension for the present social reality loomed large in his writing. When he
chose to be faithful to himself, a masterpiece The Blacksmith and the Carpenter was born, but what
awaited him was endless criticism for writing it during the Cultural Revolution.34
Surviving the Cultural Revolution, Sun developed a more critically reflexive approach
toward literature. His lifelong concern of the basic human relationships eventually led him to
seek inspirations from traditional Chinese culture, especially Confucianism as criteria to recon-
sider the immediate “revolutionary” past. Often with a less embellished style and a serene, disil-
lusioned, sometimes melancholic tone, he re-presented the whole course of his past life largely
as a failure. He mourned the death of his wife, his father, and his literary friends – all belonging
to the cardinal relationships in Confucian terms, in such pieces as “Anecdotes of My Late Wife”
(Wangren yishi, 1982), “Remembering Yuan Qianli” (Yuan de huainian, 1976), and “In Memory
of Zou Ming” (Ji Zou Ming, 1989). These essays did not follow the track of “Scar Literature,”
which focuses on condemning political persecutions or harsh social competitions. Rather, they
focus on their innate merits as human (not as political subjects), and the unfathomable feelings
he had for them through chronicling the trivial but memorable moments. Sun documented
his traumatic encounters during the Cultural Revolution in Stories from the Studio of Yunzhai
(Yunzhai xiaoshuo, 1990). Being used to writing on the morally good and aesthetically beauti-
ful, Sun Li initially refused to touch upon the ugliness of this political movement. However, he
eventually changed his mind in order to preserve some authentic historical records for future
generations. He also remembered his early life in the countryside in a serial of essays “Home-
town Stories” (Xiangli jiuwen, 1980–1987). Reading against today’s China, the nostalgically
presented rural life not only retains accounts of a people’s history, but also constitutes a critique
of urbanization-centered rapid modernization and its ensuing ecological and moral deteriora-
tion. Sun Li’s artistic achievements are highly acclaimed in China. However, for reasons yet to
be explored, his works have rarely aroused scholarly attention in the West.

Masterpiece: The Blacksmith and the Carpenter

The Blacksmith and the Carpenter remains Sun’s most sophisticated and controversial work. First
published in 1956 in The People’s Literature, the novella narrates the vicissitudes of the friendship

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between the blacksmith and the carpenter and their children’s love relationship from the 1930s
to 1950s. During the hardships of the 1930s and 1940s, the poor blacksmith fleeing from a place
in the neighboring province forms a deep friendship with the carpenter. His young daughter
Jiu’er also cherishes a sense of mutual dependency with the carpenter’s son Liu’er. Later on,
when the blacksmith wants to return to his hometown with Jiu’er, they are caught in the war.
On their return home after much suffering, they see everything has changed. The carpenter has
already become wealthy man since the land reform, and their friendship ends. Liu’er has been
attracted to his new love, a young charming woman Xiaoman. While the blacksmith and his
daughter join the socialist co-op supported by the communist government, the carpenter and
Liu’er continue to expand their private businesses along with their “backward” friends.
In Sun’s presentation, the beautiful new world of socialism has already seen irrevocable rup-
tures at the initial stage. The carpenter enjoys expanding his enterprise into logistics business.
He still holds a deep faith in following the “heavenly principles,” which in the Grand Historian
Sima Qian’s terms, it is the Way for humans to satisfy one’s desires and earn dignity and status
through doing business.35 To the carpenter, politics may change, but it is imperative to observe
such principles in living one’s life.36 Spoiled by his carpenter father, Liu’er is inclined to have
fun in playing games over serious works since he was little, and as an adult, he avoids laborious
farming and prefers doing business, such as selling tofu and peanuts to make a profit. He is sensi-
tive to human feelings and is good at profit making. For example, without a mother and wife in
the family, he cares about his father by offering him good food. He is also good at pleasing the
young girls while doing business, and makes himself a popular figure. Nevertheless, he becomes
problematic in the eyes of the Party leaders who want to construct a socialist new countryside
centering on a collective life. They are recruiting loyal followers that do not raise questions
about its policies on building a new countryside.
Although Sun portrays those who loyally follow the Party’s call for collectivization as hon-
est and hardworking, they are presented as rigid, dull and inconsiderate. Liu’er’s brother Si’er
actively participates in studying and carrying out the Party’s policy. He leads the effort in fight-
ing against the desertification of their village. However, his father does not favor him for his
being stubborn and lack of considerate feelings. When the father proudly brags about how the
powerful people praised his carpentry skill before liberation, Si’er rebuffs with the view of class
analysis, arguing that those people were just evil exploiters, and such a dispute always irritates
his father. To make it worse, Si’er even proposes to eliminate the private businesses in his speech
on constructing the new socialist countryside.37 This proposal sounds not only arbitrary, but also
potentially violent. Unfortunately, it became a nationwide reality during the hasty collectiviza-
tion movement of the late 1950s.
Undoubtedly, the novella belongs to the chorus of praising the on-going collectivization by
presenting the competition between the pro-socialist and pro-capitalist peasants in northern
rural China, but soon readers discover that Sun had invested much of his energy in putting those
who resisted collectivization under the spotlight without caricaturing them as being “back-
ward,” as Zhao Shuli would have done. Focusing on the socially losing side, the novella turns out
to be an elegy lamenting the alienation of human relationships during drastic social transforma-
tion, with a subtle sense of loss and nostalgia imparted by a prevailing lyrical tone of narration.
The story unfolds from the perspective of children with questions on what enjoyments are fit
for children, and abruptly ends with a section praising childhood. This arrangement not only
provides a camouflaging encapsulation for the irresolvable ideological contradictions within the
text, but also sets the nostalgic tone for the whole book: a failing attempt to return to the time
of innocence and sincerity in the swirls of dramatic social changes. In the world of the adults, the
purposeless childhood enjoyments, such as catching birds, hunting rabbits become unacceptable

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to adulthood, and anyone who still enjoys such activities without engaging in “serious” works
will become “decadent” and dangerous: this never-returning enjoyment is the permanent loss
in human life. Allegorically, this nostalgia for childhood can also be read as apprehension of the
coming social changes that discard any subtle human feelings.
The Blacksmith and the Carpenter is haunted by a strong sense of indeterminacy and ambigu-
ity. While war and hardship foster their brother-like friendship, both the blacksmith and the
carpenter know that it only belongs to the past.38 The future seems to belong to the younger
generation. When returning to the village, Jiu’er dreams to develop her childhood relationship
with Liu’er further into a love relationship. Nevertheless, she finds that her competitor Xiaoman
is prettier and more attractive as a woman than she is. She loses the competition without much
struggle, because self-consciously she believes that Liu’er is on the wrong track of life and she
manages to rationalize that a serious relationship is based on mutual political understanding,
which hints at the possibility that she might eventually marry Si’er. Nevertheless, she feels at
loss toward the end of the story upon seeing Xiaoman go together with Liu’er to the city on
the cargo van newly manufactured by his carpenter father. What is left for her is the politically
active simpleton Si’er. As such, her devotion to the collective effort in constructing the country
can be read as a substitution for the emotional loss.39
The indeterminacy and ambiguity of the novella is fully embodied by the “backward” char-
acter Xiaoman. If Zhao Shuli’s Little Erhei embodies the positive features of the new peasantry,
Xiaoman is the opposite. A beautiful yet “problematic” young woman with an unhappy pre-
arranged marriage, she is invited by her non-biological, ugly sister to assist in running their
steam-bun business. She attracts young men wherever she goes and thus becomes the infamous
public enemy of the wives in the village. She can playfully hint at her sexual desire by letting
the pigeons kiss and mate when staying together with Liu’er. She likes to wonder alone aim-
lessly outside of the village in the middle of the summer night, with the aim to dissipate her
erotic fantasy and sexual desires arising from a loveless marriage.40 She resembles the fox spirits
(the embodiment of the male fantasy) who are good at enchanting men with their irresistible,
enigmatic charms, as depicted in Pu Songling’s Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (Liaozhai zhiyi,
1740).41 To some extent, she also reminds us of certain features of the femme fatale character in
Western culture, as her presence imposes a threat on the “normal” social order.
Of course, what the novella suggests is not that she deserves to be denounced or exorcized,
but that, fighting against her unhappy marriage and seeking happiness in an unconventional
way, she is at the crossroads of her life, which is dangerous yet tempting. Under her mischievous,
self-abandoning appearance is a painful soul struggling for a way out. Her vitality is uncon-
tainable, but she cannot find an acceptable way of expression in the countryside dominated by
conventional way of thinking.Yet she is determined not to seek help from the newly established
communist authority. She attends its group activity, but is only interested in the parts related
to the new marital law. She yearns to be understood and has discussed the unfathomable depth
of the human mind with the cadre intellectual from the provincial capital (the author’s pro-
jected self) who come to the village to investigate rural life. However, their relationship makes
a sudden turn when she attempts to seduce him with body language, and eventually dupes
him when he wants to help her by bring her to a meeting.42 Here, Xiaoman simultaneously
becomes his object of study, reeducation/salvation, and sexual desire. Problematic as she can
be, Xiaoman’s very presence indicates the impossibility for the author to create the socialist
new peasantry. Therefore, the narration eventually goes into a dead-end. Contrary to its well-
composed narrative style at the beginning of the text, the novella abruptly ends with an abstract
ode to childhood, due to the author’s illness, and perhaps also due to the irresolvable contradic-
tions in the text.

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In the final analysis, the novella signals the fading out of the optimistic lyricism and the
impeding appearance of melancholic realism in Sun Li’s writing. His endeavor to write apoliti-
cally seemed to be impossible.The people winning Sun’s sympathy are often ridiculed in Zhao’s
fiction.They often hold an epicurean attitude toward life following the time-honored “heavenly
principles,” and have more complex thought and subtle humane feelings than the “progres-
sive” characters, who are portrayed as rather simple and dull in character with a blind faith in
the Party. The rural Party branches tend to rely solely on the latter to carry out its policies in a
resolute and often violent way, and they tend to view the “backward” community members as
part of the “problems” to be resolved. In the mind of the “progressive” peasants, a good society
is simple and clean with no room for “backwardness,” which implies no space for individual
development. The novella thus reveals a substantial incompatibility between the “correct” class-
consciousness and the distinctive sense of humanism, which is based rather on Confucianism
than the Western ideas. Such an incompatibility indicates the schizophrenic tension between
the author’s conscious endorsement of the socialist ideology and his unconscious appreciation
of human feelings, desires and pleasures, despised as “petit-bourgeois sentiments” in the revolu-
tionary era. His melancholic attitude is, therefore, an omen of the upcoming period of political
turmoil he was compelled to undergo.

Notes
1 Lu Xun, “My Old Home,” (Guxiang) in Collected Works of Lu Xun (Lu Xun quanji) (Beijing: Renmin
wenxue chubanshe, 2005), vol. 2, 5–24.
2 For a review of the nativist literature, see Rosemary Haddon, “Chinese Nativist Literature of the 1920s:
The Sojourner-Narrators,” Modern Chinese Literature (Spring/Fall 1994), vol. 8, no. 1/2, 97–125.
3 Karl Marx, Selected Writings, ed., David McLellan (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 347.
4 Gayatri Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” in C. Nelson and L. Grossberg, eds., Marxism and the Inter-
pretation of Culture (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 271–313.
5 Yi-tsi Mei Feuerwerker, Ideology, Power,Text: Self-Representation and the Peasant “Other” in Modern Chinese
Literature (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), 105–113.
6 Mao Zedong, “Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art,” in Kirk Denton, ed., Modern Chinese
Literary Thought:Writings on Literature, 1893–1945 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), 462.
7 Robert Hegel, Popular Chinese Literature and Performing Arts in the People’s Republic of China, eds., Bonnie
S. McDougall and Paul Clark (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 208. For similar analysis,
also see Yi-tsi Mei Feuerwerker, Ideology, Power,Text, 122.
8 See Cheng, Yinghong, Creating the New Man: From Enlightenment Ideals to Socialist Realities (Honolulu:
University of Hawai’i Press, 2009).
9 Zhou Yang, “On Zhao Suli’s Creative Writinsg,” (Lun Zhao Shuli de chuangzuo) in Lun Zhao Shuli de
chuangzuo (Shenyang: Dongbei shudian, 1949), 10.
10 Mao Dun, “On ‘The Rhymes of Li Youcai’,” (Guanyu Li Youcai banhua) Lun Zhao Shuli de chuangzuo,
23–24.
11 Fan Jiajin, “On Zhao Shuli’s ‘Problem Fiction’ After 1949,” Theoretical Studies of Literature and Art (Wenyi
lilun yanjiu) (2003), vol. 2, 80–86.
12 Yi-tsi Mei Feuerwerker, Ideology, 100.
13 Chen Huangmei. “Marching Towards the Zhao Shuli Direction,” (Xiang Zhaoshuli de fangxiang mai-
jin) in Huang Xiuji, ed., Zhao Shuli yanjiu ziliao (Taiyuan: Beiyue Wenyi chubanshe, 1985), 197. Chen’s
article marks the highest point in assessing Zhao’s works. Meanwhile, there has never been uniformed
acknowledgement of Zhao’s approach, especially after 1949. See Hong Zicheng, A History of Contem-
porary Chinese Literature, trans. Michael Day (Leiden: Brill Press, 2007), 112–115.
14 Mao Zedong, “On the New Democracy,” (Xin minzhu zhuyi lun) Selected Works of Mao Zedong (Bei-
jing: Renmin chubanshe, 1964), vol. 2, 691.
15 C. T Hsia, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), 482.
16 Yi-tsi Mei Feuerwerker, Ideology, 104.
17 Jack Belden, China Shakes the World (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1970), 96.

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18 Li Maosheng and Lu Haiming, A Biography of Zhao Shuli (Zhao Shuli zhuan) (Beijing: Dangdai Zhong-
guo chubanshe, 2006), 53–54.
19 Ibid., 55.
20 T.M. McClellan, “Zhao Shuli,” in Thomas Moran, ed., Dictionary of Literary Biography – Chinese Fiction
Writers, 1900–1949 (New York: Thomson Gale, 2007), 336.
21 Today it is a consensus among critics that Zhao, with a sexist attitude, expressed limited sympathy for
San Xiangu. See Yi-tsi Mei Feuerwerker, Ideology, 123.
22 Jack Belden, China Shakes the World, 96.
23 Zhuo Xinping, “Global” Religions and Contemporary China (Quanqiuhua de Zongjiao yu Dangdai
Zhongguo) (Beijing: Sheke wenxian chubanshe, 2008), 364–366.
24 Sun Li, “On Zhao Shuli,” (Tan Zhao Shuli) in Collected Works of Sun Li (Sun Li quanji) (Beijing: Ren-
min wenxue chubanshe, 2004), vol. 5, 112.
25 Wang Xiaoping. “ ‘Problem Stories’ as Part of the ‘National Form’: Rural Society in Transition and
Zhao Shuli’s Peasant Stories,” Frontiers of Literary Studies in China (2012) vol. 6, no. 2, 208–231.
26 Bu Lili, “The Literature Weekly of Tianjin Daily and the Lotus Lake School,” Journal of Modern Chinese
Literature Studies (Zhongguo xiandai wenxue yanjiu congkan) (2016), vol. 2, 104–111.
27 Yang Lianfen, “Sun Li: The Superflous Person in revolutionary literature,” in Selected Articles from Mod-
ern Chinese Literature Studies: 1979–2009, volume on Authors and Works (Shanghai: Fudan University
Press, 2009), 342–359.
28 Zhao Jianguo, A Comparative Study of Zhao Shuli and Sunli (Zhao Suli Sun Li bijiao yanjiu) (Beijing:
Kunlun chubanshe, 2002), 95–108.
29 Ying Li-hua, A to Z of Modern Chinese Literature (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2010), 181.
30 Sun Li, “Fiction and Time,” (Xiaoshuo yu shidai) Collected Works, vol. 7, 267.
31 See Xiaobing Tang, Chinese Modern:The Heroic and the Quotidian (Durham, NC: Duke University Press,
2001).
32 Sun Li, “Memory of the Mountains,” (Shandi huiyi) Collected Works 244–252.
33 Liu Weidong, “Sun Li’s Critique of the 1950s’ Literature on Rural Life,” Journal of Modern Chinese Lit-
erature Studies (2016), vol. 5, 67–77.
34 Sun Li, “Notes on Book Covers,” (Shuyi wenlu) Collected Works vol. 2, 390–391.
35 Sima Qian, “The Biographies of the Money-Makers,” (Huozhi liezhuan) Records of the Grand Historian:
Han Dynasty II, trans. Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 433–454.
36 Sun Li, The Blacksmith and the Carpenter, Collected Works, vol.2, 107. For an English version, see Sun Li,
Sidney Shapiro et al., trans., The Blacksmith and the Carpenter (Beijing: Panda Books, 1982).
37 Ibid., 111–112.
38 Ibid., 121–122.
39 Ibid., 134–135.
40 Ibid., 127–128.
41 Zhang Qinghua, “Sun Li: Traditional Taste, Marginal Position, and Appreciation of Literature Value,”
Changcheng (2010), vol. 1, 152–154.
42 Sun Li, The Blacksmith, 140–144.

Further readings
Cheng,Yinghong. Creating the New Man: From Enlightenment Ideals to Socialist Realities. Honolulu: University
of Hawai’i Press, 2009.
Feuerwerker, Yi-tsi Mei. Ideology, Power, Text: Self-Representation and the Peasant “Other” in Modern Chinese
Literature. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998.
Hong, Zicheng. A History of Contemporary Chinese Literature.Translated by Michael Day. Leiden: Brill, 2007.
Hsia, C. T. A History of Modern Chinese Fiction. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999.
Matthews, Josephine. “Artistry and Authenticity: Zhao Shuli and His Fictional World,” Ph.D. Dissertation.
Columbus: The Ohio State University, 1991.
Montani, Adrienne. “Zhao Shuli and Socialist Realism.” Journal of South Asian Literature 27.2 (Summer, Fall
1992): 41–65.

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 23
ZHOU LIBO’S FICTION AND
THE HURRICANE
Marco Fumian

Life and career

Few writers are able to represent, with the arc of their entire literary career, the whole cycle
of genesis, development and demise of Maoist literature as emblematically as Zhou Libo. Born
in a modest family background in a Hunan village in 1908, a student of a modern high school
in Changsha in the late Twenties, he befriended the future “cultural czar” of the PRC, Zhou
Yang, in 1928, and soon decided to follow him to the revolutionary capital of Shanghai. There
he continued his education – turning in particular to the study of literature and the English
language – and took part, at the same time, in the underground political activities organized by the
Communist Party. Arrested by the Nationalist police in 1933, he was admitted after his release a
year later first by the League of the Left-Wing Writers and then by the Communist Party, both at
the recommendation of Zhou Yang. During this period, he began to establish himself as a leftist
literary critic and theorist, as well as a translator of foreign literature. His full-fledged revolution-
ary coming-of-age, however, occurred only with the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, when
he eventually abandoned the urban comfort of Shanghai and headed for the rugged brave new
world of Yan’an, where he arrived at the end of 1939, after having served at the front of the
Sino-Japanese conflict in Hebei as interpreter and war correspondent. Appointed a teacher in
the Lu Xun Academy (directed since 1940 by Zhou Yang), he delivered a course titled “Selected
Readings of Literary Masterpieces,” and began, in the meantime, to try his hand at literary crea-
tion, writing his first short stories. It was his participation in the Yan’an Forum on Literature and
Art convened by the CCP in 1942, however, which finally opened the floodgate of his artistic
creation. Following Mao’s instruction that writers must go among the masses to learn from the
masses, he worked for six months, between 1946 and 1947, as a cadre of a land reform work
team operating in a Manchurian village named Yuanbao, and subsequently immortalized the
events in which he took part in his first novel, The Hurricane (Baofeng zhouyu), published in two
parts first in 1947 and then in 1948. After the founding of the PRC, he successfully continued
his career as cadre-author penning in 1955 the novel River of Iron (Tie shui benliu) – which
celebrates the Communist struggles to build the national steel industry in the early years of the
Republic. Between 1959 and 1960 he completed the novel Great Changes in a Mountain Vil-
lage (Shanxiang jubian), a sweeping portrait of the collectivization movement in rural Hunan
that is commonly regarded as his highest artistic achievement. Attacked during the Cultural

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 Zhou Libo’s fiction and The Hurricane

Revolution, he resumed his writing at the beginning of the Reform Era, when he won an award
for a short story celebrating the valiant struggle of the Eight Route Army during the Anti-Japanese
War, “A Night on the Xiang River” (Xiangjiang yi ye). However, this was not the kind of writing
to be favored in the “New Era” inaugurated by Deng Xiaoping in 1978. He died in 1979.

Literary achievements
As countless other modern intellectuals of his time, Zhou Libo was also exposed, in his early
years, to the cosmopolitan zeitgeist of the May Fourth period, and attracted to the liberal values
of the Western Enlightenment (his pen name, Libo, was in fact a phonetic transcription of the
English word “liberty”). He was, nevertheless, much more readily keen on aligning himself,
since the beginning of his career, with the anti-imperialist, class-based nationalist agenda of
the revolutionary literary camp, certainly due to the influence of his friend and mentor Zhou
Yang. Indeed, it is very easy to see, in his earliest writings of literary theory, the tendency to
view literature primarily as an instrument of ideological propaganda, whose concrete task, in
the context of the “national defense literature” promoted in the mid-Thirties by Zhou Yang,
was specifically to encourage the Chinese masses to revolt against their national enemies, both
internal and external.1 Likewise, while during his tenure at the Lu Xun Academy he expressed
genuine admiration for the humanist ideals of Western “bourgeois” culture,2 and revealed a
strong interest in the literary tradition of Western “critical” realism (he discussed in his lectures,
among others, authors such a Balzac, Maupassant, Tolstoj, Dostoesvky and so on), he felt much
more in tune, as noted by Richard King, with the ideas and values of Soviet socialist realism,
with its more positive aspiration to represent reality “not as it is,” but “as it is going to be,” so as
to “transform the boundaries of the human souls.”3 It was the Rectification Campaign started in
the wake of the Yan’an Talks that put a halt, once and forever, to his previous waverings. Right
after the Talks, he plunged into a spell of vehement self-criticism in which he firmly repudiated
his former “petit-bourgeois” inclinations, condemned the “poison” contained in the Western
literary texts he taught at the Lu Xun Academy, and wholeheartedly embraced all of Mao’s
recommendations to write of the masses, in the language of the masses, in order to serve the
masses.4 The result was the creation of The Hurricane, an epic portrayal of the land reform move-
ment in Northeast China that was soon to gain lavish praises on the part of the Chinese Com-
munist critics for its truthfulness of representation, liveliness of expression and capacity to move
the readers. As the novel was graced with the award, in 1950, of the Stalin Prize – the Soviet
literary prize established for masterpieces of socialist realism produced in the countries of the
Communist bloc – it was viewed by the critics of the PRC as a shining example to emulate. It
is therefore appropriate to say that the most outstanding literary achievement attained by Zhou
Libo in writing The Hurricane, was to provide, as noted by Richard King, “a model for future
endeavors for Chinese socialist fiction based on Soviet socialist realism.”5

The Hurricane
When the Party launched the land reform movement, during the last years of the Civil War
(1946–1949), its purpose was not simply to redistribute the land to the less privileged peasants
as a way to create the basis of a more equal economy in rural China. Its goal, in fact, was much
more ambitious, as the land reform was meant to be no less than the instrument to tear down
the old “feudal” system with its social hierarchies, cultural beliefs and moral norms that had
dominated Chinese society for centuries and constituted an obstacle to China’s entry into a
modern stage of development. Only by overthrowing the power of the rural elite – the class of

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the “landlords,” in the language of the Party – could the Party not only redistribute the land to
the landless, but also liberate the Chinese peasants from the fetters of traditional authority, and
thus start its project of building a modern nation-state, transforming both the economic base
of society and the worldview of the Chinese people according to the goals of the Communist
ideology. To achieve this end, however, the Party first needed to persuade the Chinese peasants
to participate in the revolutionary process, educate them in the ideology of class struggle, and
guide them into thinking of themselves as an oppressed class, so that they could rise collectively
and voluntarily against those deemed responsible of their oppression. In this context, Zhou
Libo, taking up the task of educating the masses assigned by the Party to the Communist cul-
tural workers, provides a didactic account of the land reform through his novel, The Hurricane.
The first part of the novel narrates how the poor peasants of Yuanmao village, guided by a work
team of the Communist Party, gradually gain consciousness of their oppression by the landlord
Han Laoliu (Han Sixth) and finally win their liberation by learning to revolt against him. In the
second part, he recounts how the same peasants, after an initial setback due to the departure of
the work team from the village, continue to march on the path of their revolutionary awaken-
ing, struggling against other landlords, distributing the land, dividing their properties, and finally,
after having brought the “middle peasants” into their fight as an ally, completing the task of land
reform in their village.The story is organized, as I have already noted, according to the principles
of socialist realism, whose basic requirements are, in their original Soviet formulation, to provide
“a true, historical, and concrete depiction of reality in its revolutionary development,” for the
sake of “the ideological re-education and training of workers in the spirit of socialism.”6 This
entails, first of all, that Zhou Libo must base the plot on the real historical events in which he
took part to create the maximum effect of truthfulness: thereby his meticulous efforts to draw
source materials from the first-hand experiences he had as a land reform cadre, create his char-
acters out of the people he met in those circumstances, and mimetically reproduce the distinc-
tive idioms of the social environment he portrays. At the same time, he must re-construct these
events and characters according to specific patterns predetermined by the official ideology so
as to re-signify them into a didactic narrative capable of educating the readers according to the
goals of the Party. The result of doing so is the creation of an exemplary parable that on the one
hand fixes the memory of “what happened” in the specific historical event of the land reform
movement according to the ideological “truth” sanctioned by the Party, and on the other hand
traces the blueprint of “what must happen,” illustrating the correct courses of action that are to
be imitated in order to reproduce the events depicted in the story.
What follows is dedicated to the illustration of this parable. In particular, as the general aim
of this book is to examine how modern Chinese literature participated in the endeavor to mod-
ernize the consciousness of the Chinese people, I will point out how Zhou Libo contributed to
this goal by showing with his didactic narrative the ideal process through which peasants had to
be educated so that they could develop a class awareness that would turn them into conscious
agents of change allied with the party in the pursuit of the socialist modernity. This process is
presented by Zhou Libo as a program of enlightenment through which peasants are taught to
take autonomous action after they have learned the truth about their real condition of oppres-
sion on the part of the landlords. This truth, however, is an ideological construct that has been
established a priori by the party, supposed to provide a universal paradigm of belief and action
that was to be applied in all situations of real life struggle, regardless whether or not it actually
matched specific cases of reality.This means that while on the narrative plane the novel exempli-
fies a coherent process of enlightenment, what it actually does in real life is to lead its readers to
believe in some doctrinal generalizations that might in many cases go against the empirical evi-
dence of what they experienced. This, as I will note in the conclusion, is the basic contradiction

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of Zhou Libo’s educational conception, which points to the limits of the Communist pedagogi-
cal efforts conducted through the literary mode of socialist realism.

Revolutionary enlightenment
When Mao predicted, in his 1927 Report on an Investigation of the Hunan Peasant Movement, that
peasants would “rise like a hurricane,” sweeping “all the imperialists, warlords, corrupt officials,
local tyrants and evil gentry into their graves,”7 he did not really intend to say that they would be
able to do it alone. Bound as they were by the “ropes” of the despotic feudal tradition, they were
not capable to transform their spontaneous insurrectional tendencies into conscious revolution-
ary movements, so they needed, to overthrow once and forever the system by which they had
been subjugated, to be first mobilized and guided by the force that had understood and was able
to drive the process of modern historical change, that is, the Communist Party.Thus the first part
of The Hurricane – whose programmatic aim is precisely to pay homage to Mao’s vision prov-
ing the correctness of his prophetic thesis – opens up with the sudden arrival, at the village of
Yuanmao, of a CCP work team: a horse-driven carriage laden with fifteen resolute and youthful
Communist men, its wheels screeching loudly on the mud-covered road, comes to shake off the
drowsiness of the countryside immersed in the heat of the summer and shrouded in the repeti-
tive cycles of the agricultural life. The message in the description is clear: only the Party can set
in motion the “cataclysmic changes” that are about to begin. The arrival of the work team, with
its abrupt and forceful insertion in the inert body of the traditional rural society, symbolizes,
as Tang Xiaobing has noted, the “arrival of history,” which is about to bring an entirely “new
symbolic order.”8 Clearly, this order is that of Maoist modernity, with its logic of revolutionary
progress operating on the dialectic of class struggle.
Given the importance of the Party’s leadership role, great emphasis is conferred in the novel
to the character of the work team leader, Xiao Xiang, whose function is to represent, as observed
by Li Yang, the “voice” of the Party’s modernity.9 Partly modelled by the author on himself,
and intended to serve as a paragon for the peasant cadres in charge of carrying out the land
reform, team leader Xiao – sometimes amicably called “old Xiao” – is characterized as a wise,
empathetic and uncompromising middle-aged man (in spite of him being only thirty-four),
who acts as a benevolent father figure epitomizing the ethics of the Party by personal example.
It is the theoretical and practical rationality of his working style, however, that designates him as
the spokesman for the modern attitude engendered by the CCP. A passionate man, inclined to
become enraged when the class enemies try to fool him with their tricks, he nevertheless always
manages to remain cool-headed and self-controlled, as “the heavy responsibility towards the
tasks of the Party made him realize that the cause of liberation required him to ponder calmly
all sides of a matter.”10 All his actions are guided by the principle of “seeking truth from facts.”
“Xiao Xiang knew all too well,” writes Zhou Libo in another passage, “that knowing the situ-
ation and grasping all information was one of the bases for accomplishing the cause of people’s
liberation.”11 Thus we often see him ruminating over the official directives of the Party (he is, in
fact, the only character about whom Zhou Libo reveals substantial psychological activity), some-
times in the dim light of his room in the middle of the night; or when he walks around Yuanmao
to investigate, like a veritable social scientist, the conditions of the villagers, asking them ques-
tions, trying to understand their thinking, and reconstructing their personal social background;
or when he stimulates democratic discussion in the course of the numerous meetings convened
by the work team to mobilize the peasants. It is this attitude that ultimately allows him to know
objectively the substance of every situation and decide on the correct action to take, making him
the infallible executor of the revolutionary telos.

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 Marco Fumian

As the interpreter and propagator of the historical truth discovered by the Party, Xiao Xiang
is essentially an educator, whose function is to enlighten those around him, guiding them to
see this truth. As such he acts as a mentor, in the first place, for his less experienced Communist
subordinates such as Liu Heng, a genuinely committed intellectual comrade who is nevertheless
characterized, given his stereotyped “petit-bourgeois” tendencies, as conceited, short-tempered,
dogmatic and sometimes pessimistic; or Xiao Wang, who, albeit being an unfaltering revolution-
ary flaunting a superb class background (he is the son of a Communist martyr brutally murdered
by the Japanese), is still too rash and naïve due to his young age. His educational function, how-
ever, is more importantly targeted at enlightening the peasants of the village, whom the work
team, as I have already noted, has the obligation to mobilize (the word used in the novel is fadong,
whose meaning is more precisely that of “setting in motion”) in the attack on the landlord Han
Laoliu in order to destroy the oppressive feudal system he represents. The indispensable condi-
tion to achieve this goal, as the work team leader repeatedly reminds, is that the work team does
not replace the peasants in doing the job: “If it is not the masses themselves who will make a
clean sweep of the feudal bastion, the feudal forces will by no means cave in, and even if you kill
one Han Laoliu, there will be another one to take his place” (Ibid., 89). The difficulty, however,
is that in their first contacts with the work team the villagers are passive and fearful, resigned to
accept their plight as inevitable and unchangeable, and remain superstitiously attached to their
fatalistic beliefs. Awed by the tyrannical threat of the landlord, and skeptical about the capacity
of the Communist Party to secure an enduring foothold on the village, most of them initially
comply with the work team exclusively due to their ingrained habit to acquiesce to those in
power. The first job of the work team, therefore, rather than liberating them from the landlord,
is to free them from their own ignorance and fear, gradually helping them see the true situation
of their oppression, overcome their fear to express their grievances, and finally take action to
subvert the feudal order.
The first part of the novel is largely an account of how this process is made to happen.
What Zhou Libo does, in other words, is to exemplify, by means of his fictional dramatization,
the standard procedures set by the Party for the purpose of arousing the peasants – procedures
that Zhou Libo certainly mastered well as he had already applied them in his capacity as a land
reform cadre. So the first action taken by the work team, as soon as it arrives at Yuanmao, is to
call for a meeting open to all villagers, with the aim of expounding in explicit terms that its
mission is to push the peasants to revolt against the landlords of the village. Predictably, however,
the meeting is a fiasco, as attendees are very few and, moreover, do not dare open their mouths
intimidated as they are by the disturbing presence of Han Laoliu’s underlings. To be sure, the
meeting is convened by Xiao Xiang against his own judgment, and only because the majority
of the work team, influenced by Liu Heng, has voted in favor of it, so the episode is actually
framed as a warning against hasty actions when the work team has not yet won the trust of the
peasants.The right thing to do, as Xiao Xiang explains, is to send the members of the work team
out in the village to “look for some poor and suffering people, make friends with them, find
some activists, collect information about the landlord villains and identify the target of struggle”
(Ibid., 29). In one of the field trips that follow, Xiao Wang encounters the future hero of this part
of the novel, Zhao Yulin, who fearlessly confesses that the arch-villain of the village is undoubt-
edly Han Laoliu. Then the work team begins to invite the poor peasants to participate in some
informal “chat meetings,” whose purpose is to give them the chance to speak freely, without
fear, about their plight, “pouring out all the bitter water they have in their stomach” (Ibid., 51).
In the first of these meetings, to which Zhou Libo devotes a lengthy description, we see how
the work team leader, while encouraging the participants to talk about their past afflictions,
simultaneously interrogates them about the causes that produced them. “Have any of you ever

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done any forced labor?” he asks for example, and all the poor peasants spontaneously start to talk
about their miserable experiences as forced laborers. “And have the landlords?” he continues to
ask, and after he gets a negative answer, he asks them why (Ibid., 52–55). As he receives an array
of muddled answers, he gradually brings them to understand that there is a necessary correla-
tion between their plight and the thriving of the landlord: it is upon their exploitation that the
fortune of the latter is built, and therefore there exists a neat line that divides the peasants and
the landlord. By doing so, he implants the seed of class consciousness in the peasants, allowing
them to see themselves as a group with a common identity and common interests.

A technique that was extensively used to this end during the land reform movement is
that of “speaking bitterness” (suku), which consisted in arranging, during a “struggle meet-
ing” carried out in the presence of the landlord, one or more peasants to publicly expose, in a
highly emotional manner, all the sufferings they had experienced at the hands of the landlord.
Intended to arouse the participants’ hatred against the enemy and encourage them to overcome
their personal fears to attack him, “speaking bitterness” was also, as some have noted, a power-
ful device for shaping the collective sense of belonging of the poor peasants, cementing the
emotional bond that united them through the constitution of a common memory of suffering.
By means of this ritual one person’s suffering ceased to be an individual and private experience
and became a collective and public one.12 There are many instances of “speaking bitterness” in
The Hurricane. The first to “speak bitterness” is obviously Zhao Yulin, who acts in every circum-
stance of the novel as the “most advanced” element of the budding peasant rebellion.Yet, even
though he manages, in the course of the second struggle meeting, to inflame the rage of some
participants, the meeting nevertheless fails again as most peasants are still held back by the lin-
gering influence of the landlord. Hence Xiao Xiang must go on with his work of mobilization,
first finding and fostering more peasant activists and then establishing in the village a peasant
association directly organized by the poor peasants under the supervision of the work team (and
directed by Zhao Yulin).This leads to a third struggle meeting, in which the attendants are finally
moved by the heartbreaking recollections of bitterness by the old tenant farmer Tian Shun. But
Han Laoliu succeeds once again, with the support of his sycophants, to defuse the attack by
handing over some land and cattle. His days, however, are already numbered, as the work team
continues inexorably to enlarge the base of the peasant revolt by educating the activists and
helping them to develop larger and stronger networks of solidarity. At this point, an accidental
episode is just sufficient to fire up the rage of the village. As word gets out that Han Laoliu has
severely beaten the little swineherd Wu Jiafu, all poor peasants pour out in the street with torches
in their hand, and, under the evening sky set ablaze by the sunset, they form a human tide which
rushes to Han Laoliu’s mansion to settle accounts.This scene is a visual representation of the title
of the novel The Hurricane. As soon as Han Laoliu is caught, he is brought to trial. Finally, while
he is reduced to silence, the collective voice of the peasants bursts out as everybody stands up to
accuse him and demand for his punishment.

The epic of class struggle

The exigency to use class struggle as the driving force of history means that each historical set-
ting, in the works of socialist realism, has to be turned into a battlefield in which the dialectic
forces of revolution and reaction are set against each other, where the former are obviously
bound to prevail after some inevitable epic fight. The violent antagonism between these forces,
then, is generally enacted by some “typical characters” (dianxing renwu), who are intended to
embody, with their “typical” ways of thinking and behaving, not only the most prominent traits

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of the social classes to which they belong, but also, more importantly, the sublimated moral fea-
tures that are attributed to the antagonizing social forces confronting each other on the stage of
history. Dichotomized into “positive” and “negative” characters, or “heroes” that represent the
idealized virtues of the “people” and “villains” that symbolize the vices of the “class enemies,”
characters in such an epic narrative are in fact models meant to represent what is good and what
is evil from the point of view of the CCP’s intended social order.
Among the “typical characters” taking part in the land reform epic of The Hurricane, the most
important are certainly Zhao Yulin, the quintessential positive model of the “poor peasant” hero,
and Han Laoliu, the negative archetype of the “evil landlord.” As to the former, his function is
to herald the new “spirit” of the Chinese peasant on the eve of his revolutionary rebirth, a spirit
that turns upside down the images of helpless, benighted and narrow-minded peasants to be
found in the May Fourth fiction. Inspired by the heroes of the traditional vernacular literary
sagas such as Outlaws of the Marsh and The Romance of Three Kingdoms, with his inky-black beard
and solid, tanned chest which he bares each time he becomes enraged, Zhao Yulin is depicted
as the epitome of the virtues of manliness, pride, courage and strength. A migrant from Shan-
dong province, which he abandoned to flee a famine, he is so utterly destitute that he does
not even own a pair of trousers, let alone a patch of land, hence his nickname of Zhao Naked
Ass. This turns him into the most universal embodiment of the proletarian who has nothing
to lose but his own chains. Dispossessed as he is of land, property, identity and social roots, he
has no personal interests of any sort to defend, and is more naturally able to recognize, when
approached by Xiao Wang, the truth that “all the poor people are but one family”13 and that
the only possible action to reclaim the dignity of the dispossessed is to take up a collective fight
against the landlords. Moreover, it is Han Laoliu who has deprived Zhao Yulin of everything he
had, causing him to be imprisoned, his wife to beg, and his daughter to die. Thus, consumed by
a searing hatred, and single-heartedly moved by a desire to take revenge, he is ready to sacrifice
everything, including his own life if necessary, to bring down his enemy.To this purpose, he will-
ingly goes through a process of revolutionary self-tempering whereby he steels himself turning
from a spontaneous peasant rebel into a self-conscious Communist model. His sacrifice comes
in the epilogue of the first part of the novel, after Han Laoliu has already been executed, when
Zhao Yulin stoically dies, hit by a bullet, in a sudden military attack conducted by Han Laoliu’s
“bandit” younger brother.The last pages are taken up by the narration of his funeral, where Xiao
Xiang eulogizes his proletarian virtues, celebrating in front of the mourning congregation of the
villagers his selfless devotion to the community and revealing that Zhao Yulin has already been
accepted as a member of the Party. The significance that Zhao Yulin’s figure eventually assumes
through this conclusive ceremony is twofold. On the one hand, as a sacrificial hero, he becomes
the symbol that binds the community together, encouraging the peasants to continue to fight
in his name for the common cause (it is not by accident that Xiao Xiang takes advantage of the
emotional outburst caused by the funeral to convince more peasants to join the Association of
Peasants). On the other hand, as an exemplary model, he becomes the purest expression of the
ideal Communist subjectivity that the Party wants to transmit to the people.
While Zhao Yulin, with his messianic death, becomes the symbol of the moral regeneration
of the peasant class, Han Laoliu symbolizes, by contrast, the irreversible degeneration of feudal
China. Everything about him is meant to communicate an image of sickness and corruption,
from his debilitated features to his morbid behavior, and to the sinister mansion in which he
lives. His conduct is the sum total of the vices attributed to the “old society”: he is an opium
addict, an unrepentant womanizer surrounded by a court of concubines, and a duplicitous
manipulator who treats despotically all those who are not on a par with him in social status.
It is his insatiably acquisitive instinct, however, that constitutes the hallmark of his personality,

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giving a more specific “class” overtone to his characterization. “If you want to make money,” he
confesses to some landlord friends in a rare moment of sincerity, “you need to be mean, dodgy,
scathing, inflexible and cruel” (Ibid., 20). Or, as his motto goes: “You don’t get rich, if you don’t
rip off the poor” (Ibid., 75). Thus he begins to make a fortune by engaging in a ruthless exploi-
tation of the peasants, especially after the Japanese invaders come to occupy the village and put
him in charge of maintaining public order. He receives, in this period, the nickname of Han
Big Stick, due to his habit of walking around the village, beating all those who do not obey his
demand with his sticks. Later, when the Japanese are finally driven out, he goes on tyrannizing
the villagers after he colludes with the Nationalist “bandit” regime that has replaced the Japanese
invaders. None of the poor peasants is thus without a horrifying personal story to tell about him.
Apart from plundering the villagers’ collective goods, imposing exorbitant land rents and refus-
ing to pay the laborers who work for him, he is also guilty of sadistic criminal behavior against
each of them. The father of Guo Quanhai, a peasant activist who will become the main hero
in the second part of the novel, for example, dies because Han Laoliu forces him to lie outside
in the freezing winter when he is ill. The son of another activist, Bai Yushan, dies because Han
Laoliu breaks his head by pushing him down. Tian Shun’s daughter, in turn, dies because she is
beaten to death after she resists Han Laoliu’s attempt to abduct her . . . and the list goes on. It is
therefore inevitable that, when the people of the village finally learn to express their collective
will, their unanimous request is to execute him.The subsequent trial, presided by the work team
in the presence of the villagers, proves him guilty of having killed twenty-seven people, includ-
ing nine cadres of the Anti-Japanese United Army and a Communist soldier, and of having
raped, ruined or sold, with the aid of his son, at least forty-three women. All this condemns him
not only as a local tyrant, but also as a traitor of the nation and an enemy of the people, and his
elimination is the only logical and sacrosanct consequence of his actions.

Conclusion
The reason I left the description of Han Laoliu to the end is that it is in his characterization
that lies, I believe, the biggest problem posed by Zhou Libo’s didactic reconstruction of reality
in the mode of socialist realism. Zhao Yulin, after all, is as an outstanding hero, the main purpose
of whose portrayal is to inspire the intended receivers of his parable to follow in his footsteps
by consciously emulating his selfless spirit. To follow or not to follow his path of sacrifice, how-
ever, remains a choice left – at least in theory – to the voluntary decision of the individual. Han
Laoliu, on the other hand, is s an exceptional villain created to provide a paradigmatic way of
characterization which serves the purpose of negative group portraiture for the landlord class,
with the implication that there is no possibility for those who are labelled “landlords” in real life
to redeem themselves.
“All feudal landlords thrive through exploitation,” declares the work team leader at some
point in the novel, “could any of them not be evil?” This, in substance, is the ideological truth
that the Party wanted to convey in the land reform, and thus constitutes the predetermined
knowledge of reality that Zhou Libo had the task to exemplify by creating his “evil landlord”
type. This, indeed, appears to be the operation carried out by Zhou Libo, when he provides, by
creating the character of Han Laoliu, a model that ends up explaining the mechanisms of social
oppression essentially in terms of moral depravity. I have already pointed out how the purpose of
socialist realism was to produce exemplary narratives of the revolutionary historical movements
that served on the one hand to construct a legitimate image of “what happened” in reality and
on the other to replicate the same reality by way of emulation. One fundamental task assigned
to the Communist writers by the Yan’an Talks was to educate the peasant cadres who were

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to enforce the Party policies at the local level so as to mobilize the local masses. Given these
principles, it is reasonable to conclude that Zhou Libo’s “evil landlord” archetype was meant
to function as a general template for constructing the image of the enemies in the concrete
class struggles that had to be replicated across China during the early phase of the land reform.
Certainly, until the end of the Maoist Era (if not beyond), the figure of Han Laoliu would help
crystalize the imagined memory of the absolute cruelty of the old “feudal” society, justifying the
drastic measures taken against the landlords as a class by the Communist Party during the land
reform movement.
This tendency to dehumanize the “culprits of history” – that is, those individuals who, in the
Chinese Maoist novels, are systematically vilified just because they represent the social groups
located on the “reactionary” side of history – has been criticized by Liu Zaifu. In an essay on
Chinese land reform “classics” such as The Sun Shines over the Sanggan River, by Ding Ling,
Changes in Li Village, by Zhao Shuli, and The Hurricane, Liu criticizes, in particular, these novels’
indiscriminate celebration and justification of violence against the designated “culprits” of the
land reform movement – the landlords.14 Although I agree with Liu Zaifu’s criticism, I am not
concerned with this issue in the remaining of my essay. Rather, I wish to point out that the a
priori demonization of the whole landlord class, through the emblematic typification of Han
Laoliu, ends up calling into question the novel’s apparent intent to enlighten the targeted peas-
ants who participated in the land reform and to “modernize” their consciousness by helping
them achieve a rational knowledge of their social condition. For, if the novel claims, on the
narrative plane, to illustrate how the Party taught the Chinese peasants to learn the truth about
the causes of their oppression, what it really ends up doing, on the plane of reality, is to alter
their genuine perceptions and replace their direct factual experiences with some generalized
ideological abstractions. The significance of “speaking bitterness,” in this sense, also turns into
something radically different from what it claims to be. While in the novel this practice is rep-
resented as the process by which the poor peasants, by learning to articulate their experiences
of suffering, gradually find their own voice and become empowered as self-conscious political
agents, what happens is that “speaking bitterness” is likely to be reduced to a performance by
which the Chinese peasants learn to reformulate their emotions by forcing them in the language
mold of the Party’s ideology. Instead of teaching the Chinese peasants to become autonomous
by learning to scrutinize the concrete material mechanisms of their oppression, Zhou Libo’s
novel, like all other Party-sanctioned narratives on the land reform, prefers the shortcut of
triggering the moral outrage of the Chinese peasants through its emotional indictments of a
stereotyped moral abjection, so as to unleash their hatred towards an essentialized monstrous
“other,” fostering at the same time their gratitude towards the Party that has liberated them from
that monster. Such narratives, based on the Manichean distinction between good and evil, and
constructing class struggle ultimately as a narrative of revenge against some morally bankrupt
evildoers, in fact owes more to the social imagination of traditional vernacular literature than to
modern Marxist theory.
So what the novel really seems to teach, in the end, is how to divide and rank people, assign-
ing to them class labels that correspond, in a large measure, to moral categories, according to
their alignment or non-alignment with the Party’s political lines (it is quite clear that Han Laoliu
is characterized as evil not just because he is an oppressor and an exploiter, but also because he is
a political enemy who collaborates with the Japanese and the Nationalists). This appears indeed
to be the core of the second part of the novel, in which Zhou Libo rewrites more or less the
same story to illustrate the new policy of the Party that instructs to integrate the middle peasants
as allies in the struggle against landlords and rich peasants.The sequel thus begins with the work
team’s return to Yuanmao, where the struggle has stalled as the peasants’ association has been

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seized by a group of dissolute rich peasants headed by Zhang Fuying, a sneaky street vendor
nicknamed Zhang Second Bad Guy, who pretends to be a “real” peasant while he is in fact a
former landlord who lost his land because of his debaucheries.Then the story goes on, once the
work team has re-taken control of the village and the peasants’ association has been restored to
the “democratic dictatorship” of the poor peasants, with the attack of the landlord Du Shanren
(Du Good Person), whose viciousness is much more difficult to prove than Han Laoliu’s, as he
disguises himself as a devout Buddhist and puts on a benevolent face when he needs to curry
favor with others. But finally he is also unmasked, as the villagers find out about his plotting
against them and the Party. The following task, once all landlords have been exposed, is to com-
plete the map of friends and enemies by incorporating within one’s side the middle peasants,
and drawing a clear distinction between them and the rich peasants. The central authorities,
explains Xiao Xiang in a meeting, have determined that the overall quota of landlords and rich
peasants in the village is 8%, but the total villagers participating in the struggle are only 80%.The
remaining 12%, it is calculated, is composed by a 6% of middle peasants who have been wrongly
struggled, and a 6% of “backward” poor peasants who have remained indifferent to the events.
So the novel continues showing how one virtuous middle peasant family is incorporated, how a
poor peasant “loafer” is remolded into an activist, and how the poor peasants, in order to receive
the goods that are being redistributed, are divided into different ranks according to the contri-
butions they made in the struggle.The novel finishes with Xiao Xiang celebrating the complete
success of the land reform in the village and forecasting the brilliant economic development of
China, since “the Chinese peasants, having freed themselves, will strive forward under the guid-
ance of the Party and will no more be backward.”15 Meanwhile the youth of the village, guided
by the example of Guo Quanhai, flock to join the army to fight against the Nationalists.
Given all these elements, The Hurricane as a model of socialist realism appears to be ambiva-
lent in its legacy at the very least. While it is true that Zhou Libo’s novel and the other land
reform classics, by depicting “the peasants as active participants in the process of changing the
rural power structure,”16 contributed to the overall effort of the Communist apparatuses to
mobilize them in the struggle to transform the Chinese society as well as their own life, it is
also true that, with its emblematic construction of the enemy and Manichean categorization of
social hierarchies, it may have made an ironic contribution to the shaping of the type of mass
consciousness that would eventually lead to the excesses of the Cultural Revolution.

Notes
1 See Zhou Libo, In the Backroom (Tingzijian li) (Changsha: Hunan Renmin Chubanshe, 1963).
2 Ban Wang, “The People in the Modern Chinese Novel: Popular Democracy and World Literature,”
Novel (2014), vol. 47, no. 1, 43–57.
3 Richard King, Milestones on a Golden Road: Writing for Chinese Socialism, 1945–80 (Vancouver: UBC
Press, 2013), 52. Zhou Libo’s original penchant for socialist realism is also demonstrated by the fact that
he translated, as early as 1937, the 1932 Soviet classic Virgin Soil Upturned by Mikhail Aleksandrovich
Sholokhov. The influence exerted by Sholokhov’s novel on Zhou Libo’s creation of The Hurricane has
been explored both by Richard King in his above-mentioned study and by Nicolai Volland in his book
Socialist Cosmopolitanism: The Chinese Literary Universe, 1945–1965 (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2017).
4 Huang Ke’an, “Revolutionary Imagination and Ideological Rhetoric: On Zhou Libo’s Intellectual
Transition from the ‘Backdoor’ period to the ‘Revolutionary Base’,” (Geming xiangxiang yu yishixing-
tai xiuci: lun Zhou Libo cong “tingzijian” dao “geming genjudi” de sixiang zhuanxing) Wenyi Zheng-
ming (2007), vol. 1, 61–65.
5 Richard King, Milestones, 46.
6 Ban Wang, “Socialist Realism,” in Ban Wang, ed., Words and Their Stories. Essays on the Language of the
Chinese Revolution (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 101.

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 Marco Fumian

7 Mao Zedong, “Report on an Investigation of the Hunan Peasant Movement,” Selected Works of Mao
Tse-tung,Vol. 1 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1965), 23–24.
8 Tang Xiaobing, “The Dialectic of Violence: Re-reading The Hurricane,” (Baoli de bianzhengfa:
chongdu Baofeng zhouyu) Ershiyi Shiji (1992), vol. 11, 86.
9 Li Yang, The Path of Resisting Fate: Studies on “Socialist realism” (1942–1976) (Kangzheng suming zhi lu:
“Shehui zhuyi xianshi zhuyi” 1942–1976 yanjiu) (Changchun: Shidai Wenyi Chubanshe), 1993.
10 Zhou Libo, The Hurricane (Baofeng zhouyu) (Beijing: Zhongguo Qingnian Chubanshe, 2015), 63. All
English translations from the novel contained in this chapter are mine.
1 1 Zhou Libo, The Hurricane, 50.
12 See Liu Yun, “Land Reform and the Formation of the Modern Nation-State: The Hurricane and The
Sun Shines Over the Sanggan River” (Tugai yu xiandai minzu guojia de shengcheng: chongdu Baofeng
zhouyu and Taiyang zhao zai Sangganhe shang), Fiction Criticism (Xiaoshuo Pinglun) (2008), vol. 6,
65–70.
1 3 Zhou Libo, The Hurricane, 44.
14 Liu Zaifu, “The Political Writing of the Modern Chinese Novel” (Zhongguo xiandai xiaoshuo de
zhengzhishi xiezuo) Ershiyi Shiji, (1992), vol. 11, 92–101.
1 5 Zhou Libo, The Hurricane, 485.
16 Ban Wang, “Socialist Realism,” 113.

Further readings
Apter, E. David and Tony Saich. Revolutionary Discourse in Mao’s Republic. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1994.
Cai, Xiang. Revolution and its Narratives, China’s Socialist Literary and Cultural Imaginaries, 1949–1966. Dur-
ham and London: Duke University Press, 2016.
Chao Shu-li (Zhao Shuli). Changes in Li Village (Lijiazhuang de bianqian). Peking: Foreign Languages Press,
1953 [1946].
Chou Lipo (Zhou Libo) Great Changes in a Mountain Village (Shanxiang jubian). Peking: Foreign Languages
Press, 1961.
———. The Hurricane (Baofeng zhouyu). Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1955.
Clark, Katerina. The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual. Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 1981.
Ding Ling. The Sun Shines over the Sanggan River. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1984 [1948].
Huang, C. Joe. Heroes and Villains in Communist China: The Contemporary Chinese Novel as a Reflection of Life.
New York: Pica Press, 1973.
Li Huasheng and Hu Guangfan, eds. Research Material on Zhou Libo (Zhou Libo yanjiu ziliao). Beijing:
Zhishi Chanquan Chubanshe, 2010.
Robin, Régine. Socialist Realism: An Impossible Aesthetic. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992.

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 24
FICTION OF YANG MO AND
OUYANG SHAN
From new youth to revolutionary youth

Yuehong Chen

Introduction
In the spring of 1958, the late Chinese leader Mao Zedong stressed in his two talks on literature
and art that “proletarian literature and art ought to adopt the creative methods of the combina-
tion of revolutionary realism and revolutionary romanticism.”1 Since then, the slogan of “revolu-
tionary realism plus revolutionary romanticism” had become the supreme guideline for literary
creation and criticism during the Maoist period (1949–1976).2 It must be pointed out that in
this new tenet for artistic creation, revolutionary romanticism is more valued than revolutionary
realism, which, to some critics, marks a slight departure from socialist realism that was borrowed
from the Soviet Union. Under this new official guideline, the ideological function of literature
has been made more prominent in the following two ways. First, it lays emphasis on the Marxist
world outlook, particularly its interpretation of the advancement of the society from the lower
stages of feudalism and capitalism to the higher stages of socialism and communism, with class
struggle as the driving force of this social transformation. In artistic practice, the combination
of revolutionary realism and revolutionary romanticism means “a combination of socialist real-
ity and communist ideal, which requires authors to see communist seeds and elements through
socialist reality.”3 Second, it attaches importance to creating idealized characters, particularly
revolutionary heroes. A basic task of socialist literature is to construct grand historical narratives,
so as to show the revolutionary identity of the nation state and to construct a historical course
progressing to a new stage that transcends all previous historical periods and prefigures a new
historical era. In this historical construction, an effective approach is to tell the stories of the
personal growth of intellectuals.4
Both Song of Youth (Qingchun zhi ge) by Yang Mo (1914–1995) and Three-Family Lane (San
Jia Xiang) by Ouyang Shan (1908–2000), characterized as “revolutionary romanticism com-
bined with revolutionary realism,”5 belong to the grand construction of revolutionary history
spanning from the May Fourth Movement to the 1930s, when the whole country was in
deepening national crisis arising from Japan’s gradual encroachment. Both reveal the revolution-
ary history by relating the personal growth of young intellectuals, who are transformed from
new youth following the spirit of the May Fourth New Culture to revolutionary youth under
the correct leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC). In addition, both follow the

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“Revolution plus Love” literary mode, which interweaves the pursuit of communism with that
of an ideal lover who shares the same political objective as the protagonist.

Yang Mo’s life and career

Yang Mo, originally named Yang Chengye, was born on August 25, 1914, in Beijing. Her father,
Yang Zhenhua, founded the first private university in China. Her mother, Ding Fengyi, was
well known for both her physical beauty and her literary talent.Yang Mo was the second child
of their four children. Her youngest sister Bai Yang (1920–1996) was one of the most renowned
actresses in 20th-century China. Although born into a fairly wealthy and influential family,Yang
Mo did not have a happy childhood, for her parents did not get along well and always fought
with each other. Fortunately, Yang Mo could find solace in reading books of various kinds,
which she could always find at home.
In 1931, when Yang Mo was still a junior middle school student, her father became bank-
rupt. So her mother was eager to marry her to a rich official in order to improve the financial
situation of the family. But she refused to oblige and ran away from home. Through one of her
classmates, Yang Mo got to know Zhang Zhongxing (1909–2006), a student at Peking Uni-
versity and later a renowned philosopher, who helped her find a temporary job. Later, they fell
in love and then lived together from 1932 to 1936, in spite of the fact that Zhang had a wife
arranged by his parents. On New Year’s Eve of 1933, at a gathering organized by her sister Bai
Yang,Yang Mo met a group of progressive young people. Many of them were communists and
engaged in the patriotic movements against the Japanese invasion. Those young people kindled
the passion in Yang Mo’s heart for pursuing communism. She then became an eager reader of
books on communism and the October Revolution of the Soviet Union. When she compared
the progressive youth with Zhang Zhongxing, she began to feel greatly disappointed about him
since he only indulged in reading traditional Chinese classics and cared little about the national
crisis. In the spring of 1934, she decided to leave Zhang Zhongxing. In 1936,Yang Mo met Ma
Jianmin, a CPC member, and fell in love with him. They got married three months later. With
Ma’s help,Yang Mo joined the CPC at the end of the year.
When the War of Resistance against Japan broke out in 1937,Yang Mo and Ma Jianmin went
to the CPC-led Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Border Region and worked for the CPC.Yang Mo had
been the director of the Information Department in the Women’s Associations for National
Salvation. She also worked as an editor for Dawn Light Daily, and later for Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei
Daily (the predecessor of People’s Daily). In May 1949, she worked as the vice director of the
information department of the Women’s Federation of Beijing. Later she also held posts in
the Beijing Film Studio and other government organizations. In 1962, she was appointed vice
chairman of the Beijing Writers’ Association, and in 1989 was elected as its chairman.Yang Mo’s
personal experiences as well as what she witnessed in the Liberated Areas provide an abundant
source of inspiration for her literary creation.

Yang Mo’s literary achievements

Yang Mo is generally regarded as one of the eight most influential writers during the early
Maoist period (1949–1966). In 1934, she published her maiden work, which is an essay entitled
“A Sketch of the Inhabitants in the Hilly Areas of Rehe Province” (Renan shandi jumin sheng­
huo sumiao). Her first novel Life on the Reedy Lake (Weitang jishi, 1950) is a realistic record of
the War of Resistance against Japanese imperialists. From September 1951 to April 1955, she
spent four years working on her most important work Song of Youth, which examines how a petty

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bourgeois intellectual has turned into a proletarian and revolutionary leader before the outbreak
of the war against the Japanese Invasion. Later, she published another two novels also focusing on
young intellectuals’ pursuit of the communist road, namely, The Song of the Fragrance of Flowers and
Grass (Fangfeng zhi ge, 1986), and The Song of Beautiful Plants and Flowers (Yinghua zhi ge, 1990),
which, together with Song of Youth, are called the “Youth Trilogy.” Her other major works, includ-
ing diaries, essays, and reportage, are as follows: Red, Red, the Shandan Flower (Honghong de shan-
danhua, 1978); Dawn is about to Break in the East (Dongfang yu xiao,1980); Selected Prose ofYang Mo
(Yang Mo sanwen xuan,1982); Confession: My Diaries (Zibai – wo de riji, 1985). Most of her works
drew upon her own life experiences. In her diary writing, there is a marked influence from Ding
Ling (1904 – 1986), who is famous for her work Miss Sophia’s Diary (Shafei nüshi de riji,1928).
Among Yang Mo’s “Youth Trilogy,” Song of Youth is unarguably her most popular and influen-
tial work, while another two volumes received little response from readers and critics. After its
publication in 1958, Song of Youth became an immediate bestseller. Within half a year, 390,000
volumes had been sold. In 1959, the novel was adapted into a film to celebrate the tenth anni-
versary of the founding of New China. Many college students had become huge fans of Yang
Mo as well as of the heroine Lin Daojing. Even Premier Zhou Enlai (1898 – 1976) invited Yang
Mo and major crew members to watch the film together with him at his house. Both the novel
and the film also enjoyed great popularity in other Asian countries such as Japan, Indonesia,
North Korea, and Vietnam. Some young Japanese loved Lin Daojing so much that they tried to
emulate her lifestyle, longing to become communist party members just like her. Over the past
decades, Song of Youth has been translated into eighteen languages, the English version coming
out in 1964. So far it is perhaps one of the most translated novels written after 1949. Nowadays
Song of Youth still occupies a prestigious position in contemporary Chinese literature.6 In main-
land China, the novel has continued to be promoted as one of the must-read “red classics” by
the Chinese government.

Yang Mo’s masterpiece Song of Youth

Written in a Bildungsroman mode, Song of Youth narrates the story of an innocent girl student
named Lin Daojing, who, after undergoing turbulent years of personal crisis and revolution,
gradually gains her maturity and becomes a dedicated communist. The story is set in the years
between September 18, 1931, when Japanese troops occupied Manchuria and December 9,
1935, when a mass protest led by students in Beijing took place to demand that the Nationalist
government actively resist Japanese aggression. The period witnessed the incessant concessions
made by the KMT to imperialist aggression, the growing conflicts and wars between the KMT
and the CPC, and the thriving CPC-led students’ protests against foreign imperialists and invad-
ers. By depicting Lin Daojing’s personal story, Song of Youth offers an exciting account of youth-
ful passion for romantic love and revolutionary zeal for national salvation by a group of patriotic
students led by the CPC. So it is generally regarded as the first of its kind in writing about the
patriotic students’ movement in the contemporary Chinese literature (1949–1976).
Song of Youth traces Daojing’s gradual process of maturation, both politically and emotionally,
in which she transforms from a confused and frustrated young intellectual into a resolute and
fearless revolutionary leader. In the “Foreword” to the English version of Song of Youth,Yang Mo
particularly points out the crucial role that the CPC plays in helping Daojing accomplish the
personal transformation:

During the years my book covers, I was a student unable to continue my studies or
find a job. I knew from my own experience how hard the lot of intellectuals in Old

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China, and that the only way out for young people was to follow the Communist
Party and take part in the revolution. With this in mind, I created the character of Lin
Daojing. This novel is a young intellectual’s protest against the old society.7

Daojing knew little about communism and revolution at the very beginning. The novel
starts from Daojing’s escape from home to avoid falling victim to an arranged marriage. Being
born into a fairly wealthy landlord’s family but ill treated by her stepmother, Daojing appears to
be an innocent schoolgirl lacking in knowledge about society, but shows a rebellious spirit in
going against her patriarchal family. Her innocence is symbolized by the white color she wears.
“She was wearing a short white muslin gown, white cotton stockings and white canvas shoes,
and in her hand was a plain white handkerchief in short, she was dressed from head to foot in
white.”8 At the beginning of the 20th century, the female protagonist Nora in Henrik Ibsen’s
play A Doll’s House, representing a “new woman” who is brave enough to leave home to pursue
independence and freedom, was taken as the role model by many young Chinese women. With
physical beauty and a fairly good education, Daojing can live a luxurious life if she is willing to
marry the powerful official arranged by her stepmother. However, what she cherishes most is to
be economically independent and be able to seek freedom of love. So her departure from home
is a typical action a “new woman” would undertake.
After she escapes from home, Daojing wants to seek help from her older brother who is a
teacher in Yangzhuang Village Primary School in Hebei Province. However, after she arrives
there by train, her brother has already left his post, and she suddenly finds herself with no rela-
tion to turn to for assistance. Out of despair, she attempts to drown herself but is rescued by Yu
Yongze, a student at Peking University and the son of a landlord in the village. After learning
about Daojing’s awful situation, Yu Yongze succeeds in persuading her to see hope in life by
praising her as a woman who is “braver than Nora” (43). In the following days, they spend much
time together indulging in romantic conversations with topics on the poetry of Heine and
Goethe. Daojing is for a moment captivated by Yongze and even looks upon him “as the hero of
her dreams” (43), because she thinks that he could share her ambitions and outlook on life. Later,
Daojing accepts Yongze’s request to live with him, following the fashion of a liberated “new
woman” of the May Fourth tradition. Although this seemingly modern-style marriage is based
on free love, in reality Daojing is just a traditional stay-at-home housewife and economically
dependent on Yongze.While Yongze enjoys having a wife cooking meals for him, Daojing grows
more and more unhappy in this situation as it becomes increasingly apparent that this kind of
life is not compatible with her pursuit of independence and freedom. Conflicts begin to arise
between them, and two incidents lead to their final break-up: One is related to an impoverished,
elderly tenant of Yongze’s landlord father. On the first New Year’s Eve after they have begun to
live together, an elderly tenant drops by to beg for some money to go back to his home village.
Though an unexpected visitor, Daojing regards him as a special guest and treats him well, while
Yongze tries to get rid of him as quickly as possible for he is waiting for an honored guest who
will be of some help to secure a lucrative job for him. When Yongze notices that Daojing gives
to the old man one fifth of their monthly living expenses, he severely scolds her. For the first
time Daojing realizes that Yongze is cold-hearted and self-centered, and has no sympathy for the
suffering of poor people at all.
What eventually prompts Daojing to leave Yongze is related to Lu Jiachuan, a student leader
and an underground CPC member. Lu Jiachuan leaves a deep impression on Daojing even when
they first meet in Yangzhuang Village Primary School. On that New Year’ Eve, Daojing happens to
meet Lu again at her neighbor’s home.There she also encounters a group of talented and progres-
sive young people.Their enthusiasm for revolution and belief in communism have greatly inspired

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her and planted the seeds of revolution in her heart. Lu Jiachuan, in particular, acts as a mentor for
Daojing.Through a long talk with Lu, she begins to realize that only when she gives up her indi-
vidualistic thoughts about personal happiness and becomes concerned about the national destiny
can she obtain ultimate happiness. Under Lu’s guidance, Daojing begins to read extensively Soviet
literary works such as Lenin’s The State and Revolution and Gorky’s Mother, which “filled her heart
with an irresistible revolutionary ardour that impelled her ever onward” (120). The increasingly
close contacts between Daojing and Lu Jiachuan have made Yongze very jealous and furious.
Yongze is also very unhappy about Daojing’s involvement in the students’ movements. One day,
when Yongze finds out that Lu has stayed in his home, he criticizes Lu for bewitching Daojing
with Marxist principles, and having the ill intention of destroying their marriage. Unwilling to
argue with Yongze, Lu Jiachuan leaves Yongze’s house only to be arrested by KMT agents. Attrib-
uting Lu Jiachuan’s arrest to Yongze’s cold-heartedness, Daojing decides to leave Yongze, because
she has finally realized that they not only have different ideas about marriage, but also have radi-
cally different opinions about revolution. After leaving Yongze, Daojing becomes acquainted with
Jiang Hua, Lu Jiachuan’s comrade. With Jiang Hua’s help, Daojing realizes her years’ wish to join
the CPC. At the end of the story, Daojing has turned into a dedicated and courageous revolution-
ary fighter, who does not hesitate to sacrifice her own life for the revolutionary cause.
Politically, Daojing’s maturing process is manifested in her increasingly clear understanding of
communism, and her endless efforts to approach the communist world. To realize her dream of
becoming a CPC member, she is willing to do anything, even at the cost of her life. When she
is imprisoned by the KMT for spreading the communist brochures, she is physically tormented
in various ways. But she tries to encourage herself to learn from Communists: “Steady, now!
Grit your teeth and bear it like a Communist!” With this faith in her heart, she faces the enemy
fearlessly:

She stood the most cruel tortures with fortitude. Bars were pressed down across the
backs of her knees, one kettleful after another of pepper water was poured down into
her nostrils. . . . She bit her lips till they bled. She fainted and came round, only to faint
again, but not a word passed her lips. Only when a red-hot iron was applied to her
thigh did she utter a shriek and completely lose consciousness.
(381)

Since she proves herself in prison to be a qualified CPC member, she eventually is admitted
to the CPC. She is so thrilled that she cannot help shedding happy tears. She murmurs to herself:
“From now on I’m going to give my life unconditionally to the Party, to the most sublime, most
noble cause in the world. . . .” Moreover, she has obtained a brand-new understanding of inde-
pendence and freedom. “She was aware that she was no longer an isolated individual but one
of the standard-bearers of communism, a fearless fighter in the vanguard to liberate her country
and people; aware that she had thrown in her lot with thousands upon thousands of her fellow
creatures, to devote her life to winning freedom and happiness for millions.” (438) For her, being
independent and free is not to indulge in her own world and think about her personal happiness,
but to identify herself with the revolutionary cause and fight for the freedom and happiness of
all the oppressed.
Throughout the novel, whether a person has a belief in communism and revolution or not
has been used as a yardstick to distinguish positive characters from negative characters. It is also
used as a criterion to tell a good lover from a bad one. In the novel,Yu Yongze, being the son of a
landlord official, is a typical petty bourgeois intellectual in terms of social class. He is portrayed as
a negative character and bad lover particularly because of his lack of revolutionary zeal and lack

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of sympathy for poor peasants. In the Maoist framework of communist revolution, petty intel-
lectuals, being economically distinct from the workers and peasants, generally lack firm belief
in communism and revolution, thus they need to be criticized and transformed. Daojing’s sepa-
ration from Yu Yongze is more like a revolutionary act against a self-centered petty bourgeois
intellectual, and an act to draw a clear line of demarcation between them in terms of social class.
In doing so, she herself has successfully discarded her original identity as a petty bourgeois, and
comes closer to Lu Jiachuan, as well as to the proletarians represented by workers and peasants.
Lu Jiachuan, the embodiment of the CPC, is portrayed as the most positive character in
the novel. Daojing’s gradually developing love for him is closely associated with her growing
admiration for his revolutionary spirit. The first time Daojing meets him, she is attracted by his
thorough analysis and deep concern about the national crisis, and she cannot help comparing
him with Yu Yongze: “He (Lu Jiachuan) was certainly very different from Yu Yongze, who talked
nothing but beautiful forms of art or moving romances. Lu Jiachuan had a good understanding
of current events” (53). Being different from Yongze who thinks that for a student study is more
important than revolution, Lu Jiachuan devotes himself to the revolution fighting for the bright
future of the country. In the eyes of Daojing, this is much nobler thing to do. The second time
Daojing meets Lu Jiachuan, she “felt greatly drawn to this new friend, so sincere, clever, lively
and warm-hearted. She was most impressed by his penetrating view on politics she had never
listened to anyone like him before” (111). So every time Daojing compares the petty bourgeois
Yu Yongze with the revolutionary Lu Jiachuan, Daojing feels more emotionally attached to the
latter.When she decides to split up with Yu Yongze, Daojing feels “hardly able to believe that she
had once respected and loved him with all her heart. He had saved her, helped her, loved her
for selfish reasons.” Then “she thought of Lu Jiachuan . . . revolutionary . . . brave.” After Lu is
executed by the KMT, Daojing cherishes him as her most beloved in her inner heart.
Daojing’s acceptance of Jiang Hua’s love is also related to revolution. First of all, Jiang Hua,
just like Lu Jiachuan, is a devoted communist and revolutionary leader. Second, it is Jiang Hua
who helps Daojing join the CPC. When Jiang Hua proposes to her, she still cannot forget Lu
Jiachuan. However, after second thought, she convinces herself as follows: “A Bolshevik like
Jiang Hua deserved all her love. What reason had she to refuse one who loved her so deeply?”
(561) So, within the communist framework, to become mature is to discard the bourgeois-
romantic form of love, and to establish emotional connections with one’s lover in the course
of the revolution. To transform romantic love into revolutionary love, it is necessary that lovers
share the same communist ideal and fight together for it.
Song of Youth is a semi-autobiographical novel because many parts are based on Yang Mo’s
personal stories. The similarities will be noticeable if we compare Yang Mo’s personal life expe-
riences with those of Lin Daojing. Just like Daojing, Yang Mo ran away from home to pursue
independence and free love; then she had her first unhappy marriage with Zhang Zhongxing,
who would be used as the prototype for Yu Yongze in the novel; Lu Jiachuan is based on Lu
Yang, a young and courageous revolutionary soldier, with whom Yong Mo once had developed
a platonic relationship. Apart from those resemblances, Yang Mo had deliberately made some
big changes in order to make the novel more suitable for the social needs and political climate
in the 1950s. For instance, in order to embody the class struggle theory in the novel,Yang Mo
deliberately depicts Daojing’s biological mother as a woman from a tenant family, in an effort to
make prominent the humble origin of Daojing and justify her hatred for her family. Moreover,
during the 1950s, there was a campaign to eradicate the residues of Hu Shi’s bourgeois thoughts,
when Hu was criticized for not supporting the May Fourth Movement. With this in Yang Mo’s
mind, she depicts Yu Yongze, the negative character in the novel, as a follower of Hu Shi. So it is
apparent that this novel was definitely made to serve the ideological purposes of the time.

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In spite of its obvious flaw in manipulating history, Song of Youth has manifested its distinctive
artistic features in the following aspects. First of all, as a Bildungsroman, the first of its kind in the
contemporary Chinese literature, it sets the standards in some basic ways for writing about the
personal growth of young characters, particularly those of young intellectuals. Following Mao
Zedong’s guideline of writing proletarian literature, most writers of that period gave primary
attention to writing about peasants and workers, thus intellectuals had been neglected. When
Yang Mo laid her eyes on young intellectuals, she broke away from the common pattern and
blazed a trail for the portrayal of characters in the early period of socialist China. Moreover, the
fact that the main protagonist is a woman pursuing free love and the communist road is also eye-
catching. Lin Daojing shares so many similarities with Nora, particularly in their fight against the
traditional marriage of a patriarchic society. Both are resolute in walking out of their home to
seek their own independence.While Nora leaves her husband to be a real person, Daojing leaves
Yongze to be a proletarian revolutionary. Revolution generally stands in striking contrast to
the images of innocent women and romantic love. However, in the revolutionary period when
the national fate is closely tied with one’s personal destiny, a girl with the communist ideal in
her heart is to throw herself into the revolutionary cause and fight for the liberation of whole
human beings. If we say that Nora is a typical bourgeois “new woman” fighting for her indi-
vidual freedom, Daojing is a typical new woman in the context of communism. By intertwining
revolution with romantic love, Song of Youth explores the possibilities in reconciling the seem-
ing incommensurability between women, revolution, and love, and thus pioneers a new way to
define the relationship between social revolution and female subjectivity. Daojing, in spite of
her unwavering pursuit of the communist road, has the strong desire to love and be loved. So
her pursuit of an ideal lover is coupled with her pursuit of the communist road. However, for a
revolutionary, romantic love is considered to be less important than the communist cause.There-
fore, to legitimize her pursuit of love, she must combine her expression of love with that of her
eagerness to join the Party. This is particularly illustrated by a dialogue between Daojing and Lu
Jiachuan. They have not seen each other for a while, and when they meet again, Lu Jiachuan
asks Daojing how she has been. It is a time when Daojing already finds Yongze unbearable. So
she answers: “My life is like a stagnant pool nothing disturbs it but quarrels and interminable
reading . . . Brother Lu, tell me what to do!” And then “With upturned face, lips trembling, she
looked at him seriously.” She continues, “I’ve been expecting you – expecting the Party – to
rescue me.”9 (186) Throughout the novel, the discourse of love is so interwoven with the revo-
lutionary discourse that it is hard to draw a clear distinction between them. For this reason,Yang
Mo was even criticized for her bourgeois language and sentimentality. However, when looking
back, we can see clearly that the image of Daojing is more real and more likely to be appreci-
ated by readers when compared with the “desexualized” revolutionary women appearing in
many novels of that period, for it maintains a good balance between Daojing’s individual pursuit
of love and her participation in the collective cause of revolution guided by communism. It is
the shrewd integration of revolution and love that makes the novel more appealing than most
novels of revolutionary themes and endowed with enduring value. In this respect, Song of Youth
shares common features with The Gadfly (1897) by the Irish writer Ethel Voynich, which traces
how the protagonist Arthur Burton has been transformed from a young devout Catholic into a
sarcastic atheist revolutionary “gadfly,” with a thread of a tragic relationship between Arthur and
his love, Gemma, simultaneously running through the story. So both novels tell the stories of
faith, disillusionment, revolution, romance, and heroism.
Since the major characters of the novel were derived from her own life, Yang Mo was able
to portray them in a vivid and detailed manner. In particular, she uses lots of inner dialogues
to depict Daojing’s subtle feelings toward the three important men of her life. In doing so,

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 Yuehong Chen

Daojing’s psychological changes in the process of personal growth are well presented to the
readers, which enable them to see the multidimensional facets in the character of Daojing and
to feel her gradual development of maturity.
In conclusion, Song of Youth offers a different perspective on communist revolution for Chi-
nese readers, as it could be read as a Bildungsroman, a sample of revolutionary literary work, and
a romantic love story above all. The plot of the story is not complex; however, its characteriza-
tion, its dual theme, as well as its narrative approaches, all make it stand out among the literary
works of the same period.

Ouyang Shan’s life and career

Ouyang Shan (1908–2000), originally named Yang Fengqi, was born into a poor family in Jing­
zhou City, Hubei Province. When he was three months old, he was adopted by a Cantonese
person surnamed Yang. Before he was 7 years old, he wandered with his adopted father in
different cities in order to make a living until the family settled down in Guangzhou. Though
living in extreme poverty, his adoptive parents managed to send him to school and tried by
every means to pay for his tuition. Being a diligent student, Ouyang Shan read extensively both
Chinese and foreign literary classics. In 1922, he was admitted to one of the best junior middle
schools in Guangzhou. Because of his excellent academic record, he was able to skip the third
grade, and went to the Normal School of Guangzhou City as a first-year senior high school
student. During the period of the “Great Revolution” from 1925 to 1927, Ouyang Shan actively
participated in the Hong Kong-Guangzhou Workers’ Strike and other revolutionary activi-
ties, which, however, led to his dismissal from the school. His formal schooling was over then.
Afterwards, with the help of Guo Moruo (1892–1978), he was able to audit the courses in Sun
Yat-sen University. On January 1927, when Lu Xun (1881–1936) came to teach at the Sun Yat-
sen University, Ouyang Shan was able to establish close contacts with Mr. Lu, who was to exert
a great impact on his literary creation.
Ouyang Shan began his career as a writer in 1928, and married his first wife Yang Zhiming in
the same year. In 1933, Ouyang Shan went to Shanghai and joined the Chinese League of Left-
Wing Writers (1930–36). Cao Ming, who is also a renowned writer, went together with him
and became his second wife. After the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, Ouyang Shan
travelled to various cities such as Guangzhou, Changsha, and Chongqing to launch anti-Japanese
patriotic and cultural movements. In 1940, he joined the CPC and became a dedicated party
man. In 1941, he went to Yan’an, the CPC-led revolutionary base. From 1941 to 1943, he per-
sonally attended the rectification movement in literature and art, and listened to Mao Zedong’s
Talks at the Yan’an Forum.
After the founding of the socialist China in October 1949, Ouyang Shan moved back to
Guangzhou. From 1949 to 1953, he was the Dean of the People’s Arts College of Southern
China. He had also been the Chairman of Guangdong Writers’ Association. During the “Cul-
tural Revolution,” Ouyang Shan was persecuted and imprisoned from 1966 to 1973. After he
was released at the age of 65, he continued to write and also participate in literary activities. He
died in 2000, at the age of 92.

Ouyang Shan’s literary achievements

Ouyang Shan was a very energetic and productive writer. During his lifetime, he published 25
novellas, nearly 100 short stories, three collections of poetry, 6 translated works and over 1,000
essays. At the age of 16, he published his first short story entitled That Night (Na yi ye). At the

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age of 18, after he was dismissed from the senior high school, he established the Guangzhou
Literary Writers’ Association. At the age of 19, he published his first novella entitled The Roses
Had Faded (Meigui can le). In the same year, he founded the Literary Writers’ Association of
Southern China.
During his formative years as a revolutionary writer, Lu Xun and Mao Zedong had a decisive
influence on him. Ouyang Shan had always been a great admirer of Lu Xun. Since 1927, in
Guangzhou and later in Shanghai, he often received direct guidance from Mr. Lu, and whole-
heartedly embraced the latter’s ideas on literary creations. In 1936, in that widespread debate
about “two slogans” guiding principles for writers, Lu Xun argued for “a literature of and for
the broad masses in the national revolutionary war against the Japanese invasion” (minzu gemin
zhanzheng de dazhong wenxue), and opposed the “literature of national defense” (guofang
wenxue) proposed by Zhou Yang. Ouyang Shan took Lu Xun’s side and had no hesitation in
expressing his support.10
Mao Zedong’s Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art shaped Ouyang Shan’s
understanding of proletarian literature. Mao’s theory of revolutionary realism plus revolutionary
romanticism became his lifelong guideline for literary creation. Since 1942, many of his novels
came to be viewed as typical works of revolutionary literature, reflecting the lives and strug-
gles of the working class and peasants, and promoting the anti-Japanese war. Gao Ganda (Gao
Ganda, 1946), one of his most influential novels, portrays the cooperative movement in the vil-
lages of the CPC-liberated Areas. It centers on a protagonist, Gao Shengliang, who selflessly
devotes all his life to the collective cause rather than to his own personal interest. Ouyang Shan’s
most important work is his five-volume series entitled A Whole Generation of Heroes (Yi dai
fengliu), which consists of Three-Family Lane (1959) and The Bitter Struggle (Ku dou, 1962), Light
at the End of the Tunnel (Liu an hua ming, 1981), The Sacred Land (Sheng di, 1985), and Eternal
Spring (Wannian chun, 1985). Those volumes represent his efforts to write an epic that could
illustrate his “clear recognition” of the “origins and development of the Chinese revolution,”11
an ambition that he had cherished in his heart ever since he attended the rectificition movement
in Yan’an. The five novels center on the personal growth of an intellectual named Zhou Bing,
whose life spans the entire “new democracy revolution” period from 1919 to 1949. Of the five
volumes, Three-Family Lane and Bitter Struggle are the most popular among readers and critics.
Ouyang Shan has a distinctive way of writing with several features. First, he is fond of using
Cantonese to write about the urban life of Guangzhou.To him, using dialects is an effective way
to make his works more popular among the masses. For this reason, he is sometimes mentioned
together with Lao She (1899–1966), who is famous for using Beijing dialects to write about
Beijing and its people. Second, Ouyang Shan attaches great importance to producing distinctive
characters in his works. He is praised particularly for the characterization of two characters: One
is Gao Shengliang, and the other is Zhou Bing. Last but not least, during his lifetime, Ouyang
Shan had been actively promoting the Marxist theory via his writings of various kinds.

Ouyang Shan’s masterpiece Three-Family Lane

Three-Family Lane, similar to Yang Mo’s Song of Youth, also tells of the personal growth of a young
intellectual. “Three families” refers to the family of Zhou, a working man’s household; the fam-
ily of Chen, a comprador’s household; and the family of He, a landlord-official’s household. All
three families lived in the same lane of Guangzhou, thus the lane is called Three-Family Lane.
They are not only neighbors but also related by marriage. Nevertheless, they are divided by
social classes. A great gap of wealth exists between the working-class Zhou Family and the other
two rich and powerful families.

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 Yuehong Chen

Set in a time span from the May Fourth Movement in 1919 to the “Great Revolution”
period (1925–1927), the novel explores how revolution has exerted an impact on the lives of the
three families in Guangzhou, a center of East-West intercourse and a cradle of revolution in the
1920s. During the turbulent years, there were the growing voices nationwide for driving impe-
rialists out of China. KMT and the CPC joined forces in 1923, but radical conflicts appeared
between the two Parties. On May 13, 1925, the British police in the Shanghai concessions killed
thirteen demonstrators in Shanghai, which came to be called the May Thirteenth Massacre (also
known as the Shakee Massacre). To support the demonstrators in Shanghai, workers in Guang-
zhou and Hong Kong went on strike under the leadership of the CPC.
In the novel, the youngsters of the three families are college students, who are unanimously
inspired by the ideas of democracy, a legacy of the May Fourth Movement. They vow to fight
for the prosperity of the country on graduation day. However, a split appears among them dur-
ing the revolutionary period, triggered by the changing political climate. Chen Wenxiong, the
oldest son of the Chen Family, has gradually become a sophisticated and calculating bourgeois
businessman. He is the first to betray his own oath for revolution by quitting the Guangzhou-
Hong Kong Strike Committee. He Shouren, the son of the landlord-official family, also puts
his personal interest in the first place, caring little about the national crisis. Zhou Jin and Zhou
Rong, two sons of the Zhou Family, however, are steadfast in their revolutionary stance and
resolutely participate in the revolution on the communist road.
Growing personal conflicts contribute to the increasingly tense relationship among the three
families. The mother of the Chen Family and the mother of the Zhou Family are sisters. But
the Chen Family has a strong sense of superiority, for the Zhou Family is a debtor of the Chen
Family. Chen Wenxiong, taking advantage of the Zhou family’s predicament, tricks Zhou Quan,
the third child of the Zhou Family, into marrying him. Zhou Rong, the second son of the Zhou
Family, is in love with Chen Wendi, the second child of the Chen Family, but their romantic
relationship is opposed by the Chen Family due to the poverty of the Zhou Family. Later, Chen
Wendi herself becomes doubtful about Zhou Rong’s revolutionary zeal, and then decides to
marry the rich He Shouren, who has courted her for many years. Chen Wenting, the youngest
child of the Chen Family, falls in love with Zhou Bing, the youngest son of the Zhou Fam-
ily. However, Zhou Bing’s dream lover is his cousin Ou Tao, the daughter of a shoe repairer’s
family. After Ou Tao is shot dead in a strike demonstration by the imperialists, Zhou Bing is
plunged into profound sorrow. With the help of her big brother Zhou Jin and Ou Su, Ou Tao’s
sister, Zhou Bing decides to join the revolutionary army to fight against imperialists, and to
take revenge for Ou Tao’s death. When Chen Wenting promises to participate in the revolution
together with him, he accepts Chen Wenting’s love. However, Chen Wenting gradually loses
her confidence in her future with Zhou Bing and chooses to marry Song Zilian, introduced
to her by her brother Chen Wenxiong. Those conflicts between three families, both personal
and political, have culminated in an open showdown at a gathering of the youngsters. Zhou
Bing openly declares his hatred for the Chen and He Families, which leads to the irreconcilable
break-up between the Zhou Family and the other two.
Ouyang Shan is generally praised for his successful characterization of the different characters
in this novel, particularly the main protagonist Zhou Bing. He once quoted the Soviet dramatist
Alexander Korneichuk’s remark: “The positive characters must be made interesting.” He put this
idea in his characterization of Zhou Bing. Zhou Bing is a handsome and very appealing young
man. Although he appears to be silly sometimes as a trouble-maker, he is loved by almost eve-
rybody, particularly women, old and young. Some critics even compare him to Baoyu, the pro-
tagonist in A Dream of Red Mansions, one of the four literary classics in China.12 Zhou Bing used
to be a sentimental young man and only cares about his own feelings. However, after his beloved

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Ou Tao sacrifices her life for the revolution, he has gradually changed and embarked on the com-
munist road. Having been tempered by revolution, he eventually becomes a fearless revolutionary
fighter. Though Zhou Bing is the positive character in the novel, he is not depicted as a flawless
person, but as a man who gradually grows mature. He is not a perfect but an interesting figure.
Just like Song of theYouth, Three-Family Lane follows the writing pattern of “revolution plus love.”
Ouyang Shan does not write directly about the revolution, but portrays its impact through complex
love-hate relationships among the three families. By tracing their increasingly divergent perspectives
toward the revolution, the novel reveals the inevitability of class struggle. Ouyang Shan is criticized
by some critics for writing too much about romance in the novel. However, as Hong Zicheng points
out,“the strong artistic practice provided by the details and twists of love entanglements, in addition
to the ‘tradition’ of Chinese love stories, was an obviously more vibrant element in the writing, and
in concrete portrayals sometimes set up a forceful contrast to the dryness and crude simplicity of
‘revolution’.”13 It is this intermingled relationship between noble revolution and romantic love, and
the blurred line between revolutionary literature and love stories that help the novel win the favor
of readers of different tastes. Just like Song of Youth, Three-Family Lane is still regarded as one of the
most influential and popular literary works in contemporary Chinese literature.

Notes
1 See Wang Yafu and Zhang Hengzhong, A Chronicle of Events in Chinese Academic Circles (1919–1985)
(Zhongguo xueshu jie dashi ji (1919–1985)) (Shanghai: Shanghai Shehui Kexueyuan Chubanshe,
1988), 187. Qtd in Yang Lan, “ ‘Socialist Realism’ Versus ‘Revolution Realism Plus Revolutionary
Romanticism’,” in Hilary Chung, ed., In the Party Spirit: Socialist Realism and Literary Practice in the Soviet
Union, East Germany and China (Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rodopi, 1996), 91.
2 For the detail, please see Yang Lan, “ ‘Socialist Realism’Versus ‘Revolution Realism Plus Revolutionary
Romanticism,” 88–105.
3 Ibid., 94.
4 For the narrative of historical construction, please refer to Chen Xiaoming,“Socialist Literature Driven
by Radical Modernity, 1950–1980,” in Zhang Yingjing, ed., A Companion to Modern Chinese Literature
(Oxford: John Wiley & Sons, 2016), 90.
5 See Ban Wang, “Revolutionary Realism and Revolutionary Romanticism: Song of Youth,” in Kirk A.
Denton, ed., The Columbia Companion to Modern Chinese Literature (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2016), 237.
6 For the impact of Song of Youth, see Lao Gui, My Mother Yang Mo (Muqin Yang Mo) (Wuhan: Changjiang
wenyi chubanshe, 2005), 114–119.
7 See the “Foreword” written by Yang Mo for the English version of Song of Youth. For the detail, please
refer to Yang Mo, The Song of Youth (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1978), ii.
8 See Yang Mo, The Song of Youth (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1978), 3. All the other quotations
from the novel will only be indicated by the page numbers in a bracket after the citation.
9 The author of this chapter underlines the two words, “you” and “party,” for the sake of emphasis.
10 For the details of the debate, please refer to Haiping Yan, Chinese Women Writers and the Feminist Imagina-
tion, 1905–1948 (London: Routledge, 2006), 202.
11 See Hong Zicheng, A History of Contemporary Chinese Literature, 153.
12 In Chapter 21 of Three-Family Lane, when Ouyang Shan compared Zhou Bing to Bao Yu through the
mouth of Chen Wenting. See Li Yang,“As Jia Baoyu’s Revolution: Love Desire and Politics in the Novel
‘Three Families Lane,’ ”(Jia Baoyu nao geming – San Jia Xiang zhong de ‘aiyu’ yu ‘zhengzhi’) Academic
Research (Xueshu yanjiu) 2015, no. 2, 144–149.
13 See Hong Zicheng, A History of Contemporary Chinese Literature, 155.

Further readings
Henningsen, Lena. “Tastes of Revolution, Change and Love: Codes of Consumption in Fiction from New
China.” Frontier of Literary Studies in China 8.4 (2014): 575−597.

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 Yuehong Chen

Hsia, C. T. A History of Modern Chinese Fiction. 3rd Edition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999.
Lee, Lily Xiao Hong and A. D. Stefanowska, eds. The Twentieth Century, 1912–2000. London: M.E. Sharpe,
1998.
Li, Tianping. On the 100 Years’ Anniversary of Ouyang Shan: An Analysis of Ouyang Shan’s Literary Creation
(Bai nian Ouyang Shan: Ouyang Shan chuangzuo sanlun). Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi chubanshe, 2008.
Liu, Jianmei. Revolution Plus Love: Literary History,Women’s Bodies, and Thematic Repetition in Twentieth-Century
Chinese Fiction. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2003.
McDougall, Bonnie S. and Kam Louie. The Literature of China in the Twentieth Century. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1999.
Ouyang, Daina. On the 100 Years’ Anniversary of Ouyang Shan: An Interview with Ouyang Shan (Bai nian
Ouyang Shan: Ouyang Shan fangtan lu). Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi chubanshe, 2008.

340
 SECTION VIII

Proto-feminism and
liberal realism
 25
DING LING’S FEMINIST
WRITINGS
New women in crisis of subjectivity

Géraldine Fiss

Life and career

Ding Ling (1904–1986) was a literary pioneer, revolutionary, champion of women’s rights and
one of modern China’s most important women writers. Born as Jiang Bingzhi in Linli, Hunan
province, she is the author of nearly three hundred literary works including novels, plays, short
stories and essays, which are celebrated today as foundational texts of the May Fourth New
Culture Movement and included in the modern Chinese literary canon. Her life, spanning the
bulk of the twentieth century, witnessed violence, upheavals and vicissitudes in the modern era
of China. She personally endured several long spells of exile and imprisonment, but she never
wavered in her conviction of the power of literature for social change.
After the death of her father at the age of four, she was raised by her independent and strong-
minded mother Yu Manzhen who unbound her own feet, pledged her life to winning educa-
tion and equality for China’s women, and exerted a strong influence upon her young daughter.
Thoroughly immersed during her youth in the vibrant reformist political and intellectual milieu
her mother fostered, Ding Ling in 1920 fled to Shanghai and repudiated traditional Chinese
family practice by refusing to marry her cousin who had been chosen for her. Rejecting the
view that parents are a child’s owners, she firmly asserted that she controlled her own body,
demanded “mobility and jurisdiction over her self ” and intended to live “a life of independ-
ent personality.”1 In Shanghai she became a member of the newly emerging anarcho-feminist
culture, studied the writings of thinkers like Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, Kropotkin, Bakunin
and Margaret Sanger, and paid particular attention to new ideas concerning women’s sexuality,
individualism and feminism.
In 1923 Ding Ling went to Beijing, the birthplace of the “new culture,” where she sought
but was unable to matriculate at Beijing University. Despite poverty and hardship, she educated
herself by reading the literary works of Chinese and foreign writers and also learned how to
paint. In 1925 she married the left-wing poet Hu Yepin and, during these early years of her
career, wrote highly successful short stories which explored the interior emotional life of young,
unconventional Chinese women in a perceptive, markedly subjective narrative mode. In 1930,
Ding Ling and her husband left Beijing for Shanghai, where a proletarian literary movement was
under way. They joined the League of Left-Wing Writers headed by Lu Xun and lived closely
together with other modern writers, in particular Shen Congwen. The year 1931, however,

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proved to be a watershed moment for the young writer. Her husband Hu Yepin was executed in
Shanghai by the Nationalist government for his association with the Communist revolutionary
cause, and it was this event that prompted Ding Ling to formally join the Chinese Communist
Party in 1932. Active in the Communist revolution, Ding Ling was placed under house arrest
in Shanghai for a three-year period from 1933 to 1936, but escaped and made her way to the
Communist base in Yan’an. There she became one of the most influential figures in Yan’an cul-
tural circles, serving as the director of the Chinese Literature and Arts Association and editing
the literary supplement of the party’s newspaper Liberation Daily (Jiefang ribao).
After several years of fame in New China, Ding Ling’s career took a drastic turn. In 1957
she was labeled a Rightist, expelled from the Party, and sent to do physical labor in the North-
ern Wilderness. Then she was imprisoned for a second time in her life during the Cultural
Revolution. Not long after the ending of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, the verdict against
her was reversed, her Party membership and her political reputation restored, and she resumed
her writing. Late in her life, Ding Ling visited the United States and France and attended the
University of Iowa’s International Writing Program in 1981. She died in Beijing on March 4,
1986.

Literary achievements
In December 1927 Ding Ling published her first short story “Mon Coeur” (“Meng Ke”) and
captured the attention of the literary world. Two months later, she published “Miss Sophia’s
Diary” (Shafei nüshi de riji) in the prominent journal Short Story Monthly (Xiaoshuo yuebao).
This brought her fame and proved her literary talent. In the space of three short years Ding
Ling wrote fourteen more short stories, and in October 1928 published her first collection of
literary works entitled In the Darkness (Zai hei’an zhong). The intimate psychological portraits
of contemporary “new women” (xin nüxing) in this anthology included “Diary of a Suicide”
(Zisha riji, 1928), “A Woman” (Yige nüren, 1928), “During the Summer Holidays” (Shujia
zhong, 1928), “The Girl Amao” (Amao guniang, 1928) and “Yecao” (1928). When these stories
appeared on the literary scene, critics like her friend Shen Congwen declared that her fictional
portrayals of “new women” represented a sea change in Chinese literature and “constituted
something new, something that surpassed the standard of the most recent generation and was
setting a new direction.”2
Despite her success in the sensitive portrayal of feminine subjectivity in these highly subjec-
tive early stories, Ding Ling underwent a transformation, became an enthusiastic participant in
the revolution and began to write essays, novels and short fiction which foregrounded women’s
experiences in the revolution and in war. From 1932 onwards, she wrote almost all of her fiction
in support of the Party’s goals. Actively involved in the student and worker movement, Ding
Ling edited The Big Dipper (Bei dou), a literary magazine run by the League of Left-Wing Writ-
ers, and in 1932 she published her important work Flood (Shui), which would later be acclaimed
as a model of socialist realism in China. Recounting the tale of a group of peasants’ life-and-
death struggle against a flood, as well as their exploitation by local despots, the story marked
Ding Ling’s maturity as a revolutionary writer and showed her new aspiration to move closer to
the laboring people. In 1933 she also composed the unfinished novel Mother (Muqin) in which
she presented a vivid image of a noble-spirited woman, most likely modeled after her mother,
during the years of the Republican Revolution of 1911.
Immediately after the outbreak of the War of Resistance against Japan in 1937, Ding Ling
took an active part in propaganda work and field service, going to the revolutionary bases and

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the fighting fronts in northwest, north and northeast China. During this period, she wrote
many “national defense” stories, such as “New Faith” (Xin de xinnian, 1939) and “When
I was in Xia Village” (Wo zai Xia cun de shihou, 1941) in which she foregrounds the theme
of rape so as to highlight the victimization and fortitude of female narrators as well as their
contributions to the Communist cause. At the same time, she also used her fiction to express
her dissatisfaction and critique of certain aspects of the Communist movement. For her sto-
ries “Night” (Ye, 1941) and “In the Hospital” (Zai yiyuan zhong, 1941), for instance, she was
censured by the authorities.
Many of Ding Ling’s essays and stories became important vehicles for incisive cultural and
feminist critique. Though Ding Ling was devoted to Mao Zedong’s vision for China’s future,
she struggled with the idea that revolutionary needs, defined by the Party, should come before
art. She also objected to gender standards at work in Yan’an, where she served as director of the
Chinese Literature and Arts Association. In her 1942 article “Thoughts on March 8” (Sanbajie
yougan) she questioned the Party’s commitment to changing popular attitudes toward women.
Beginning her essay with the famous phrase “When will it no longer be necessary to attach
special weight to the word ‘woman’ and raise it specially?” Ding Ling satirized male double
standards concerning women, stating that women were ridiculed if they focused on household
duties but became the target of gossip and rumors if they remained unmarried and worked in
the public sphere. She also criticized male cadres for using divorce proceedings to rid themselves
of unwanted wives. She wrote:

I myself am a woman, and I therefore understand the failings of women better than
others. But I also have a deeper understanding of what they suffer. Women are incapa-
ble of transcending the age they live in, of being perfect, or of being hard as steel.They
are incapable of resisting all the temptations of society or all the silent oppression they
suffer here in Yan’an. [. . .] It would be better if there were less empty theorizing and
more talk about real problems, so that theory and practice would not be divorced, and
better if all Communist Party members were more responsible for their own moral
conduct.3

The clear-sighted, astute criticism in this essay would have serious consequences for Ding Ling’s
life and career and haunted her for many years. Her article was condemned by Mao Zedong
and the Party leadership. As a consequence, she was forced to retract her views and undergo a
public self-criticism.
In 1946, Ding Ling took part in land reform and two years later completed her novel The
Sun Shines Over the Sanggan River (Taiyang zhao zai Sanggan heshang, 1948), which won the Stalin
Prize for Literature in 1951 and was eventually translated into many languages. While enduring
many trials and tribulations in the ensuing decades, Ding Ling never stopped believing in the
necessity and power of fiction. In 1985, though in failing health, Ding Ling not only continued
writing but also started a literary magazine entitled China (Zhongguo). In 1981, five years before
her death, she wrote the following “manifesto” for Chinese literature:

No matter what we write, we must proceed from life and describe it in depth, warm-
heartedly and in a detailed and bold fashion. No matter how much we shock or anger
the readers, in the end we must give them strength, leaving them with a picture of
the future. Our literature must be thought-provoking and encourage people to march
forward.4

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The masterpiece

Miss Sophia’s diary and other stories

Despite her award-winning novel and other writings, Miss Sophia’s Diary and Other Stories (Ding
Ling xiaoshuo xuan) is perhaps Ding Ling’s most famous collection of fictional works in terms
of literary merit. First published in Chinese in 1981, and translated into English in 1985, this
volume brings together nine of Ding Ling’s best short stories, including “Miss Sophia’s Diary,”
“Shanghai in the Spring of 1930,” “From Dusk to Dawn,” “The Hamlet,” “A Certain Night,”
“Rushing,” “The Reunion,” “When I was in Xia Village” and “Night.”The stories span much of
Ding Ling’s writing career, comprising stories that were published between 1928 and 1941. In
many of the stories Ding Ling focuses on the modern Chinese woman, her sense of identity and
perspectives on love. The novella “Shanghai, Spring 1930” is one of Ding Ling’s first fictional
works on political themes, which she began writing after joining the League of Left-Wing
Writers in 1930. A transitional piece, this story presents amorous relationships in a class context,
depicting conflicts between politically engaged individuals and their ill-suited bourgeois lovers.
The story “A Certain Night” is a fictional account of Ding Ling’s husband He Yepin’s execution
and presents a frank depiction of the brutal realities of the conflict between the Nationalists and
the Communists. Finally, her story “When I was in Xia Village” reveals the injustice perpetrated
against a young peasant woman who is ostracized by her fellow villagers after being raped by
Japanese soldiers and serving as a prostitute and spy behind enemy lines.
Among the stories contained in this collection, the eponymous “Miss Sophia’s Diary” (1928)
describes most vividly the inner thoughts, feelings and sexual yearnings of a young tubercular
woman isolated from the world and torn between what she herself wants and what society
demands of her. Using the first-person diary mode of narration, this fictional work presents,
for the first time in Chinese literature, realistic insights into one individual’s struggle and crisis
of identity from a female point of view. Exploding “like a bomb upon the eerily quiet literary
scene,”5 the text places the problem of being a woman at the center and delineates conflicts
between patriarchal social ethics and individual desires that leave the protagonist ambivalent,
confused and in a perpetual state of indecision. Concerned with revealing what it felt like to be
a modern Chinese woman, Ding Ling’s story connects to a body of literature, primarily by May
Fourth male writers, which focused on “the woman problem.” Unlike her male counterparts
and inspired by her immersion in anarcho-feminist thought, Ding Ling engages with the “new
woman” discourse in a slightly different way. She asks: How does the post-Confucian Chinese
woman live and survive? Where do Chinese Noras go?6 Her answer to these questions was
not only the diary of Sophia but a series of psychologically complex portraits of various “new
women” in her stories composed from 1927 to 1929 and published in the collection In the
Darkness. As Tani Barlow has perceptively shown, Ding Ling’s primary objective in these texts is
to recover modern women’s true natures and to “free the repressed, biologically truthful indi-
vidual trapped inside.”7 At the same time, Ding Ling’s extraordinary narratives about the lives
of modern women point to the impossibility of female individualism in a post-revolutionary,
post-Confucian society and convey the pessimistic message that Chinese women would never
succeed in living a life with truly independent personality.8
Existing scholarship on Ding Ling’s fiction and the story “Miss Sophia’s Diary” allows us
to perceive several important characteristics of the text’s iconoclastic impact and significance.
First, the intense examination and interrogation of self, thought, character and emotions that are
portrayed in the story foregrounds the matter of female subjectivity as a primary concern and
also traces the “dark” qualities of feminine consciousness. A woman’s sexual desire, frustrations,

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fantasies and feelings are no longer hidden beneath or within the text but instead come alive
in the bold strokes of unmediated self-narration. By raiding and appropriating the traditionally
male subject matters of sexuality, power, death and despair, her writings open up new possibili-
ties for feminine self-expression and experimentation.9
The contours of Sophia’s interior world in all its complexity and contradictions is revealed in
the deeply subjective diary form. It is probable that Ding Ling had read Yu Dafu’s Sinking (Chen-
lun, 1921), which was one of the first texts to lay emphasis on self and individuality.Yu’s asser-
tion of self in Sinking was seen to embody “awakened” modern men’s calls for individualism,
valorization of the self, liberation, and freedom.10 Like many of Yu Dafu’s later stories, Sinking
adopts the approach of an autobiographical confession while the narrator’s exposure of sexual
desire and erotic fantasies is marked by persistent self-condemnation. Similarly, “Miss Sophia’s
Diary” also reveals uncensored, often unflattering realistic details about the female protagonist
and lays bare some of her more negative psychological qualities, such as extreme emotionalism,
self-loathing and passivity.11 Another important Chinese literary model for Ding Ling was Shen
Fu’s autobiographical text Six Records of a Floating Life (Fusheng liuji), which was completed by
1808 but only published in 1877. This text, an extraordinary blend of autobiography, love story
and social document, presents six parallel “layers” of one man’s memories which move circularly,
each one beginning from his youth. The most intimate document of private life in late imperial
China, this text likely offered Ding Ling a Chinese model of language, style and artistic structure.
In order to inscribe her very feminist exploration of modern femininity upon a masculine
literary world, Ding Ling self-consciously engages two principal discourses: May Fourth male
dominated feminism and the iconic trope of Nora in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House (1879). Her experi-
ence of femininity, however, is rooted in the foreign fiction she read and the Hollywood films
she loved. It was by reading and enjoying Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), La Dame
aux Camélias (1848) by Alexandre Dumas fils, Notes from the Underground by Dostoevsky (1864),
Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (1877) and Gorky’s The Mother (1906) that Ding Ling shaped her lit-
erary sensibilities and techniques, as well as a broad repertoire of feminine archetypes. In her
introduction to the previously mentioned collection of her work entitled Miss Sophia’s Diary
and Other Stories (1985), Ding Ling reflected on the relationship between her own fiction and
Western literature:

I can say that if I had not been influenced by Western literature, I would probably not
have been able to write fiction, or at any rate the kind of fiction in this collection. It is
obvious that my earliest stories followed the path of Western realism [. . . .] A little later,
as the Chinese revolution developed, my fiction changed with the needs of the age
and the Chinese people [. . . .] Literature ought to join minds together [. . .] turning
ignorance into mutual understanding. Time, place and institutions cannot separate it
from the friends it wins [. . . .] And in 1957, a time of spiritual suffering for me, I found
consolation in reading much Latin American and African literature.12

By far the most important inspiration for Ding Ling’s early stories was Flaubert’s 1856 novel
Madame Bovary, which she read at least a dozen times. It is this text, more than any other, that
led Ding Ling to create a new kind of Chinese heroine, who was daring, independent and pas-
sionate, yet perplexed and emotionally unfulfilled in her search for meaning in life. In this study,
I intend to explore this intertextual resonance between Ding Ling’s “Miss Sophia’s Diary” and
Flaubert’s nineteenth-century realist novel in order to show how Ding Ling adapts extensively
from Madame Bovary and maps out the early twentieth-century Chinese new woman’s quest for
self-knowledge through a careful reading of Emma.

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Miss Sophia and Madame Bovary

Sophia and Emma Bovary are kindred spirits. Both women are possessed by desire and endure
repetitive emotional crises caused by internal conflicts of human desires and consciousness.
However, while it is well known that Ding Ling was inspired and influenced by Flaubert, the
intertextual relationship between “Miss Sophia’s Diary” and Madame Bovary is rarely the main
focus in analytical readings of Ding Ling’s pioneering text. In scholarly studies, Ding Ling’s
affinity with Flaubert’s themes, mode of literary introspection and literary techniques is often
acknowledged but not explored in detail.13 In order to open up new avenues of critical reflec-
tion, I propose here to examine the two texts in a comparative framework and to locate the con-
nections that exist between them in terms of thematic focus, dramatic artistry and overarching
feminist concerns. My study focuses on two questions: How does Ding Ling enter the interior
landscape of female subjectivity by utilizing particular elements of Flaubert’s literary craft in new
ways? And, how does she assimilate the substance and style of Flaubert’s novel to engender a new
form of authorial agency which allows her to dissect, represent and illuminate the multilayered
complexity of feminine consciousness?
My reading of the two texts reveals that Ding Ling activates discrete elements of Madame
Bovary in order to create a portrait of Sophia that breaks out of the May Fourth New Woman
mold and proposes a new, truly feminine mode of accurate psychological description while
at the same time tracing the powerful forces and social ethics that deny this kind of truthful,
liberated expression of femininity. Daring to access, explore and portray one young woman’s
innermost experience and outer perception of reality, Ding Ling adopts the Flaubertian narra-
tor’s gaze of “cold detachment” and utilizes the technique of symbolic details perfected by the
French realist writer. I suggest that Sophia and Emma are not only linked by the metaphysi-
cal malaise and patterns of ennui that define the deadening monotony of their daily lives, but
also experience the same trajectory of desire, self-delusion and awakening, which leads not to
empowerment but to escape. The rhythm of narration in both texts is suffused with a sense of
chronic expectation and futility that expresses the protagonists’ longing for the inaccessible.
My comparative reading also adds another dimension to Sophia’s search for authenticity,
understanding and love: While she rebels against the patriarchal order which confines her true
self and destroys the love she shares with her female soul-mate Yunjie, she is, like Emma, caught
in a state of pure desire, inertness and waiting that paralyzes her will. Sophia’s intense desire leads
her to a blind infatuation with the superficial beauty of Lin Jishi, a modern, non-traditional Sin-
gaporean Chinese who “loves to make money.” Her self-delusion is augmented in Ding Ling’s
text by Sophia’s inability to communicate her true self to others. This tragedy of incommunica-
bility leads to a pathological torpid state of moral drowsiness and spiritual anesthesia which, for
both Emma and Sophia, results in a slow process of deterioration, dissolution and disappearance.
The structure and style of both texts exposes not only the hollowness of traditional social myths
and constrictions but also the uncertainty, confusion, unresolved tension and aimless motion
Emma and Sophia must endure. It is this meticulous depiction of one new woman’s inner tur-
moil, engendered by Ding Ling’s creative adaptation of Flaubertian themes and techniques, that
marks her text as a pioneering and truthful portrayal of feminine subjectivity as well as incisive
feminist critique of the new woman trope.

Miss Sophia: a new woman in crisis of subjectivity

When we read Ding Ling’s story “Miss Sophia’s Diary” from a perspective of thematic and aes-
thetic linkage with Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, there arises the inevitable question: What might

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Ding Ling have learned from Flauvert’s novel with respect to themes and techniques of fiction
writing? In terms of thematic focus, Ding Ling’s female protagonist Sophia is closely linked
with Emma’s personality, behavior, emotional instability, and physical desire for genuine love. In
terms of fictional technique, Ding Ling’s novella seems to have absorbed much from the French
writer, such as “cold detachment” in narration, symbolic use of details, the art of characterization
and narrative style. It is well-known that Flaubert’s artistic ideal was to write “un livre sur rien,”
a book about “nothing at all,” with almost no subject – a book, in short, which would exist by
virtue of the “inner strength of its style.”14 Flaubert also believed that “style, all by itself, is an
absolute way of seeing things” (Ibid). Madame Bovary came to be seen as a paragon of this genre,
and for this he was celebrated as “the novelist’s novelist” (Henry James) and his work as the most
perfect of all novels. To put this ideal into practice in fictional form, Flaubert decided to focus
primarily on the psychological drama, metaphysical malaise and ennui that stem from “a hun-
ger which can never be satisfied.”15 In order to describe this interior world within a character’s
mind and heart, he believed that it was important to adopt the voice of an all-seeing narrator
who would tell the story from a third person perspective of “cold detachment” in free indirect
discourse. Allowing the character to speak through the voice of the narrator, with the voices
effectively merged, this technique allows the narrator to occupy a position of simultaneous
closeness and distance. In one of his letters, he wrote: “One must write more coldly. [. . .] The
less one feels a thing, the better one is able to express it” (Ibid). In this kind of narration, objects
and a multitude of details assume primary importance as well as symbolic meaning.
When we compare Ding Ling’s novella with Flaubert’s novel, it becomes apparent that Ding
Ling not only utilizes the overarching structure of the novel but also appropriates Flaubert’s
detached narrator, technique of literary impressionism and use of symbolic details. In addition,
it is interesting to consider the symmetry that exists between particular characters in the two
stories: Emma and Sophia; Charles and Weidi; Rodolphe and Lin Jishi. Strikingly, Ding Ling was
not only inspired by Flaubert’s focus upon one female protagonist’s inner world, but also used
several of the personae in the French novel as blueprints for the personalities and relationships
she created in her own text.
Like Flaubert, Ding Ling inaugurated a new style of writing in Chinese literature: the deeply
introspective stream-of-consciousness narrative mode that revealed the interior landscape of
young Chinese women’s subjectivities. Many scholars have noted that Sophia is the first among
all modern Chinese women characters in Chinese literature to articulate female sexual desire
in a strong voice. By describing these often frustrated yearnings and her bodily experiences, she
breaks through the taboo of chastity that had been imposed by the Chinese feudal patriarchy
on women for thousands of years. While this frank depiction of sexuality is of great importance,
the sensitive depiction of Sophia’s contradictory emotions and desires is equally significant. How
precisely does Ding Ling create the character of Sophia and how does her text allow us to see
the trajectory of desire within her?
Ding Ling believed that, “as a writer, she failed when her narrator identified too strongly
with a character’s point of view.”16 As Tani Barlow elucidates by means of close readings of sev-
eral of Ding Ling’s stories, her narrators repeatedly clarify the distance separating the storyteller
from the female protagonist. Ding Ling usually accomplishes this distance by using a third-
person narrator, narrative interjections at key plot points and by allotting restricted dialogue to
characters. I would like to build upon Barlow’s insights by examining the ways in which Ding
Ling uses the technique of symbolic detail and metaphor in this text as a narrative strategy to
accomplish three distinct objectives: (1) to deepen and render more complex the characteriza-
tion of the “I” narrator Sophia by tracing the effect of external things upon her consciousness;
(2) to allow us access into Sophia’s often contradictory emotional sensations; and (3) to enhance

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the “coldly detached” distance between the narrating voice and the struggles within Sophia’s
mind.
It is by means of her effective use of a multitude of “Flaubertian detail” that Ding Ling
increases our understanding of Sophia’s interior crisis in an objective way.The extremely subjec-
tive mode of narration in this story thus becomes an effective tool to lay bare the inner workings
of one new woman’s mind and soul. As Ding Ling herself asserted in her essay “My Writing
Experience” (Wode chuangzuo jingyan) in 1932:

Actually, I strongly dislike the weakness of women [. . . .] I may not feel sympathetic
towards the women in my writing, but what I write is not always in accordance with
my own opinion. In the beginning the two may not be very far apart, but as I write
the gap becomes wider, and at times what I write turns out to be the opposite of my
intention.17

Like a scientist, Ding Ling “follows the evidence” of what the protagonists in her stories reveal
to her, and even allows the gap between her own subjectivity and the objects of her narration to
grow wider. In order to achieve this, both the author and narrator in the story need to maintain
distance and an objective stance.
When we are first introduced to Sophia, we do not learn much about her looks. However,
a multitude of external details, which she herself perceives, are used to evoke her state of mind.
So that we may gain insight into the constant feeling of frustration, entrapment and constriction
that engulfs every moment of her life, Sophia confides to her diary:

Yet when the noise does let up, the silence scares me to death. Particularly inside the
four whitewashed walls that stare blankly back at me no matter where I sit. If I try to
escape by lying on the bed, I’m crushed by the ceiling, just as oppressively white. I can’t
really find a single thing here that doesn’t disgust me: the pockmarked attendant, for
example, and the food that always tastes like a filthy rag, the impossibly grimy window
frame, and the mirror over the washbasin.18

Like Flaubert, Ding Ling uses inanimate objects to describe Sophia’s interior world metaphori-
cally. Similar to the sensual fusion we see in Madame Bovary, realistic details and subjective
thought become enmeshed in a single, intense whirlwind of sensations. The details described
here tell us more about Sophia’s tormented thoughts than the actual space of the sanatorium.
Sophia even anthropomorphizes the “whitewashed walls,” imagining that they are “staring back”
at her. In this way, the narrator utilizes all of Sophia’s senses – sight, hearing, touch, taste and feel-
ing – to convey an overpowering sensation of psychological dread and alienation.
Now that we have been introduced to Sophia and her interior state of mind, she begins a
journey toward self-knowledge that encompasses two opposite, yet interlinked trajectories: The
first is her desperate search for true understanding, sincerity, and love; the second is her infatua-
tion with Lin Jishi, which will plunge her into a state of pure desire, self-delusion and madness.
Two pairs of characters which embody Sophia’s two intersecting journeys amid a constant ebb
and flow of opposing forces are Sophia and Weidi on the one hand, and Sophia and Lin Jishi on
the other. These two relationships, with Sophia at the center, recall the triangular love relation-
ships that are also at the heart of Flaubert’s novel. Both of these romantic associations stand in
contrast to Sophia’s ideal but impossible true love with her dead female lover Yunjie, with whom
she knew authentic understanding and bliss in the past.

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 Ding Ling’s feminist writings

Throughout the text, we see the constant interplay of opposing forces: emotion and will;
fantasies of omnipotence and passive sexual dream worlds; intense desire and fear of constraints;
yearning for fulfillment and guilty regret.This contrapuntal structure – of reason and will (yizhi)
vs. emotion and yearning (qinggan) – shapes the entire story and also creates a dramatic juxta-
position between excitement and monotony, as well as between pairs of particular characters.
Cycles of ennui, spatial monotony and madness are brought into conspicuous tension with
an underlying metaphoric structure suggesting limits, restriction, contraction and immobility.
These images of restriction and contraction are intimately related to the disintegrating experi-
ences of sameness, Sophia’s confusion of feeling, abdication of will and moral torpor that we
also see in Madame Bovary.
The sense of ennui and monotony that entraps Sophia is a part of the story from the diary’s
first page.

As the sunlight hit the paper windows, I was boiling my milk for the third time.
I did it four times yesterday. I’m never really sure that it suits my taste, no matter how
often I do it, but it’s the only thing that releases frustration on a windy day. Actually,
though it gets me through an hour or so, I usually end up even more irritable than
I was before. So all last week I didn’t play with it.Then out of desperation, I did, relying
on it, as though I was already old, just to pass time.
(50)

This famous passage from “Miss Sophia’s Diary” mentions the act of female masturbation for
the first time in Chinese literature. What is also apparent here is that this self-stimulation does
not bring Sophia any relief but instead is a failed attempt to momentarily escape from the state
of numb despair that she finds herself in. A vague sense of dissatisfaction has plunged her into a
near-pathological inertia. Fundamentally, Sophia believes that her life consists of a series of “ugly
sounds” which constrict and entrap her. The simultaneous co-existence of sexual passion and
repeated frustration at this moment further enhance the sense of meaninglessness and “hopeless
continuity” that she feels characterizes her life.
Shortly after this episode, we meet Weidi who is evidently modeled after the well-meaning
but obtuse Charles Bovary. Sophia’s relationship with Weidi exists because, as she asserts, “I act as
women are supposed to act” (52). His “stupid abandoned displays of affection” (Ibid.), however,
do not affect her primarily because she senses that he does not truly understand her. Feeling
trapped by all the many forces that confine her life, Sophia uses her power over this vulnerable
and sincere man to torture him.

Because he was happy and laughing, I teased him mercilessly until he burst into
tears. That cheered me up. [. . .] He just curled up in the corner of the chair, as
tears from God knows where streamed openly, soundlessly, down his face. While this
pleased me, I was still a little ashamed of myself. [. . .] When this honest, open man was
here, I used all the cruelty of my nature to make him suffer. Yet once he’d left, there
was nothing I wanted more than to snatch him back and plead with him: “I know
I was wrong. Don’t love a woman so undeserving of your affection as I am.”
(54)

Confronted by a woman whose inner pain and frustration have turned into cruelty, Weidi can
do nothing to defend himself. His sincerity and authentic love for Sophia are not accepted by

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her, and the words he uses are unable to pierce her heart. She despises him because he cannot
begin to fathom her ideal kind of true love, which surpasses and explodes existing social and
cultural conventions. They reach an impasse of total non-understanding and communication
failure. Flaubert’s reflections on human language come to mind, when he wrote in his novel
Madame Bovary:“Human language is like a cracked cauldron on which we beat out tunes fit only
to set bears dancing, when we had hoped to make the stars weep in sympathy.”19
Weidi’s inability to communicate with Sophia, and Sophia’s inability to break out of her
unhappiness to receive his sincere, true love foregrounds the tragic motif of incommunicabil-
ity. This moment reveals Ding Ling’s profound concern with an inherent lack of understand-
ing among individuals, as well as the limits of human language. At the same time, we see here
also the contradictory forces that are at war within Sophia: she knows that she has been cruel
and unjust and is now overcome by great regret and sorrow. This brief scene illuminates the
conflict, struggle and hesitation within herself – between the ethical mode of behavior that she
is supposed to abide by and her frustrated, repressed nature which cannot be satisfied by any
conventional means. She struggles against the social, patriarchal control of traditional norms
that Weidi represents, but she is irresolute and faltering, and unable to liberate her self from it.
The equivocal depiction of Sophia’s character and actions here indicate that Ding Ling uses this
encounter with Weidi to add another layer of complexity to her unique psychological portrait
of Sophia’s subjectivity. It is also possible that Ding Ling is expressing a critique of women like
Sophia, who are too weak to act so as to fulfill the promise of a modern, progressive feminist
vision of complete emancipation.
The desire to communicate her experiences and emotions to her dead lover Yunjie is the
impetus for writing her diary, and this endeavor reaches a point of crisis in another encounter
with Weidi toward the end, when she asks him “Do you understand me? [. . .] Do you believe
me?” (74) and suddenly realizes that she is unable to communicate, via her diary, the true essence
of her self to others. The only understanding she could ever hope to experience is one she ima-
gines her dead lover Yunjie could give.

We can expect nothing from other people. That’s terrifying, isn’t it? If Yunjie were
alive and read my diary, I know that she’d hold me in her arms. “Oh Sophia, my
Sophia,” she’d cry. “Why can’t my valor rescue Sophia from so much suffering?” But
Yunjie is dead. I cannot figure the best way to grieve with this diary.
(74)

Sophia is aware that her metaphysical malaise, sense of ennui and dissatisfaction with her life
emanate from the absence of her true love – her dead girlfriend Yunjie – who was the only
person with whom she enjoyed true understanding and communication. The gaping hole of
this loss suffuses the entire text and reminds us that the diary exists to help soothe Sophia’s grief.
Though Sophia knows that her existential hunger can only be alleviated by true understand-
ing, authenticity and love, she embarks onto another journey that is impelled forward by pure
desire, self-delusion and madness. “Driven insane by the way a man looks” (79), Sophia becomes
infatuated with the superficial beauty of the tall and handsome Lin Jishi.

How can I describe the beauty of this strange man? His stature, pale delicate fea-
tures, fine lips, and soft hair are quite dazzling enough. But there is an elegance to
him, difficult to describe, an elusive quality, that shook me profoundly. [. . .] I raised
my eyes. I looked at his soft, red, moist, deeply inset lips, and let out my breath slightly.
How could I admit to anyone that I gazed at those provocative lips like a hungry child

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eyeing sweets? I know very well that in this society I am forbidden to take what I need
to gratify my desires and frustrations, even when it clearly won’t hurt anybody. I did
the only thing I could. I lowered my head patiently and quietly read the name printed
on the card.
(55)

When Sophia looks at Lin Jishi at this moment, she in fact reverses the male gaze and objectifies
him, reducing him to a seductive essence of “soft, red, moist, deeply inset lips.” Infatuated with
his surface appearance and unaware of the “cheap, ordinary soul” within, Sophia plunges into a
state of blindness in which she longs to “gratify her desires and frustrations.” Like Emma Bovary
before her, she abandons herself to this desire and confuses it with authentic, true love. At the
same time, we hear Sophia’s self-censoring, derogatory words to herself, denying her this pleas-
ure and reminding her that this kind of desire is forbidden and unattainable. The co-existence
of both of these interior discourses in the same moment heighten the sensual effect of Sophia’s
words and also remind us of the constant tug of forces, between desire and convention, self and
other, woman and man that characterize this work.
Even while Sophia is powerfully attracted to Lin Jishi and yearns for him, she also perceives
the emptiness at the core of his character. Lin Jishi strongly resembles Emma’s lover Rodolphe
in that he, too, lacks the depth of Sophia’s disposition and seeks not true love but the enjoyment
of money, women and a life of leisure.

What does love mean to him? Nothing more than spending money in a brothel,
squandering it on a moment of carnal pleasure, or sitting on a soft sofa fondling
scented flesh, a cigarette between his lips, his legs crossed casually, laughing and talking
with his friends.When it’s not fun anymore, never mind; he just runs home to his little
wifey. [. . .] When I think that in this precious, beautiful form I adore, there resides such
a cheap, ordinary soul, and that for no apparent reason I’ve gotten intimate with him
several times (but nothing even approaching what he gets at the brothel!
(68)

Since Sophia is a rather unstable and unreliable narrator, we do not know whether her charac-
terization of Lin Jishi as a money-loving “cheap, ordinary soul” is accurate. But in her moments
of loneliness, during which she remains inert, waiting and nearly paralyzed, this image of Lin
Jishi becomes her reality, worsens her tuberculosis and contributes to her rapid descent into
madness.

I’ve gone insane tonight. How useless speech and the written word seem now! My
heart heels as though it were being gnawed by tiny rats, as though a fire inside it were
raging out of control. How I’d love to smash everything in sight. How I’d love to rush
out into the night and run wildly in desperate confusion. I can’t control the surges of
madness. I lie on this bed of the thorns of passion. I turn this way and feel the stabs;
I turn the other way only to be pierced again. I’m in a vat of oil listening to its roaring
boil, feeling its burning heat sear my entire body.
(78)

Sophia’s feverish madness here, so meticulously described by means of vivid and powerful
symbolic details, is taken directly from Emma’s cycles of intense mania and agonizing melancho-
lia in Madame Bovary. Like Emma, Sophia suffers restlessness and aimless motion, unable to find

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peace or contentment. “Everything, including herself, was unbearable to her,”20 Flaubert tells
us about Emma, who finds herself in a desperate situation. Sophia, too, becomes alienated from
her own body and mind – her entire self in fact – which she now experiences as “a vat of oil”
and a “burning heat” that sears her entire body.The cause for this moment of anguish is Sophia’s
desperate wish to escape from the chronic cycles of waiting, expectation and futility that define
her existence.The “uselessness of speech and the written word” is a great disappointment to her,
and plunges her into a chaos of anger and confusion.
Finally, on the last page of her diary, Sophia perceives the emptiness within Lin Jishi and loses
both her desire and imagined love for him.

When he – Lin Jishi – came in at ten and began stammering about his desire to
have me, I felt my heart throbbing in my breast. The lust in his eyes scared me. I felt
my self-respect revive finally as I listened to the disgusting pledges sworn out of the
depths of Lin Jishi’s depravity. [. . .] In short, I caused my own ruin. The self is every
person’s true enemy.
(81)

Now that he is returning her gaze and revealing his desire to have her, Sophia knows that
she must leave the imagined space of pure desire and use her will to act in the real world. But,
this moment of insight, awareness and clarity does not lead to action. Instead, it compels her to
leave her city and her life, to escape from the place in which she “caused her own ruin.” Her
clarity of sight at this moment does not empower Sophia to insist upon her own freedom and
to live as she chooses. Instead, like Emma Bovary, her awakening leads to her disappearance. By
describing a new kind feminine psychology in this daring, independent, deeply conflicted and
ambivalent manner, Ding Ling creates a nuanced and complex image of the modern Chinese
“new woman” who has yet to find answers to many unresolved dilemmas, both in society and
within her own self.

Notes
1 Tani E. Barlow and Gary J. Bjorge, eds., I Myself Am a Woman: Selected Writings of Ding Ling (Boston:
Beacon Press, 1989), 22–23.
2 Charles J. Alber, “Ding Ling,” in Keith Booker, ed., Encyclopedia of Literature and Politics: Censorship, Revo-
lution and Writing,Volume I: A-G (London: Greenwood Press, 2005), 206–207.
3 Tani E. Barlow, ed., The Power of Weakness: Stories of the Chinese Revolution (New York: The Feminist
Press, 2007), 97.
4 “Spent 20 Years in Exile: Ding Ling, Noted Chinese Author, Dies,” Los Angeles Times (March 8, 1986).
5 Yi-Tsi Mei Feuerwerker, “In Quest of the Writer Ding Ling,” Feminist Studies (1984), vol. 10, no. 1, 70.
6 Tani E. Barlow and Gary J. Bjorge, I Myself am a Woman, 26.
7 Ibid., 23.
8 Tani E. Barlow, “Woman and Colonial Modernity in the Early Thought of Ding Ling,” in Tani E.
Barlow, ed., The Question of Women in Chinese Feminism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004),
127–189.
9 Tani E. Barlow and Gary J. Bjorge, I Myself am a Woman, 25.
10 Eva Yin-I Chen, “Shame and Narcissistic Self in Yu Dafu’s Sinking,” Canadian Review of Comparative
Literature (2003), 566.
11 Amy Dooling, Women’s Literary Feminism in Twentieth-Century China (New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2005), 98.
12 Ding Ling and W.J.F. Jenner, Miss Sophie’s Diary and Other Stories (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press,
1985).

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13 Tani Barlow has discussed the importance of Flaubert’s themes and literary techniques in several of
Ding Ling’s stories. See Tani E. Barlow and Gary J. Bjorge, I Myself am a Woman, 27 and Tani E. Barlow,
The Question of Women in Chinese Feminism, 147.
14 Victor Brombert, “The Tragedy of Dreams,” in Harold Bloom, ed., Modern Critical Interpretations: Gus-
tave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1988), 5.
15 Ibid., 6.
16 Tani E. Barlow, The Question of Chinese Feminism, 148.
17 “My Writing Experience (Wo de chuangzuo jingyan), in Complete Works of Ding Ling (Ding Ling
quanji) (Shijiazhuang: Hebei renmin chubanshe, 2001), vol. 7, 14–17.
18 “Miss Sophia’s Diary,” in I Myself am a Woman, 51.
19 Auguste Flaubert, Madame Bovary: Provincial Manners, eds., Malcolm Bowie and Mark Overstall (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2008), 167.
20 Ibid., 278.

Further readings
Barlow, Tani E. “Woman and Colonial Modernity in the Early Thought of Ding Ling.” In Barlow, ed., The
Question of Women in Chinese Feminism. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004, 127–189.
Barlow, Tani E. and Gary J. Bjorge, eds. I Myself Am a Woman: Selected Writings of Ding Ling. Boston: Beacon
Press, 1989.
Chow, Rey. “Loving Women: Masochism, Fantasy, and the Idealization of the Mother.” In Chow, ed.,
Woman and Chinese Modernity: The Politics of Reading Between East and West. Minnesota: University of
Minnesota Press, 1991, 121–170.
Ding Ling and W. J. F. Jenner, trans. Miss Sophie’s Diary and Other Stories. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press,
1985.
Dooling, Amy. “The New Woman’s Woman.” In Dooling, ed., Women’s Literary Feminism in Twentieth-
Century China. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, 65–102.
Feng Jin. “The ‘Bold Modern Girl’: Ding Ling’s Early Fiction.” In Feng, ed., The New Woman in Early
Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2004, 171–188.
Feuerwerker,Yi-tsi Mei. Ding Ling’s Fiction: Ideology and Narrative in Modern Chinese Literature. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1982.
Yan Haiping. “Rhythms of the Unreal (I): Ding Ling’s Feminist Passage.” In Yan, ed., Chinese Women Writers
and the Feminist Imagination, 1905–1948. New York: Routledge, 2006, 168–199.
Zhu Ping. “The Revolutionary Feminine: The Transformation of ‘Women’s Literature.’ ” In Zhu, ed., Gen-
der and Subjectivities in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Literature and Culture. New York: Palgrave Mac-
millan, 2015, 129–158.

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 26
EILEEN CHANG’S FICTION
A study of alienated human nature
Ming Dong Gu

Life and career

Among the independent fiction writers, Eileen Chang (Zhang Ailing in Chinese spelling)
(1920–1995) is perhaps the most internationally renowned, not just because she resided and
wrote in the US till the end of her life, but also because most of her literary works are translated
into English. Moreover, a film Lust, Caution directed by Ang Lee, the world-renowned film
director, was based on an adaptation of her short story with the same title, and has made her
name even more widely known. The literary career of Eileen Chang has since the mid-1980s
become a popular subject in Chinese literary studies. The great interest in the writer and her
works developed into a cultural fever in the 1990s both in and out of China, which has not yet
subsided. So far, scholars have produced several biographies, hundreds of research articles and
monographs, numerous filmic and dramatic adaptations, and the cultural fever culminated in
the publication of her complete works. Chang was born into a wealthy family of high-ranking
officials of the late Qing Dynasty. Her paternal grandfather was related to the famous or noto-
rious Qing prime minister Li Hongzhang. Her childhood, however, was not a happy one, for
his parents were divorced when she was very small. She went to a Christian school for female
students in Shanghai and was admitted by the University of London upon graduation. But she
was unable to go to England due to the war and instead went to the University of Hong Kong
studying English literature. She was unable to finish her college education after Hong Kong fell
to the Japanese in 1941 and returned to Shanghai. In 1943, she published her first two stories
in a literary journal, which inaugurated her literary career. Her debut in the literary scene was a
pleasant surprise to many influential writers who viewed her as a promising young writer whose
artistic maturity went beyond her age.
Shortly after her literary debut, she met her first husband Hu Lancheng, a writer and an
official working for the puppet regime under the Japanese occupation.They were soon married
in a private ceremony while Hu Lancheng was still married to his first wife. Although Hu was
labeled a traitor who collaborated with the Japanese invaders, Chang remained loyal to him even
after the Japanese surrender in 1945 and even though Hu was disloyal in love while hiding to
escape punishment. Their marriage finally ended in 1947. After the founding of New China,
Chang moved first to Hong Kong in 1952 and then to the US, where she met the American

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screen-writer Ferdinand Reyher. After she became pregnant, Reyher proposed to her and they
married in 1956. After their marriage, Reyher suffered from a series of strokes and eventually
became paralyzed. Chang lived with him until his death in 1967. Despite the hardships of life,
Chang continued to write while living in seclusion in Los Angeles. On a September day in 1995,
she was found dead in her apartment, leaving a will which bequeathed all the estate of her works
to a friend in Hong Kong. It is quite ironic that her popularity and posthumous fame contrast
starkly with her personal life replete with childhood trauma, disappointment in love, hardships
in marriage, and secluded loneliness.

Literary achievements
Eileen Chang is one of the most talented and prolific writers in modern Chinese literature. In
her life time, she produced a large number of stories, novellas, novels, screen plays, essays, criti-
cal writings, and translations. Among her writings, the most representative are two collections.
One is a volume of her early fictional works, titled Legends (Chuanqi), which collects sixteen
stories and novellas including her most recognized Love in a Fallen City and Golden Cangue. The
other is a collection of her essays and critical works titled Gossips (Liuyan), which expresses her
views on life and society, ideas on art and literary creations, and critical opinions on her and
others’ literary works. Many of Chang’s fictional works have been translated into English by
herself or others. Available English works include Half a Life Romance (Bansheng yuan), Love in
Fallen City (Qingcheng zhi lian), The Golden Cangue (Jinshuo ji), Naked Earth (Chidi zhi lian),
Lust, Caution (Se Jie), The Rice Sprout Song: A Novel of Modern China (Yangge), The Rouge of the
North (Yuan nü), Sealed Off (Fengshuo), Jasmine Tea (Moli xiangpian), Traces of Love and Other
Stories, and Written on Water (Liuyan). In her creative writings, she integrates the art of traditional
Chinese fiction and foreign techniques of writing, assimilating ideas and insights, past and pre-
sent, Chinese and Western, into her own fictional art. Her fiction shows the visible influence of
Freudian psychoanalysis and Japanese New Sensationalism.
As early as in 1961, C.T. Hsia praised her as “the best and most important writer in Chinese
today [whose] short stories invite valid comparisons with, and in some respects claim superior-
ity over, the work of serious modern women writers in English.”1 Indeed, her fictional works
of realism invites valid comparison with Katherine Mansfield, Eudora Welty, and Flannery
O’Connor. As a female writer who excels in writing perceptively on the tensions between
men and women and probing into the deep dimensions of their life, love and marriage, she
is likely to remind the English-speaking reader of Jane Austen. But except for the surface
resemblance in realistic themes and sensitive descriptions of women’s issues, they have more
differences than similarities. Although her fictional works do not lack women protagonists
in search of married life with financial security, a major theme in Austen’s novels, Chang’s
works differ from those of the English writer in several aspects. Unlike Austen who composed
her fictional works with profound insights into social life but with almost no interest in the
Napoleon War going on in Europe, Eileen Chang who lived through years of social upheaval
enjoyed portraying women in love and marriage against the background of war, be it the war
between Chinese warlords or the Sino-Japanese War. But here, she showed a distinct difference
from most of her contemporary writers who were first and foremost preoccupied with the
war and topical politics as materials for themes or as the foreground for narrative development.
But for Chang, even in her work with war as the backdrop, her narrative focus is always on the
tensions between man and woman in their life and the inner workings of their mind in love
and conjugal relationships.

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Her representative work, Love in a Fallen City is a case in point. In this novella, the female pro-
tagonist Bai Liusu is a divorcee who returns to live with her family in a state of uncertainty and
insecurity after breaking up with her husband. Her life at home becomes increasingly unbear-
able as her family views her as a family disgrace and a financial burden. Just as this moment, the
male protagonist Fan Liuyuan appears. He is a charming overseas Chinese businessman and a
dandy. He happens to meet her through mutual friends and becomes enamored with her beauty
and grace. With encouragement from others, they are engaged but neither is sure of the sincer-
ity of their love for each other. To get out of her awkward situation at home, Bai Liuyuan takes
a gamble to visit Fan Liuyuan who stays in Hong Kong while the city is threatened with the
imminent danger of the Japanese invasion. As though to reward her for taking the risks, the war
miraculously helps them realize that they are truly in love with each other. The happy denoue-
ment, however, is infused with a sense of bleak helplessness.
Thus, Chang is by and large an apolitical writer whose primary interest is in the exploration
of human nature and perfection of narrative art. Even in her works with a strong political theme,
politics always takes a second seat to love, especially sexual love. This is the case in her mostly
widely known story, “Lust, Caution.” Set against the background of the Sino-Japanese War with
Shanghai under Japanese occupation, Mak, a beautiful young woman, becomes a member of a
resistance group which plots to assassinate a Japanese collaborator, Mr.Yee. To lure Yee into their
trap, Mak pretends to fall in love with him, and succeeds in winning the latter’s trust. But after
Yee falls into their trap, Mak suddenly changes her mind to warn him of the danger just before
her comrades are about to shoot him.Yee is able to escape and orders the whole group including
Mak arrested and shot. Although the story was based on a real story of an anti-Japanese young
woman who attempts to kill a Japanese collaborator, it is quite understandable for some critics to
speculate that it may represent a deep introspection of her own love life with her first husband
who was an assistant minister of propaganda for the Japanese puppet regime.

Golden Cangue: a masterpiece on human alienation

Among Chang’s fictional works, The Golden Cangue has been praised by many as the best of
Chang’s fictional works.2 In modern Chinese literature, Lu Xun’s The True Story of Ah Q has
been unanimously regarded as the best of Chinese novellas. But C.T. Hsia places Eileen Chang’s
novella higher than Lu Xun’s novella and even other novellas of any historical period: “The
Golden Cangue . . . is in my opinion the greatest novelette in the history of Chinese literature.”3
Interestingly, Eileen Chang is an admirer of Lu Xun. By no accident, scholars have compared
her fiction with Lu Xun’s fiction.4 A casual comparison of the Golden Cangue with The True
Story of Ah Q reveals vast differences, but one thing is certain that the former shares with the
latter similar claims to greatness. Lu Xun’s novella has often been read as a profound study of
the average Chinese man in a semi-feudal and semi-colonial society beset with internal and
external troubles. In a similar way, we may read Eileen Chang’s novella as a profound study of
the conditions of the Chinese woman in a society similar to that depicted in Lu Xun’s novella.
Whereas Lu Xun, with the inwardness of a male writer, reveals his profound insight into the
male psyche, Eileen Chang, with the keen sensibility of a female writer, shows her remarkable
vision about the female psyche. Their claim to greatness lies not only in their insight into the
interplay between self and society in the particular historical period of China, but also in their
profound understanding of human psyche in general. This may be one of the main reasons why
the Golden Cangue has been the most frequently studied single piece among all Chang’s fictional
works. To further deepen and broaden our understanding of the novella, I will undertake a re-
reading of the novella.

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 Eileen Chang’s fiction

The Cangue: a symbol of alienated self

Chang’s novella is complex in themes and intricate in narrative techniques, but the most obvious
achievement rests on the creation of the female protagonist, Ch’i-ch’iao, a tragic character who
commands the same fascination from the reader as Lu Xun’s Ah Q. As with any other character
in the gallery of great literary characters, the full depth of Ch’i-ch’iao characterization cannot
be easily fathomed. A casual reader is likely to adopt a biased attitude towards Ch’i-ch’iao, and to
experience a baffled incomprehension as to why she refuses to let her children live their separate
lives. C. T. Hsia cautions us against such a simplistic reading.5 While advising us to be free from
the simplistic interpretation of social determinism, he leaves the task of exploring Ch’i-ch’iao’s
psyche to later critics. Some critics have taken up the challenge by exploring the psychological
dimension, but they usually adopt a stimulus-response behaviorism, which interprets the novella
as having a theme of retaliation. To comprehend fully the greatness of the novella, we need to
approach Ch’i-ch’iao and other characters from a combined perspective of self, society, gender,
and depth psychology.
The novella is divided into two distinct parts: Ch’i-ch’iao’s humiliating life before she comes
into possession of a fortune in the first half, and her life of perversity and malevolence after her
inheritance of the fortune in the second half. If the first half is dominated by an account of her
as a victim of social and domestic adversity, the second half shows how the one-time victim has
become a victimizer. The first half, as C. T. Hsia rightly points out, offers an excellent study of
boudoir realism. To examine this part from the angle of female psychology, however, we need
to explore a deeper mystery than the theme of domestic fiction. In terms of female psychology,
what I am concerned with is the theme of self-alienation, or the failure of self-actualization in
a male dominated society. A fundamental concept of self-actualization tells us: human beings
“have an intrinsic nature, a ‘real self,’ which it is our purpose in life to fulfil. Healthy growth is
a process of actualizing this self and neurotic development is a process of becoming alienated
from it.”6 In terms of this concept, I may say that a glimpse of Ch’i-ch’iao’s intrinsic nature or
“real self ” or identity is revealed in her girlhood: a carefree, somewhat reckless young woman
characterized by an indifference to, and even defiance of the rigid social conventions and deco-
rum that confine traditional Chinese women. A conversation between two maidservants shows
how her carefree nature is bred in her low-class family background and goes directly against
upper-class manners and etiquette (p. 531).7 Such is her intrinsic nature that, had she been
placed in an appropriate social milieu, she might have had the opportunity for self-actualization,
without becoming perverted and tyrannical. The author hints at this possibility several times.
The first half ends with a long reminiscence. It indicates that Ch’i-ch’iao could have developed
into a more fulfilled person. The same is implied towards the end of the story. On her opium-
couch, right before her death, she recalls her youthful days of vitality and health, and the lost
opportunity for a more fulfilled life (p. 558). But alas! The Goddess of Fate is seldom fair to such
a tragic character. Because of avarice, her brother must marry her off into the Chiang family, an
official household with social eminence and wealth, but without sympathy and understanding,
thus depriving her of any chance of self-fulfillment.
Theories of self-actualization posit a hierarchy of basic needs, the fulfillment of which is
necessary for healthy human growth. According to this theory, all people have needs for physi-
ological satisfaction, safety, love and belonging, esteem and self-actualization. These needs are
hierarchical in that they exist in an order of prepotency. The physiological needs are the most
basic and most powerful; the rest are in decreasing order of importance. In the process of human
development, an individual will move from the lower needs to the higher ones.8 In Ch’i-ch’iao’s
life after her marriage, she never moves beyond the basic needs of physiological satisfaction, and

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the other needs of love, esteem, safety, and belonging are simply beyond her reach. She never
worries about food, clothing, shelters, and other physiological needs, but she never finds a sense
of love and belonging in the Chiang’s household where everybody despises and shuns her. To
make matters worse, an important physiological need is frustrated, too. It is her lack of normal
sex-life. Being a sick, repulsive cripple permanently confined to bed, her husband is unable to
satisfy her normal sexual needs. Except for occasional sexual attentions he pays her, her husband
with his repulsive body is a constant source of humiliation and mental strain for Ch’i-ch’iao.
She is sexually starved and craves both physical love and spiritual consolation. In her frustration,
she attempts to carry on an affair with her husband’s younger brother, a handsome playboy,
who, nevertheless, shuns her for fear of family disgrace and serious trouble. Her life is made
more unbearable by her frankness about her frustration. Talking with other family members,
Ch’i-ch’iao does not hesitate to pour out her grievances concerning her sex-life. This only
exposes her to more scorn and disrespect. Other womenfolk in the family regard her confes-
sion as a manifestation of her lowly birth and despicable nature. Thus, instead of narrowing the
distance between her and her in-laws, she becomes further alienated from them, or to be more
exact, others are determined to ostracize her. For example, when the third son of the family
gets married, Ch’i-ch’iao, feeling her isolation, tries to befriend the newly wed bride, but the
bride “had already seen through Ch’i-ch’iao and understood her position at the Chiangs. She
kept smiling but hardly answered. Ch’i-ch’iao felt the slight” (p. 534).Those who despise her are
not confined to the family members. Even servants look down upon her secretly for her lack
of grace and propriety. Thus, her alienation is complete. Externally, she is a “square peg” of low
birth in the “round hole” of upper-class surroundings. Internally, she is alienated from her real
self. Looking at her life in the Chiang’s household as a whole, we can see that she has no hope
of self-actualization, because, all her basic needs, except those for physical survival, are unmet.
Self-alienation occurs when the individual’s basic needs are unsatisfied. The frustration of
basic needs leads to “basic anxiety” which involves a dread of the environment as a whole.
Karen Horney, a female psychologist, points out: an individual deprived of the basic needs will
develop neurosis as a defense against “basic anxiety” which is a “profound insecurity and vague
apprehensiveness,” “a feeling of being isolated and helpless in a world conceived as potentially
hostile.”9 The social surroundings are “felt to be unreliable, mendacious, unappreciative, unfair,
begrudging and merciless.”10 This is true of Ch’i-Ch’aio’ sense of her environment: she has
an acute sense of insecurity, a strong awareness of hostility, both real and imaginary from her
surroundings. She has to be on her guard at all times so as to fend off these real and imagined
threats. She has nobody to protect her. In traditional Chinese society, a married daughter’s family
is always a protective umbrella. But Ch’i-ch’iao’s family is lowly and therefore cannot provide
the protection enjoyed by daughters from wealthy and prestigious families. What is even worse,
her brother, who makes away with a portion of the Chiang’s family jewelry, only brings disgrace
upon her. Every time he comes, she would review, with pain, how her present miserable condi-
tion comes about (p. 539). Her own husband cannot provide the desired protection either.While
he is alive, he is bedridden. He dies before his time, leaving her and her children to fare for
themselves. In short, Ch’i-ch’iao, lacking the protection her in-laws have, has to fight for herself.
Theories of self-actualization tells us that there are three main ways in which an individual
can act to overcome his feelings of isolation and helplessness and to establish himself in a threat-
ening environment: (1) he or she can adopt a compliant or self-effacing solution and move
towards people; (2) he or she can develop an aggressive or expansive solution and move against
people; (3) he or she can become detached or resigned and move away from people.11 A healthy
person can move flexibly in all three directions. The self-alienated person, however, “is not flex-
ible, he is driven to comply, to fight, to be aloof, regardless of whether the move is appropriate

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in the particular circumstance, and he is thrown into a panic if he behaves otherwise.”12 Given
Ch’i-ch’iao’s personality and social environment, to comply or to flee is impossible: either
would be her undoing. She has to adopt the aggressive and militant strategy. This explains why
she is always creating trouble either for herself or for others. Immediately following the episode
in which she is cold-shouldered by the bride, she has to wreak her vengeance on somebody else.
Yun-tse, her husband’s unmarried sister is the unlucky target. Ch’i-ch’iao tells the Old Mistress
of the family a fabrication: Yun-tse is lovesick and ought to be married off right away. Believ-
ing in the Chinese saying “A grown girl won’t keep,” the Old Mistress decides to marry her
daughter off as quickly as possible. It is humiliating to the young lady, for in old China, it was
a disgrace for the girl’s family to beg for an early wedding. Ch’i-ch’iao’s meanness may be a
strong reaction against the contempt dealt to her. It is, however, not misdirected. Her vindictive
action is not just an offensive move to fend off humiliation, but also a defensive move to protect
herself. Her motive becomes clear when we examine her action in relation to the talk among
the in-laws. During their talk, Ch’i-ch’iao pours her grievances about her sex starvation. Instead
of showing any sympathy, the in-laws express their contempt and threaten to report her talk to
the Old Mistress (p. 534). So, her vindictiveness is also a move to dispose of a possible threat to
her safety. What she says to her brother’s wife reveals further her defensive strategy: “The whole
family [is] treading me down. If I’d been easy to bully I’d have been trampled to death long ago.
As it is, I’m full of aches and pains from anger” (p. 539).
What enables Ch’i-ch’iao to endure the years of humiliation and sufferings is the idea that
after her husband’s death, she will come into possession of a big fortune and become an inde-
pendent woman. She has, so to speak, made a bargain with fate: she has agreed to relinquish her
years of freedom in exchange for a better future with a fortune. The first half ends with Ch’i-
ch’iao as a widow.When the second half opens, the family fortune is to be divided among family
members. For Ch’i-ch’iao, it marks the beginning of her independence and tyranny:

Today was the focal point of all her imaginings since she had married into the
house of Chiangs. All these years she had worn the golden cangue but never even got
to gnaw at the edge of the gold. It would be different from now on.
(p. 540)

The golden cangue thus becomes a symbol of her warped self. The wealth is both her prison
and her hope of freedom. Since she has made the bargain, for all these years, she has been sus-
tained by this illusion that a big fortune will assure her of desired independence and happiness.
The sacrifice is great, but the gain seems enormous. Because of her self-alienation, however,
the wealth becomes a prison rather than deliverance. In terms of basic needs, the possession of
wealth represents in Ch’i-ch’iao’s mind all the things that are subsumed in basic needs: physi-
ological satisfaction, safety, esteem, love and belonging, and so on. The hierarchy of basic needs
sets the pattern of an individual’s psychological development: “If the individual is not adequately
fulfilled in his lower needs, he may become fixated at an earlier stage of development; or if he
passes beyond that stage, he may be subject to frequent regressions” (207). In Ch’i-ch’iao’s psy-
chological evolution, she has never, as I have analyzed it, progressed beyond the lower needs. She
is fixated at the stage of physiological satisfaction. Since she has endured years of humiliation
and suffering and sacrificed her need for love, and even sexual desire, so as to obtain economic
security, wealth becomes inseparably entangled, in her mind, with her intrinsic self. Ch’i-ch’iao
who has a fixation on financial security, persists in interpreting everything in her life in terms
of money, and refuses to experience love, genuine or false, in a healthy way. Moreover, she has
developed the conviction out of her neurotic needs that the whole world is after her money.

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She has no trust in anybody in this regard. This, I believe, is the key to her insane behavior in
the second half of the novella.
On the occasion when the family fortune is divided, Ch’i-ch’iao makes a big scene, grudging
Chi-tse, whom she loves, his share of the jewelry left by the Old Mistress, since he has already
squandered his share and overdrawn from the family account. Shortly after she inherits the
fortune, Chi-tse comes to visit her to profess his love for her. Ch’i-ch’iao is, momentarily, sane
enough to experience the thrill of love (pp. 543–4). But this is the last time Ch’i-ch’iao experi-
ences love as a healthy person. But she suspects, rightly, that Chi-tse has come on an ulterior
motive besides professing love. He has an eye on her money – “the money she had sold herself
for” (p. 544). Ch’i-ch’iao’s oscillation between her attraction to and suspicion of Chi-tse is a
struggle in her mind between normal human impulses and fixated values. Chi-tse is, no doubt,
a wastrel, who is after Ch’i-ch’iao’s money. Ch’i-ch’iao’s love for him is healthy because her
normal human feelings are rekindled by Chi-tse’s wooing, while her cool-headed calculation is
abnormal, for it comes from her basic anxiety, from her fixated values with which she interprets
everything. The reawakening of her normal human quality, which other critics would call her
“weakness,” is only momentary. Finally, her fixated values get the upper hand. She repudiates
Chi-tse and makes a big scene (p. 545).
This episode is one of the most memorable moments in the novella. It is the last time Ch’i-
ch’iao is capable of experiencing sufferings and happiness as a healthy person. She does not
relinquish Chi-tse’s love without a mental struggle. She cannot understand why she exposes
Chi-tse. We know however that it is her sense of insecurity and mistrust born out of years of
frustration of basic needs. Her rejection of love closes the door to any chance of redemption
from her self-alienation. It marks the death of a healthy Ch’i-ch’iao and the birth of a psychotic
woman. After this incident, her self-alienation is complete: “The autumn passed, then the winter.
Ch’i-ch’iao was out of touch with reality, feeling a little lost despite the usual flare of temper
which prompted her to beat slave girls and change cooks” (p. 545). Henceforward, the novella
begins methodically to unfold her sadistic insanity in all its terror.

Compensations for alienated self

In the second half of the story, the central issue is a conflict between Ch’i-ch’iao and her
children. Readers, especially Chinese readers, feel puzzled and ask this question: why does
Ch’i-ch’iao meddle destructively in her children’s love and marriage? Her behavior is baffling,
because in Chinese society, past and present, a mother would make sacrifices to see her children
happily married. C. T. Hsia explains Ch’i-ch’iao’s strange behavior as the “insane jealousy of a
frustrated woman unable to abide normal sexual life around her.”13 This is certainly correct, but
he does not elaborate on this. The roots of her insane jealousy lie in her years of frustration of
the basic needs in the prison of the “Golden Cangue.” Ch’i-ch’iao is not a born psychotic vic-
timizer. She is first made a victim by the male-dominated society: sold by her brother, maltreated
by her husband’s family, sexually starved by her invalid husband and emotionally frustrated in
her needs for belonging and self-esteem, she has to seek compensations elsewhere. Her com-
pensatory behavior generated by years of frustration and humiliation is characterized by sadistic
tendencies. According to Karen Horney, sadistic trends “represented an attempt at restitution
through vicarious living, entered upon by a person who despaired of ever being himself. And
the all-consuming passion which can so often be observed in sadistic pursuits grew out of such
a person’s insatiable need for vindictive triumph.”14 Her abominable treatment of her children
is the manifestation of the sadistic behavior. Like other sadistic persons, Ch’i-ch’iao has, on the
one hand, the tendency to enslave, exploit, frustrate, humiliate and disparage others who come

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into contact with her, and on the other, a deep distrust and fear of being outsmarted by others.
She is literally a sadistic victimizer who persecutes her daughters-in-law to death, ruins her son’s
family life, and destroys her own daughter’s chance for happiness.
Her distrust is deep-ingrained. Here, an episode will suffice to illustrate it. Her nephew
comes to lodge in her house, as he comes to the city to look for work. One day, he and her
children engage in some mild gambling. Having lost all her money, her daughter Ch’ang-an
suggests that they continue the game on watermelon seeds instead. She climbs onto a tea table
to reach up for the seeds on top of the wardrobe. By accident, she falls down and would have
hurt herself had her cousin not caught her in time. Ch’i-ch’iao sees the incident with possessive
exasperation and angrily denounces the young man as having the ulterior motive to seduce her
daughter. Her anger is not merely on account of maternal protection or even material possession
as some critics believe. After all, she is expected, according to the Chinese custom, to marry her
daughter off with a dowry.The incident reveals her intense distrust and fear. She is angry because
she thinks her nephew wants to cheat her of her property, and her brother and sister-in-law want
to outsmart her. She knows she herself is clever enough, but she is afraid that somebody might
defeat her through her children. The incident reinforces her conviction that the whole world
is after her money. For this, she admonishes her daughter after the incident thus: “Men are all
rotten without exception.You should know how to take care of yourself. Who’s not after your
money?” (p. 546) She cannot contemplate the possibility of being defeated through her children
without trepidation: “Who is not after your money? Your mother’s bit of money didn’t come
easy, nor is it easy to keep. When it comes to you two, I can’t look on and see you get cheated.
I’m telling you to be more on guard from now on, you hear?” (p. 546)
She begins to strengthen the weak link in her defense. A good illustration is the pathetic
episode in which she tries to bind Ch’ang-an’s feet when foot-binding is no longer fashionable
and when her daughter has already passed foot-binding age. Her real intention for this move is
to keep her daughter forever. Her retort to people’s objection to foot binding reveals her inten-
tion: “What nonsense! I’m not worried about my daughter having no takers; you people needn’t
bother to worry for me. If nobody really wants her and she has to be kept all her life, I can afford
it too” (p. 547). So long as she can outsmart others, she does not care whether her daughter can
find happiness in marriage.
Ch’ang-an has an occasion to venture out for independence. Most children of the Chiang
clan go to western-style schools. Ch’i-ch’iao, attempting to keep up with the Jonses, also wants
to send her son to such a new-fangled school. Her son, however, refuses to go. In desperation,
she has to send her daughter instead. School life is conducive to Ch’ang-an’s healthy growth. In
less than half a year, her general physique improves a great deal. Ch’i-ch’iao, however, begins to
create trouble, because of her insane possessiveness. She finds fault with her daughter for having
lost a sheet at the boarding school, threatening to go to the principle to demand an explanation.
Unable to bear the loss of face before her schoolmates, Chang-an gives up school altogether.
Although Ch’i-ch’iao seems concerned only with money, it is obvious that she makes a moun-
tain out of a molehill on account of her fear of her being outsmarted through her daughter. After
all, a sheet to Ch’i-ch’iao, now a wealthy woman, is really nothing.
Unlike normal Chinese mothers who are anxious to see their sons married, Ch’i-ch’iao does
not think of finding her son a wife until he begins to frequent brothels. She adopts a hostile
attitude towards her son’s wife from the time of the wedding. At the wedding, she scarcely covers
up her sexual jealousy of her daughter-in-law: “I can’t say much in front of young ladies – just
hope our Master Pai won’t die in her hands.” These remarks carry a clear undertone of sexual
possessiveness and show that she is compelled by social customs to give up her son. After the
wedding, she begins to work methodically and ingeniously to get rid of her daughter-in-law.

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She carps at her son’s wife and humiliates her in public. By making allusion to her daughter-in-
law’s supposed overindulgence in sex, Ch’i-ch’iao not only humiliates her son’s wife, but also
reveals her own perverted concern with her son’s sex-life. To further her sadistic aim, she sows
discord between her son and his wife. She induces her son by taunts and exhortations of filial
piety to leave his wife’s bed at night and forces him to accompany her on the opium-couch
all night long, extricating secrets about his wife’s sex-life. In the daytime, she makes known to
her relatives, including the girl’s mother, those personal secrets, always adding some touches of
her own imagination. To further humiliate her daughter-in-law, she gives the son a concubine.
She leaves no stone unturned in removing her daughter-in-law as a rival. She has always been
in good health. But when her daughter-in-law contracts TB and gets more attention from the
family, Ch’i-ch’iao pretends to be sick so as to divert the family care for the invalid. She has to be
sick in order to rival her daughter-in-law and attract people’s, especially her son’s attention. For
her, rivalry has become a passion in its own right. Whether she makes herself sick or not does
not matter. What matters is to experience the triumph of getting better of her daughter-in-law.
As time goes by, both her son’s wife and the concubine break down under her inhuman mis-
treatment: one dies of a broken heart; the other commits suicide. Her son dares not marry again,
knowing fully well that his mother would not tolerate it. He goes whoring from time to time.
My analysis of Ch’i-ch’iao’s conflict with her daughter-in-law shows that her insane jealousy is
not just due to her inability to abide normal sexual life around her because of her own sexual
frustration in her younger days. It reveals her sadistic tendency to inflict suffering on to others
so as to lessen her own frustration, in the same way the Idiot in Dostoevski’s novel must trample
on the joy of others in order to lessen his own suffering. There is, of course, another dimen-
sion to her relationship with her son. It is a muted Oedipal relationship. She hopes to destroy
her daughter-in-law so as to repossess her son body and soul. She sexualizes her son so that he
becomes a substitute for a husband. In one episode, she forces her son to keep her company by
smoking opium through the night (p. 549). In this episode, the coquettish banter, the flirtatious
gestures, the recollection of her sexual frustration in early life, and the mother and son spending
a whole night on the opium couch – all of this definitely carries a sexual undertone. Only, her
attempt to possess her son sexually is covered up under the smoke screen of filial piety.
For her son’s part, he does not take another wife, not entirely because of his fear of his
mother’s tyranny. To a certain extent, because of the exclusive mothering without the effec-
tive presence of a father, Ch’iang-pai has failed to resolve his Oedipus complex in its entirety.
He is a minor Paul Morel, the hero in D. H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers.15 Though the author
does not delve into the oedipal theme, the family circumstances, similar to those in which
Lawrence’s hero grows up, are a hot-bed for oedipal feelings: the mother finds no satisfaction
with the father, shifts her love to her child, and the son grows up, sickly and weak, completely
dependent on the mother. Chodorow, a well-known social psychologist, observes the negative
impact of exclusive mothering on the son’s personality: “The relative unavailability of the father
and overavailability of the mother create negative definition of masculinity and men’s fear and
resentment of women, as well the lack of inner autonomy in men that enables, depending on
particular family constellation and class origin, either rule following or the easy internalization
of the values of the organization.”16 This sheds some light on Ch’iang-pai’s problem. He has
almost all the characteristics of a mother’s boy; spoiled, overdependent, womanish, incapable of
loving a member of the opposite sex, except his mother. He is a minor Don Juan, never hav-
ing any genuine feelings for his wife or concubine. In Chinese society of the old days, and to
a lesser extent, even today, it is a family disgrace to have an unmarried daughter at home. If we
can explain Ch’i-ch’iao’s hold on her son by possessive motherhood and oedipal relationship, we
can also account for her degrading treatment of her daughter by a sadist’s desire for vindictive

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triumph: “When he [a sadist] molds the lives of others he not only gains a stimulating feeling of
power over them but also finds a substitute meaning for his life.”17

The reproduction of self-alienation

If, in the mother-son relationship, Ch’i-ch’iao treats her son as a substitute for a husband, in the
mother-daughter relationship, she is seeking a substitute of her lost self. Chodorow observes that
because a mother is of the same gender as her daughter, her sense of oneness and continuity is
stronger and lasts longer than with sons.18 Ch’i-ch’iao relinquishes her real self in exchange for
money. After she has obtained wealth, she hopes to hold onto the fruits of her bargain and to
relive her life through her son and daughter.
In the mother-daughter relationship, each is the counterpart and foil of the other.We cannot
understand fully what goes on in such a relationship without taking into account the personal-
ity of the enslaved. In the novellas, Ch’ang-an also has a role to play. Her weak, overdependent
and compliant personality plays into the hands of Ch’i-ch’iao and contributes to her tragedy.
According to psychological observation, psychotic mothers bring up neurotic daughters. These
daughters, as neurotics, tend to duplicate many features of their mothers’ psychotic symptoms,
and retain severe ego and body-ego distortions. Their ego and body-ego retain an undifferenti-
ated connection to their mothers. The way they face reality is like that of an infant, which uses
its mother as an external ego.19 Ch’ang-an is such a daughter. She voluntarily terminates her
love relationship with Mr. T’ung, not entirely because of her mother’s insane meddling. She has
made her decision, at least partly, because of her own emotional attachment to her mother and
her improperly individuated self. Ch’ang-an’s sense of oneness to her mother is derived from
Ch’i-ch’iao’s problematic mothering and further entrenched by the fact that her father, a sick
invalid, who died in her childhood, was never able to exercise much fatherly influence. Psycho-
analytic theory suggests that because a girl’s first love object is her mother, she, in order to attain
her individuation and proper heterosexual orientation, must transfer her primary object choice,
first to her father, then to men. Fathers are supposed to help children to break the dependence
on their mother. Ch’ang-an and Ch’iang-pai do not have a father to make this shift possible.
Because of the unavailability of a father, or a father figure, Ch’ang-an is unconsciously fixated on
her mother, even though she is consciously at odds with her. And due to her mother’s enslave-
ment, she develops into a compliant person in dread of desertion. Her mentality is ambivalent.
She seeks to escape from her mother as well as to return to her. The first time she and Mr.
T’ung are to be introduced to each other at a restaurant, she insists on going to the meeting
place later than the scheduled time. A casual reader would agree with her matchmaker that she
wants to put on airs. According to the custom then, her behavior is puzzling. T’ung is not the
host. The matchmaker asks: “for whom is she putting airs?” The real motive, unconscious as it is,
is not putting on airs. She is feeling uneasy, as she is going to venture out of the security of her
mother’s control. Her unconscious qualm is corroborated by her timidity and awkwardness at
the meeting place and during the dinner. One may explain her timidity as the result of shyness.
But how can we account for her contempt for her own body? Her sense of superfluity and her
wish to shrink in size may be a sign of her unconscious wish to return to her mother’s arms.
The almond-chewing, an act for oral gratification, also betrays her unconscious regression to
infantile experience. It provides reassurance for her uneasy mind at a time of venturing out for
individuation. But under all sorts of pressures, conscious and unconscious, she gives in to her
mother’s plea and breaks up with Mr. Tong, resuming her old position as an extension of her
mother. It is not until her mother’s death that she is able to confront her heterosexual orienta-
tion as the ending suggests. Even then, her individuation is incomplete. The ambiguous tone in

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the ending suggests that, even after her mother’s death, Ch’ang-an is still unable to shake off the
latter’s influence completely.

A reassessment of artistic achievement

The insane behavior of Ch’i-ch’aio has prompted some critics to compare her with the mad-
man in Lu Xun’s “A Madman’s Diary,”20 but in my view, a more pertinent comparison should
be conducted between Ch’i-ch’aio and Mrs. Morel in Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers, and between
her and insane women in world literature, especially the madwoman in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane
Eyre. In The Madwoman in the Attic, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar present an array of monster
women in English literature, who are selfish, cunning, wicked, and refuse to accept the feminine
role imposed on them by the patriarchy.21 Ch’i-ch’iao has all the characteristic traits of such a
monster woman. In creating such a madwoman, Chang may be said to have displayed an indige-
nous feminist consciousness feminist critics have discovered in English women writers’ writings.
In my opinion, the first and foremost achievement of the novella lies in the author’s vision
about the existential conditions of women. In The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir posits a
central thesis that a woman is not born but made: “the ‘true woman’ is an artificial product that
civilization makes, as formerly eunuchs were made.”22 Through her imaginative representation,
Chang arrives at a similar thesis: a neurotic woman is not born but made. Ch’i-ch’iao is not an
inborn psychotic; it is through the gender politics of male power that she changes from a healthy
young girl into an insane woman. Second, a conscious awareness of female authorship consti-
tutes another admiral achievement. While the English women writers whom feminist critics
have identified as having achieved a sense of true female authorship “managed the difficult task
of achieving true female literary authority by simultaneously conforming to and subverting
patriarchal literary standards,”23 Chang already freed herself from the anxiety caused by the male
prescribed standard of authorship, which requires a dichotomous representation of women as
a polarity between the angel and the monster. With an assured ease, she presents the monster
woman as the heroine in her novella with male characters as her foil. In her own words, Eileen
Chang once said that Ch’i-ch’iao is the only “hero” (yingxiong) in her fictional world, who pos-
sesses “the discretion and wisdom of a mad person,” resorts to most perverted means to retaliate
on the society that has wounded her, and relentlessly creates havoc at her will. Ch’i-ch’iao is
certainly not one of the “terrible sorceress-goddess . . . all of whom possess duplicitous arts that
allow them both to seduce and to steal male generative energy” (34).Thirdly, feminist theorists24
firmly believe that the problematic female character in literary works with feminist conscious-
ness, especially the madwoman, represents “the author’s double,” “an image of her own anxiety
and rage.”25 And it is through the violence of the double that “the female author enacts her
own raging desire to escape male houses and male texts” and “articulates for herself the costly
destructiveness of anger repressed until it can no longer be contained” (85). By contrast, in self-
confidently creating an insane “hero” with whom the author displays no sign of identification,
Chang did not rely on the “mad double,” or “female schizophrenia of authorship,” but employed
a detached exploration of her character’s inner world, thereby avoiding the insistence on the
identity of author and character, a reductionist position criticized by other feminist theorists
and critics.26 Fourthly, while the monster women in English literature seem to be born wicked,
Chang vividly narrates Ch’i-ch’iao’s gradual development from health to insanity and reveals
the root cause of her madness in a patriarchal society. Fifthly, while the abnormal women char-
acters documented in feminist writings were largely unconsciously created to represent wom-
en’s spontaneous resistance to male power, Ch’i-ch’iao is a consciously created character openly
declaring war on the male world. Last but not least, when Chang was writing the novella in the

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1940s, feminist writing featuring women’s resistance to male domination was still a few decades
away. With no model writing to emulate, Chang created a memorable female character whose
characterization suggests that the author was endowed with a vision that goes ahead of her time.
Chang’s feminist vision, if there is one, comes from her own understanding of women’s life
in a patriarchal society. With her personal background, she has intimate knowledge of the dif-
ficulties that a girl encounters in attaining her identity in traditional Chinese society. Her insider
knowledge enables her to write a perfect fable for the problematic formation of self and identity.
As a masterpiece of domestic politics, the novella offers a rare insight into the perennial conflict
between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law as well as the gender politics between man and
woman and among women themselves. This rare insight finds in the “golden cangue” an objec-
tive correlative and a symbolic representation. A cangue is a wooden frame, like a pillory in the
medieval times of the West, designed to confine the neck and hands of criminals in old China.
On the social dimension, it may stand for the power of wealth and patriarchy. In the private
domain, it symbolizes a number of psychological complexes. In addition to the warped self, it
represents, among other things, female subjugation, sadistic vindictiveness, and parental tyranny.
As a symbol of male dominance, it can incapacitate a woman for self-actualization. Once the
woman has become identified with it, it turns into a weapon for attacking and incapacitating
others: “For thirty years now she had worn a golden cangue. She had used its heavy edges to
chop down several people; those that did not die were half dead” (p. 558). The golden cangue
is therefore a symbol of imprisoned self and an instrument for its perpetuation. With the image
of the golden cangue and its symbolism, Chang has told a fundamental truth about patriarchal
Chinese society with regard to gender politics: an oppressed woman alienated from her true self
grows into an oppressor of both sexes; and self-alienation is reproduced and entrenched through
problematic mothering.

Notes
1 C. T. Hsia, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1971), 389.
2 The first praise came from Fu Lei’s article shortly after the novella’s appearance. See Xunyu (Fu Lei’s
pen name), “On Eileen Chang’s Fiction,” in Miscellaneous Sights (Wanxiang) (1944), no. 5. Wang Anyi,
a renowned Chinese fiction writer who adapted the novella into a play, said in an interview published
on October 15, 2004, “The Golden Cangue is the best and most important of Eileen Chang’s fictional
works.”
3 C. T. Hsia, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction, 398.
4 The first critic who compares Eileen Change with Lu Xun was Hu Lancheng, her first husband. See
Hu’s article, “A Comment on Eileen Chang,” Magazine (Zazhi) (1944), no. 9.
5 C. T. Hsia, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction, 406–407.
6 Bernard Paris, ed., Third Force Psychology and the Study of Literature (London: Associated University Press,
1987), 25.
7 All the quotations are taken from Joseph S. M. Lau et al., eds., Modern Chinese Stories and Novellas
1919–1949 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981).
8 See Abraham Maslow, Motivation and Personality (New York: Harper and Row, 1970), Chapter 4.
9 Karen Horney, Neurosis and Human Growth (New York: Norton, 1950), 18.
10 Karen Horney, New Ways in Psychoanalysis (New York: Norton, 1939), 75.
11 See Bernard Paris, A Psychological Approach to Fiction: Studies in Thackeray, Stendhal, George Eliot, Dosto-
evsky, and Conrad (New York: Routledge, 2017), 28–69.
12 Karen Horney, Our Inner Conflicts (New York: Norton, 1945), 202.
13 C. T. Hsia, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction, 402.
14 Karen Horney, Our Inner Conflict, 18.
15 See D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1980).
16 Nancy Chodorow, The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1978), 190.

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17 Karen Horney, Our Inner Conflicts, 206–207.

18 Nancy Chodorow, The Reproduction of Mothering, 109.
19 See Nancy Chodorow’s summary in The Reproduction of Mothering, 100.
20 Fu Lei is the earliest critic to compare the Golden Cangue with Lu Xun’s “A Madman’s Diary,”: “the
Golden Cangue shares with Lu Xun’s ‘A Madman’s Diary’ some fictional flavor.” Miscellaneous Sights
(Wanxiang) (1944), no. 5.
21 Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-
Century Literary Imagination (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1979), 27–36.
22 Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (New York:Vintage Books, 1989), 408.
23 Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic, 73.
24 Kate Millett is an early advocate of this view. See her well-known book, Sexual Politics (London:Virago,
1977).
25 Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic, 78.
26 See Toril Moi, Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory (London: Methuen, 1985), 61–69.

Further readings
Hsiao-yen Peng and Whitney C. Dilley, eds., From Eileen Chang to Ang Lee: Lust/Caution. New York:
Routledge, 2014.
Huang, Nicole. “Eileen Chang and Narratives of Cities and Worlds.” In Kirk A. Denton, ed., Columbia Com-
panion to Modern Chinese Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016, 217–223.
Kam Louie, ed. Eileen Chang: Romancing Languages, Cultures, and Genres. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Univer-
sity Press, 2012.
Lee, Leo Ou-fan. “Eileen Chang: Romances of a Fallen City.” In Lee, ed., Shanghai Modern:The Flowering of
a New Urban Culture in China, 1930–1945. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999, 267–303.
Lin, Xingqian. Eileen Chang: A Feminist Criticism (Zhang Ailing nüxing piping). Guilin: Guanxi shifan daxue
chubanshe, 2003.
Ling, Zhen. “A Survey of Zhang Ailing Study in and Outside China.” (Hai neiwai Zhang Ailing yanjiu
shuping) Mingbao yuekan 10 (1995).
Miller, Lucien and Hui-chuan Chang. “Fiction and Autobiography: Spatial Form in ‘The Golden Cangue’
and The Woman Warrior.” In M. S. Duke, ed., Modern Chinese Women Writers: Critical Appraisals. New York:
M.E. Sharpe, 1989, 24–43.
Sang,Tze-lan. “Eileen Chang and the Genius Art of Failure.” In Carlos Rojas and Andrea Bachner, eds. The
Oxford Handbook of Modern Chinese Literatures. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, 765–778.
Shen, Shuang. “Ends of Betrayal: Diaspora and Historical Representation in the Late Works of Zhang Ail-
ing.” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 24.1 (Spring 2012): 112–148.

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 27
INDEPENDENT WRITERS
Shen Congwen, Xu Dishan, Qian Zhongshu
Philip F. Williams

Introduction
Although government censorship and crackdowns occurred from time to time on China’s liter-
ary scene during the Republican Era decades from the 1920s through the 1940s, on average
these three decades burdened Chinese fiction writers with far fewer political and ideological
controls than they faced from the authoritarian regimes on either side of the Taiwan Strait
over the following three decades from the 1950s to the 1970s. To be sure, literary groups such
as Shanghai’s Communist-dominated League of Left-wing Writers (1930–1936) tried to drill
their members into adopting a “correct” ideological stance, but had no prospects of inducting
independent-minded writers such as Xu Dishan (1893–1941), Shen Congwen (1902–1988),
and Qian Zhongshu (1910–1998). Each of these independent writers was skeptical both of the
authoritarian Kuomintang regime and the Nationalists’ risible New Life Movement, on the one
hand – and of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Marxist-Leninist obsession with class
struggle and marching in lock-step towards a “Socialist Heaven on Earth,” on the other. In their
fiction, these three writers were as likely to direct satire at left-leaning Communists as at right-
leaning Nationalists.1
Following the Communists’ military victory over the Nationalist regime in China’s late-
1940s civil war, many independent fiction writers such as Shen Congwen, Wu Zuxiang (1908–
1994), and Qian Zhongshu eschewed the palpable ideological hazards that would continually
dog creative writing within Mao-Era China (1949–1976) in favor of relatively safe scholarly
research on premodern Chinese culture.2 The wisdom in these independent writers’ termina-
tion of their novelistic careers during the Mao Era was borne out by the Chinese Communist
Party-state’s harsh purges of novelists such as Ding Ling (1904–1986) who dared to keep writing
fiction after 1949.Very little Republican-Era fiction by Shen Congwen or Qian Zhongshu was
reprinted during the Mao Era in the PRC or during those decades in Taiwan, and these writers’
important literary achievements were either entirely ignored or merely mentioned in passing in
PRC literary histories and scholarship published during that period; Xu Dishan’s fiction fared
somewhat better, with two collections of his stories published in China during the 1950s.3 Only
some years after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 were the barriers to reprinting Shen’s and
Qian’s fiction and writing about it in length finally lifted in first the PRC and then Taiwan.

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In spite of their cautious maintenance of a low profile and avoidance of creative writing dur-
ing the Mao Era, both Shen Congwen and Qian Zhongshu were persecuted severely during the
Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) – like most other famous PRC intellectuals, they and their
spouses were forced to leave their urban home and do punitive hard labor in the countryside for
years on end. It was not until some years after Mao’s death in 1976 that practically all of Shen’s
and Qian’s Republican-Era fiction was finally reprinted in both the PRC and Taiwan, much to
the delight of readers on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

Shen Congwen’s life and career

Originally named Shen Yuehuan, this native of the provincial town of Fenghuang in the hill
country of western Hunan had an unusual life story and career for a Republican Era writer. He
stubbornly continued to maintain his identity as a rural person or “countryman” for decades
after having relocated to urban abodes, and conjured forth strikingly resourceful and psycholog-
ically dynamic rural characters in contrast to the down-and-out rural bumpkins so often found
in the fiction of his peers. Ethnically, he was a “creole” or only partly Han Chinese, for his father
was of mixed Han Chinese and Miao ethnicity, while his mother hailed from the Tujia minority;
other writers would often refer to him in rather exotic terms as “that Miao fellow” or “China’s
Dumas.”4 In contrast with most of his literary peers, Shen’s fiction offered an enthusiastic vision
of his home province’s folklore and local color, and often portrayed the freewheeling vitality of
its upland minority cultures as a possible revitalizing force for modern China’s moribund and
overly repressive Confucian cultural heritage. Shen Congwen was one of the few of his peers
who were confident that a revitalized “Young China” could truly emerge from the shadows of
an ancient and somewhat decrepit Confucian China – and could do so with assistance and inspi-
ration from its own minority cultures such as the Miao, and not solely as a result of increasing
contacts with the West and other overseas cultural traditions.
Hailing from the local elite as Shen Congwen did was quite common among Republican Era
writers; what was atypical was the strong military component in both Shen’s extensive youthful
personal experience as a soldier and in the life story of forebears such as his illustrious grand-
father Shen Hongfu, a prominent general who was appointed Prefect of Guizhou Province in
1866 and was famous for quashing Miao uprisings. In contrast with most of Shen’s literary peers,
he received very little formal schooling and mostly at the primary school level due to boredom
with the traditional curriculum and rote learning pedagogy. Instead of sitting in a classroom,
Shen preferred to wander around taking in the sights and sounds of his rustic and picturesque
home locale, as well as reading widely and honing his fine skills in calligraphy at home and with
private tutors.
After soldiering for a few years, Shen decided to trade in his gun and uniform for a writing
brush and scholar’s gown, moving from West Hunan to Beijing during the1922–23 school year
to take part in the New Culture Movement (Xin wenhua yundong). However, he was refused
admission to university study after having failed the college entrance exams due to his lack of
any foreign language skills; all he could manage was to audit some university courses while
writing stories and essays for journals such as The Crescent Moon Monthly (Xinyue yuekan) and
The Fiction Monthly (Xiaoshuo yuebao).5 Though Shen gravitated to the politically moder-
ate Crescent Society (Xinyue she) due to his lifelong conviction that literature and art should
march to their own tune and remain free of any pressure to toe a political line, two of his closest
friends during the mid-to-late 1920s were leftist writers who later joined the CCP, Ding Ling
(1904–1986) and Hu Yepin (1903–1931). Shen’s literary talent and growing body of published
fiction and prose essays since his maiden writings of 1924 caught the attention of influential

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senior academicians and leaders of the Crescent Society such as Hu Shi (1891–1962) by the
late 1920s, thereby winning Shen a string of steady middle-class jobs over the next two decades.
During these years he taught courses in literature at such colleges as the Woosung China Insti-
tute, Qingdao University, Furen University, Wuhan University, National Associated Southwest-
ern University, and Beijing University.
University salaries and royalties from Shen Congwen’s writings sustained him, his wife Zhang
Zhaohe (1910–2003) whom he married in 1933, and their children until he encountered the
major crisis of his life near the mid-century point. The eve of the takeover of Beijing by Com-
munist military forces in early 1949 was accompanied by incendiary opinion pieces and wall
posters vilifying Shen Congwen as a pornographer and political renegade. Sometime before
mid-year he attempted suicide by gulping down kerosene and slashing his wrists and throat, but
was discovered in time and then revived in hospital. Shen subsequently resigned from his uni-
versity post and wrote an obligatory confession to the Communist Party of his supposed errors
in thought and behavior. He thereupon made a shrewd career switch to museum curating at
Beijing’s National History Museum.
For most of the rest of Shen’s life after 1950, he prudently avoided the politically risky lime-
light of contemporary literature, instead writing relatively obscure scholarly articles and books
about China’s premodern material culture, specifically on topics such as folk art, silk brocade,
bronze mirrors, and lacquerware.6 The 1980s revival of interest in his fiction both overseas and
at home led to the publication of his collected writings in first the PRC and then Taiwan.

Shen Congwen’s literary achievements

Shen was one of the most prolific fiction writers in Republican China, as his complete works
in the most comprehensive compilation to date add up to a massive 32 volumes.7 More impor-
tantly, throughout most of his career his prose style was of consistently high quality and often
strikingly lyrical and innovative, leading him to push modern Chinese fiction in new directions
and become one of the 20th century’s most influential Chinese fiction writers. Numerous
prominent Chinese fiction writers, poets, and filmmakers have been influenced in a major way
by Shen Congwen, including Li Guangtian (1906–1968), Wu Zuxiang, Shi Tuo (1910–1988),
Bian Zhilin (1910–2000), Xiao Qian (1910–1999), He Qifang (1912–1977), Wang Zengqi
(1920–1997), Bai Xianyong (b. 1937), Gao Xingjian (b. 1940), Gu Hua (b. 1942), Hou Xiaoxian
(b. 1947), Zhong Acheng (b. 1949), Jia Pingwa (b. 1952), Han Shaogong (b. 1953), and Zhu Tian-
wen (b. 1956). According to information leaked by Professor Göran Malmqvist of the Swedish
Academy, Shen Congwen was tentatively selected to become the first Chinese recipient of the
Nobel Prize in Literature in early months of 1988, but due to Shen’s death in May that year
the Nobel Prize Committee instead awarded the prize to the great Egyptian novelist Naguib
Mahfouz (1911–2006).8
Although Shen wrote some highly regarded novels such as Alice’s Adventures in China (Alisi
Zhongguo youji, 1928) and Long River (Chang he, 1943), he most excelled at the shorter forms
of the novella and the short story, which better suited his lyricism, nature-oriented allusive-
ness, and evocation of pathos. Shen’s celebrated middle-period novella Border Town (Bian cheng,
1934) is generally considered his finest work and representative of his prose style.9 Many of his
early and middle period works feature a West Hunanese pastoral setting of unspoiled nature and
well-meaning denizens of rustic riverports or upland fort towns engaged in Miao cultural pat-
terns such as singing contests that double as courtship rituals, as in “Songs of the Zhen’gan Folk”
(Ganren yaoqu, 1926). Shen’s fiction with urban settings tends to be concentrated in his middle
period of the 1930s, such as his satire of two upper-class young men with divergent Kuomintang

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and Communist political affiliations but similar weaknesses of arrogance and hypocrisy, “Big
Ruan and Little Ruan” (Da xiao Ruan, 1935). Shen’s modernist works that explore the sub-
conscious stream of consciousness and blur the line between dream and reality such as “Gazing
at Rainbows” (Kan hong lu, 1943) mostly appeared in his later phase or final decade of writ-
ing (1940s), and tended to elicit disapproval from leftist and other strait-laced “patriotic” critics
during that decade of war and dislocation. Overall, Shen Congwen’s middle period during the
1930s is generally considered his peak of literary achievement, but even then he was harshly
criticized on largely political grounds by leading figures of the League of Left-wing Writers, and
rejected from inclusion in some major 1930s anthologies of modern Chinese fiction such as
Straw Sandals (Caoxie jiao).10

Shen’s masterpieces
Border Town is Shen Congwen’s most famous longer work of fiction, while “Quiet” (Jing, 1932)
is arguably his most distinguished short story. Both feature a rural setting and pastoral ambience,
with the former based at a ferry crossing near a provincial riverport in Shen’s native West Hunan
and the latter set in a Hubei village with a nunnery.
Border Town’s protagonist Cuicui is a young teenaged orphan who has been raised in a pastoral
setting of provincial southwestern China by her grandfather, a 70-year-old widower who has
worked for five decades straight as a ferryman at Green Creek Hill near the busy riverport of
Chadong. The grandfather’s government salary is modest, yet sufficient to support Cuicui and
himself at a working-class level and keep a pet dog as well. The old man refuses the occasional
tip from a passenger unless the latter simply insists, in which case he would use all the proceeds
to buy some tobacco the next time he went shopping in town and then give it all away to his
passengers, with whom he sometimes exchanges pleasantries while ferrying them across the
river at a reasonable but unhurried pace. Grandfather is an honest worker who obviously enjoys
his simple livelihood; he does not feel exploited in the way working-class characters were typi-
cally portrayed by mainstream leftist Chinese writers in the 1930s. After all, the old man and
Cuicui have ample leisure to wander around the river valley’s cliffs and verdant bamboo groves,
as well as walk to the nearby riverport to buy supplies or enjoy festive activities such as Dragon
Boat races.
The novella’s dramatic tension arises not from the sort of class conflict or generational con-
flict that animate so much of Chinese fiction at this stage of history, but rather from the grandfa-
ther’s yearning to help the swarthy-skinned young beauty Cuicui get settled in the sort of loving
and stable marriage that eluded Cuicui’s mother. Around a decade and half ago, the mother had
gotten pregnant out of wedlock with an active-duty soldier who had sung his way into her heart
in the manner of linked serenading contests between Miao bachelors and maidens. However,
even though the couple seriously considered eloping and starting a new life together elsewhere,
circumstances prevented this, so they decided instead to commit a double suicide of star-struck
lovers, as if in a play by Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653–1725). The soldier killed himself first,
while Cuicui’s mother waited until after giving birth to her daughter and putting the baby in
her father’s care before committing suicide in turn.
Anxious to prevent history from repeating itself, the grandfather resolves to depart from
his laissez-faire inclinations in parenting and grandparenting, and instead make an effort to
help Cuicui avoid the tragedy of her mother’s life and instead find a happy and secure mar-
riage. Both of the likable Chadong fleetmaster Shunshun’s strapping boys, his elder son Tianbao
and younger son Nuosong, fall for Cuicui’s rustic appeal and try to court her, with Tianbao
even dispatching a go-between with a marriage proposal. If Cuicui’s grandfather had been a

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traditional Han Chinese patriarch, he would have probably accepted this marriage proposal from
a fine young man of good family without so much as first asking his granddaughter whether
she thought Tianbao would be a suitable match, simply taking the matter into his own hands
as head of household in the manner of the conservative old farmer in Chen Kaige’s film Yellow
Earth (1984).11 Instead, the grandfather tells Cuicui about the go-between’s proposal of mar-
riage from Tianbao and asks her to take her time thinking about it before getting back to him
with a response. After several days go by without any response from Cuicui to Tianbao’s mar-
riage proposal, both the grandfather and Shunshun’s two sons conclude that the direct approach
of using a Chinese-style go-between has failed to garner a response from Cuicui. They must
instead attempt the indirect approach of a Miao-style nighttime serenading contest, in which
Tianbao and Nuosong will take turns serenading Cuicui; she would then decide which suitor
to accept as her fiancé.
Unfortunately, Cuicui is so exhausted during the evening when Tianbao is slated to serenade
her that she sleeps through the entire performance and instead dreams of picking flowering
saxifrage. Having felt rejected by Cuicui’s lack of any response to either the direct approach of
the go-between’s marriage proposal or the young man’s nighttime serenading, Tianbao angrily
abandoned his courtship and decided to ride a boat downstream through the rapids, where
its capsizing led to his drowning. Quietly blaming Cuicui’s grandfather for having caused his
elder brother’s death, Nuosong also seemingly abandons his plans to serenade or court Cuicui,
even after the grandfather attempts to cajole Nuosong into rekindling his former passion for
Cuicui. Nuosong finally heads downriver from Chadong in a huff after arguing with his father
Shunshun, who in turn pours cold water on grandfather’s hope to resurrect a match between
Cuicui and Nuosong. After the dispirited grandfather dies in his sleep at home, a despondent
Cuicui carries out the funeral rites and finally learns from the go-between of the many sensitive
events that her grandfather had not mentioned for fear of troubling her. Shunshun overcomes
his grudge against the now deceased grandfather and adopts Cuicui into his household as his
daughter-in-law and future wife of Nuosong, but there is no news of this young man as the
novella concludes in an open-ended manner: “Maybe this person will never return, but perhaps
he will come back tomorrow!”12
The novella is pervaded by a Daoist harmony, both between the human and natural world and
within this rustic society itself, which is utterly lacking in the sort of villainy that Shen portrays
in his less idealistic fiction. Evocative descriptions of changing seasons along the lushly forested
riverbank are reminiscent of Chinese landscape painting and classical poetry, effectively drawing
the reader into the unspoiled landscape. The late Zhou Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi was one of
Shen’s favorite classical writers, and he believed in a sort of pantheism in which the vital spirit
of life is pervasive throughout nature rather than localized in temples or other human artifacts.
Shen’s sunny view of human nature within settings uncorrupted by the lust for money or
political clout complement the dramatic interest his narrative derives from various rivalries, mis-
understandings, and even grudges amidst a cast of basically well-meaning and upright characters.
For example, the novella’s main love interest between Cuicui and Nuosong is complicated by
the young woman’s misconstruing of Nuosong’s jocular remark about a fish that might bite her
as a humiliation during their first long conversation together.
The teenaged heroine Cuicui’s gradual awakening to her sexuality and her ambivalence
about the seeming inevitability of courtship and marriage come across vividly through the
novelist’s psychologically deft tracing of her volatile mood swings. For example, she is struck
speechless when her grandfather first asks her to think about the go-between’s proposal of mar-
riage with Tianbao and offer her response: “Pretending to be unruffled, she timidly eyed her old
grandpa. She didn’t feel like asking for an explanation, and certainly not like giving an answer.”13

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Narratives featuring courtship typically have a comic structure if the result is the protago-
nists’ marriage, as in Wang Shifu’s Romance of the Western Chamber, but have a tragic structure if
the lovers break up and end in estrangement, as in Yuan Zhen’s “Story of Yingying.” The open-
ended finale of Border Town lands this novella somewhere in the middle of the spectrum amidst a
pervading mood of pathos amidst the extended absence of Nuosong and the deaths of Tianbao
and Cuicui’s grandfather. However, the crescendo of pathos toward the end of the novella is
wonderfully balanced by moods of joy or serenity in several earlier scenes of ordinary affection
between grandparent and grandchild, ferryman and passengers, and friends during celebratory
festivals and chance meetings alike.
Shen Congwen’s deft evocation of pathos amidst a surprise ending reminiscent of O. Henry
or Guy de Maupassant come together particularly memorably in his 1932 story “Quiet” (Jing).14
Internecine warfare has interrupted travel plans and stranded the womenfolk of an educated and
well-to-do military family in a peaceful but unfamiliar small riverport. The protagonist Yuemin
is a young teenager who is particularly anxious to check the mail each day for news from the
absent menfolk as to when their voyage to Shanghai might resume, for she yearns to start attend-
ing a new school there. Moreover, her bedridden mother’s respiratory ailment, most likely tuber-
culosis, has been getting worse in an area that is too remote to have a hospital or even doctors.
The only relief for Yuemin and her toddler nephew Beisheng from the tense quietude
indoors near the sickbed is to stealthily climb up onto the flat roof, a drying porch for laundry,
and to gaze out at the beautiful quietude of the rustic surroundings that they are forbidden to
roam about and enjoy on foot. Yuemin must periodically shush Beisheng, who often vocalizes
while pointing something out to his young aunt excitedly, as he easily forgets that his mother
has forbidden him from climbing up on dangerous things like rooftops. Yuemin drinks in the
serenity of the countryside through evocative descriptions of a ferryman taking a nap after fer-
rying some passengers, echoes from a young nun’s voice occasionally punctuating the overall
silence, kites and laundry flapping in the breeze, and smoke from numerous chimneys streaming
upward. However,Yuemin’s pleasant interludes on the rooftop are fleeting, for she and Beisheng
must hurry back down to the first floor whenever her mother or elder sister call for her, lest
she get into trouble for taking Beisheng to places where neither she nor he is supposed to be.
The story’s pathos reaches a crescendo at the finale, where the omniscient narrator states that
the shadows cast by laundry on the rooftop drying porch resemble the shadows cast by national
flags on the tombstones of the menfolk, officers who have recently died in battle unbeknownst
to their stranded wives, who do not yet realize that they have become widows. Readers are
left wondering how the stranded womenfolk will cope with the dreadful news once it finally
reaches them – and pondering the ways that warfare can brutally disrupt lives even in peaceful
and quiet regions like this tiny riverport. Shen Congwen has deftly adapted a serenely bucolic
setting to the often bloody and tumultuous subgenre of anti-war fiction.

Xu Dishan’s life and career

While Shen Congwen’s fiction is rooted in China’s vast interior, particularly his old hometown
in the southwestern uplands, Xu Dishan’s writings bear the mark of his family background in
southeastern China’s maritime provinces of Fujian, Guangdong, and Taiwan. Originally named
Xu Zankun upon his birth in Tainan,Taiwan in 1893, he was raised mostly in Fujian and Guang-
dong, and took the zi or style name of Xu Dishan at the age of twenty in 1913. His father was
a scholar-official with strong Buddhist leanings that both Xu Dishan and his mother shared.
Xu married in 1918 and sired one daughter before his wife died of an illness in 1920. Starting
from the early 1920s, Xu mostly signed his works with his pen name Luo Huasheng, which he

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adapted from the title of his autobiographical essay of 1921 about memories of growing peanuts
in the family garden.15
In comparison with the average Chinese literatus of his day, Xu mastered more foreign lan-
guages such as English and Sanskrit, as well as studying abroad in more countries – including
Burma, the U.S., Britain, and India. This cosmopolitanism is reflected in the way Xu’s stories
are sometimes set in more than one country overseas, such as both Singapore and India in “The
Merchant’s Wife” (Shangren fu, 1921).16 Beginning his career as a faculty member in religion
and general humanities in the late 1927 at his alma mater of Yenching University, Xu Dishan
was soon promoted to the rank of professor. In later years, he also taught at Beijing University,
Qinghua University, and Hong Kong University. Aside from fiction and essays, Xu wrote a
number of academic books on subjects such as Daoism and Buddhism, the literature of India,
and 19th-century Chinese history, as well as a collection of Sanskrit literature in Chinese trans-
lation. He also took a strong personal interest in both Christianity and various Asian religions
and philosophies, adopting a syncretic and pluralistic approach to religious values and practices
instead of a sectarian or exclusivist adherence to a single religion. In a period when most Chi-
nese writers derided religion as an opiate or backward superstition, Xu Dishan stood out as a
rare advocate for the ongoing significance of religious values such as compassion, charity, and
forbearance.The relevance of Xu Dishan’s exploration of religious ideas in China extends to the
present day, for as Peter van der Meer has argued, Maoism itself is “a millenarian movement”
that promises a socialist “paradise on earth,” while harshly cracking down on rival millenarian
movements such as Yiguandao.17
As one of founding members of the Literary Research Association (Wenxue yanjiu hui) in
1921, Xu Dishan was a pioneer of the May Fourth Era’s New Culture Movement. Though he
had written some minor pieces in the 1910s, Xu’s major works of fiction and literary essays first
came out in 1921 in journals such as Fiction Monthly (Xiaoshuo yuebao). He continued to write
well-received academic treatises and literary works until his untimely death from a heart attack
in 1941.

Xu Dishan’s literary achievements

In addition to his impressive array of academic publications, Xu Dishan is most admired for his
achievements in the shorter forms of stories, novellas, and informal essays – he never wrote a
full-length novel. His fiction tends to feature female protagonists who are more resourceful and
dynamic than their often feckless male counterparts, gentle (as opposed to biting) social satire,
and religious motifs and ideas.
Non-Chinese personages and foreign worldviews also tend to play a larger role in Xu Dis-
han’s fiction than that of his Chinese peers. This is particularly the case in his earliest works of
fiction such as “The Merchant’s Wife,” which features a female protagonist who has undergone
de-Sinicization abroad and is better off for it. Originally an illiterate provincial woman from
Fujian province, Xiguan travels to Singapore to find her sojourning husband, who has not con-
tacted her for years on end. He has become a successful businessman and taken a local Malay
wife, and callously sells Xiguan to an Indian Muslim merchant named Ahuja, who takes Xiguan
to India.
As Ahuja’s sixth wife, Xiguan bears him a son and learns to read for the first time, namely in
Bengali and Arabic, with the help of Ahuja’s well-educated third wife. After Ahuja dies, Xiguan
departs the household with her son and enough jewelry to buy a small home and get enough
education to find a job as a schoolteacher.When the Chinese narrator asks Xiguan why she will
go back to India instead of returning to her old homeland of Fujian, she replies that both she

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and her brown-skinned son would suffer ridicule and discrimination in China, in contrast to the
acceptance they usually experienced in India. Moreover, Xiguan would much rather continue to
enjoy the benefits of her literacy in India than sink back to the role of a lowly illiterate in China.
The story offers an ironic twist on common Chinese assumptions about the supposed ben-
efits of Sinicization and China’s logographic script – Xiguan is much better off for having
become de-Sinicized in India, where she has mastered two phonetically based scripts in less time
that it would require to learn written Chinese alone, and she and her son have been accepted by
the community in India instead of suffering ridicule of their appearance in China.

Xu Dishan’s literary masterpiece

Xu Dishan’s 1939 novella Yuguan has been widely acclaimed as his masterpiece.18 Lengthier
than any other work of fiction by Xu, the novella traces most of the adult life of its eponymous
protagonist Yuguan, a working-class Fujianese widow who combines Western-influenced wor-
ship of Christianity with traditional Chinese religious practices such as ritualistic offerings of
incense to folk gods and ancestral tablets.19 In order to counter almost daily pressure from her
avaricious brother-in-law Fensao for her to remarry and give him the title of her modest house,
Yuguan befriends a recently converted local Christian woman named Xingguan, whose house is
a refuge from Fensao’s annoying visits. As a “rice Christian” who has greatly benefited from the
political clout of foreign missionaries in the region near the turn of the 20th century, Xingguan
persuades Yuguan that the benefits of joining the local Christian church greatly outweigh any
disadvantages such as absurd Christian doctrines about a virgin birth.
Yuguan thereupon becomes a Christian “God-worshipper” and quickly gains the unex-
pected benefit of literacy for the first time in her life through a copy of the Bible in romanized
Fujianese, which she learns how to read after only a week of practicing her ABCs all day long at
Xingguan’s house – so much less daunting than learning the logographic Chinese script. Xing-
guan also helps Yuguan find a steady job working for a local foreign missionary, which provides
further protection against harassment from Fensao while enabling Yuguan to save money for her
son’s education and future marriage expenses. The foreign clergyman notices how competently
and diligently Yuguan handles all of the church’s housekeeping tasks, and soon extends her duties
to include recruiting more church members through her skills in connecting with local people
and proselytizing.
As the years go on, Yuguan gradually emerges as a community leader who is dispatched to
nearby towns and villages to spread the Gospel and recruit more Christian believers. During
one of these trips she meets and befriends a kindly peddler named Chen Lian, and as they get
to know each other better, she secretly begins to consider marrying someone like him and
heading off to Southeast Asia – that is, until she balks at the discovery that he is none other
than the estranged husband of her best friend Xingguan. One of the many coincidences in the
novella’s plot that make it read more like a traditional Chinese romance (chuanqi) than a work
of literary realism, this plot strand shows how Yuguan prioritizes loyalty to a close friend over
personal yearnings for love from a lifelong companion, yet remains ambivalent in a psychologi-
cally convincing way.
Yuguan’s standing as a community leader and powers of persuasion come to the test during
the internecine military clashes of mid-Republican era when her town is alternately occupied
by Red Army Communist troops, local communist rebel troops, and government or National-
ist soldiers. Yuguan manages to maintain her composure when pressed into forced labor, later
paraded along the main street with a dunce cap on her head, and finally slapped around as
an “imperialist lackey” by some of the local communist soldiers; she eventually eludes some

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communist guards and escapes to secure outside help in driving the local communists out of
town. However, after the government or Nationalist troops arrive, they confine a lot of local
women in what appears to be an informal military brothel made ready for rape by soldiers on
a large scale. Yuguan criticizes the immorality of these plans in both Christian and Confucian
terms, and daringly implores a senior Nationalist officer to allow her to release the women from
military confinement and hide them inside the gated local church instead. The officer and the
other soldiers gradually accede to Yuguan’s persuasive appeal on behalf of the local women.
Yuguan accordingly becomes something of a local heroine by preventing even a single rape from
happening in the town during its military occupation by Nationalist troops.
On the other hand, Yuguan’s all-too-human weaknesses reveal themselves most glaringly
in her troubled relationships with her daughters-in-law, with whom she often finds fault. Her
expectations for a submissive daughter-in-law appear excessive in an early 20th-century con-
text, even for her first daughter-in-law who was raised in a traditional Chinese family. After this
woman dies in the aftermath of having given birth to Yuguan’s grandson, Yuguan’s son Jiande
goes back to the U.S. and eventually marries a Chinese-American young woman named Anni.
Anni is even less submissive to her mother-in-law than Jiande’s deceased first wife, so a period
of living together as a threesome in Nanjing is full of arguments and other tensions between
daughter-in-law and mother-in-law. It is only after Yuguan leaves her son’s home in Nanjing and
returns alone to Fujian that the rift between her and Anni gradually heals.
Grateful for Yuguan’s decades of charity and service to the townsfolk, they decide to collect
donations for the construction of a new bridge to be named after her. After the much-needed
bridge gets built, Jiande and Anni travel down to attend the ceremony commemorating the
bridge’s completion in Yuguan’s honor. Now with greying hair and a heart condition, Yuguan
bids her relatives and friends adieu the following day as she boards a steamship for Southeast
Asia, where she intends to find Chen Lian and see if he would return with her to Fujian and rec-
oncile with Xingguan. The novella thus concludes in a mood of achievement and togetherness,
and yet is open-ended enough for the reader to imagine a variety of possible future scenarios.
The literary historian Yang Yi has argued that Xi Dishan’s fiction is so unusual that no writer
imitated his style or was even capable of replicating his approach to writing fiction, which was
essentially an updated traditional romance or chuanqi.20 Along with the abundance of coinci-
dences in this novella’s plot, its total absence of dialogue makes Yuguan read more like a romance
or legend and less like realist fiction than anything else in Xu Dishan’s oeuvre. On the other hand,
aspects of 20th-century social reality pervade the novella: foreign personages and religions, vari-
ous overseas sojourns by steamship, some hybrid characters who are neither fully Chinese nor
thoroughly foreign in identity, and both Communist and Nationalist armies crisscrossing the
region and generating crises.
The protagonist comes across as a rounded and well-developed character that is complex
enough to embrace a number of seemingly contradictory qualities. Yuguan is kind enough
to wind up feeling some sympathy even for her brother-in-law who pestered her into taking
refuge at Xingguan’s house, and yet seems unable to establish a friendly rapport with either of
her daughters-in-law due to overblown expectations of their submissiveness. Do religious or
moral concepts of compassion and kindness somehow not extend to one’s daughter-in-law?
Moreover, the protagonist spends decades of her life proselytizing Christianity with the aid of
her intelligible romanized Fujianese Bible, yet doubts many of its bedrock doctrines and carries
an unintelligible copy of the Book of Changes (Yi jing) around with her due to her folk belief in
its efficacy at warding off Chinese ghosts and demons. Is this a laudably syncretist and pluralis-
tic approach to religious belief – or a sign that logical or systematic thinking about one’s own
religious persuasions is unlikely to occur? Such quandaries about one of the most memorable

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protagonists in Xu Dishan’s oeuvre provide much food for thought to readers of this one-of-a-
kind novella in Republican Era China.

Qian Zhongshu’s life and career

While religion remained a central focus of Xu Dishan’s literary and scholarly publications
throughout his life, Qian Zhongshu focused mostly on literature and aesthetics, especially clas-
sical Chinese literature in East-West comparative perspective. Just as the parents of Xu Dishan
had a strong interest in Buddhism that probably rubbed off on their son, Qian Zhongshu’s father
Qian Jibo (1887–1957) and maternal uncle Wang Yunzhang (1888–1942) were both prominent
literati who stimulated the precocious young Zhongshu’s interest in literature as he grew up in
his old hometown of Wuxi, Jiangsu. Aside from learning Confucian classics such as the Poetry
Classic (Shi jing) from a very young age, Qian Zhongshu also read a lot of Ming-Qing novels
and various anthologies of fiction in his childhood. By the time he was sixteen, he had read so
much English literature and Chinese classical poetry and prose that he was able to write excel-
lent essays in classical Chinese (wenyanwen), English, or vernacular Chinese. Qian Zhongshu
continued to expand his literary and linguistic skills while studying at Qinghua University,
where he graduated in 1933 and soon received the first of many academic posts in teaching
and research that he would occupy in his career at Aurora (Guanghua) University in Shanghai.
In 1935, he married Yang Jiang (1911–2016) and won a Boxer Indemnity Scholarship for liter-
ary studies at Exeter College in Oxford University. After completing a degree at Oxford, Qian
moved to Paris with his wife to study at the Sorbonne until the outbreak of China’s war with
Japan in 1937 caused the couple to take a steamship back to China.
Qian Zhongshu’s difficult journey through parts of rural China in wartime to take up a post
at Lantian Normal College in Hunan in 1939 became part of the source material for his famous
satirical novel Fortress Besieged (Wei cheng, 1947). His other two books of imaginative writing
came out earlier in the 1940s – a collection of witty essays in 1941 and an anthology of well-
crafted short stories in 1946.
For the rest of Qian Zhongshu’s career after 1949, he remained in academia but discontinued
writing fiction, which became a political minefield in Mao Era China. Instead, Qian focused on
a series of important and erudite scholarly projects on classical Chinese literature and aesthetics,
with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing serving as his primary work unit. After
Mao Zedong’s death in 1976, the gradual thawing of the PRC literary scene allowed the first
PRC reprints of Qian’s fiction and essays to come out by the 1980s, and a slightly later cultural
thaw in Taiwan enabled such reprints to be published there as well. His novel Fortress Besieged
not only reached more Chinese readers than ever before, but was also filmed in the PRC as
a multi-episode television series in 1990, gaining even more visibility and recognition for the
author. By the time Qian Zhongshu died in 1998, his novel was widely acclaimed as one of the
major landmarks of 20th-century Chinese fiction.

Qian Zhongshu’s literary achievements

Qian Zhongshu’s earliest published writings came out around 1930, and include poetry, essays,
literary criticism, poetics, literary history, and fiction. Most were written in vernacular Chinese,
but quite a few appeared in English or classical Chinese. His sole novel Fortress Besieged (Wei
cheng, 1947) and lone short story collection Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts (Ren shou gui, 1946)
came out in book form in the late 1940s. However, Qian Zhongshu’s fiction did not achieve
wide popular acclaim until new editions of it were printed on both sides of the Taiwan Strait in

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the 1980s and a major television series of Fortress Besieged starring Chen Daoming and Lü Liping
was filmed in China in 1990.
Qian wrote no more fiction after the 1940s, switching almost entirely to erudite research
publications on classical Chinese literature and aesthetics – often with a comparative slant that
included foreign-language references and passages in English, Latin, French, Spanish, German,
and Italian. His collected works came out three years after his death in 1998 and run to 13 vol-
umes, most of which belong to the category of literary research and criticism.21
Qian Zhongshu’s fiction and essays of the 1940s brim with pungent social satire and erudite
wit, often applying a more deft touch and greater allusive range than mainstream satiric writers
such as Zhang Tianyi (1906–1985) can muster. For example, Qian’s essay “On Writers” (Lun
wenren) satirizes the common foible among modern Chinese writers to exaggerate the political
impact of their literary effusions by referring to Percy Bysshe Shelley’s claim that “poets are the
unacknowledged legislators of the world,” adding a wry suggestion that a writer so preoccupied
with saving the nation should simply abandon literature and stand for a legislative seat instead.22

Qian Zhongshu’s masterpiece

In Qian Zhongshu’s novel, originally a bestseller upon its publication in 1947 that later fell into
obscurity during the Mao Era (until its revival with a reprint edition in 1980), we encounter a
picaresque narrative structure that largely follows the episodic wanderings of a likable rogue –
the spottily educated protagonist Fang Hongjian. Fang returns to China from university studies
in Europe by steamship around the time that war breaks out between Japan and China. His
lack of seriousness about scholarship can be seen in the way he utilizes a fake Ph.D. diploma
to eventually land a university teaching job in the hinterlands of Hunan, along with his ardent
pursuit of romantic escapades with various young women, both on the steamship from Europe
and after his arrival in China.
As a picaro in the first two-thirds of the novel, Fang leaves behind a string of disgruntled
young women in his wayward path such as his long-time love interest Su Wenwan and her
younger cousin Tang Xiaofu. While back in his hometown on a family visit, Fang also makes
a mess of his former school principal’s attempt to showcase Fang’s academic success through
the latter’s lecture to the student body. The lecture notes Fang has carefully prepared somehow
wind up in a different gown from what he wears to the lecture hall, so after a momentary panic
he improvises with rambling and scandalous comments about opium and syphilis in China that
garner applause and raucous laughter from students, but scowls from the teachers and principal.
The shaken principal’s faltering attempt to salvage some shreds of the school’s dignity after
Fang’s ridiculous speech brings a close to one of the satirical novel’s most hilarious episodes.
Fortress Besieged is a major landmark of the 20th-century Chinese novel and a model of com-
pelling social satire. The novel’s dynamism accelerates roughly two-thirds of the way through
the narrative, where the overall focus significantly shifts from a broad assortment of satirically
portrayed academics and other middle-class characters to a narrow close-up of primarily the
two protagonists who get engaged and then married, Fang Hongjian and Sun Roujia.The often
jocular tone in the first two-thirds of the novel shifts to a more sober analysis of how an intimate
relationship with auspicious beginnings can get caught in a downward spiral that spins out of
control and finally breaks apart in an angry separation that will likely end in divorce.
The title is a reference to a time-honored French paradox about the conflicting motivations
of the two parties embroiled in the besieging of a walled town or fortress: the attackers are
trying to break into the town, while the defenders would prefer to break out and escape their
unwelcome entrapment inside. The besieged city is above all a metaphor for marriages like that

379
 Philip F. Williams

between Fang and Sun that end in the escape of divorce in spite of the couple’s initial excite-
ment for entry into matrimony.This French metaphor can also describe various other aspects of
life such as an academic post like Fang Hongjian’s – he and Sun Roujia were initially anxious
to get hired at San Lü University in a hinterland region remote from the war’s frontlines. How-
ever, after the young couple encounters endemic hypocrisy and infighting among faculty and
outrageous misbehavior by some of their students, Fang is already planning to resign his post
before the higher-ups dismiss him. All in all, the novel delights in presenting nagging paradoxes
and dilemmas that defy the easy solutions or pat answers offered by many mainstream Chinese
writers of the period who claim to know exactly how to “save the nation” or rectify societal
ills once and for all. Like his fellow independent writers Shen Congwen and Xu Dishan, Qian
Zhongshu marches to the tune of a different rhythm from the standard drumbeat of the age for
national salvation in conformance with a party line.

Notes
1 For example, during the 1930s and 1940s, Shen Congwen enjoyed satirizing both the authoritarian
Nationalist regime and “the future Communist dictatorship” at various times, as demonstrated by Jef-
frey C. Kinkley, The Odyssey of Shen Congwen (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987), 201, 236.
2 An exploration of the motives behind independent fiction writers’ abandonment of their craft after
1949 can be found in Philip F. Williams, Village Echoes: The Fiction of Wu Zuxiang (Boulder, CO: West-
view Press, 1993), 188–192. A major problem for writers with an elevated May Fourth ethos of critical
thinking was Mao Zedong’s insistence upon a worker-farmer-soldier populist literature that had to take
an uncritical and deferential stance toward the Communist Party and the regime it ruled.
3 While the reasons for the Mao Era bans on reprinting or even writing about the Republican Era fiction
by Shen Congwen and Qian Zhongshu were mostly ideological in nature, the main motivations behind
the way that most Republican-Era fiction writers were banned from being reprinted in Taiwan prior
to liberalization in the 1980s were fearful suspicions of disloyalty that Taiwan’s Chiang Kai-shek regime
directed toward Chinese intellectuals who chose to remain in mainland China after 1949.
4 Shen’s literary peers sometimes referred to him as the Chinese counterpart of the French creole novelist
Alexandre Dumas père. See Jeffrey C. Kinkley, The Odyssey of Shen Congwen, 111.
5 Shen Ts’ung-wen (Congwen), preface to The Chinese Earth, 2nd edition, eds. Ching Ti and Robert
Payne (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), 4.
6 Jeffrey C. Kinkley, The Odyssey of Shen Congwen, 270.
7 Zhang Zhaohe et al., eds., Shen Congwen quanji [The Complete Works of Shen Congwen], 32 vols.
(Taiyuan: Beiyue wenyi chubanshe, 2002). If all of these writings were translated into English, the result
would probably be at least fifty volumes.
8 Jeffrey C. Kinkley, preface to Shen Congwen, Selected Stories of Shen Congwen, Chinese-English bilin-
gual edition (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press of Hong Kong, 2004), xiv. Nobel Prizes are
awarded only to living recipients.
9 Shen Congwen, Border Town (Bian cheng), 1934, rpt (Hong Kong: Nanhua shudian chuban, 1980).
Border Town: A  Novel, trans. Jeffrey C. Kinkley (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2009).
10 Lu Xun and Mao Dun, eds., Straw Sandals (Caoxie jiao), 1934, rpt (Changsha: Hunan renmin chu-
banshe, 1981).
11 See Bonnie S. McDougall, The Yellow Earth: A Film by Chen Kaige with a Complete Translation of the Film-
script (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press of Hong Kong, 1991), 226–227.
12 Shen Congwen, Bian cheng, 113.
13 Shen Congwen, Border Town: A  Novel, 91; Bian cheng, 61.
14 Shen Congwen, An Anthology of Shen Congwen (Shen Congwen wenji)(Guangzhou: Huacheng chu-
banshe, 1982), vol. 4, 256–265. English translation by William MacDonald in Shen Congwen, Imperfect
Paradise:Twenty-four Stories, ed. Jeffrey C. Kinkley (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1995), 66–78.
15 Qin Xianci, “Xu Dishan Chronology,” (Xu Dishan nianbiao) An Anthology of Xu Dishan (Xu Dishan
xiaoshuo xuan), ed.Yang Mu (Taipei: Hongfan shudian youxian gongsi, 1984), 383–403, esp. 388.
16 Xu Dishan, “The Merchant’s Wife,” (Shangren fu), Xu Dishan xiaoshuo xuan, 59–74. English translation
by William H. Nienhauser, Jr., in Joseph S.M. Lau, C. T. Hsia and Leo Ou-fan Lee, eds., Modern Chinese
Novellas and Stories, 1919–1949 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), 41–50.

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17 Peter van der Veer, “Smash Temples, Burn Books: Comparing Secular Projects in India and China,” in
Craig Calhoun, Mark Juergensmeyer and Johann Van Antwerpen, eds., Rethinking Secularism (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2011), 274, 276.
18 C. T. Hsia, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961), 88; Stephen
L. Riep, “Xu Dishan (Luo Huasheng),” in Thomas Moran, ed., Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume
328: Chinese Fiction Writers, 1900–1949 (Detroit: Thomson Gale/Bruccoli Clark Layman, 2006), 254.
See also Stephen L. Riep, “Religion Reconsidered: Redemption and Women’s Emancipation in Xu
Dishan’s ‘The Merchant’s Wife’ and Yuguan,” Literature and Belief (2004), vol. 24, no. 1–2, 101–115.
19 Yuguan, Xu Dishan xiaoshuo xuan, ed.Yang Mu, 315–367. “Yü-kuan,” trans. Cecile Chu-chin Sun, Mod-
ern Chinese Stories and Novellas, 1919–1949, eds. Lau, Hsia and Lee, 51–87.
20 Yang Yi, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction (Zhongguo xiandai xiaoshuo shi) (Beijing: Renmin wenxue
chubanshe, 1986), vol. 1, 373.
21 Qian Zhongshu’s Collected Works (Qian Zhongshu ji), 13 vols. (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2001).
22 Qian Zhongshu, “On Writers,” (Lun wenren) Written at the Margin of Human Life (Xie zai rensheng
de bianshang) (Hong Kong: Wen jiao chubanshe, 1982), 54. English translation by Philip F. Williams in
Modern Chinese Literary Thought: Writings on Literature, 1893–1945, ed. Kirk A. Denton (Stanford: Stan-
ford University Press, 1996), 448. Shelley’s claim that exalts the role of poets comes from his Defense of
Poetry.

Further readings
Benická, Jana. “Some Remarks on the Satirical in Qian Zhongshu’s Novel Fortress Besieged.” In Raoul D.
Findeisen and Robert H. Gassmann, ed., Autumn Floods: Essays in Honour of Marián Galik. Bern: Peter
Lang, 1998, 351–361.
Hsia, C. T. A History of Modern Chinese Fiction. 3rd Edition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999,
84–92, 389–431.
Kinkley, Jeffrey C. The Odyssey of Shen Congwen. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987.
Peng, Hsiao-yen. Antithesis Overcome: Shen Congwen’s Avant-gardism and Primitivism. Taipei: Institute of Chi-
nese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica, 1994.
Rea, Christopher, ed. China’s Literary Cosmopolitans: Qian Zhongshu,Yang Jiang, and the World of Letters. Sinica
Leidensia Series, vol. 125. Leiden: Brill, 2015.
Riep, Steven L. “Religion Reconsidered: Redemption and Women’s Emancipation in Xu Dishan’s ‘The
Merchant’s Wife’ and ‘Yuguan.’ ” Literature and Belief 24.1–2 (2004): 101–115.
Wang, David Der-wei. Fictional Realism in Twentieth-century China: Mao Dun, Lao She, Shen Congwen. New
York: Columbia University Press, 1992.
Yang Yan. Yidai caizi: Qian Zhongshu. Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 2005.
Zhou Sisong and Xiang Yunshou. Xu Dishan. Taipei: Shulin chuban youxian gongsi, 1992.

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 SECTION IX

Literature of socialist realism

 28
FICTION OF NEW CHINA
(1949–1966)
Xiangshu Fang and Lijun Bi

Introduction
The title of this chapter, “Fiction of New China,” sounds much more wide-ranging than what it
actually covers. To address fictional works produced in a historical period of a few decades is an
impossible task. Instead of a comprehensive survey, this chapter will focus on some representative
works from the 1950s to the early 1960s, which sing praises of socialist transformation and pro-
letarian heroes in accordance with the state guiding lines of socialist realism and revolutionary
romanticism. Although the actual use of the term “socialist realism” was sporadic in Chinese lit-
erary criticism after it was officially endorsed in China in September 1953,1 reflecting the com-
plexity of the relationship between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its Soviet Russian
counterpart, the stance of most Chinese writers and theoreticians towards socialist realism and
masterpieces of Soviet socialist realism was on the whole affirmative.2 The concept of Chinese
socialist realism is entangled with the multiplicity of ideological, social and cultural forces and
traditions. Underpinning the adoption of the socialist realist literary trend were practical and
political agendas. On the eve of founding a “new China” with the communist victory in 1949,
the chairman of the CCP, Mao Zedong declared: “To win the country-wide victory is only the
first step of a long march of ten thousand li . . . . The Chinese revolution is great, but the road
after the revolution will be longer, the work greater and more arduous.”3 The newly established
People’s Republic had a tremendous task to reconstruct a national economy that was shattered
by both World War II and the subsequent civil war. The task was inextricably linked with the
task of training a large number of new socialist constructors. In this new China, the interests
of individuals were to succumb to the interests of the community as a whole. In this light, the
rhetoric of socialist construction became one of the dominant traits of literature of this era, with
the supremacy of communitarian over individual identities turned out to be its central concern.
The principle to subordinate art to politics and artistic criteria to political criteria ensured the
Communist Party’s command of the whole cultural field in the service of the revolution.
For guidance and inspiration, many Chinese writers turned to Soviet novels which were
available in Chinese translation: Sholokhov’s Virgin Soil Upturned, Gladkov’s Cement, Ostrovsky’s
How the Steel Was Tempered and Grossman’s People Are Immortal.4 The literary expression of the
new ideology, socialist realism, extolled exemplary characters who would carry the new socialist
revolution to its inevitable victory.5 Revolution required personal sacrifices, but people would

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not risk their lives if they did not believe in the nobleness of the revolutionary cause. Heroes
were needed to epitomise the new values so as to create purpose, loyalty and tenacity.The blend
of revolutionary romanticism and socialist realism was China’s response, both in theory as well
as in practice, to address this issue. One of the challenges authors faced was how to treat the
Chinese indigenous tradition and masses of peasantry in Chinese socialist realist literature. In
spite of the Party’s stress on the worker-peasant-soldier line in that period, fictions about work-
ers and soldiers lagged substantially behind fictions about peasants, in terms of both quantity
and quality.6 Chinese writers seemed more apt to deal with rural themes. In the late 1950s and
early 1960s, however, some brilliant new novelists emerged. They largely followed the example
of Ostrovsky, who had used his own life experience to create a proletarian hero, Pavel Kor-
chagin, in his autographical novel, How the Steel Was Tempered. Their debuts utilized their own
personal experience in the anti-Japanese and civil wars and underground communist activities
in pre-communist days to create some of the most outstanding proletarian heroes in the Chinese
socialist realist literature. It was clear to the CCP that a literary work with a political message
would only be effective if the work moved the audience.Without moving people, the optimism
of socialist realism, holding working class as the most advanced, most progressive and most
heroic class and the faith of their inevitable victory would just be empty talk. And so, Chinese
literature of socialist realism relied heavily on the elements of indigenous literary tradition as a
tool to make politics in literature functional and accessible.
The historical period of New China produced a large quantity of fictional works. It is impos-
sible to cover even the major works in a short essay. Given that one of the fundamental goals of
socialist realism is to educate and to transform the working people along the line of adopting the
spirit of socialism, having a strong “educational” implication is thus a key criterion for selecting
the materials for discussion in this essay. Apart from the volume of circulation of the texts, as
indicated by the quantity of printing and reprinting, the adaptation of a text for screen, stage and
school textbooks has also been an important consideration in the selection of the discussed texts.
The first two works discussed here offer a sense of a rapid change in China’s vast rural arena and
showcase how a socialist young generation tried to break away with the old ideas and practice.
Such stories are usually centred on a character whose consciousness and world outlook undergo
a major transformation along socialist lines through the course of the story. The treatment of
China’s peasantry in the spirit of socialism adds a new dimension to the international trend of
socialist realism. The other two works analysed here demonstrate how the maturing Chinese
socialist realist literature enriches the repertoire and the trend of socialist realism in the creation
of collective proletarian heroism.

Ma Feng
Ma Feng (1922–2004) was one of the “potato school” writers who came from Shanxi Province
and were known for writing about and for the masses of peasants. Ma Feng was born in an
impoverished family and received primary and some secondary education before joining the
CCP in 1938. In 1940, he was admitted to the communist-run Lu Xun Art Academy in Yan’an
to study creative writing. As a writer, Ma Feng was brought up under Mao Zedong’s idea of
using literature as both a weapon to fight the enemy and as a tool to educate the people. With
this mission in mind, he formed his writing style – plain, witty and easy to understand – to be
appreciated by ordinary people, especially peasants. In the 1950s and 1960s, his career reached
its peak, with many of his short stories becoming famous nationwide, including “The Young
People in Our Village” (Women cunli de niangqing ren) and “My First Superior” (Wode diyige

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shangji). In characterisation, narrative technique and subject matter, Ma Feng demonstrates his
skill in combining realistic substance with the vivid language of the rural masses.

“Han Meimei”
Ma Feng’s short story, “Han Meimei,” is perhaps the best known of all his works as it was
adapted to be included in the national Chinese language textbook for Grade 5 of primary
school (Yuwen) in the late 1950s and early 1960s.7 First published in 1954 in People’s Litera-
ture (Remin wenxue), a most prestigious national literary magazine, the short story is about a
seventeen-year-old girl, Han Meimei, who does not do well in her entrance examination for
the senior high school. Her family is saddened by the news. For generations they were illiterate
peasants, hoping that through education, Han Meimei, the only child of the family, would be
capable of gaining the opportunity to earn good money to support the whole family. Despite
her failure in entrance examination, Han Meimei is depicted as believing firmly that she can
nonetheless contribute to the socialist motherland by participating in its agricultural work. The
story demonstrates that Han Meimei’s new scientific farming not only boosts the output of the
village, but also greatly raises her family’s standard of living.
The story takes the form of letters written by Han Meimei to her teacher, Lu Ping, a female
model teacher, who is portrayed as the source of knowledge and inspiration. The teacher’s role
in this story is presented as both traditional and contemporary. The story affirms the traditional
Confucian belief that learning and righteousness are closely linked, and that teachers provide
students with moral guidance. However, in contrast to Confucian teachings, the aim of the Chi-
nese education system of the 1950s was to train young people to become “red and expert.”8 It is
from Lu Ping, a model teacher who is also in charge of the activities of the school’s Communist
Youth League branch, that Han Meimei first hears the Communist Party’s call for young people
to participate in the socialist agricultural production.The moral educator’s guidance to her pupil
is that an educated Communist Youth League member ought to go and take up a position in the
most difficult and challenging place where they are needed. If the primary function of socialist
realist literature is to build the path leading to modernity, then this short story contributes to
this endeavour by laying down the most fundamental political message in the shaping of a new
socialist constructor: listen to the Communist Party.
The intricate disparities between personal and collective interests also add to this conflict in
the story. Notably, loyalty to the CCP is of strong contrast to the Confucian belief that an indi-
vidual is first and foremost a member of the family, with duties and obligations to family. The
authority of the head of the family, usually a father or a grandfather, must never be challenged.
The author presents a picture of the confrontation between Han Meimei and the older genera-
tions of her parents and her grandmother after her unsuccessful performance in the entrance
examination to high school. Her mother sighs constantly. Her grandmother can’t help disclosing
what she has always felt: “What could you expect of a girl? What a waste it was to send a girl
to school for all these years!” Her father is described as most upset. He throws her rice bowl
on the table, calling her “useless,” “a failure” and “a disgrace to the family.” Contrary to the
negativity of the older generations, Han Meimei is described as determined to make a differ-
ence in the new socialist construction: she represents the hope and future of the nation. As she
succeeds in scientific farming, not only does the community around her prosper, but ultimately,
Han Meimei’s family benefits as well. At the end of the story, Han Meimei’s father has to admit
that he has been wrong about the new socialist values of the younger generation. Through the
development of the story, the author succeeds in establishing a new conviction that, in the battle

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to modernise China from its backwardness, the new generation of young people are the quintes-
sence of the socialist construction: they represent the scientific advancement of new knowledge
and are capable of providing guidance of the new socialist moral values to the older generations.
From this story, it is clear that the discourse of socialist realism shares the traditional Confucian
notion that literature is primarily informative and didactic, serving a social and moral purpose,
even though there is a role reversal in stories like “Han Meimei,” in which youth are to lead and
educate their elders.

Li Zhun
Li Zhun (1928–2000), a prolific author of fiction and film scripts, was born in a well-educated
family of Mongolian ethnic descent in Henan Province. Many of his relatives were teachers,
and when his high school education was interrupted during the turmoil years, he studied
classical Chinese and calligraphy with his grandfather. He was also greatly interested in works
by European authors like Turgenev, Dickens and Balzac. In 1953, he published his first short
story, “Don’t Take That Road” (Buneng zou natiao lu), which attracted Mao Zedong’s atten-
tion, making him an instant celebrity nationwide, and in the following year he became a
professional writer. Li Zhun also served as a delegate to China’s National People’s Congress
in 1955. He joined the Communist Party in 1960 and in the same year he was appointed as
the director of Chinese Writers Association. Li Zhun’s works are mostly about peasant life.
His 1960 short story “A Brief Biography of Li Shuangshuang” (Li Shuangshuang xiaozhuan)
is commonly regarded as his masterpiece. He adapted it for film in 1962, making Li Shuang-
shuang a household name in China. His novel The Yellow River Flowing East (Huanghe dong
liuqu) is also highly acclaimed, with Volume 1 published in 1979 and Volume 2 in 1984. Li
Zhun is accredited for authorship and the adaptation of many celebrated movies in China like
The Biography of an Old Soldier (Laobing xinzhuan), The Great River Flows On (Dahe benliu),
The Herdsman (Muma ren), Wreaths at the Foot of the Mountain (Gaoshanxia de huahuan) and
The Old Man and His Dog (Laoren yu gou). He received many awards for his literary achieve-
ments in China.

“A Brief Biography of Li Shuangshuang”

The success of this short story, published in People’s Literature in 1960,9 is astonishing. The
author himself believed that the story was reprinted over 400 times in various editions all over
China and read by 300,000,000 people.10 The story was adapted as a comic strip and made into
a film, and was performed by many local operas onstage. Although there are many different
variations, the crux of the original story remains unchanged: Li Shuangshuang, the forthright-
natured and sharp-tongued young woman who demands to take part in the excitement of the
Great Leap movement, proposes setting up a collective canteen to allow maximum participa-
tion in the Great Leap by young wives. The story primarily develops along a series of con-
frontations between the spirited Li Shuangshuang, who wants to be free from the restrictions
of her domestic life, and her conservative and formerly abusive husband, Sun Xiwang, who
often refers her merely as “the one that cooks for me.” By the end of the story, people respect
Li Shuangshuang tremendously for her unwavering dedication to the Great Leap, whereas her
husband is often ridiculed for his “old beliefs” that women are inferior to men in the social
hierarchy.
Chinese modernity, in which the urge of a speedy socialist construction played a dominant
role in the Great Leap movement in the late 1950s and early 1960s, cannot be understood

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without acknowledging its ecstatic nature. This story extols the Great Leap as it was meant to
be: an era of excitement, enthusiasm and heroism:

Early in the spring of 1958, the masses of the entire township broke with their tra-
ditions for celebrating the Spring Festival and launched a mighty drive to create an
irrigation system, and the young men and women of Sun Family Village, hoisting large
flags and beating gongs and drums, headed up Black Hill to build a reservoir.11

The purpose of the story is not merely to idolise the abrupt and speedy change of the his-
torical trajectory of the nation towards modernity: it is to popularise, by example, new socialist
modes of conduct. It encourages people to change and to improve so as to form a new type of
personality that values the collective consciousness for the common good. Li Shuangshuang is
such an example. She embodies a new type of personality, with a strong impulse to modernise
China in a radical, even aggressive way. Courage is her most outstanding quality. She dares to
think, dares to speak, dares to act and most importantly dares to imagine: “if we can continue
to Leap Forward like this, then in the future we will harvest bumper crops of grain and raise
plenty of pigs and fish.”12 In the story, Li Shuangshuang and her friends possess a superb amount
of energy, capable of exceptional accomplishments, including entire nights of additional work
and technical innovation. Li Shuangshuang exemplifies the new type of socialist women who
emerged enthusiastically from the restrictions of the home to play an essential role in achiev-
ing the goals set by the CCP. Richard King adequately summarises that the achievement of
“A Brief Biography of Li Shuangshuang” as “enliven[ing] the political message of the moment
with humour, both in the squabbling between Li Shuangshuang and Sun Xiwang and in the
verbal comedy. . . .”13
Hidden beneath the description of their constant squabbling is the implication of amorous
passion as well as the concealed relationship between revolutionary impulse and sensual eman-
cipation. The protagonist’s friend, Guiying, another young wife living next door, comments on
their quarrel by quoting a proverb:

Like rain from the sky that sinks into the soil,
Couples who quarrel make peace as they toil.
They eat from the same pot when day’s work is done,
Then on the same pillow two heads lie as one.14

This suggestive proverb, which makes both young women giggle, seems to echo cleverly the
classical Confucian saying “drink, food, man, woman” (yin shi nan nü) which refers to the basic
human desire of eating, drinking, having sex and accepting them as natural. The proverb adds
the “quarrelling” as a natural component to the life of married couple. Indeed, it is this compo-
nent that spices up their relationship, at least from Xiwang’s perspective, which duly reflects the
author’s own veiled sexual fantasy. Xiwang really likes what his wife has turned into: her good
looks, her fiery and spicy personality and her forthright nature, always daring to talk and laugh.
In traditional Chinese literature, women are usually illustrated either as weak, timid and sexually
exploitable, or as perilous, powerful and sexually insatiable.15 This indeed reflects the general/
male conception of female sexuality in China. Li Shuangshuang is portrayed here vividly and
approvingly as good looking, explosive and impulsive, changing swiftly from fury to laughter.
The picture of youth, beauty and vigour, lovingly described, fits well into the male fantasy,
fascination, bewilderment and fear of female sexuality. This inference is further evidenced by
Xiwang’s concern.Very obvious to him, Shuangshuang, being energetic and restless, cannot bear

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loneliness and isolation. “The pounding of stone sledgehammers beat out a rhythm, while the
clear voices of young men and women singing work songs flowed like a tide that swept through
the window into Shuangshuang’s home.”16
After attending the night school, Li Shuangshuang becomes literate. She writes some simple
sentences like “I really want to study” and “When will I be able to stop cooking and participate
in the Great Leap?” and pastes these over the head of her bed. The story seems to suggest that
the way for a woman to achieve liberation and to attain gender equality is to align herself with
the mighty social and political movements of the CCP. Indeed, Sun Xiwang’s concern that Li
Shuangshuang may divorce him under the new Marriage Law is not groundless: the large-scaled
social transformation movements gave young people, especially young women, opportunities to
pursue personal liberation, to rebel against the traditional family, and to seek the freedom and
choice to marry for love. This alarms Sun Xiwang. His wife’s most remarkable attribute is her
audacity, as he sees her as “that fool who never thinks before she acts.” Born in an impoverished
family, given to Xiwang as a wife/maid at the age of seventeen, known only as “Xiwang’s wife”
or “Xiwang’s woman” and referred by Xiwang as “the one in my home” or “the one who cooks
for me,” she suffers years of abuse. Instead of accepting her fate, Li Shuangshuang eventually
stands up and takes matters into her own hands, saying “no” to both her husband and sym-
bolically, traditional oppressive China. From anonymity, Li Shuangshuang dares to challenge the
traditional subservient way of unquestioning obedience to the autocratic patriarchal authority,
leaping out to become a national star of the cause.
However, the success of the story raises the issue of the huge disparity between the rosy
pictures presented in stories like “A Brief Biography of Li Shuangshuang” and the cruel reality
of the disastrous Great Leap. The discrepancy has to be understood in intellectual and historical
contexts. In China, the overriding voice of the left-wing writers dominated the literary scene
from the beginning of the last century to the end of the Cultural Revolution. In the phase of
socialist construction after 1949, Maoist cultural guidelines alone governed and controlled lit-
erature to propagate a single state ideology. Most writers were true believers of official initiatives
like the Great Leap, especially in the case of Li Zhun, who was literally hand-picked by Mao
Zedong from obscurity to stardom. Their job was to create images of heroic figures excelling in
their struggle for the goals set by the national leadership, thereby mobilising the masses to follow.
Such a narrative is crucial to the Chinese ideological apparatus, which always seeks to create an
affinity among the masses for the Party and the government by emphasising their great leader-
ship in transforming the nation from backwardness and poverty to modernity and prosperity.
This is especially so in a time of crises, such as in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Writers were
also armed with the combination of socialist realism and revolutionary romanticism, which was
introduced in the late 1950s after the relationship between the CCP and its Soviet Russian
counterpart deteriorated. According to China’s much more radical interpretation of Marxism,
writers were expected to extol China’s speedy progress towards a glorious communist future
as it should be, rather than as it actually was, hence, the tragic discrepancies between fiction and
reality.

Qu Bo
Born in Shangdong Province, Qu Bo (1923–2002) received his early education through a pri-
vate village school, where he gained sound knowledge of Chinese classical literature. In 1938,
at the age of fifteen, he left home and fought in the war against the Japanese invasion. His name
was changed from his childhood name Qu Qingtao to Qu Bo by communist officials. Qu
Bo received further education at the communist-run Counter-Japanese Military and Political

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University, and later became a journalist for an army newspaper. During the Chinese civil war in
the late 1940s, Qu Bo joined the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) where he served as a literacy
teacher, a political commissar and finally a colonel. This experience provided him with mate-
rial for creating one of the most successful novels in China, Tracks in the Snowy Forest (Linhai
xueyuan, 1957). 1,560,000 copies of Tracks in the Snowy Forest were printed between 1957 and
1964 in three editions. It has been translated into English, Russian, Japanese, Korean,Vietnamese,
Mongolian, Norwegian and Arabic. A film adaption of the novel was made in 1960, and based
upon this story, The Taking of the Tiger Mountain, one of the eight modern revolutionary model
operas of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), was produced. He admits in its epilogue that he
was strongly influenced by the Soviet literary masterpieces such as How the Steel Was Tempered, as
well as traditional Chinese literature.

Tracks in the Snowy Forest

Tracks in the Snowy Forest is about the success of a small detachment of the PLA who go into
the snowy mountains and forests to eliminate the organised remnants of bandits, landlords and
former Kuomintang (KMT) officers and spies. These people were sabotaging the land reform
program started by the PLA in 1946 in the communist controlled areas in northern Manchuria.
Written as an autobiographical novel from the perspective of the commander of the unit, Shao
Jianbo, there is no doubt that many of those characters and episodes are based on real people
and actual events. It is a gripping adventure story full of exciting episodes, heroic feats and bril-
liant demonstrations of courage and strategy with a strong element of local colour and folklore.
The events of the novel focus on the capture of three mountain strongholds used by the
bandits from which they adopt a hit-and-run tactics upon the nearby villages, killing, robbing,
raping and taking their revenge upon the communists and their supporters. Each of the opera-
tions requires a different strategy, relying on the exceptional valour qualities of a host of truly
memorable heroes, who each bring their individually specialised talents. From the very begin-
ning of the novel, it is stated very clearly that the success of Shao Jianbo’s small unit depends on
two kinds of courage: collective courage and the courage of each individual. Indeed, within the
novel, the host of characters interact between individual and collective heroism, and the success
of the unit can ultimately be attributed to the unity of these two levels of courage. The super-
hero of the novel is Yang Zirong, who was originally an illiterate farm labourer before he joined
army and participated in many battles against the Japanese. Because of his keen intelligence, his
dauntless courage and his painstaking attention to detail,Yang Zirong developed into an experi-
enced scout. On the battlefield, he is depicted as a hardened revolutionary fighter and a resolute
communist warrior, whilst towards his comrades, he is “like a warm fire in winter, and like the
shade in summer.”Yang Zirong plays a leading role in the novel’s central episode which involves
the capture of the bandits’ stronghold in Tiger Mountain. Crucially, the strategy involves Yang
Zirong himself to penetrate the Tiger Mountain headquarters of the KMT bandits. During the
Cultural Revolution, this episode was turned into one of the most famous modern revolution-
ary model operas.
Besides Yang Zirong’s ability to hold his nerveless composure amid enemy pressures, the unit
is comprised of Sun Dade, who brings long distance running and speed, Luan Chaojia, who is
a skilled mountain climber, and Liu Xuncang (nicknamed Tank), who has great athletic ability
and strength. Then, there are Shao Jianbo, the commander of the small PLA unit, and Bai Ru,
the only female member of the unit, who serves as its medic. Shao Jianbo and Bai Ru’s romance
occupies a prominent place in the novel. Their romance is strongly hinted in the very first page
when he appears: “Shao Jianbo, his uniform neat and spruce, a smart little automatic in the

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holster hanging in the brown belt around his waist, was the regimental chief of staff, a brilliant
handsome young officer of twenty-two.”17 Are his status, good looks and youth enough to win
Bai Ru’s heart? She is an unmatched beauty:

Only eighteen, she was very pretty, with cheeks as pink as rose petals. A pair of deep
dimples danced along with her endless smiles. Her large beautiful eyes flashed happi-
ness as though they could speak. Two short braids hung behind her ears. With wispy
hairs framing her forehead, she looked exactly like a floating hibiscus flower. Her body
was refined and delicate, but also sturdy. She also had a clear, full voice, and was good at
dancing and singing. When dancing her body was light as a bird, and her singing was
as melodic as a qin. Wherever she went songs and laughter followed.18

While they appear to be a perfect match, Bai Ru does not fall in love with Shao Jianbo until
he demonstrates his unparalleled leadership and ingenuity in military strategy for destroying
enemy’s first mountain stronghold. Furthermore, to celebrate the victory, Shao Jianbo writes
a poem, thus revealing his literary talent. His comrades praise him for being “a master of both
the pen and the sward” (wenwu shuangquan). Bai Ru begins to wonder how he can, at only
twenty-two, have already acquired such a breadth of wisdom, not only dealing with such diffi-
cult military situations, but also having the capacity to analyse and reflect upon them afterwards.
Shao Jianbo’s own humble reply is, as always, “All credit is to the Party.”
Like Shao Jianbo, Bai Ru herself does not merely have good looks. Notably, she is portrayed
very differently from many female characters in revolutionary fictions, who are often depicted
as having to go through a long process of self-discovery while seeking gender equality. Nor does
she resemble the feisty young wife, Li Shuangshuang, who wants to be freed from the traditional
constraints of domestic duties to participate in the exciting Great Leap, while undergoing a
socialist transformation herself. At the age of only eighteen, Bai Ru is already a Communist
Party member. If Shao Jianbo puts the Party’s intention into practice, then Bai Ru can be read
as the charisma of the CCP and PLA when interacting with the local people. The success of the
small PLA unit largely depends on the help they can obtain from the local villagers who have a
thorough knowledge of the areas in which the battles are fought. Being victims of the bandits for
years, these villagers at first do not trust the PLA soldiers.There are many episodes where it is Bai
Ru who, representing the CCP and PLA, win over the villagers.While the men know the Party’s
policy and try to explain it to the local people, it takes the charming female voice, innocent eyes
and healing skills of Bai Ru to really gain the trust of people. To highlight Bai Ru’s purity (as
exemplified by her nickname, Little White Dove) the author depicts the negative character of
the “woman demon,” who is known as Butterfly Enticer. While Bai Ru is pretty, innocent, and
happy, Butterfly Enticer is wicked, ugly, and sexually promiscuous. The bandits feel no shame in
saying filthy words in front of Butterfly Enticer, and she forms several sexual relationships with
them, attaching herself to different men as the power dynamics in their circle shift. As her total
immorality symbolises everything evil about the bandits, Bai Ru is a force of purity.
Qu Bo’s Tracks in the Snowy Forest is full of clever scout ploys, breathtaking events and marvel-
lous suspense, interwoven with colourful and mysterious legends and a tender romance. Chinese
indigenous literary tradition is implicitly reflected in the contemporary theme of political strug-
gle. The characters are mostly very young, giving the novel a distinct air of youthfulness and
exuberance, and permeating it with the kind of enthusiasm that can only be generated by the
hope of building a new way of life: everyone is confident and optimistic. The moral undertone,
with the triumph of good over evil, is skilfully presented in the narrative. Tracks in the Snowy
Forest marks the maturity of Chinese socialist literature.

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 Fiction of new China (1949–1966)

Luo Guangbin and Yang Yiyan

Both born in Sichuan Province, Luo Guangbin (1924–1967) joined the CCP in 1948, but
was arrested the same year by the Nationalists and imprisoned in the concentration camps
run by the Sino-American Co-operative Organization (SACO), and Yang Yiyan (b. 1925), a
CCP member, was also a political prisoner in the camp. From these personal experiences and
as the result of their decade-long research, the two former inmates created the novel, Red Crag
(Hongyan), which was published by the Chinese Youth Press in 1961. Within a year, the novel
won the widest public attention, as excerpts from it were recited at literary gatherings and on
radio programs. Four years after it was published, 5,000,000 copies had been sold, and it was still
ranked as number one bestseller. Its Japanese translation by Miyoshi Hajime sold 200,000 copies
in Japan in less than one year.19

Red Crag
There are two parts to Red Crag: the underground communist activities in Chongqing, and the
struggle of the communist inmates in prison. In this novel, the leadership of the Party incorpo-
rates every detail of the activities of the underground organisation. The novel shows that there
is absolutely no room for amateur movements or lack of vigilance. Every step must be carefully
planned and executed: brilliant feats of courage and sacrifice are only possible through disci-
plined proletarian heroism.
One of the best examples of the need for vigilance is demonstrated by Xu Yunfeng, a
main character, when he attempts to prevent infiltration of the underground organisation. The
moment Xu Yunfeng enters the bookstore, which is meant to be a disguise for a secret liaison
post, he senses that something is very wrong. There are new empty bookshelves and radical
and progressive journals on display. From questioning the salesman, a comrade, he learns that
Fu Zhigao, the man in charge of the liaison post, has decided to enlarge the bookstore in
violation of his instruction. Even more alarming is that a stranger has been hired. The man is
away, so Xu Yunfeng examines his belongings and finds some poems written by this man. He
instantly identifies them as plagiarised from a well-known revolutionary poet. Clearly this man
is trying to win the trust of the underground communists. Xu Yunfeng promptly concludes
that the bookstore has been infiltrated by a plain-clothed KMT agent, and decides to abandon
the bookstore immediately. A number of other decisions are made. He phones Fu Zhigao,
instructing him not to go home, and to await further instructions, which will arrange for Fu’s
transfer. Fu regards Xu Yunfeng’s precautions as an overreaction, and ignoring Xu Yunfeng’s
instruction, he takes his chances to bid farewell to his wife. He is arrested outside his home
and defects. Fu Zhigaos’s treachery leads to the arrest of Xu Yunfeng, and a number of other
underground figures.
The second part of the novel shifts the scene to the concentration camps. The torture of Xu
Yunfeng is not directly described in the novel, as only a motionless body is seen to be carried on
a stretcher by the plainclothed agents into one of the camp cells. On the eve of the communist
victory, as the communist guns can be heard, the KMT secret service decides to execute the
imprisoned communists. Facing his death, Xu Yunfeng is unperturbed, and in fact smiles:

As an ordinary worker, mistreated and oppressed in the old society, I finally chose
the revolutionary road and became a man feared by the reactionaries. Looking back,
at the road I’ve travelled, I have only a sense of pride. I’m happy to witness the victory
of the proletarians in China. . . . Since ancient time, who has not died? But there can be

393
 Xiangshu Fang and Lijun Bi

no higher glory than to link your own life with the ever youthful revolutionary cause
of the working class. This is what I feel, here and now.20

Xu Yunfeng is portrayed in the novel as a towering hero, whose whole heart is dedicated to
accomplishing the mission the Party entrusts him with. Sister Jiang is another principal hero in
the novel. As a communist leader, her personal life is more closely related to her role than any
of the other characters: as the novel develops, she is assigned to work with her husband, Peng
Songtao, who is a political commissar of communist guerrilla in the nearby Huaying Mountains.
On her journey to the base of the communist guerrilla, outside a small town, she sees a wooden
cage hanging on the gate tower of the city wall. Inside the cage was her husband’s bloody head.

Hot tears welled up in her eyes. She put her hand to her choking throat and closed her
eyes to shut out the sight. She wanted to cry aloud. Wave after wave of dizziness made
her feel faint and she swayed on her feet. . . . In her misery she reproached herself: Was
this the time or the place for self-pity? What about the task with which the Party had
entrusted her? She had no business to reveal her grief, and less to linger.21

The scene demonstrates Sister Jiang’s incredible capacity to take the greatest of personal trag-
edies in her absolute dedication to the revolutionary cause. When she finally arrives at the base,
her comrades have prepared a meal to welcome her. Trying to soften the blow, they tell her that
Comrade Peng is busy on a mission, and will be away for a few days. Controlling her sorrow, in
an even voice she says, “I know everything.”The heroism of Sister Jiang needs no more descrip-
tion than this simple sentence.
In the concentration camp Sister Jiang is tortured every night for more than a month. The
jailers stick sharp splinters under her fingernails, but the enemy obtain nothing from her. Sister
Jiang later says to a fellow inmate, “Torture is but a small test. Splinters are made of bamboo, but
communists have wills of steel.” Facing her death on the eve of the communist victory, she is
calm. It is a quiet scene without commotion. Her last words to a fellow inmate are: “If it should
be necessary for us to die for the ideals of the communism, we should be ready to do it – with-
out blanching, heart beating no faster . . . I know that I can.”22 The message of the authors is
clear: people, who live solely for a cause, and who know that they have done their best in their
work, can die in peace if their unfinished work will be continued by their comrades. One or
two dedicated fearless communists are limited in their capacity to achieve their goals, but, when
he or she is a part of a large group, they are strong. In the abundance of heroic characters in the
novel, the depicted communist underground activities and their prison struggle are ultimately
collective: the proletarian hero no longer exists in isolation, as he or she advances with their
comrades, welding individual heroism and the collective heroism firmly together.
Although the constant suspense in the novel is riveting, the novel is by no means an adven-
ture story. It is the brilliant characterisation of heroes in the face of the brutality of the class
enemy, through the graphic description of torture, mutilation and killing, that moves readers and
makes the novel a masterpiece.The novel glorifies noble deaths, eulogizes the fighting spirit, and
tries to instil into the mind of readers a faith that true revolutionaries are capable of attaining
immortality in blazing fire and boiling blood. The title, Red Crag, should be read as symbolising
the total dedication by brave communists to their cause. The “Red Crag fever” that swept China
in the early 1960s attests to the novel’s status in the trend of socialist realism, both in China and
beyond, and its effectiveness as a tool of the CCP. Unfortunately, the new generation of revo-
lutionary fighters that emerged only a few years after publication were determined to build a
complete proletarian world, and began to attack anything and anybody that they regarded as

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even partially un-proletarian, including the works and writers discussed here in this chapter.The
first author of Red Crag, Luo Guangbin, who had endured the KMT concentration camp in
1948 and 1949 before the communist victory, did not survive the Proletarian Cultural Revolu-
tion. He committed suicide in 1967. What an irony for the proletarian revolution!

Notes
1 Lorenz Bichler, “Notes on the History of the Use of Socialist Realism in China,” in Hilary Chung,
Michael Falchikov, Bonnie S. McDougall and Karin McPherson, eds., In the Party Spirit: Socialist Realism
and Literary Practice in the Soviet Union, East Germany and China (Amsterdam: Rodopi Bv Editions, 1996),
30–43.
2 Yang Lan, “ ‘Socialist Realism’Versus ‘Revolutionary Realism plus Revolutionary Romanticism’,” In the
Party Spirit, 91.
3 Mao Zedong, “Report to the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Chi-
nese Communist Party,” in Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press,
1949/1966), 193.
4 C. T. Hsia, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction, 2nd edition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971),
472.
5 Jane Parish Yang, “A Change in the Family: The Image of the Family in Contemporary Chinese Chil-
dren’s Literature (1949–1993),” Children’s Literature (1998), vol. 26, 87.
6 C. T. Hsia, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction, 472.
7 See People’s Educational Publishing House (Renmin jiaoyu chubanshe), comp., Textbook of Chinese
Language (Yuwen for Senior Primary School) (1958), vol. 4, 114–127.
8 R.C. Price, Education in Modern China (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970), 227.
9 Richard King, Milestones on a Golden Road: Writing for Chinese Socialism, 1949–80 (Hong Kong: Hong
Kong University Press, 2014), 225. The earliest version of “A Brief Biography of Li Shuangshuang” is
dated March 1959, but the one dated 2 February 1960 and published in Remin wenxue 3 (March 1960:
11–27) is the most circulated version and the most authoritative for later adaptations and translations.
10 Richard King, Heroes of China’s Great Leap Forward: Two Accounts (Honolulu: Hawaii University Press,
2010), 8.
11 Translation taken from ibid., 16.
12 Ibid., 37.
13 Richard King, Milestones on a Golden Road, 81.
14 Richard King, Heroes of China’s Great Leap Forward, 27.
15 Margery Wolf and Roxan Witke, Introduction to Women in Chinese Society, eds. Margery Wolf and
Roxan Witke (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1975), 2.
16 Richard King, Heroes of China’s Great Leap Forward, 26.
17 Translation taken from Joe C. Huang, Heroes and Villains in Communist China:The Contemporary Novel as
a Reflection of Life (Perth: University of Western Australia Press, 1974), 135.
18 The analysis of Bai Ru here, including the translation which is slightly adapted, draws on Krista Van
Fleit Hang, Literature the People Love: Reading Chinese Texts from the Early Maoist Period (1949–1966)
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 107–109.
19 Joe C. Huang, Heroes and Villains in Communist China, 91–92.
20 Translation taken from ibid., 101–102.
21 Translation is taken from Red Crag (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1978), 78.
22 Translation taken from Joe C. Huang, Heroes and Villains in Communist China, 104.

Further readings
Birch, Cyril. “The Dragon and the Pen.” Soviet Survey 14 (April/June 1958): 22–26.
———, ed. Chinese Communist Literature. New York: Praeger, 1963.
———. “Chinese Communist Literature: The Persistence of Traditional Forms.” China Quarterly 13 (January/
March 1963): 74–91.
Cai, Xiang. Revolution and Its Narratives: China’s Socialist Literary and Cultural Imaginaries, 1949–1966. Edited
and translated by Rebecca E. Karl and Xueping Zhong. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016.

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Chen, Xiaomei. “Worker-Peasant-Soldier Literature.” In Ban Wang, ed., Words and Their Stories: Essays on the
Language of the Chinese Revolution. Leiden: Brill, 2010, 65–83.
Fokkema, D. W. Literary Doctrine in China and Soviet Influence 1956–1960. Mouton: The Hague, 1965.
Goldman, Merle. Literary Dissent in Communist China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967.
Holm, David. Art and Ideology in Revolutionary China. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991.
Link, Perry. The Uses of Literature in the Socialist Chinese Literary System. Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2000.
McDougall, Bonnie and Louie Kam. The Literature of China in the Twentieth Century. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1997.

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 29
POETRY OF NEW CHINA
(1949–1966)
Lijun Bi and Xiangshu Fang

Introduction
This essay examines Chinese poetry from 1949 to 1966. The acquisition, maintenance and
extension of political power have always been the overriding concern to the Chinese Commu-
nist Party (CCP) since its birth in 1921. For years, many Chinese writers and poets used their
works of exposé to attack the previous Kuomintang (KMT) government for being corrupt
and undemocratic. With the CCP victory in 1949 and the removal of the KMT government,
the new regime stood exposed to the potential criticism of these writers. Hence, the CCP
immediately established tight control over literature, art, publishing industry and media, allow-
ing no dissent. The first years of the People’s Republic were also the period which came under
tremendous Soviet influence. Following the Soviet model, Chinese society became extremely
organized and Chinese people very highly political-minded. All literary works, including poetry,
began to celebrate the transformation of the land and the people, proletarian heroism and social-
ist solidarity in the standard formula of socialist realism. Consequently, literary works published
in that period were highly politicised. In this socialist era, individualism was no longer the cen-
tral concern of poetry, and subjectivity had to submit to the collective consciousness, gradually
succumbing to the national chant of the communist rhetoric.
There are other factors that have to be taken into consideration when examining poetry in
this era as a functional instrument for the realisation of unity for the common objective. The
CCP’s victory brought with it a state apparatus that required the support of cultural activities
and a cultural bureaucracy, which were staffed by established writers who had demonstrated
their talents as well as loyalty. The bureaucracy was growing. There was a shortage of editors to
fill in the positions at provincial levels.With such an excellent career prospect, writing (especially
writing poetry) and editing as a profession attracted many young talents.1 They were eager to
work with the political apparatus. The function of poetry to provide quick support to a new
ideology and serve as a catalyst to create emotional and physical forces for the socialist cause
was most welcomed by the new regime. New literary journals and literary columns in general
magazines and newspapers gave generous space to the publication of poems singing praises of
the new regime and new society. The provincial publishing houses also began to offer fully sub-
sidised publication of books for established poets. The most prestigious publication for official

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poetry was the monthly journal Poetry (Shikan): the first issue of Poetry (1957) featured the first
authorised publication of eighteen poems written by Mao Zedong himself.2
Besides the attraction of the power and financial reward associated with the elite status in the state
apparatus, faith, loyalty and tradition might have played an even more important role in many poets’
participation in the socialist choir. Many writers and poets were CCP members, even holding high-
level positions. In spite of this dual identity, the writers and poets almost always viewed themselves first
and foremost as communist propagandists.To the Western ear, a “propagandist” does not sound like a
very promising career, but in China,“propaganda” is not a negative term, at least among the members
of China’s establishment. Furthermore, poetry had been used to convey moral principles for thousands
of years in China. In the eyes of the intellectual elite and the general public as well, it would look
“normal” that poets advocated a kind of modern ideology to educate the masses in the name of social
progress. In this context, advocacy of explicit ideology in poetry would be taken for granted as being
natural and rational by people in China. As a result, the didacticism in these poems would not be as
obvious to the Chinese as compared to outsiders in the West.
Whilst many poets had a firm faith in the inevitable proletarian victory, i.e. the realisation of
communism, and had a strong sense of Leninist Party discipline, to be concerned with the suf-
fering of the common people and the fate of the nation was also part of Chinese cultural and
intellectual traditions. Poets were considered more sensitive than ordinary folks to social issues,
and were traditionally meant to provide a voice for the afflicted, the poor, the weak and the
voiceless. Established poets were also members of the editorial board of literary journals, thus
having an avenue to express their (usually veiled) concern. However, any slight deviation from
the CCP official line would meet stringent punishment. This is evidenced in the large num-
ber of established poets, including Ai Qing, Gong Mu, Gong Liu, Bai Hua, Liu Shahe, Zhou
Liangpei, Gao Ping, Lü Jian, Su Jinsan and many others, who were censured and labelled by the
establishment in 1957 as rightists, with some of them sent to remote labour camps, enduring
two decades of harsh treatment. This purge led to hypocrisies as many poets maintained their
stand as eulogists of new China. Countless verses were produced to promote various political
campaigns and movements, ignoring the stark poverty and unremitting toil endured by the
masses. Their main purpose was not necessarily to politically or morally educate the masses, but
simply to mobilise them to engage in these movements. These verses were hastily produced in
large quantities and were usually of poor quality. Eventually writing verses became a national
campaign, and in 1958 and 1959, from peasants to factory workers and from shop assistants to
professors, all were obliged to take time off to write poetry in the form of “folksongs” to cel-
ebrate the present glories and the promise of an even greater future. Repetition was common, as
before the completion of the first campaign, the next one had already commenced. This period
of poetry is often likened to a tide, as after a while the verses completely disappeared. Poetry
returned to the ancient narrative art form, in which poets were eulogists for the collective
projects, and every member took part in the rituals of celebration to express their communion
in poems, songs and dances. This essay attempts to delineate a general picture of the poetry of
China from 1949 to 1966, by looking at two poets of the establishment, some examples of the
1958–1959 new folksong campaign, and two of Mao Zedong’s poems.

He Jingzhi (b.1924)
He Jingzhi was born in Shandong Province. He fled hometown at the outbreak of war to study
in Hubei, and then followed his school in its relocation to Sichuan, where he started to join the
resistance by writing war poetry. In 1940, he went to Yan’an, the CCP’s wartime stronghold,

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where he entered the communist-run Lu Xun Art Academy and joined the CCP. His writing
career began in 1945 when he co-authored a song-drama White Haired Girl (Baimao nü), which
followed Mao Zedong’s directions to adapt local art forms for propagandistic purposes. Accom-
panied by a steady stream of poems celebrating the achievements of the CCP, He Jingzhi occu-
pied increasingly important Party and government positions in 1950s and 1960s, including the
membership of the elite editorial board of Poetry (Shikan). Following the trend of the time, many
of his revolutionary verses adopt Mayakovsky’s “staircase form,” where lines started with incre-
mentally increased indents down the page, so that they indeed looked like a staircase. This gave
his work a sense of freshness, especially when comparing them to older poetic forms of China.
Whilst a number of his collections were published, “Return to Yan’an” is his best-known
poem. This masterpiece (dated 9th of March, 1956) was written when the poet returned to
Yan’an after a ten-year absence.

O my heart, please don’t beat so fast,

O dust, please don’t smudge my eyesight. . .
My hands grab the yellow earth tightly,
and press it to my chest firmly.
 . . . Many times, I return to Yan’an in dreams,
and hold my beloved Baota Mountain in my arms.

Thousands of thousands times, I cried out for you,

and now Yan’an, my mother, is right in front of me!3

The poem is sixty-six lines long, and is divided into five sections: a variation of the local bal-
lad form called xintianyou (Rambling Songs of Natural Rhythms). A traditional xintianyou has
up to a dozen or so segments, with each segment containing only two lines. Rhythm, although
quite free, and repetition are features of this local ballad form. The first eight lines of this poem
bring out two images: the dusty yellow earth and Baota Mountain, each being significant in
terms of Chinese civilisation and the Chinese revolution.Yellow earth is historically significant
because ancient Chinese civilisation has one of its cradles in the lower Yellow River valley of
northern China, where a kind of special yellow clay called loess was found in this area. From
Neolithic times to the present, people of this region have made pit dwellings or cave homes (yao-
dong in Chinese) in the fine, yellow, windborne loess soil.The poet also displays special affection
to the Baota Mountain, as it is a symbol of the Chinese revolution. It is situated in the middle of
Yan’an, where the Red Army of the CCP settled after their Long March of 10,000 kilometres
in 1935. Having evaded the annihilation attempts by the Kuomintang (KMT) army, the com-
munists made Yan’an their base to continue their revolutionary struggles until they eventually
took all China.
On a personal level, it was this place where He Jingzhi started his revolutionary career at the
young age of sixteen. The sentiment of nostalgia is apparent in the beginning lines, particularly
in the lines: “Many times, I return to Yan’an in dreams, / and hold my beloved Baota Mountain
in my arms.” The motif to associate nostalgia with dream had been recurrently used in Chinese
classical poetry. For example, the famous poet Li Yu (939–975 AD) wrote:

Who can avoid life’s anxieties and regrets? / Limitless is the lonely sorrow overwhelming
me. / In dreams I return to my old kingdom. / As I awake my falling tears merge. / . . .
Past events already emptying of meaning, / Returning only in dreams.4

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Furthermore, whilst the constant metaphorical reference of Yan’an being his mother may be a cliché,
considering the poet’s experience of constant relocation before he found his life’s objective in the
revolution in Yan’an, the metaphor can actually be said to reveal his genuine affection for the place.
The pathos and self-pity, characteristic in classic poetry, are replaced with a triumphant
atmosphere throughout the poem, reflecting the past events with excitement in the second sec-
tion of the poem, celebrating present splendours in the third and fourth sections, and in looking
forward to the greater future in the final section. The poem is colloquial and easy to read with
clever rhythms mingled with a technique similar to alliteration in English, for example: “Shushao
shuzhi shugengen, / Qinsshan qinshui you qinren” (Tree tops and tree branches are from tree roots, /
Beloved mountains and beloved waters turn out beloved people). The segmented style of
xintianyou, together with frequent use of ellipsis invites the audience to take on an active role in
imagining the scene during their reading.
The poem is permeated with a genuine feeling of heartfelt revolutionary passion based on
the poet’s own personal experience. However, in this poem, the move from a poem being the
narrative of the self to being a broader historical narrative is also apparent, with the role of the
poet shifting to that of a political instructor. His individual life, in spite of it being very revolu-
tionary, is foremost situated in the collective struggle, and it is the ideology of the Party, striving
to achieve the ideal world in which the poem ends:

Red Army . . . Youth League . . . Young Pioneer,

generations of heroes to the road adhere. . .

Socialist road is for their big tread,

and glorious Yan River flows ahead!

Stepping on cloud I’ll fly back again,

and revisit my mother,Yan’an.5

It is important, however, to note that poets of the time, including He Jingzhi, faced a
constant conflict. On the one hand, there was a duty to convey their sense of optimism, stem-
ming from their proud involvement in bringing about fundamental social change to China
for the better. With this, they wrote with a passion that came from the hope that their words
would help guide the country in the right direction: a fulfilling result from their work. On the
other hand, these poets and official propagandists understood that, because of the state’s direct
involvement in cultural production, they only had a limited scope in which they could make
use of their talents to freely imagine a new society. Any feelings and passions that did not fit
the party line, even if abundant, had to be restrained and expelled. In this respect, He Jingzhi
seems to have done a lot better than others. His poems in this period are always framed in such
a way that they follow the party’s intentions closely. He Jingzhi is not one who was forcibly
made subservient to political needs, nor was he forced to conform to the dogma that downplays
the importance of individualism in favour of collectivism. As of such, the focus on his personal
revolutionary path voluntarily retreats, as his writing becomes more and more thoroughly
engrossed in the service of the national and collective goals. This transformation is evidenced
in his long poems such as “Let us Sing Aloud” and “The Song of Lei Feng,” where the voice
of the first person is undeniably the representative of the collective. Indeed, the autonomous
narrative in these poems diminish into a sheer political lecture, and the text, which ostensibly
has no other purpose than expressing poet’s own emotion, is actually a part of the machine for
manufacturing revolutionary tales.

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New Folksong campaign (1958–1959)

Under the instruction from Mao Zedong, on 14th of April 1958, the People’s Daily published
an editorial “Collecting National Folksongs on a Grand Scale” (Da guimo de shouji quanguo
minge). Also in 1958, Zhou Yang, the official in charge of culture in China, published an article,
“New Folksongs Have Blazed a Trail for Poetry” in the CCP’s main theoretical journal Red
Flag (Hongqi) to promote “true proletarian literature.” Hence, a mass poetry movement was
launched, and poetry became a fundamental component of the Great Leap Forward movement.
Millions and millions of peasants, workers, soldiers and people of all walks were obliged to com-
pose “new folksongs.”The theoretical rationale was that folk songs and songs of labour were the
beginning of poetry and narration. In this folk literature, the protagonists represented human
struggle against nature at the dawn of history. They displayed two kinds of heroism: the heroism
in cooperation and collective processes of human labour, and the heroism that reflected human
thirst for knowledge as part of their struggle to overcome nature.
However, in the new socialist literature, by giving a voice to the long-silenced working
people, a new heroism was to be found: the heroism of the proletariat. At the root of this new
folksong campaign was a conviction in the power of imagination to change reality. This power
was supposed to be derived from the belief that in the practical activity of human beings, there
was not only knowledge, but also the imaging capacity to bring about the desired, the poten-
tially possible and the new into reality, thus helping to bring about the socialist transformation
into existence faster. This power of imagination could create a new kind of heroism: the totally
devoted proletarian heroism, heightened in verse, to inspire the unprecedented enthusiasm of
the masses. As a reference, the best example to illustrate this new heroism is the following, the
most quoted of all the 1958 new folksongs:

Above in heaven there is no Jade Emperor,

Down on earth there is no Dragon King.
I am the Jade Emperor,
I am the Dragon King.
I am shouting my order:
Move aside, all the mountains,
I am coming.6

It was further believed that, with every victory and, indeed, with every step closer to the final
realisation of communism, proletarian heroism in literature became more heightened and more
effective, until finally, the very process of literary production would be transformed. With the
advance of the socialist consciousness, measures started to be put into place to abolish the divi-
sion of labour in the artistic sphere itself. The necessity of private literary activity would forever
be dispelled, and the demarcation between mental work and manual labour was to be broken
down. The new socialist masses were no longer satisfied with literature being about them: they
wanted to create it themselves. They believed that only those who were changing the world on
a day-to-day basis had the capacity to imagine how its future would look like. In poetry, more
than in fiction and drama, collective literary creation was feasible, due to the crucial role that
folk poetry played in the development of literature.
Furthermore, there was a more practical aspect to this movement.The Great Leap movement
was launched in 1958 on the initiative of the CCP Chairman Mao Zedong. In response to both
internal and external events, primarily in the Soviet Union, he felt an even greater urgency to

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transform China into a powerful nation in as short a time as possible, accelerating the produc-
tion of steel and grain and developing the technology for an atom bomb. By the late 1950s, the
transformation of the nation’s system of land ownership had been completed, with result that all
land was owned by state-controlled collectives rather than by individuals or families. Following
the Soviet model, industry and commerce had also been nationalised. However, an attempt to
bring out greater support from China’s intellectuals for the development strategies of the Com-
munist Party, by allowing greater freedom for expression in the Hundred Flowers movement in
the mid-1950s, had backfired. Instead of supporting the cause, the intellectuals used their new-
found liberty to criticize the rule of the Communist bureaucracy as autocratic and stultifying.
CCP’s response was to launch the Anti-rightist Campaign, which led to the denunciation and
incarceration of hundreds of thousands of intellectuals including researchers, teachers, journal-
ists, artists, and writers.This campaign reinforced the resentment many Party officials felt toward
the intellectuals. Nevertheless, in view of historical facts, the purges denied the leadership the
expertise that might have argued against the more bizarre projects and incredible targets of the
Great Leap.
After the Anti-rightist campaign, the party turned to the masses to provide crucial cul-
tural materials, and an unprecedented massive poetry composition campaign began. It was
reported that in Sichuan province, in less than two months, an artistic army of 22,000 writ-
ers was mustered; in Jiangsu province, more than 5,000 poetry clubs came into existence in
the month of July; in Hubei province, more than 24,000 popular groups of artistic creation
sprang up in November, with the district of Hongan alone having 577 teams of popular sing-
ers. According to the New China Daily, in Jiangsu province, ten million literary works were
produced in less than six months, and in Shanghai, artistic teams brought together 700,000
people who wrote some 1,500,000 poems.7 An anthology of 305 of these was compiled in
Songs of the Red Flag (Hongqi yao, 1959), with Guo Moruo and Zhou Yang being chief edi-
tors of the compilation.
Most of these new folksongs took the format of a four-lined stanza, with five or seven
characters per line, preferably ending in rhymes. An obvious feature of the newly composed
folksongs was the aggressive attitude of the Chinese people confronting the physical world and
nature. In fact, the trendiest slogan of the time was “ren ding sheng tian”: man’s determination
will conquer nature. The haughty ambition to conquer nature was a complete breakaway from
the traditional, unconditional respect, even submission, to nature, conceptualised in the term
“the Mandate of Heaven.” The creators of the verses ridiculed the traditional celestial deities in
lines such as: “A gust of hoeing roars aloud, / and startles the Vesper in the cloud” and “A raged
Dragon King looks on in despair, / and the furious God of Earth feels powerless.”8 Furthermore,
the new folksong writers depicted themselves as the new socialist deities in lines:

Little river water is slow and the big one swift, / and now all the water has to listen to
our order. / When we order it to go, it has to go, / and when we ask it to stop, it has to
stop. / If we want it to go high, it dares not to go low, / and if asked to generate power,
it has to generate power.9

The largest group of the new folksongs paid the homage to the bumper harvest of agricul-
tural products, revealing the urgency of feeding the burgeoning number of urban factory work-
ers.There was also pressure to meet the demand for food coming from overseas. Public canteens
were set up to free women from domestic duties and increase the labour force for agricultural

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production and for construction projects, including reservoirs and dams. It was popular to praise
the enthusiasm aroused by the new folksongs, which was then believed to be able to boost mate-
rial production, as depicted in the following:

Where is the farm without song,

Where is the home without poem;
The more we sing, the more we produce
Poems turn into rice and songs into grain.10

Pressured to produce more and faster, both in agriculture and in poetry, verses began to exag-
gerate the harvest to some unheard-of record, such as “Wheat stalks are as thick as a big iron pot, /
wheat beards reach to the sky, / and one grain of wheat is enough, / for you to eat for three
days.”11 A vegetable leaf was described so big that children could fly kites on it. Eventually, when
poems and songs did not turn into food, which began to be in serious shortage towards the end
of 1959, the fever of the new folksong campaign subsided.

Guo Xiaochuan (1919–1976)

Guo Xiaochuan is a representative poet of New China. Born in an intellectual family, Guo
Xiaochuan joined the CCP’s army in 1937 at the age of eighteen and the Party the year
after. During the Chinese civil war, he served as head of the CCP’s county government of
Fengning. After 1949, he took a number of official positions in propaganda departments both
at regional and national levels. Meanwhile he emerged as a poet with a modest fame, not as
an academic poet from a university or art academy, but as a poet who had grown up in the
battlefield. In the mid-1950s, he became a professional poet, and was appointed a member of
the editorial board of the most influential poetic journal Poetry (Shikan). His early works in
1955 and 1956 like “Join the Fiery Struggles” and “In the Tide of Socialism” seemed to be
effortlessly in line with the CCP’s line, almost as if they had been dictated by the CCP itself.
Many of them also took the form of Mayakovsky’s “staircase form,” which was very much the
fashion of the time. The following lines are from his “March on towards the Hardships – To
the Young Citizens:”

Citizens! No, you won’t!

Will you, I trust you,
who have grown up Even more than I trust myself.
in the warm bosom of the motherland, I just want to ask:
bow your heads to hardships? Are you ready now?12

The poet seems to have plunged himself into the dual role of poet and propagandist, reserv-
ing nothing and never worrying about poetic quality, instead focussing only on applying his
talents to trenchant propaganda verses. His verses breathe optimism, revolutionary fervour,
and a reverence for battle, and his early poems are characterised by an oratorical tone, littered
with political slogans. They often include direct addresses, exclamations marks and questions to
engage his audience.

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 Lijun Bi and Xiangshu Fang

However, from 1957 to 1960, he began to show a willingness to explore a world beyond
the proletarian calling of his first poems. He felt “very uneasy” towards his earlier politicised
poems, and commented that they were not really worthy of the genre of poetry.13 It was then
that he wrote a poem “Gazing at the Starring Sky” (Wang xingkong, 1959): a long lyric of 239
lines in four sections. Mainly written in free verse, he incorporated an elaborated vocabulary
and subject matter from classical sources: stars, the moon, the night and the sky are natural
images that enjoy a long history in classical Chinese poetry. They were often used metaphori-
cally for emotions such as nostalgia, loneliness, homesickness, despair and futility. However,
in this instance, the poet departs from the traditional connotations of sentimentalism, instead
placing himself in a street near Tiananmen Square in Beijing to gaze at the starring sky as a
way of reflection. Ostensibly, it is a long monologue, in which the poet presents two opposing
cases for a lengthy debate. In the first two sections, the poet first introduces the locality in a
street near Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, with a description of the night sky. “The starring sky is
brilliant,/Bright and exultant,” “Stars are bright, producing numerous lights” and “The Milky
Way is immeasurable, building bridges into the inestimable.” Then he makes his first reflection,
linking the sky to humanity:

O the starring sky . . .

Only you Time to you
Deserve the title of boundless longevity. Is like space to you
You’ve witnessed many times of thawing ice Endless
And eruptive volcanoes. And boundless.14

Through a long elaboration, the poet convincingly argues for a case of the inconsequentiality
of humanity vis-à-vis the eternality of the infinite universe, “In the vast space of the universe, /
the life of humanity is but a momentary light of a meteor. / In the infinite river of time, / the
waves made by the mortals are infinitesimal.” However, in the third and fourth sections of
the poem, the poet presents the counter-argument, which is subservient to the ideological of
the CCP, repeating the official line of “ren ding sheng tian” (man’s determination will conquer
nature) and mouthing the clichés of the Great Leap and the new folksong campaign. The ten-
sion between the cool-minded vision of individual and the deafening vision of the collective
is apparent, and so Guo Xiaochan presents a conflict between knowledge and ignorance, sci-
ence and blind enthusiasm, and common sense and absurdity. The scenario is reminiscent of the
dilemma in the poem of “the Fisherman” written by Qu Yuan (343–278 BC), where he depicted
himself as the only “clean” one amongst the multitudes, who were “dirty” and “muddy.” Guo
Xiaochuan, however, admits in the third section of the poem that he (the poet) was wrong to
contemplate the idea of doubting man’s capacity of conquering the universe. The poet redeems
himself by making even more absurd claims:“Together with my comrades. . . / we will make tens
of thousands of suns appear in the cloudless sky, / and demand all the stars in the sky to become
new homes for humanity.” The poem finishes with the following lines:

O the starring sky, Raise your head,

Please don’t laugh at me for being absurd. carefully look up at the sky!
I am sincere, The new rocket of our friendly neighbour
And have never daydreamt. . . Is flying in the vast space of the starring sky.15

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Thus, whilst the poem starts as a private conversation between man and sky, it ends as an
open communication between the poet and other social members. Taking political and his-
torical contexts into consideration, the second half, which presents an uplifting outlook on the
future under the leadership of the CCP, should be read as a smokescreen, perfunctory yet clever,
included so that the poem could avoid censorship. It is not surprising that the poem attracted
criticism. Hua Fu published an article in the influential Literary Gazette (Wenyibao), shortly
after the publication of the poem in 1959: “As the whole nation is warmly celebrating the great
achievements of our glorious revolutionary cause, Comrade Guo Xiaochuan writes ‘thousands
of fires and tens of thousands of lights, / are not as bright as a small star. / . . . thousands of roads
and tens of thousands of bridges, / are a lot shorter than a tiny section of the Milky Way.’ These
are individualistic and nihilistic.”16 Xiao San also wrote “The poem propagates the notion that
‘humanity is tiny whereas the universe is eternal.’ This view is against Marxism, and against the
heroic spirit of the Great Leap and the optimistic determination of the masses to conquer the
universe.”17 In a sense, the second half of the poem can also be read as the poet’s defence that
poem attempts to depict the transformation of an individual who had doubts about the Great
Leap line of “man’s determination will conquer nature.” Guo Xiaochuan seems to have antici-
pated the forthcoming criticism.
Gradually, much like the waning of the folksong campaign, the political lyric poetry, at which
Guo Xiaochuan had previously excelled, lost its motivating force among readers, as he himself
lost his passion for it. As the disastrous consequence of the Great Leap began to show, optimism,
too, began to wane. There were fewer and fewer achievements for poets to pay homage to.
So, instead of being bound to contemporary reality, Guo Xiaochuan began to shift his subject
matter to the past. However, his poem “Gazing at the Starring Sky” remains one of the most
fascinating works of the era, evidencing the resilience of the spirit to maintain sanity, scepticism
and critical thinking in a crazy environment of fanaticism.

Mao Zedong (1893–1976)

The late Chinese leader Mao Zedong is a poet whose lyric-style poetry has been much
admired by millions of Chinese readers and highly praised by professional literary critics of
poetry. Indeed, apart from its literary achievement, his poetry can hardly be overestimated in
terms of its influence on shaping Chinese society and the revolution. It is therefore neces-
sary to devote the last section of this essay to a discussion of his poems composed after the
establishment of New China. Interestingly, as a revolutionary who called for the destruction
of all old and feudal vestiges of traditional Chinese culture, Mao wrote almost all his poems
in the traditional styles. As though to apologise for his own poetic penchant, he admonished
the younger generation not to follow his road of using traditional poetic forms. During his
lifetime, his poems were officially published in four waves: eighteen in 1957, six in 1962, ten in
1964 and two in 1976. The timing of the release was carefully planned to exert his cultural and
moral authority, and to consolidate his political power. Like quotations in the Little Red Book,
Mao’s poetry became one of the texts for China’s Cultural Revolution. By 1968, 92 million
copies had been distributed.
The traditional principles on which classical poetry in China was appreciated is based upon
recognising language/text (yan), meaning/intention (yi), emotion (qing) and scene (jing) as the
four most important components in a poem. This reflects both a strong interest in the creative
process within the poem, as well as the broader issue of the relationship between the poet, his

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poetry, and the world.18 Significantly, the presence of both emotion (qing) and scene (jing) were
regarded as a necessary prerequisite for a good poem. The unified presence of qing and jing is
called qingjing jiaorong (emotion and scene melt together). Mao’s “Shaoshan Revisited” is such
an example:

June 1959
Like a dim dream recalled, I curse the long-fled past –
My native soil two and thirty years gone by.
The red flag roused the serf, halberd in hand,
While the despot’s black talons held his whip aloft.
Bitter sacrifice strengthens bold resolve
Which dares to make sun and moon shine in new skies.
Happy, I see wave upon wave of paddy and beans,
And all around heroes home-bound in the evening mist.19

The short poem of eight lines containing fifty-six Chinese characters exhibits a positive,
uplifting, and revolutionary romanticism through a series of heroic imageries of the past and
present. It is not hard to imagine how emotional the poet was when he returned to his native
place after an absence of thirty-two years: almost half of his life. The opening couplet is par-
ticularly moving. A mixture of strong emotions of nostalgia and pride is apparent, with a touch
of sentimentalism. Mao Zedong did not play a very significant role for the Chinese revolution
in 1927 when he bid farewell to his hometown of Shaoshan. In 1959, however, he was already
the paramount leader of the biggest communist party in the world, and the head of a nation
with the greatest population on earth, making up approximately a quarter of humanity then.
This poem recounts his path to leadership, which, as depicted in the poem, was full of hard
struggle and sacrifice. The long and bloody revolutionary war had claimed the lives of many
of his comrades and family members. Despite this, the poem expresses his feeling of obligation
and determination to change the world. The atmosphere of the Great Leap Forward campaign
and Mao’s enthusiasm are most obvious in the poem. Heroism also permeates the poem, and is
strongly emphasise in a powerful, yet beautiful ending which demonstrates a presence of both
emotion (qing) and scene (jing).
Mao stayed in Shaoshan for three days from June 25 to 27, 1959. The purpose of the trip
was to investigate the problems of the Great Leap, which he had begun to be aware of since
December 1958. In the early months of 1959, as economic conditions further deteriorated,
Mao could not but conclude that something had gone terribly wrong, so he decided to go back
to his hometown, Shaoshan, to conduct field investigations. The poem, however, demonstrates
visible enthusiasm and a positive tone, contrasting sharply with a poem given to the Minister
of Defence, Peng Dehuai, by a former Red Army soldier during his investigative trip to the
same area: “Grain scattered on the ground, potato leaves withered; / Strong young people have
left to make steel; / Only children and old women reap the crops; / How would they eat next
year? / Please raise your voice for the people.”20 Mao’s growing estrangement from reality and
the masses of people he led is reflected in his poem, because in contrast to the ongoing famine,
he writes that he saw “wave upon wave of paddy and beans.” Also, it should be noted that dur-
ing the heat of the confrontation at the subsequent Lushan Conference of the CCP’s leading
officials (July 1959), Peng Dehuai, who had seen the hungry peasants and abandoned houses,
reminded Mao that Shaoshan had been the recipient of generous and exceptional state support:
something Mao was well aware of. Meisner writes, “He was too astute an observer of rural life

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not to know the difference between a real village and a Potemkin village. If he was deceived, it
was only because he wished to be.”21
Among Mao’s poems, “Reply to Comrade Guo Moruo” (1963) is his best known, having
given rise to some of the most memorable lines of this canon of poetry. In this poem, Mao
writes with a tone of heroic grandeur, which prompted Guo Moruo to praise Mao’s work:
“Four great volumes / Show us the way . . . The red flag of revolution is unfurling in the east
wind, / The universe is glowing red.” The “four volumes” refers to The Selected Works of Mao
Zedong. In his reply to Guo, Mao presents his view of the world:

On this tiny globe

A few flies dash themselves against the wall,
Humming without cease,
Sometimes shrilling,
Sometimes moaning.22

Again, very buoyant revolutionary romanticism appears in the opening lines, presenting an
image of the poet as distant revolutionary arbiter, viewing the world as a tiny globe. An interpre-
tive principle, drawn from the Taoist master Zhuangzi’s notion: “language cannot fully convey
meaning” (yan bu jinyi), for interpreting classical poetry is to fully explore the suggestive power
of language to capture meanings beyond the language itself (yi zai yanwai) by taking note of sug-
gestions and implications, rather than simply relying on the plain explications. In line with this
principle, one may ask: what is the meaning beyond the language here in this poem? To Mao, it
can be said that the most annoying fly was Nikita Khrushchev. Mao had always felt himself more
superior to Khrushchev in terms of seniority, experience, and the size of the party they each
led. The relationship between the communist parties of China and the Soviet Union further
deteriorated following the condemnation by Khrushchev of his predecessor Stalin. After this,
the uneasy alliance between the two nations changed into a bitter hostility. Mao now viewed
the Soviet Union as a potential military threat, considering it an even greater urgency to make
China a strong power with modernisations of industry, agriculture and national defence. A rivalry
for influence in the developing world also emerged, not just between the two nations, but per-
sonally, between the two communist leaders. This personal rivalry may help us understand the
poem better, but the “flies” in the opening may refer to a broad category of all the reactionaries
Mao held in contempt.
Domestically, before the Great Leap Forward movement, Mao had already entrusted manag-
ing the state to his deputy, Liu Shaoqi, withdrawing from the first line of day-to-day government
to devote more time to theoretical work. After handing over the position of the head of the
state to Liu Shaoqi, he wrote more poems, from which, it is clear that in spite of the disastrous
consequences of the Great Leap Forward movement, he did not lose his revolutionary romanti-
cism, as shown in the following lines:

So many deeds cry out to be done,

And always urgently;
The world rolls on,
Time presses.
Ten thousand years are too long,
Seize the day, seize the hour!
The Four Seas are rising, clouds and waters raging,

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 Lijun Bi and Xiangshu Fang

The Five Continents are rocking, wind and thunder roaring.

Our force is irresistible,
Away with all pests!23

In the Chinese tradition, poetic creation is guided by a time-honoured saying “poetry

expresses intent” (shiyan zhi). It comes from the Confucian notion that literature is primarily
informative and didactic, serving social and moral purposes. This Confucian view of poetry
has played a significant role in shaping the relationship between the poet and the reader of his
poetry. As poetry is to express the poet’s “intent,” which covers his desire, aspiration, worldview
and objective in life, etc., his political and moral backgrounds should be accounted for when
interpreting his poetry. In reading Mao’s poem, one may ask: What is the poet’s “intent” here?
The poem portrays the poet himself as a proud hero, who, though getting on in years, does not
lose his revolutionary enthusiasm and romantic idealism. The timing of releasing this poem in
1964 indicates that Mao was coming out of his political seclusion. At the age of seventy, when he
wrote this poem, he did not seem to have lost his life-long zeal for revolution and communism.
The poem strongly indicates his intent for his final and the most radical act of his political career,
and may prophetically foretell the coming of the Cultural Revolution.

Notes
1 Bonnie S. McDougall and Kam Louie, The Literature of China in the Twentieth Century (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1997), 263.
2 Ibid., 263–264.
3 He Jingzhi, “Hui Yan’an,” (Return to Yan’an, originally 1956) in Xie Mian and Yang Kuanghan, eds.,
Collection of China’s New Poetry 1950s-80s (Zhongguo xinshi cui 50 niandai-80 niandai) (Beijing: Ren-
min wenxue chubanshe, 1987), 59–63. Our own translation.
4 Translation taken from Clifford Pannam, The Poetry of Li Yu (Melbourne: Hybrid Publishers, 2000), 81.
5 He Jingzhi, “Hui Yan’an,” Our own translation.
6 Quoted in Jin Han, Feng Yunqing and Li Xinyu, eds., A Newly-Compiled History of Contemporary Chinese
Literature Development (Xinbian Zhongguo dangdai wenxue fazhanshi) (Hangzhou: Hangzhou daxue
chubanshe,1997), 64. Our own translation.
7 Zhang Dehou, Zhang Fugui and Zhang Yaxin, On the History of Contemporary Chinese Poetry (Zhong-
guo dangdai shige shilun) (Changchun: Jilin renmin chubanshe, 1999), 43.
8 Guo Moruo and Zhou Yang, eds., Songs of the Red Flag (Hongqi yao) (Beijing: Hongqi chubanshe,
1959), 160. Our own translation.
9 Ibid., 196. Our own translation.
10 Quoted in Alan P.L. Liu, The Use of Traditional Media for Modernization in Communist China (Cam-
bridge, MA: Centre for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1965), 74. Alan
Liu’s translation.
11 Quoted in Jin Han, Feng Yunqing and Li Xinyu, A Newly-Compiled History, 64. Our own translation.
12 Guo Xiaochuan, “Xiang kunnan jinjun – zaizhi qingnian gongmin,” (March on Towards the Hard-
ships – To the Young Citizens), www.chinapoesy.com/xiandaiEC5D52D3-9B52-4941-AB79-0ADC-
81D5AC0F.html. Accessed November 11, 2016. Our own translation.
13 Jin Han, Feng Yunqing and Li Xinyu, A Newly-Compiled History, 71.
14 Guo Xiaochuan, “Wang xingkong,” (Gazing at the starring sky, 1959) in Collection of China’s new poetry
1950s-80s (Zhongguo xinshi cui 50 niandai-80 niandai), 43–53. Our own translation.
15 Ibid. Our own translation.
16 Hua Fu, “Ping Guo Xiaochuan de wangxingkong,” (On Guo Xiaochuan’s Gazing at the Starring Sky)
Literary Gazette (Wenyi bao), 23, 1959. www.wenku1.com/news/99C021686AFD6027.html. Accessed
October, 08 2016.
17 Xiao San, “Tan wangxingkong,” (On “Gazing at the Starring Sky”), People’s Literature (Remin wenxue),
1, 1960. www.wenku1.com/news/99C021686AFD6027.html. Accessed October,08 2016.

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18 The methodology for analysing Mao’s poems in this section is drawn from Dian Li, “Philosophy of
Literature,” in Antonio S. Cua, ed., Encyclopaedia of Chinese Philosophy (New York: Routledge, 2003),
576–581.
19 Mao Tsetung, MaoTsetung Poems (Peking: Foreign Languages Press), 36.
20 Translation slightly adapted from Edward Friedman, Paul Pickowicz and Mark Selden Chinese Village,
Socialist State (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1991), 233.
21 Maurice Meisner, Mao Zedong (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007), 156–157.
22 Mao Tsetung, MaoTsetung Poems, 46.
23 Ibid., 46–47.

Further readings
Admussen, Nick. Recite and Refuse: Contemporary Chinese Prose Poetry. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,
2016.
Barnstone, Willis. The Poems of Mao Tse-tung. New York: Harper & Row, 1972.
Boorman, Howard L. “The Literary World of Mao Tse-tung.” The China Quarterly 13 (1963): 15–38.
Chen, S. H. “Metaphor and the Conscious in Chinese Poetry under Communism.” The China Quarterly
13 (1963): 39–59.
———. “Multiplicity in Uniformity: Poetry and the Great Leap Forward.” The China Quarterly 3 (1960):
1–15.​
Crespi, John. Voices in Revolution: Poetry and the Auditory Imagination in Modern China. Honolulu: University
of Hawai‘i Press, 2009.
Davis, Albert Richard, ed. The Penguin Book of Chinese Verse. London: Penguin, 1966.
Van Fleit Hang, Krista. “People’s Literature and the Construction of a New Chinese Literary Tradition.”
Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese 9.2 (July 2009): 87–107.
———. Literature the People Love: Reading Chinese Texts from the Early Maoist Period (1949–1966). New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

409
 30
DRAMAS OF NEW CHINA
(1949–1966)
Weijie Song

Modern Chinese drama serves as an umbrella term to encompass both spoken drama (huaju),
a western-style theatre introduced to China at the turn of the twentieth century, and modern
rendition of traditional Chinese opera (xiqu), such as Peking opera, Kun opera, etc. It also incor-
porates theatrical adaptation of literary and artistic works from other genres, especially novel and
fiction. Dramas in the seventeen-year period of Maoist China refer to the theatrical writings
and performances produced from the founding of the People’s Republic of China (1949) to the
beginning of the Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966). Its overall output is characterized by
an adherence to Maoist thoughts of literature and arts (Mao Zedong wenyi sixiang) in terms
of revolution, class, history, aesthetics and politics. In her study of Chinese drama of this period,
Xiaomei Chen rightly points out that the drama of new China “mostly followed the Maoist
ideology of literature and art, which viewed serving the interests of the proletariat cause – that
is, the cause of workers, peasants, and soldiers – as its main function.”1 Hong Zicheng’s History
of Contemporary Chinese Literature also emphasizes the political function and agency of dramas
in this historical period: “After 1949, . . . [t]here was also a continuing stress on the notion of
the direct, intimate relationship between the theatre, politics, and society. . . . Beginning in 1963,
during the preparation for and the initiation of the Cultural Revolution, of all the arts the thea-
tre, including western-style drama, was seen as the art form best suited to the direct expression
of political enthusiasm and imagination.”2
Indeed, in the early stage of socialist China, various issues of aesthetics and politics, new
and old, called for timely ideas, politicized approaches and artistic practices, which stimulated
discussions among dramatists and contributed to the booming of dramatic productions in the
period. The state-sponsored theatre system, with its loyalty to the Maoist policy of literature
and art, supplied the ideological guidelines for dramatic writings and theatrical praxis. Despite
the curtailment of creative freedom and imagination, Maoist ideology governing literature and
art was enthusiastically embraced by playwrights, old and young. The list of the established
veteran dramatists consists of Guo Moruo, Lao She, Cao Yu, Chen Baichen, Tian Han, Xia Yan,
Song Zhidi, Wu Zuguang, Qin Shou’ou, Yao Ke, Li Jianwu, Yang Jiang, Yao Zhongming, He
Jingzhi, Ding Yi, and Wu Han.3 Mao’s ideological Weltanschauung was also warmly welcomed
and overwhelmingly practiced by the young generation of dramatists in the 1950s and 1960s.
In their ranks, influential playwrights include Hu Ke, Chen Qitong, Wang Lian, Shi Chao, Suo

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Yunping, Ma Jixing, Shen Ximeng, Du Xuan, Huang Ti, Du Yin, Duan Chengbin, Cong Shen,
and Cui Dezhi.4
In this chapter, I will first give a brief overview of the seventeen-year dramas by focusing
on how they sought to represent the new social reality through the themes of class struggle,
women’s liberation, and proletarian revolution in the country and the city. Then I will examine
a few representative historical plays which have pre-modern figures and events but are infused
with new class consciousness and aesthetic sensibilities. Finally, I will conduct a focused study of
leading dramatist Lao She’s two representative plays, Dragon Beard Ditch and Teahouse, as example
and exception, of dramas in Maoist China. With regard to the intertwined relationship between
example and exception, Giorgio Agamben argues, “Exception and example constitute the two
modes by which a set tries to find and maintain its own coherence. But while the exception is,
as we saw, an inclusive exclusion (which thus serves to include what is excluded), the example
instead functions as an exclusive inclusion.”5 Dragon Beard Ditch provides both an example of
Maoist drama of performing the present (and the future), and an exception in Lao She’s own
representative repertoire of theatrical writings about envisioning the past. Teahouse, on the other
hand, offers both a rare exception, a masterpiece with unparalleled artistic achievement, in the
overwhelmingly politicized and homogeneous literary field, and an example of Lao She’s illus-
tratively pessimistic view of the historical past and social-political change from the late Qing
Dynasty through the Republican and Civil War periods to the early phase of New China.

Representing the present: classes, gender and revolution

The great transformation from Republican China under the KMT control to a newly founded
Socialist PRC brought to limelight a series of urgent needs for representing the epoch-making
transition and the new socialist realities. Dramatists were called upon to actively follow the
mainstream ideology in their literary and political life, and enthusiastically represent the present
with a new focus on workers, farmers, and soldiers, the advanced classes. In response to this call,
a large number of plays were produced following the socialist guidelines of literature and art.
Among them, Du Yin, Liu Xiangru, and Hu Ling’s Facing New Things (Zai xinshiwu zhiqian,
1951) focuses on the class struggle in a Northeastern steel factory. Xia Yan’s The Test (Kaoyan,
1954) presents a scenario of socialist revolution, and criticizes the bureaucracy and conserva-
tism of the industrial construction in the region of East China. Sun Yu’s one-act play Women’s
Representative (Funü daibiao, 1951) portrays a female model cadre and her efforts in formulating
a new family and work relation in the Northeastern rural region. An Bo’s Spring Wind comes to
Nuomin River (Chunfeng chuidao Nuomin he, 1954) centers on land reform and the success
of people’s commune in the countryside. Renowned dramatist Cao Yu’s Bright Skies (Minglang
de tian, 1954), an influential propagandist work, presents an account of the socialist “thought
reform” undergone by western-trained physicians and intellectuals in a Beijing medical college
during the 1949 transition. There are also dramas focusing on revolutionary warfare and the
Korean War. Hu Ke’s Growing Up in Battle (Zhandou li chengzhang, 1949) works on the theme
of “how steel is forged” by presenting a bildungsroman of a victimized village boy who even-
tually becomes a revolutionary solider and war hero. Chen Qitong’s Myriad Rivers and Moun-
tains (Wanshui qianshan, 1954) centers on the Long March and its military and political legacy
infused with revolutionary optimism and heroism.
Despite their great successes then, these plays are viewed now as displaying a rigid formula.
Siyuan Liu, who quotes Li Hong’s study of the plays, summarizes the thematic concerns of this
period into three thematic types: “Workers plays: struggle between advanced and backward

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 Weijie Song

ideologies; peasants plays: struggle between joining or not joining the commune; and army
plays: military struggle between our and enemy forces.”6And there is a “Fourth Type of Plays”
(Disizhong juben) which attempts to depart from the three predominant thematic concerns. Hai
Mo’s The Vertical Flute is Played Horizontally (Dongxiao hengchui, 1956) portrays a retired soldier
from the Korean War fighting with the bureaucratic hindrances and the dark side of rural life.
Yang Lüfang’s the Cockoo Sings Again (Bugunian you jiaole, 1957) features young model work-
ers (a female lead singer and her lover), their brave challenge to the stubborn feudal customs,
and their revolutionary passion and love in the Agricultural Collectivization Movement. Lu
Yanzhou’s The Return (Guilai, 1956) and Duan Chengbin’s Something Forgotten (Bei yiwangle
de shiqing, 1957) sensitively expose how some communist cadres abandon their old wives left
in the villages, choosing to be blind to the rural folks’ great contributions to the revolutionary
causes during wartimes.These controversial and alternative dramatic works signal the new issues
of moral corruption and social injustice in the blooming urban environments and the underde-
veloped rural areas.
In the early 1960s, representative socialist realist dramas include Shen Ximeng’s Sentinel under
the Neon Lights (Nihong dengxia de shaobing, 1963), Chen Yun’s The Young Generation (Nian-
qing de yidai, 1963) and Cong Shen’s Never Forget (Qianwan buyao wangji, 1964), which focus
on contemporary urban life in Shanghai and Harbin and “showcase the ongoing class struggle,
the formation of proletarian consciousness, and the critique of bourgeois entertainment and
fetishism.”7
With the immediate purpose of representing the old and new, as well as the past, present and
future, these highly politicized dramas, in spite of their limited literary merits, serve to provide
social comments on ongoing political movements, the widening gap between the country and
the city, the discrepancy between industrial construction and the Maoist utopian blueprint, the
physical and psychological worlds of the socialist new citizens, and the war and post-war hero-
ism in various periods.

Historical dramas: old stories retold in a new age

Due to the political sensitivity and danger of representing contemporary subject matters, his-
torical plays (lishi ju) with the new methods of rewriting the pre-modern history became a
popular genre in the late 1950s.Veteran dramatists constituted the main body of this group and
produced works with artistic excellences. Rudolf Wagner uses the term “new historical dramas”
(xinbian lishi ju) to name this genre, and further elucidates, “The authors of the new historical
dramas were not young Party intellectuals or non-Party writers of earlier renown, but high-
ranking political and cultural leaders within the Party. Their use of the historical drama as the
main platform for ideological and political contention in the public sphere after 1958 had a
number of important implications in terms of both the writer’s perception of society, and of his
work.”8 The political injustice, class struggle, and dynastic crisis in pre-modern history become
the source of inspirations for retelling old historical stories in the form of modern drama to
meet the current ideological needs.
Guo Moruo is a leading figure in this sub-genre. His historical plays Cai Wenji (1959) and Wu
Zetian (1960) continued to sing his eulogies of extraordinary and rebellious women (historical
figures like Nie Ying, assassin Nie Zheng’s sister; Zhuo Wenjun, a talented poet and widow with
the courage to pursue true love; and Wang Zhaojun, a palace lady who plays a role in strength-
ening friendly ties between the Han people and Xiongnu). In Guo’s recasting Cai Wenji as a
patriotic and ambitious female poet and musician, Cao Cao, who used to be presented as a vil-
lain in literary works, was reconfigured as an outstanding statesman, strategist, and literatus. And

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Empress Wu Zetian who was regarded as an infamous usurper was rewritten as a great politician
and humanitarian ruler. Following Guo’s example, some veteran playwrights turned out a series
of historical plays. Tian Han’s play Guan Hanqing (1958) redraws the great eponymous Yuan
Dynasty dramatist as a writer-fighter who makes use of his dramatic works as swords to attack
corruption, injustice, and crime on behalf of the insulted and victimized commoners. Liang Luo
forcefully points out that Tian Han “saw in Guan a mirror of himself as a playwright, an artistic
bohemian, and a leader of theater circles who harbored the intellectual desire to be the spokes-
man of the people.”9 Cao Yu’s The Gall and the Sword (Dan jian pian, 1961) was published and
performed after the tumultuous years of 1958–1961, and in this five-act play, Cao dramatizes the
King of Yue’s will to greatness with his tireless fight despite military defeat, political setbacks, and
personal humiliation, until he scores his decisive victory over the King of Wu and restores the
independence of his kingdom. Wu Han’s Hai Rui Dismissed from Office (Hai Rui baguan, 1961)
was arguably the most famous historical play (also Peking opera) at that time, and later incurred
severe political denunciation. As a leading Ming historian and also a Deputy Mayor of Beijing,
Wu Han’s play portrays the Ming Dynasty official Hai Rui as an ideal official like the legendary
Judge Bao, who risks his life to correct wrongs, fight corruption, and admonish the emperor.
Hong Zicheng’s insightful observation of Guo Moruo’s historical plays may be adopted as a
summary of the writing strategy of this specific genre during the seventeen-year period:

The central ideas behind Guo’s historical dramas were in current politics, after which
he sought out incidents or figures in “history” on which he could hang the words he
wished to address to the issue. . . . The author was fully aware that the current age held
in esteem “admirable characters” who were greatly talented and who opened up a
“new epoch” in history, and his highly romanticized rewriting was in responses to this
“spirit of the time.”10

Lao She’s new plays: example and exception11

A widespread socialist slogan states that “the old society turned human beings into ghosts; and
the new society turns ghosts back into human beings.” Lao She’s three-act play Dragon Beard
Ditch (Longxu gou, 1951) is a concrete illustration of this idea. It depicts how an infamous slum
by the side of a stinking creek in Republican Beijing is renovated into a new and neat socialist
community and how the once poverty-stricken victims and sufferers are released from their
hygienic and political morass, and warmly welcome socialist baptism and redemption by the
Maoist regime.
In his “How I Wrote ‘Dragon Beard Ditch,’ ” Lao She famously confessed: “the creation of
this play was my biggest venture in more than twenty years as a writer.”12 The reason he offered
is that he did not have enough time and experience to completely understand the Dragon Beard
Ditch. As a writer, Lao She always works on topics he is familiar with, and his major novels and
dramas are mostly set in the past instead of the present or the future. However, Dragon Beard
Ditch is an exception because the Beijing government had not yet finished the Dragon Beard
Ditch project when Lao She completed his play. Lao She envisions a future at the end of the
play: the stinking ditch is cleaned up and has disappeared forever, and the inhabitants are released
from the ecological and political morass and appreciate the timely help from the new govern-
ment. In a prophetic way, Lao She performs an imaginative act which turns the urban future
into a living presence or completed presence. The strategy of presenting the past or the future,
however, displays a stunning “presentism,”13 a performance of a space, and a sort of revolutionary

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 Weijie Song

“special effects” in which the imagined is presented as the real in an otherwise realistic play.
Yomi Braester astutely argues, “in fact, the text was written months ahead of the depicted events
and years before the construction at Longxugou was completed . . . in presenting a prescriptive
chronotope-that is, making the site into a symbol of the coming socialist utopia – the play not
only sacrifices historical accuracy but also reduces the characters to a life suspended in waiting
for a better future.”14 In this sense, Dragon Beard Ditch has set up a paradigm for socialist literature,
especially for the literature of the seventeen years in Maoist China.
As a unique and exceptional work of experiment in Lao She’s repertoire, Dragon Beard Ditch,
a propagandist and demonstrative drama composed right after the founding of the People’s
Republic China, describes the renovation of a ditch to epitomize the great socialist transforma-
tion from pre-Mao “dystopia” to Maoist “paradise.”The old Dragon Beard Ditch is a notoriously
filthy dead corner, and a symbolic miniature of the underprivileged ghetto of (Old) Beijing. In
act 1, Lao She sets the story in 1948, the year before Beijing became the capital of a new social-
ist China. Lao She’s portrayal of the ditch as a symbol of the corrupted, old China echoes Wen
Yiduo’s symbolic representation of the old China in his famous poem “Dead Water.” Like Wen
Yiduo’s dead water, the Dragon Beard Ditch is a symbolically dead zone, but realistically, it is
a cramped courtyard occupied by many poor households in the southern part of Beijing. On
the social level, it is presented as a miniature of the poor and dilapidated ghetto in pre-Maoist
China. Because of its abominable conditions, the ditch represents a pre-socialist living hell, and
a forgotten corner of the lower society, where the penniless city inhabitants settled down and
made a hard living: “Their houses may tumble down at any moment; most of their yards have
no lavatories, let alone kitchens. There is no running water; they drink bitter and rank-tasting
well-water. Everywhere there are swarms of fleas, clouds of mosquitoes, countless bed-bugs and
black sheets of flies, all spreading disease.”15 The inhabitants of Dragon Beard Ditch live at the
bottom of society, and moreover, they are physically confined in the prison-like slum houses.
Lao She deliberately designs and defines the neighborhood as “a small monument to illustrate
the sin of the filthy Ditch.”16
Suffering from physical and mental illness partly caused by the polluted environment, Mad
Cheng, a folk artist and skilled singer of ballads, is the only inhabitant with the ability to articu-
late things that ordinary people cannot speak about. From the very beginning, Mad Cheng pro-
phetically sings out all the terrible past, the stinking presence, and the bright future of Dragon
Beard Ditch. The material reality of being trapped in the ditch neighborhood is responsible for
all his physical problems and mental sufferings. However, the bright future exists in his vague
hopes and songs.
If the old society and old Beijing were like the filthy ditch, the ditch could be the incarna-
tion of the previous urban life and old city. Terrible smells, fatal disease and all negative things
in general could be associated with the bitter past and needed to be scoured and cleaned. In the
characters’ struggle and complaint in the first act, Old Chao, a sixty-year-old bricklayer, blames
the filthy ditch on the corrupt officials and government. He holds an opinion that Beijing must
have clean officials before they can have clean water. This is the typical mentality in which the
masses always long for an uncorrupted official, like the legendary archetype Judge Bao, who can
play the role of Deus ex machina and absolve the woes of the masses.
Ding Si (Ting Sze), a frustrated pedicab driver,17 pins his hope on his cab, which is not only
a tool for making a living but also a possible vehicle to go outside the ditch area, the confines
of the poor family and the dangerous street corner. Erchun, a semi-literate female pauper, is
another character who indulges in the imagined escape from the urban dystopia, and is publicly
against any physically and socially unreasonable rules upon her living situation. In the pre-
socialist nightmare and the urban dystopia, none of them is able to escape from the muddy and

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stinking ghetto, because they have no other place to run away to or to live in, besides the dead
corner.
It is particularly worth noting that Old Chao catches malaria every year in the slum, and
explains that his sickness is due to mosquito bites, and to the bites from the environmental and
social injustices committed by the corrupt Nationalist Party officials, local gangsters, and Japa-
nese invaders after he is enlightened by the socialist propaganda. In his speech act performance,
Old Chao deliberately constructs equivalence between his physical illness and the social cancers
of old Beijing. Thus, in the play, the ditch stands as a metaphor of sickness, predicated on the
symbolic connections between natural diseases and symptoms of social illness.
Following Maoist ideology and his own ethical judgment, Lao She makes efforts to separate
“moral wickedness” from “physical filthiness.” In other words, Lao She’s writing strategy is that
he observes Beijing by tracing the ditch back to the old regime and the corrupt Nationalist
government. Meanwhile, the new government can transform the city’s dark corner society into
a bright and tidy community. The danger of contamination is resolved by hygienic sweeping
and ideological purification.
In act 2, after Beijing comes under socialism, the social sickness is being cured.When the play
was finished, the Dragon Beard Ditch project had not yet been completed.Thus its creation was
the result of an imaginative act on the part of the playwright who believed in the bright future
and took concrete action to praise the beneficence of the new government. In the play, Lao She
envisioned the dwellers’ enthusiasm for the bright future.The imaginary relation of the residents
to the old stinking ditch is presented as part of the bitter past in pre-socialist Beijing, and the
imagined connections of the inhabitants with the forthcoming sanitary ditch can be named a
socialist present and future in the new Beijing. Thus, the play signifies an overwhelming opti-
mistic longing for the future and may be viewed as a simulacrum which conflates the present
and the future.Yomi Braester thus writes,

Dragon Whisker Creek establishes rhetorical devices that would reappear in later urban
propaganda production. In addition to speaking in the name of the people, the play
claims to recover suppressed voices, tells in public the bitterness of oppression, identi-
fies the people’s enemies, dramatizes a dialectic between doubters and enthusiasts of
the Revolution, and projects a future in which socialism will have fully materialized.18

In a state of bliss and even ecstasy, the four families dedicate their bodies and minds to the
new ditch, the new Beijing and its government, and the new socialist China. Erchun acquires a
new socialist citizenship, regards the disappearance of the local gangsters and the filthy ditch as
signs of a new reality, and openly claims that “(i)n future, if anyone dares to say a word against
the government, I’ll split his skull open.”19 Old Chao consciously plays the role of a propagandist
and activist to spread the new message of socialist education and enlightenment to his neighbors:
The government knows the sufferings and pains of the poor people, and “they’re doing some-
thing for you and me, and everyone in this district, so that we shan’t have to be ill, and die, stink,
and be filthy, and go hungry, any more.You and I are the people, and the government cares for
the people; they’re remaking the Ditch for us!”20 Individual memory of the concrete miseries,
family trauma of the accidental death of Little Niu in the filthy ditch, and the foul disease lead-
ing to illness, death, stink, and filth, among other problems, can all be swept away in the “imag-
ined community” of a socialist city. Mad Cheng’s wife believes that again, in the near future, the
Socialist government can “really” clean the filthy environment, build new stone embankments,
and repair all the roads. She even goes further with another idea, that is, to persuade the dwellers
to contribute a little money to put up a stone on which they inscribe the words, “There used to

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 Weijie Song

be a stinking Ditch here; the people’s government made it into a fine road.”21 It is remarkable
that a female pauper in the forgotten corner of the new urban space should make the proposal
to establish a monument to commemorate the bitter past and celebrate the happy present. Her
“urban planning” is a gesture of bidding farewell to the past and of welcoming a bright future
promised by the new government.
As a professional performer, Mad Cheng can conceive a more ambitious blueprint, a public
space for all the citizens of Beijing:“we must have a park here. . . .We should change the Goldfish
Pond into a park with trees all round it, and a swimming pool and some pavilions as well.”22 And
the climax of the play comes at the moment when Mad Cheng performs his new song to chant
the greatness of the newly established People’s Government. The folk artist who has recovered
from his health problems juxtaposes Dragon Beard Ditch with Beijing’s historical landmarks
(East Arch, West Arch, Drum Tower tall, Five Altars, Eight Temples, old Altar of Grain, and Sum-
mer Palace, among others), and showcases the Government’s admirable efforts of mending the
ditch to improve the poor people’s living environment, and helping them to stand up with pride,
dignity, happiness and hope.23
If Dragon Bear Ditch is a highly propagandist drama and its literary excellence remains debat-
able, then Lao She’s 1957 three-act play Teahouse is widely acclaimed as a true and rare master-
piece in the seventeen-year period and beyond. By depicting the lives of people who frequent
a teahouse, which stands for a shrinking public space and a pessimistic miniature of old Beijing,
the play dramatizes the changing cityscape and social mores from the decline of the Manchu
Empire, through the chaos of the warlord regimes, to the downfall of the Nationalist govern-
ment. The Yutai teahouse not only captures the dimensions of entertainment, moral education,
and political edification but also stages a subtle and complex critique of the pre-Mao social
morass and political violence. When answering the question, “What led you to write a play
about a teahouse?” Lao She said,

People from all walks of life came to the teahouses; they were frequented by people
of every possible character and persuasion. Thus the teahouses were a microcosm of
society as a whole. In covering the [fifty years of historical change] it was impossible to
avoid political issues. . . . [In the teahouse] I would be revealing one face of the political
change of the time.24

In my study of the play, I view the teahouse as a physical and psychological place and space,
and a warped space-time continuum, that presents the interactions between material deforma-
tions and emotional vicissitudes over fifty years. My interpretation will focus on two aspects:
the changing locations of material objects, such as tables, chairs, furniture and ornaments within
the shrinking and warped teahouse; and the intriguing relations between the teahouse and the
street, between the interior and exterior spaces, and between nostalgic sympathy, sense of loss,
and self-mourning that implode in the teahouse and urban horrors and darkness that extend
and explode from within.
Lao She made a well-known confession that Teahouse buries the three former eras. My
question is: Does the Manchu playwright bury the three eras with a relatively homogeneous
structure of feeling, or with related, yet distinct, feelings and emotions respectively in the three
acts? Li Jianwu points out that, in Teahouse, “there is no unified emotion or event, but repeated
situations.”25 I would argue that the “repeated situations,” as well as the diversified emotions and
events, bring to limelight Lao She’s affective mapping of the distorted teahouse and the warped
hometown at large. Xiaomei Chen observes that Teahouse is “deeply rooted in the old culture
of Beijing; however, one could also detect a resistance to change, no matter how frequently

416
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political regimes changed hands and claimed victory.”26 How, then, can we locate the “resistance
to change” in the physical and psychological, material and mental place and space inside and
outside of the warped teahouse?
In the widely acclaimed act 1, Lao She sets the time at the early fall of 1898 when the Reform
Movement led by Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao and their followers has failed. The decline and
fall of the Manchu Empire is approaching. The play features three male protagonists, Wang Lifa,
a shrewd, sensitive, and somewhat self-centered owner of Yutai Teahouse, Chang Siye (Fourth
Elder Chang), a well-built and morally upright Manchu bannerman, and Qin Zhongyi, Wang
Lifa’s landlord, a national capitalist and follower of the Reformists. Minor characters include an
opium-addicted fortuneteller (Soothsayer Tang), a cruel and treacherous flesh merchant (Pock-
face Liu), a western religion believer and bully (Fifth Elder Ma), a former member of the Legis-
lative Assembly but now an urban hermit (Cui Jiufeng) and others. With a subtle yet detectable
tone of nostalgia, Lao She gives an emotional description of Yutai Teahouse: “Large teahouses
like this are no longer to be seen, but a few decades ago every district in Beijing had at least
one.”27 While other large teahouses are disappearing,Yutai survives and becomes a relatively safe
and sound shelter, seemingly immune to the political change in the outside world.The teahouse
provides an entertainment space for urban dwellers; a meeting place for discussions, negotiations,
and transactions; a pseudo-political newsroom for rumors, complaints and opinions; and a center
of cultural exchange for different classes of local people.
If we take a closer look at its interior space, then material culture, or the locations of objects
and the order of things, can meaningfully present and illustrate the life, the world, cultural and
political change:

The building is extremely large and high-ceilinged, with rectangular tables, square
tables, benches, and stools for customers. Through the window an inner courtyard can
be seen, where there is a matted canopy for shade and seats for customers. There are
hooks hanging up birdcages, both in the teahouse and in the courtyard.28

In addition to the leading material image of tea tables, changes of other objects and orna-
ments more or less indicate political changes. The spatial arrangements of the everyday objects
in the teahouse, for instance, the counter and kitchen near the main entrance, traditional tea-
house benches and stools, and the front hall and inner courtyard in the back, reveal vividly the
kind of luxurious and large teahouses common in Beijing in the late imperial era. Interestingly,
the political imperative DO NOT DISCUSS AFFAIRS OF STATE is pasted or hung up with
hooks for hanging bird cages, which visualizes the coexistence of political self-censorship and
leisurely enjoyment under the same high-ceilinged roof.
In act 2, as this type of large teahouse is becoming extinct, a sense of loss becomes more
observable and detectable. Even Wang Lifa’s wife can mark out the trajectories of the disappear-
ances of large teahouses: the few remaining “old and established names” have all closed down.
The Yutai Teahouse is the only survivor in the warlord era, and the reason is because “that tea-
houses, like governments, have to reform.”29 Ironically, reform takes the form of deformation.
The Yutai Teahouse is forced to change its physical appearance by splitting the space: the front
part remains a teahouse, while the rear section is renovated as a public lodging house.The chairs
and tables have undergone a great “reform” as well: the tables are now smaller, with pale green
tablecloths and wicker chairs.

The large painting of The Eight Drunken Immortals and even the shrine to the God of
Wealth are gone, having been replaced by pictures of fashionable women in foreign

417
 Weijie Song

cigarette advertisements. “Don’t discuss state affairs,” however, still stares down from
every wall, written in even larger characters.30

Politics and political change are revealed in the loss of material objects, accompanied by the
sense of anxiety, the dislocations of indoor ornaments and decoration, and the shrinking tea-
house space.
In contrast to the material abundance, spatial fullness and acoustic richness of the Teahouse
in act 1 or the late Manchu Empire, the shabby interior scenes in act 2 and act 3 share a “fam-
ily resemblance.” Around the time of the downfall of the Nationalist government in 1948, the
teahouse underwent greater changes and lost its dignity and substance. Even “the wicker chairs
have disappeared, replaced by stools and benches. Everything, from the building to the furni-
ture, looks gloomy.” The only eye-catching things are the paper signs proclaiming, DO NOT
DISCUSS AFFAIRS OF STATE – now in even bigger characters. The teahouse building itself
and the interior furniture are “dull and shabby,”31 reminiscent of Lao She’s narrative strategy of
envisioning urban darkness in horrible nights and rough streets in the story of rickshaw puller
Camel Xiangzi. In the hostile political milieu, Wang Lifa never forgets about reform, change,
and keeping up with the times in ways that he would not honor: a series of reluctant spatial
rearrangements of the teahouse including opening a rooming house, bringing in a storyteller
and even hiring a come-on hostess. Yet a local gangster and opportunist, Little Pockface Liu,
and behind him the KMT military officer Shen, conspire to occupy and possess the Yutai Tea-
house, and re-envision it as a small dance hall, card room, cafeteria, or private club for their own
purposes, indicating yet another material use and abuse of the place and space in a chaotic and
reckless era.
Kwok-tan Tam rightly understands the teahouse as “the organizing principle,” a stage and
an eyewitness to the political changes. He furthermore argues that Teahouse lacks “temporary
unity,” yet achieves “spatial unity,” and the success of the play “lies precisely in its ambivalent
ending and its Chekhovian sense of indirection.”32 I interpret the Yutai Teahouse as a warped
space-time continuum illustrating historical and political violence. The multimedia Yutai Tea-
house is both concrete and conceptual, both physical and psychological, and depicts social and
political transformation in the everyday scenes of a shrinking and malfunctioned public space.
Significantly, the self-mourning performed by the three old men, Chang the Manchu Banner-
man, Qin the industrialist, and Wang the property owner, evokes a spatial linkage between the
half-open-half-closed Yutai and the turbulent street, a space stretch and exterior extension of
the warped teahouse. This is adequately demonstrated in Master Chang’s remark: “I love my
country, but who loves me? See here (taking paper money out of his basket) – whenever I see a
funeral, I try to pick up some of this paper money. I won’t have any burial clothes. I won’t even
have a coffin. All I can do is save some paper money for myself. Ha, ha! (Hearty laughter tinged
with despair).”33 In act 1, Manchu Bannerman Master Chang realized “the Bannerman’s subsidy
was abolished,” and signed, “The Great Qing Empire was done for after all!”34 In act 3, as a life-
long inhabitant of Beijing from the late imperial to the Republican eras, Master Chang makes
a complaint about his country that could also be rendered as “I love my city, but the city does
not love me.” The overlap between the city and the country (be it Manchu Empire or modern
nation-state) highlights the perplexing political orientation, and the feeling of being abandoned
conjures a melancholic resonance among the three aged urbanites. Qin Zhongyi responds, “Let’s
offer ritual funeral sacrifices for ourselves. Throw the paper money in the air. Something special
for us three old fogies!”35 Death comes in advance in the ceremony of self-mourning, which
turns the physical place of the teahouse into a psychological space filled with frustration, pain,
depression and confusion.

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 Dramas of new China (1949–1966)

Svetlana Boym suggests, “Nostalgia is a sentiment of loss and displacement, but it is also a
romance with one’s own phantasy.”36 Nostalgia contains a loss of the past and a longing for the
past. Boym makes distinction of two types of nostalgias: “Restorative nostalgia stresses nostos (home)
and attempts a transhistorical reconstruction of the lost home. Reflective nostalgia thrives on algia,
the longing itself, and delays the homecoming – wistfully, ironically, desperately.”37 She also
points out that “These distinctions are not absolute binaries, and one can surely make a more
refined mapping of the grey areas on the outskirts of imaginary homelands.”38 In Teahouse, nos-
talgia, loss, melancholia, and mourning are intermingle and interconnected emotions. Loss leads
to melancholia. The performance of mourning may overcome the sense of loss, and construct
or reconstruct the lost objects or images in ongoing nostalgia, which embarks on a “restorative”
and “reflective” journey back to an imagined home and idealized aura.
According to Sigmund Freud, mourning is the reaction to concrete loss, like a loved person,
or abstract loss, like one’s country, liberty, or an ideal. Rey Chow notes that the melancholic per-
son “exhibits the symptoms of a delusional belittling of himself ” and the sense of being unjustly
abandoned.39 Individual/private and collective loss can be concrete and abstract, and related to
the absent body, damaged object, empty space, frustrated desire, loss of history and the lack of
social justice.40 The three old fogies cannot come to terms with the strong sense of concrete
and abstract loss, and this confirms their own worthlessness and feeling unjustly abandoned by
their city, their country, and their eras. Now the falling paper money indicates the direction of
gravity; the ashes of implosion; the trajectories of nostalgia, loss, mourning, and melancholia;
the fragments of the melancholic urban subject suffering from historical and political violence;
and the clashes of political black holes producing whirls, vortexes, and gusts of wind detectable
in the warped teahouse. A social-political abyss appears in front of the three awakened urban
subjects. The episode of self-mourning is a fabricated and displaced funeral for the living dead,
and makes the Yutai a deserted place, a metaphoric coffin, a grave and a tomb. In the ceremony
of burying the previous three eras, Lao She performs a “soul calling” for the dying subjects of
pre-Mao Beijing right in the newly established socialist capital.
In conclusion, Lao She’s Dragon Beard Ditch unveils an intriguing chronotopic dimension of
the great transformation from pre-Mao dystopia to Maoist paradise formed by socialist urban
planning. As a hygienic dead corner and a figurative miniature of the underprivileged ghetto, the
old Dragon Beard Ditch revealed the pre-socialist everyday life of a shabby compound occupied
by many households of the lowest stratum in the city of Beijing. As soon as Beijing became
the socialist capital, the haunting danger of contamination and the social sickness in the filthy
ditch had been symbolically cleansed in the sense of hygienic sweeping and socialist/ideologi-
cal purification. I suggest that “Dragon Beard Ditch” offers a salient, distorted, and imaginary
example of the socialist production of space and time. The socialist sun shines over Dragon
Beard Ditch, where the inhabitants are endowed with new class consciousness and socialist
sentiment. Lao She produces a socialist space called the new Dragon Beard Ditch, which stages
a socialist illumination from the present and forges a new chronotope colored by the dominant
Maoist ideology.
And merely six years later, Lao She’s Teahouse contributed an exceptional and unparalleled
masterpiece in the heydays of the Maoist political and cultural transition. It scans and spans
the decline of the Manchu Empire, the failure of the Warlord regime, and the downfall of the
Nationalist government, recapitulating and condensing the fifty-year history and politics into a
shrinking public space and a pessimistic miniature of old Beijing’s decline. Lao She portrays the
Yutai Teahouse as a physical and psychological place and space, and a warped space-time con-
tinuum that presents the interactions between material deformations and emotional vicissitudes
against the backdrop of political changes and historical violence.

419
 Weijie Song

Between the ditch and the teahouse, Lao She’s two new plays, as example and exception in
the Maoist seventeen-year era and in his own literary repertoire, employ two distinct yet inter-
related narrative strategies: while the former exemplifies a Maoist literary paradigm of envision-
ing a bright present (and future), the latter exceptionally focuses on representing the past with
nostalgia, melancholia, loss and (self-)mourning. In so doing, the Manchu bannerman and great
storyteller showcases his contradictory yet complimentary methods of performing China in the
theatrical ordering of the time-space continuum in the initial stage of Maoist regime.

Notes
1 Xiaomei Chen, Reading the Right Text: An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Drama (Honolulu: Univer-
sity of Hawaii Press, 2003), 4. See also Chen’s Acting the Right Part: Political Theater and Popular Drama in
Contemporary China (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002), in which she addresses the propagan-
dist characteristics of modern Chinese drama “owing to its emphasis on audience and mass participa-
tion” (p. 18), and calls for a study of “the cultural and social function of modern Chinese drama” and
the “ ‘cross-breed’ of multiple traditions that paradoxically carried out the legacy promoted during the
‘seventeen years’ of the PRC” (p. 20).
2 Hong Zicheng, A History of Contemporary Chinese Literature, trans. Michael Day (Leiden: Brill, 2007),
186, 190.
3 Bonnie S. MacDougal and Kam Louie provide this long list of established dramatists, in their The Litera-
ture of China in the Twentieth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), Chapter 9 “Drama:
Performing for Politics,” especially, 298–324.
4 See Hong Zicheng, A History of Contemporary Chinese Literature, 188.
5 Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1998), 21.
6 Siyuan Liu, “Modern Chinese Theatre After 1949,” in Wetmore Jr., Kevin J., Siyuan Liu and Erin B.
Mee, eds., Modern Asian Theatre and Performance 1900–2000 (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 103.
7 Weijie Song, “Writing Cities,” in Yingjin Zhang, ed., A Companion to Modern Chinese Literature (Oxford:
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2015), 332.
8 Rudolf G. Wagner, The Contemporary Chinese Historical Drama: Four Studies (Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1990), 239.
9 See Liang Luo, The Avant-Garde and the Popular in Modern China: Tian Han and the Intersection of Perfor-
mance and Politics (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014), 214.
10 See Hong Zicheng, A History of Contemporary Chinese Literature, 194. Hong also argues that “historical
dramas were produced in various forms, most notably western-style drama, Beijing opera, and Kun
opera, among others” (193). In the English translation, the original Chinese words of “Kun opera” is
omitted. Rudolf Wagner also states, “Within the Communist movement, the historical plays thus had
clear connotations of dealing with the present on a historical screen.This ‘present’ could be either social
situation of the time or the power struggles in the political center, with direct references to specific
leaders” (The Contemporary Chinese Historical Drama, 83).
11 Portions of this section appeared in another format in my Mapping Modern Beijing: Space, Emotion, Liter-
ary Topography (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), and are used with permission.
12 Lao Sheh, “How I Wrote ‘Dragon Beard Ditch,’ ” in Dragon Beard Ditch: A Play in Three Acts, trans. Liao
Hung-ying (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1956), 7–8. The English version is a shorter edition of
two Chinese essays regarding the process of writing Dragon Beard Ditch, one is “Longxu gou xiezuo
jingguo,” and “Longxu gou de renwu” (Characters in Dragon Beard Ditch), in Wenyi bao [Literary gazette],
February 25, 1951; these two essays are collected in Lao She juzuo quanji (Complete dramas of Lao She)
(Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1982), vol. 2,174–181.
13 See Mao Dun, Rainbow, trans. Madeline Zelin (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 80, 89,
110; Daniel Fried, “A Bloody Absence: Communist Narratology and the Literature of May Thirtieth,”
Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (2004), vol. 26, 23–53.
14 Yomi Braester, Painting the City Red: Chinese Cinema and the Urban Contract (Durham, NC: Duke Uni-
versity Press, 2010), 41.Yomi Braester translates “Longxu gou” as Dragon Whisker Creek.
15 Lao Sheh, Dragon Beard Ditch, 7–8.
16 See Lao She, “Longxu gou xiezuo jingguo” (The writing of Dragon Beard Ditch), Renmin ribao [People’s
daily], February 4, 1951.

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 Dramas of new China (1949–1966)

17 The English version has a short note on the pedicab, which is “a tricycle rickshaw ridden by the driver
in front, with the passenger seat behind.” See Lao Sheh, Dragon Beard Ditch, 5.
18 Yomi Braester, Painting the City Red, 38.
19 Lao Sheh, Dragon Beard Ditch, 57.
20 Ibid., 64–65.
21 Ibid., 89.
22 Ibid.,85.
23 Ibid., 91.
24 Lao She, “In Response to Some Questions About Teahouse,” in Teahouse: A Play in Three Acts, trans. John
Howard-Gibbon (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1980), 82.
25 On December 19, 1957, the editorial board of Renmin ribao (People’s daily) organized a symposium on
Lao She’s Teahouse, and invited Jiao Juyin, Zhao Shaohou, Chen Baichen, Xia Chun, Lin Mohan, Wang
Yao, Zhang Henshui, Li Jianwu and Zhang Guangnian, among others. Li Jianwu finished an article
for Renmin wenxue (People’s literature, the first issue in 1958], and talked about his discovery, which
appeared as Jiao Juyin et al., “Zuotan Lao She de Chaguan” (Symposium on Lao She’s Teahouse) in the
Wenyi bao (Literary Gazette) in 1958, and later is reprinted in Zeng Guangcan and Wu Huaibin, eds.,
Lao She yanjiu ziliao (Research materials on Lao She) (Beijing: Zhishi chanquan chubanshe, 2010), 793.
26 Xiaomei Chen, ed., Reading the Right Text: An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Drama (Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press, 2003), 14.
27 Lao She, Teahouse, 5. Early in 1958, Scholar Zhang Geng captured Lao She’s tone of nostalgia, and a
gesture of mourning for the late Qing past. See his “Chaguan mantan” (Random thoughts on Teahouse),
Renmin ribao (People’s Daily), May 27, 1958, reprinted in Zeng and Wu, eds., Lao She yanjiu ziliao,
800–804. See also Zeng Lingcun, “Zai jiedu: Chaguan wenben de shenceng jiegou” (Reinterpretation:
The text structure of Teahouse), Xiju xuekan (Taipei theatre journal) (2010), vol. 11, 251–267; Guan Jixin,
Lao She yu manzu wenhua (Lao She and Manchu culture) (Shenyang: Liaoning minzu chubanshe, 2008).
28 Lao She, Teahouse, 6.
29 Ibid., 24.
30 Ibid., 23–24.
31 Ibid., 46.
32 Kwok-kan Tam, introduction to Cha guan: Teahouse, ed. Lao She, trans. Yan Liu (Hong Kong: Chinese
University Press, 2004), xxxii–xxxvi.
33 See also a new and forceful edition translated by Ying Ruocheng and revised by Claire Conceison, in
Xiaomei Chen’s The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Drama (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2010), 594. For John Howard-Gibbon’s translation, see 75: “FOURTH ELDER CHANG: I love
my country, but no one gives a damn about me. Look. (Takes some paper money from his basket). I gath-
ered this bit of fake funeral money after a funeral procession had passed. I don’t have burial clothes or a
coffin; but why not at least gather together a little funeral money for myself? (Hearty laughter tinged with
despair).”
34 Lao She, Teahouse, trans.Ying Ruocheng (Taipei: Shulin chuban, 2004), 104, 110.
35 Ibid.
36 Svetlana Boym, The Future of Nostalgia (New York: Basic Books, 2001), xiii.
37 Ibid.1, xviii, and chaps 4 and 5. See also her webpage about nostalgic technology, www.svetlanaboym.
com/main.htm
38 Svetlana Boym, “Nostalgia and Its Discontents,” Hedgehog Review (2007), vol. 9, no. 2, 7–18, esp. 13.
39 Rey Chow, Writing Diaspora: Tactics of Intervention in Contemporary Cultural Studies (Bloomington: Indi-
ana University Press, 1993), 3.
40 See David L. Eng and David Kazanjian, “Introduction: Mourning Remains,” in Loss: The Politics of
Mourning (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 1–28; Judith Butler’s psychoanalysis of loss,
fragility, and political violence, in her Precarious Life:The Powers of Mourning and Violence (London:Verso,
2006); and E. Ann Kaplan’s analysis of “quiet trauma.” Trauma Culture: The Politics of Terror and Loss in
Media and Literature (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005).

Further readings
Brandon, James R. and Martin Banham, eds. The Cambridge Guide to Asian Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1997.

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 Weijie Song

Chen, Xiaomei. Acting the Right Part: Political Theater and Popular Drama in Contemporary China. Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press, 2002.
———. Staging Chinese Revolution. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017.
Gunn, Edward M. Twentieth-century Chinese Drama: An Anthology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1983.
Liu, Siyuan, ed. Routledge Handbook of Asian Theatre. London: Routledge, 2016.
Luo, Liang. The Avant-Garde and the Popular in Modern China:Tian Han and the Intersection of Performance and
Politics. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014.
Mackerras, Colin, ed. Chinese Theater: From Its Origins to the Present Fay. Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press, 1988.
Tung, Constantine and Colin Mackerras, eds. Drama in the People’s Republic of China. Albany: SUNY Press,
1987.
Wagner, Rudolf G. The Contemporary Chinese Historical Drama: Four Studies. Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1990.
Wetmore Jr, Kevin J., Siyuan Liu and Erin B. Mee. Modern Asian Theatre and Performance 1900–2000. Lon-
don: Bloomsbury, 2014.

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 31
LITERATURE OF THE
CULTURAL REVOLUTION
Lena Henningsen

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was an epoch of political turmoil, traumatic suffer-
ing, and dehumanization of Chinese society. It occurred as a result of many factors including
power struggles among the political elites who mobilized the population, especially the young
Red Guards, for their purposes.1 After the first years of intense political struggle, these young
people spent the next years as educated youth (zhishi qingnian or zhiqing) in the countryside in
order to receive re-education from Chinese farmers. The Cultural Revolution was also an era
of economic deprivation as resources were diverted to the cause of the revolutionary struggle,
and many, among them a large number of educated youth, suffered from material, emotional and
spiritual impoverishment.2 Despite all this, the ten-year period was indeed a cultural revolution,
with far-reaching implications for literary and artistic production, distribution and consump-
tion. The power struggle was acted out in the field of literature and arts as Mao’s wife Jiang
Qing condemned most literary productions of the past “seventeen years” (1949–1966, i.e. the
early years of the People’s Republic of China until the breakout of the Cultural Revolution) as
reactionary and revisionist. The Cultural Revolution was triggered by Yao Wenyuan’s criticism
of Wu Han’s drama “Hai Rui dismissed from office” with an editorial in Wenhui Gazzette
(Wenhuibao) on November 10, 1965. One of its first proclamations included a call to produce
literature and art for the masses of the people. During that period, contact with the outside
world was limited. Most literary works from both the “West” and what were now considered
revisionist Socialist countries were banned. The degree of control, censorship and propaganda
in the cultural field increased, and literary and cultural production became more and more
uniform in their propagation of the ideals of Communism and the Revolution, bringing about
what appeared as a literary and cultural desert. Nevertheless, in this “desert,” flowers of literature
did not die entirely; they grew tenaciously in the nooks sheltered from ideological control or
survived underground in a remarkable variety.
The purpose of this chapter is to describe the literary situation in China during the Cultural
Revolution, in which, while the effects of official cultural and literary policies were pervasive,
there existed a lively literary underground. Although underground literary activities entailed
danger for those involved, they provided oases in the cultural desert, where forbidden reading
materials could circulate, and people could engage in literary and intellectual production, as
well as exchange new, and sometimes unorthodox, ideas. In this chapter, I will briefly survey
the official literary scene and then turn to unofficial writing with a focus on handwritten and

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hand-copied entertainment fiction (shouchaoben). I argue that the literary output of this unof-
ficial culture figures as precursor to post–Cultural Revolution intellectual debates and devel-
opments in the literary field, paving the way for the rise of various literary trends including
Obscure Poetry (or: Misty Poetry, menglong shi), Scar Literature (or: Literature of the Wounded,
shanghen wenxue), Educated Youth Literature (zhiqing wenxue) and the advent of a commercial
bestseller market driven by entertainment and leisure.

The official literary field: heroism, control and censorship

The increase of political pressure on literary production resulted in a radicalization of literary
dogmas and in an artistic field dominated by “one novel and eight model works,” or, as we shall
see below, dominated by three authors: Hao Ran (pen name of Liang Jinguang, 1932–2008), Lu
Xun and Mao Zedong. As Richard King observes, “[t]he arts of the Cultural Revolution were
an attempt . . . to create a new national culture in the service of socialism untainted by the past
and the West.”3 Mao Zedong’s “Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art”4 had exerted
a shaping influence on the modes of literature since 1942. All artistic and literary creation was
required to serve the interests of the Party’s policies. The demand to “serve the people” required
authors to write stories meaningful and comprehensible to the broad masses of workers, peasants
and soldiers – and by way of creating these stories to educate their readers to become citizens
of New China devoted to the revolutionary cause. As a consequence, all literary productions
adhered to the requirements of Socialist Realism (SR). These basic premises remained valid
during the Cultural Revolution. However, since the late 1950s, Socialist Realism gave way to
its more radical successor, Revolutionary Realism and Revolutionary Romanticism (4R),5 the
three prominences (san tuchu, see below) and a general radicalization of literary policies. 4R may
be seen as a logical continuation and implementation of Mao’s Yan’an Forum demands, repre-
senting an idealized reality “possess[ing] an imaginative license that allows it to keep pace with
goal-oriented history.”6 Heroic characters therefore became central, with the three prominences
demanding that “the principal hero should stand out from (in descending order) the secondary
heroic character, the masses, and the enemy.”7 The party’s firm grip on literary creation was reaf-
firmed at the onset of the Cultural Revolution by the campaign against Hai Rui and a repub-
lication of the “Yan’an Talks” in the Red Flag on July 1, 1966, and the People’s Daily a day later,
thus serving as “revolutionary programme . . . of the Proletarian Cultural Revolution,”8 signaling
the launch of the movement and affirming the dogma that literature was to serve politics.
While all artistic creation was to be shaped by 4R and the three prominences, the perform-
ing arts were the first major field for their implementation, not least because of its mobility and
the resulting propagandistic efficacy. Jiang Qing promoted a reform of traditional Beijing opera,
ballet and Western style symphonies, resulting in at first eight model works (yangban xi) which
were to dominate the artistic sphere over the next ten years.9 Conceptualized as total works
of art, the operas in particular served as models for the creation of model heroes. Their stature,
clothes, acting and singing as well as the time allotted and their prominent position on stage left
no space for the audience to doubt their heroic qualities.
Literary works likewise adopted this model. Their “heroes [had to be] following the correct
Party line, capable of distinguishing the correct from the wrong line. Revolutionary optimism
was the keynote of their heroic spirit. Sentimentalism, especially love between men and women,
was taken to be bourgeois.”10 This left no space for ambivalent or so-called “middle characters”
(zhongjian renwu). In comparison to the “seventeen years,” novelistic production increased after
a hiatus between 1966 and 1972. While in the earlier period 170 novels were first published,
the period of 1972–1976 saw the publication of a higher yearly average with altogether 126

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novels. Most of these novels narrate stories set during the “seventeen years” covering military
or agricultural topics.11 In this context, The Golden Road (Jinguang dadao)12 by Hao Ran is
exemplary – it is not only the first novel published in the Cultural Revolution, but also the “one
novel” dominating fictional output during the Cultural Revolution. The Golden Road “depict[s]
a transformation of land, of society, of the peasantry, of human nature, and of art itself.”13 This
epic tale is to be seen in the tradition of earlier novels of land reform and collectivization and
represents a transformation of the rules of the model works into fictional form. The conflict
between individualism and collectivization is acted out between the idealized main hero Gao
Daquan and his brother Erlin with Gao Daquan being – as his name suggests – larger and
stronger than all characters both in his physical and ideological qualities.14
Lu Xun represents another important literary figure of the Cultural Revolution, even though
he had died thirty years earlier. During the Cultural Revolution which was shaped by a general
hostility towards intellectuals and towards Chinese literature of earlier decades, most writing
from Republican China was considered inadequate or even counterrevolutionary. Nonetheless,
the Cultural Revolution marks a peak in the political exploitation of Lu Xun by molding Lu
Xun into a “warrior” in official rhetoric. Lu Xun and his works thus remained omnipresent –
and even underground literature and its authors refer to him: The author Zhang Yang (1944),
for example, refers to Lu Xun as his literary model.15 In his hand-copied entertainment fiction
novel The Second Handshake, the protagonist reports his increasing enthusiasm for Lu Xun;16 and
an upright doctor is described as a fellow student of Lu Xun during his studies in Japan in the
early years of the 20th century.17
“Chairman Mao” needs to be considered as the third prominent author of the decade. His
poetical output was widely propagated, integrated into newly released poem songs, loyalty
dances and plays.18 Mao himself rejected international modernism and May-Fourth poetry.
“An accomplished poet in the classical mode,”19 he employed this style when writing on
revolutionary issues. Moreover, Mao was traditional in that he wrote poetry with the claim
that poetry was to serve the moral education of the people in order to bring about politi-
cal and social change.20 His poems thus epitomize the new national style put forward in his
“Yan’an talks.”
The literary policies of the Cultural Revolution thus prescribed and produced a distinct
type of literature. Whatever did not fit was forbidden, censored and prosecuted. One of the first
victims of the Cultural Revolution was the author Lao She who committed suicide on Aug. 24,
1966 after Red Guards harassed him. Other intellectuals and authors were subjected to criticism
and locked up in “cowsheds” in their work units21 or sent to “reeducation” as in the case of Qian
Zhongshu who was sent to a “cadre school” despite his old age and frail constitution.22 Most
of the literature of the era preceding the Cultural Revolution was by now considered counter-
revolutionary, including works from abroad, from earlier epochs and from the “seventeen years.”
It may appear astonishing that the latter was declared to be out of tune with the Party’s official
policy, for after all, it abided by Mao’s “Yan’an Talks.” While the talks remained the guidelines
for literary creation throughout the Cultural Revolution, the literature produced in the first
seventeen years of New China was now considered opposing the spirit of the talks. To prevent
further reading and circulation of these works, libraries were closed, and the Red Guards raided
houses in search of books for confiscation and destruction.
Such “poisonous weeds,” however, continued to be printed as publications for internal (neibu)
use. The Communist Party had established a system for internal publication within which
party cadres were supplied with translations of books from foreign countries and with writ-
ings by Chinese authors. Between 1949 and 1986, 18,301 titles were produced within the sys-
tem.23 These books were prohibited, yet they were printed for and distributed among a tightly

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controlled circle of readers. Ironically, as the Cultural Revolution wore on and chaos increased,
these censored and internal publications circulated further. Some Red Guards would not destroy
their loot but read it avidly; other young people would break into the libraries that were closed
at the time and steal reading materials from there;24 cadres’ children would use access to their
parents’ bookshelves, read the internal materials (fictional or nonfictional) stacked there and
discuss them with their friends.25 Moreover, with the beginning of the rustication movement,
many educated youth would take along forbidden books into remote areas of the country, thus
setting in motion the nation-wide circulation of reading materials: these texts were circulated,
sometimes hand-copied for further distribution, debated with friends or in letters. There was,
thus, greater variety in reading during the Cultural Revolution than the regime wished for.
Access to these texts, however, was restricted to those with the necessary connections, and the
texts’ distribution, consumption and discussion came at a risk and could result in political per-
secution, imprisonment or even death in extreme cases.

The unofficial literary field: (anti-)heroism, entertainment and

dissidence
Grassroots reading activities thus undermined official literary policies.These activities also trans-
lated into literary creativity. In the cities, young people with literary ambitions met (or contin-
ued to meet) in literary salons to exchange and discuss poetry.26 Poetry proved a particularly
popular form of literary writing because of its brevity. This facilitated the circulation, writing
down and memorizing individual texts.27 Poetry also offered considerable space for literary
experimentation. Underground poetry is thus recognized as a precursor of the immensely pop-
ular post-Cultural Revolutionary Obscure Poetry. Moreover, letters were widely circulated, both
among friends, siblings and former classmates, as well as among individuals hitherto unknown to
each other. Publication activities also included political texts. In the early years of the Cultural
Revolution, Red Guards not only engaged in physical violence against “class enemies” as well
as opposing Red Guard fractions. Moreover, they also turned to publishing as a means to carry
out their struggles and to theorize the revolution, thus performing the revolution and proving
themselves worthy revolutionaries.28 Dissenting voices also made themselves visible in print.
A famous case is that of Yu Luoke. In July 1966, Yu wrote “On Family Background” (Chush-
enlun), an essay countering the prevalent blood-lineage theory which claimed that only the
offspring of red families could become true heirs of the revolution and which resulted in mas-
sive discrimination against young people with problematic family background. A small group
around Yu and his brother started a publication venture. The first issue carried the essay and was
printed in 100,000 copies, receiving tremendous readers’ response. Soon, however, the essay was
denounced as counterrevolutionary, and the journal was shut down. Yu Luoke was arrested in
January 1968 and was executed two years later.29 The case of Yu Luoke demonstrates both the
wide impact of these publications and the danger that authors risked. One can estimate that the
circulation of the text went far beyond 100,000 readers: Readers would pass on their copy of
the text to friends; others might sell their copy on the streets (at a higher price!), and still others
likely produced hand-copies of the text to pass it on.
The unofficial literary scene, however, also comprises the realm of entertainment literature
which to date has received relatively little scholarly attention.30 Given the scarcity of entertain-
ing reading and the impossibility to publish, many young Chinese, particularly educated youth,
wrote stories for their own pleasure. These handwritten copies (shouchaoben) were circulated
among friends, and often far beyond. The shouchaoben-phenomenon thus was not marginal.
Rather, it can be assumed that the entire educated youth generation was familiar with this

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genre.31 Some stories circulated throughout the country and were copied time and again,
re-written, transmitted orally and sometimes transformed significantly over the course of time.
In some cases, the transformations of the texts/stories are considerable so that I argue that one
may refer to the copyist as “secondary authors,” because they played a crucial role not only in
transmitting and preserving the texts, but also in keeping them alive by constantly adapting and
modifying the stories.32
Most authors and “secondary authors” of hand-copied entertainment fiction remained anony-
mous which protected them against persecution – quite different from Zhang Yang, author of the
hand-copied entertainment novel The Second Handshake. When the novel circulated throughout
the country, authorities were ordered by Yao Wenyuan to identify and arrest its author. Zhang
was imprisoned in January 1975 and only released four years later in January 1979, facing a likely
death sentence until the end of his imprisonment.33 The Second Handshake is possibly the best
known of all hand-copied entertainment novels, with the widest circulation during and after
the Cultural Revolution. The novel is exemplary for its choice of plot and themes: The Second
Handshake narrates a triangular love story with a plot spanning three decades between the late
1920s and 1950s. Its protagonists are a male chemist, a female physicist and a female doctor, and
Zhou Enlai appears as the highest political authority. The novel thus may be seen as an investi-
gation and re-evaluation of the relevance and legitimacy of love and emotions, of the status of
intellectuals and of the role and status of Mao Zedong.34
In terms of their contents in general, most of the handwritten and hand-copied stories are
primarily entertaining. They relate stories of crime, espionage and love. Most are set during the
early years of the PRC or during the civil war era preceding the founding of the PRC, and only
a few take place during the Cultural Revolution – i.e. the era when they were written – or in
foreign countries. Most stories are at first glance not openly political or dissident. However, their
mere existence and their aim to entertain, of course, were not in line with Cultural Revolution
policies. Only a minority of texts voices open criticism of the Cultural Revolution: Open Love
Letters is an epistolary novel narrating a triangular love story among three educated youth. In
their letters they relate their emotions, as well as their sufferings during the early years of the
Cultural Revolution. While they do not openly call into question the system, they clearly name
the injustices inflicted upon them.35 Waves by Bei Dao is even more explicit in its criticism and
experiments with literary form by narrating the story from constantly changing perspectives.
Waves portrays a set of disillusioned characters during the later years of the Cultural Revolution:
party cadres as well as former educated youth who returned to the city but had no means to sup-
port themselves and thus resort to crime and lead the lives of hoodlums. These two texts seem
to have circulated less widely than others and were published after the Cultural Revolution.36
Waves was first published solely in Hong Kong, and saw publication on the Chinese mainland
only in 2015.37 Other than these, most hand-copied novels refer back to earlier entertainment
literature such as stories of love and espionage of the Republican era.38 In their characterization
of heroic figures, they also continue the tradition of Socialist Realism: Their heroic pre-1949
past in the Communist underground makes these heroes resemble characters from pre-Cultural
Revolutionary novels such as Red Crag by Luo Guangbin,Yang Yiyan and Liu Debin (1961) or
Yang Mo’s The Song of Youth (1958).39
On closer scrutiny, however, these texts may be related to experiences of the educated youth,
and some even explicitly deal with the Cultural Revolution in content. A comparison of differ-
ent extant versions of individual stories reveals, firstly, the amount of creativity that the copyists –
or, rather “secondary authors” – invested in the stories. Secondly, these variations indicate points
where, apparently, copyists wanted to offer alternative plots as potential reflections of the real-
ity they refer to. Three Travels to Jiangnan and variations thereof are a representative example of

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such hand-copied entertainment fiction. The story seems to have been particularly popular. It
circulated widely and under different titles: Ye Fei travels Three times to Jiangnan (Ye Fei sanxia
Jiangnan),40 Three Travels to Jiangnan (Sanxia Jiangnan),41 Three Trips to Nanjing (San jin Nanjing
cheng)42 and The Case of the Nanjing Bridge.43 With the exception of Three Trips to Nanjing, all the
manuscripts in my sample are undated which renders it impossible to establish a genealogy of
the texts; one may not even be certain of a direct link between any of the two texts.Yet, the mul-
titude of extant copies and of the amount of variation (including the types of variation) indicates
that the story was considered meaningful by many readers and copyists/secondary authors.
The story provides readers with the (alleged) background of the Lin Biao Incident and there-
fore deserves to be summarized here. It mostly takes place in Nanjing during the days leading
up to September 13, 1971. Both Ye Fei Travels Three Times to Jiangnan and Three Travels to Jiangnan
narrate the overall action as follows: A long prologue to the story relates an earlier mysterious
incident on Nanjing Bridge over the Yangtze River during the visit by a group of researchers
from Albania. Subsequently, Beijing dispatches Agent 3, but he vanishes, and so does his suc-
cessor, Agent 5. Upon this point, the hero Ye Fei takes over. He is summoned to the capital and
then sent to Nanjing. On the train, the enemy unsuccessfully tries to assassinate him. During his
first trip to Jiangnan,Ye Fei survives two attempts by the enemy to poison him. He flees, hides
in a coffin in a morgue and returns to Beijing to report. During this second trip,Ye Fei receives
the assistance of his older colleague Xu Shiyou (a name referring to a real person, a general
serving in several important positions in the Revolutionary Committee in Jiangsu during the
Cultural Revolution). During these investigations, a mysterious house in a forest turns out to
be inhabited by spies.Ye Fei enters, discovers and saves Agent 5. Again,Ye returns to Beijing and
delivers his report. During Ye’s third trip to Jiangnan, the focus is shifted to Zhang Yannian and
his experiences in the past year. Having resisted rustication, Zhang Yannian had been drifting
around town, spending much of his time in a café. There, he is tricked into joining what later
turns out to be a fake liberation army that plans an assault on both Nanjing Bridge and on Mao
Zedong (who is expected to be on a train crossing the bridge). It is Zhang’s mistrust and coura-
geousness that in the end prevent the assassination.Ye Fei returns to Beijing for another report,
and the story ends with a remark on the Lin Biao affair, thus linking the fictional plot to a real
life event. This is elaborated in a short epilogue narrating an episode of some days earlier when
two officers observed Mrs. Bai – one of the spies – in the company of Lin Liguo, son of Lin Biao.
The plot thus contains the standard elements of Cultural Revolution hand-copied enter-
tainment fiction: upright and clever communists, espionage, mysterious and hideous crimes,
and a beautiful woman trying to seduce the protagonist. Moreover, with Zhang Yannian as the
unruly educated youth and the reference to Mao Zedong and the Lin Biao Incident, the story
is explicitly linked to the reality of life and politics of the Cultural Revolution. After all, the real
“plotters” around Lin Liguo trying to protect Lin Biao’s threatened position in 1971, apparently
had made plans for (among other things) “dynamiting a bridge that the train [with Mao Zedong
in it] had to cross.”44
The most significant variations among the different versions can be detected in relation to
these references to Cultural Revolution reality. This indicates, as I believe, the relevance of these
elements to readers and secondary authors both as a field to probe their creativity and to reflect
upon their Cultural Revolution experiences. Overall, similarities and changes (both omissions
and insertions) on the level of sentences and parts thereof can be observed across all versions of
the story of the sample. In some scenes, the versions differ stylistically with a more poetic lan-
guage or the inclusion of poems into the text. Three Trips to Nanjing, however, differs more signif-
icantly from the plot related above in several ways. Firstly, a second mysterious event is included
into the prologue narrating the failed assassination of Prince Shihanouk of Cambodia involving

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a robot that looks like a real child with a time bomb attached to its chest that is about to explode
on Nanjing Bridge. Only a few minutes before the explosion, officers transport the robot from
the bridge, and the bomb explodes in the river, thus “averting a major political incident in the
course of which our country would have lost international reputation and trust.”45 The event is
not entirely fictional, as the real Shihanouk had been in exile in China at the time – and even
visited Nanjing Bridge. However, no attempted assassination is reported.46 Secondly, chief inves-
tigator Yu Fei (not Ye Fei) uses a micro recorder (the reader is informed that only four of these
precious high tech devices produced in Western Germany exist in China) to collect evidence
against the enemy. Technology thus figures somewhat more prominently in this version. Third,
at the beginning of his third trip to the South, a trace leads to Lin Liguo and then to Wang
Zhen, the equivalent of Zhang Yannian in the other texts. Both Zhang and Wang challenge the
model of the flawless socialist hero. However, Wang Zhen represents a different educated youth
narrative, inviting the texts to be read as different reflection of the educated youth experience.
The Zhang Yannian episode starts on September 12, 1971 (the day before the Lin-Biao-
Incident), and portrays him pondering about the past year:

Zhang Yannian had finished Upper Middle School last year [i.e. 1970], and he natu-
rally should have gone to the countryside to live and work in a production team. But
having been spoiled from childhood, he did not want to go to a very hard place to
harden himself. [His] father was an old worker, [his] mother an amicable old woman.
The old couple did its best to persuade him, [but] he answered: “My body is strong,
like an ox, I don’t have to harden myself.” – “You really should change your thinking,”
almost every evening, his father would quarrel with him, [so] everyday he would slip
out from home, and leisurely stroll around the streets, killing his time. Later on at Shang-
hai Café, he found a place where to kill [his] time. Everyday people were coming and
going, a continual coming and going, without empty seats, the guests would sit and talk
with their voices buzzing . . . Only he was wearing a sad face, sitting there on his own.
(p. 43)

Zhang appears as a young person drifting through life. He seems quite at loss. His good back-
ground notwithstanding he enjoys a somewhat bourgeois lifestyle, “killing time” in a fancy
café that seems to promise the pleasures of a consumerist, urban life. The description may have
produced nostalgic memories of an earlier life among some of the readers, sent-down educated
youth in the countryside. Zhang, however, while repeatedly returning to the place, does not get
any pleasure out of it. Neither going to the countryside, nor returning home serves a purpose
in his life, so he is easily lured into joining the “army” by the enemy. To Zhang, this appears
purposeful and he is willing to endure the hardship of their training: “To protect the central
committee of the Party, to protect Chairman Mao . . . there is nothing I would fear, and I will
endure any kind of hardship” (p. 45). So while he resists Mao’s call for rustication, the larg-
est purpose in his life is safeguarding the Party and Mao Zedong, thus affirming the Cultural
Revolution’s Mao-Cult.
Zhang thus joins and studies different skills (driving a car, learning methods of killing people
and the art of bombing). However, while the perspective of violence does not seem to bother
him, the restrictions on the private lives of the “soldiers” cause him trouble:

What scared him was the discipline there: It was forbidden to enter and exit freely,
it was forbidden to have friends, forbidden to talk (and laugh)47 among two people,
when talking there needed to be three or more persons; love-based marriages were

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 Lena Henningsen

forbidden, it was forbidden to use the telephone; when exchanging letters it needed
to be checked whether any secrets were revealed [in them], leakers were beaten (and
traitors severely punished).48

These harsh conditions imposed on the recruits most likely do not match with his expectations
of life in the PLA. However, one may also read this as a representation of the “rules” the edu-
cated youth faced in the countryside: Love-based marriages were next to impossible for them.
They were restricted to the countryside – leaving would have been like defection. And given
that it was difficult to know who was trustworthy, in many cases free speech would have been
a dangerous move for the educated youth. Just as many of the real life educated youth grew
tired and disillusioned of their being sent to the countryside (no matter how enthusiastic they
had been before their departure), Zhang Yannian grows suspicious and disillusioned about the
righteousness of the organization he voluntarily joined.
Wang Zhen represents a slightly different educated youth. In Three Times to Nanjing, most
of the third trip to Nanjing consists of Wang Zhen’s confession during an interrogation with
Yu Fei:

My name is Wang Zhen, male, 30 years of age this year, I come from Shanghai. In
’62, I finished middle school. In ’63, Chairman Mao called on the educated youth to
go and work in the mountainous areas and the countryside, to go into the villages to
receive re-education from the poor, lower and middle peasants. Because I feared hard-
ship, I did not enlist to go to the countryside. Later on, I encountered some jobless
youth in society. I drifted along with them and took part in their hoodlum and rascal
activities, I became a thief and robber, became violent and bad, I did all [you can imag-
ine]. For three or five months I would not return home, my parents would get angry
that they could not do anything, but they would not find me. Sometimes when there
was nothing [else] to steal, I would steal myself into a canteen and eat stolen food.49

As befits the genre of a confession during police investigation, this passage starts with precise
data about Wang Zheng. At first glance, his reported age seems a bit odd: given that the story
takes place from 1970 onwards, Wang’s year of birth would be around 1941, and he would
have graduated from middle school at age twenty-one. Nonetheless, the dates make clear
that he belongs to a generation different from Zhang Yannian: While Zhang would have been
among the early participants of the Cultural Revolution Rustication movement that began
in late 1968, Wang would have been among those of one of the preceding but less rigorously
realized rustication movements.50 This difference in age has at least two implications: While
Zhang spent only one year in the “army,” Wang spent eight years there. Moreover, they would
be affiliated with different generations allowing educated youth readers different models for
identification.
They are also portrayed differently: Zhang is drifting through the streets in order to avoid
the conflict with his father, killing time in a café, and remaining desolate and lonely. Wang,
however, ends up a petty criminal, thus foreshadowing fictional characters such as those in Bei
Dao’s novel Waves. An unusual experience puts an end to his petty criminal life. After being
caught for stealing from a canteen, a member of staff there begins to lecture him and offers
to help him join the army. So, Wang sets off to join a special unit where for several years he
would not be allowed to visit home. Wang makes a final visit home in military uniform to bid
farewell to his parents. At this point in the confession, interrogator Yu Fei questions Wang’s
integrity:

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 Literature of the cultural revolution

You think about it: those who really join the army of the people’s sons and brothers, at
the time of entering the ranks all wear big red flowers, sounds of gongs and drumbeats
send them off, firecrackers explode – but you? You secretly put on a uniform, what
arm of the services is that? And speaking of your work, if you take that path oppos-
ing the people, how can you be worthy of your parents? Worthy of this working class
family of yours? Worthy of the many years of education you received from the party
and Chairman Mao?51

The enemy, however, likewise refers to the party. As a last test of Wang’s loyalty, he is given the
task to kill his own parents who – so claim his superiors – have betrayed the party and the revo-
lution. After two days of pondering, Wang is committed to execute this order. As in the Zhang
Yannian version of the episode, this passage introduces ambivalence into the plot and anticipates
topics that would be addressed more intensely in post-Cultural Revolutionary literature: What
are the rules set out by the “army”? Who can be trusted? In how far are politics and ideology
mobilized by the different persons in the plot – and to what effect? What harm are individuals
prepared to inflict upon their closest family?
What Wang Zhen believed to be the army turns out to be a fake army; the secrecy, the lack
of a public ritual and the contents he learned should have caused mistrust on his part. By par-
ticipating – according to Yu Fei – Wang betrayed his family, the people, the party and Chairman
Mao. What worse could one do during the Cultural Revolution? However, the “fake army”
likewise claims to enlist Wang in the service of party and Chairman Mao.The ensuing insecurity
as to who can be trusted may be a reflection of the insecurities faced by the real educated youth.
After all, after the turmoil caused by the Red Guard movement, and with their experiences
in the countryside, for many it was uncertain who was still to be trusted. The order to kill his
parents may also be read with respect to the rifts that the political movements of the 1960s and
1970s has caused in many families, in which children were forced to denounce their parents for
political gain or for simply saving their own skin, and parents kept a distance from their children
so as to protect them from their own “bad” political background and from their own fate. Killing
one’s own parents might be inconceivable in politically less turbulent times and even more so
in China with its strong emphasis on filial piety. The episode thus on the one hand follows the
narrative necessities of a spy novel – on the other hand, it may be read with an eye on contem-
porary readers’ real life experiences and literary developments that would succeed hand-copied
entertainment literature after the Cultural Revolution.

Legacy of unofficial Cultural Revolution literature

To sum up, many of the hand-copied texts, whether they are primarily entertaining or contain
traces of dissidence, whether they take place during the Cultural Revolution or in earlier times
or different countries, reflect upon experiences of the Cultural Revolution, and, in particular,
of the educated youth in different ways. In so doing, they continue earlier literary conventions
and styles. It is Socialist Realism which has left a particular noteworthy impact on the texts in
the characterization of the heroes. However, the educated youth portrayed in Three Travels to
Jiangnan as well as the more openly dissident texts (Open Love Letters and Waves) modify or even
break with these conventions as ambivalence is introduced into their characterization. These
texts thus point to, or even anticipate post-Cultural Revolutionary literary developments.
The legacy of the unofficial literary field can be traced in a number of later developments.
Firstly, obscure poetry set off from literary salons of the Cultural Revolution, but links can also
be established to hand-copied entertainment fiction: The epistolary novel Open Love Letters

431
 Lena Henningsen

contains poems attributed to the protagonists that foreshadow obscure poetry. A personal link
exists with Bei Dao who authored Waves and would later become one of the most influential
obscure poets. Secondly, hand-copied entertainment fiction forestalls Scar Literature as well as the
broader genre of Educated Youth Literature that can be identified starting around 1982/1983.52
Like these later literary trends, Open Love Letters, Waves, the educated youth experiences related
in the Three Travels to Jiangnan texts as well as experiences of loss of trust, love or loyalty to the
party as related in other hand-copied entertainment fiction not explicitly linked to the Cultural
Revolution represent a re-examination of individual and collective experiences of the Cultural
Revolution and also treat the trauma inflicted by the movement. As has been explicated in this
essay, hand-copied entertainment fiction anticipated these trends. Thirdly, unofficial literary life
has exerted its impact on the bestseller market that came into being after the end of Cultural
Revolution as the party reduced its financial support for the field and as market orientation
became increasingly relevant.53 As the official publication of translated foreign works resumed,
many publishers now published officially what earlier on had only been internal publications
restricted to highly selected readers – which had nonetheless found a wider readership and cir-
culated among educated youth.54 To this date, hand-copied entertainment fiction is published
(or republished) attesting to the lasting meaning these texts have for their readers. And the first
bestseller after the Cultural Revolution was Zhang Yang’s The Second Handshake which he wrote
down yet another time for publication after his release from prison in 1979. 3.3 million copies
of the novel were sold within the first months after its first publication,55 or 4.3 million over
the first decade after its publication.56 It inspired others to produce theatre plays or comic books
from the story and even was turned into a movie in 1980. While this did not turn the original
author into a wealthy man, the continued wide circulation after Cultural Revolution attests to
the persistent popularity of the text – and to the creative potential it offered to authors who
made adaptations to other genres.

Notes
1 Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap
Press of Harvard University Press, 2006).
2 Michel Bonnin, The Lost Generation: The Rustication of China’s Educated Youth (1968–1980), trans.
Krystyna Horko (Hongkong: The Chinese University Press, 2013), 235–336.
3 Richard King, Milestones on a Golden Road: Writing for Socialism, 1945–80 (Vancouver: UBC Press,
2013), 113.
4 Bonnie McDougall, ed., Mao Zedong’s “Talks at the Yan’an Conference on literature and art” (Ann Arbor:
Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1980); Kirk A. Denton, “Literature and Politics:
Mao Zedong’s ‘Yan’an Talks’ and Party Rectification,” in Kirk A. Denton, ed., The Columbia Companion
to Modern Chinese Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016), 224–230.
5 Lan Yang, “ ‘Socialist Realism’ Versus ‘Revolutionary Realism Plus Revolutionary Romanticism’,” in
Hilary Chung, ed., In the Party Spirit: Socialist Realism and Literary Practice in the Soviet Union, East Ger-
many and China (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996), 88–105.
6 Ban Wang, “Revolutionary Realism and Revolutionary Romanticism: Song of Youth,” in Kirk A. Den-
ton, ed., The Columbia Companion to Modern Chinese Literature (New York: Columbia University Press,
2016), 240.
7 Richard King, Milestones on a Golden Road, 119.
8 Lan Yang, Chinese Fiction of the Cultural Revolution (Hongkong: Hongkong University Press, 1998), 14.
9 Paul Clark, The Chinese Cultural Revolution: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008),
10–54; Barbara Mittler, A Continuous Revolution: Making Sense of Cultural Revolution Culture (Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), 50–96.
10 Lan Yang, Chinese Fiction of the Cultural Revolution, 20.
11 Ibid., 4–7.

432
 Literature of the cultural revolution

12 Hao Ran, The Golden Road, trans. Carma Hinton and Chris Gilmartin (Beijing: Foreign Languages
Press, 1981).
13 Richard King, Milestones on a Golden Road, 114.
14 Ibid., 128–132.
15 Zhang Yang, The Literary Inquisition of “The Second Handshake” (“Di er ci woshou” de wenziyu) (Beijing:
Zhongguo shehui chubanshe, 1999), 79.
16 Zhang Yang, The Second Handshake (Di er ci woshou) (Beijing: Zhongguo qingnian chubanshe, 1979),
129.
17 This is missing in the printed version, but appears in some hand-copied versions of the text, as for
example [Zhang Yang]: The Second Handshake (Di er ci woshou) (original CR hand-copied manuscript
in the author’s collection, Changsha, 1974), chapter 4, page 6.
18 Paul Clark, The Chinese Cultural Revolution, 222, 178, 187, 195–196.
19 Ibid., 222.
20 Xiaofei Tan, “1958: Mao Zedong Publishes Nineteen Poems and Launches the New Folk Song Move-
ment,” in A New Literary History of Modern China, ed., David Der-wei Wang (Cambridge, MA: The
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2017), 628–629.
21 Xianlin Ji, The Cowshed, trans. Chenxin Jiang (New York: New York Review of Books, 2016).
22 Jiang Yang, A Cadre School Life: Six Chapters, trans. Geremie Barmé (Hongkong: Joint Publishing Com-
pany, 1982).
23 Zhongguo Banben Tushuguan, ed., Comprehensive Table of Books Published in the National Internal Pub-
lishing System (Quanguo neibu faxing tushu zongmu, internal publication) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju,
1988).
24 Han Shaogong:“Endless Holidays” (Manchang de jiaqi) in Bei Dao and Li Tuo, eds.,The Seventies (Qishi
Niandai) (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2009), 563–585.
25 Song Yongyi, “Yellow Cover Books and Grey Cover Books from the Cultural Revolution” (Wenge
zhong de huangpishu he huipishu) in Twenty-First Century (Ershi Shiji) (1997), no. 42, 59–64.
26 Jiang Shao, Citizen Publications before the Internet (New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2015), 57–82;Yang Jian,
Underground Literature from 1966 to 1976 (1966–1976 de dixia wenxue) (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi
chubanshe, 2013), 46–81.
27 Michel Bonnin, The Lost Generation, 345; and Paul Clark, The Chinese Cultural Revolution, 222–223.
28 Nicolai Volland, The Control of the Media in the People’s Republic of China (dissertation, University of Hei-
delberg, 2013), 395–439; Guobin Yang, The Red Guard Generation and Political Activism in China (New
York: Columbia University Press, 2016), 69–80.
29 “Guobin Yang, The Red Guard Generations, 80–83.
30 Perry Link, “Hand-Copied Entertainment Fiction from the Cultural Revolution,” in Perry Link, Rich-
ard Madsen and Paul Pickowicz, eds., Unofficial China: Popular Culture and Thought in the People’s Republic
(Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1989), 17–36;Yang Jian, Underground Literature in the Cultural Revolution:
Graveyard and Cradle (Wenhua dageming zhong de dixia wenxue: Mudi he yaolan) (Beijing: Chaohua
chubanshe, 1993); Yang Jian, Underground Literature from 1966 to 1976; Lena Henningsen, “Crime, Love,
and Science: Continuity and Change in Hand-copied Entertainment Fiction (shouchaoben) from the Cul-
tural Revolution,” in Kodex:Yearbook of the International Society for Book Science (2016), 101–122; Lena Hen-
ningsen, “What Is a Reader? Participation and Intertextuality in Hand-Copied Entertainment Fiction
from the Chinese Cultural Revolution,” in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 29.2 (2017): 109–158.
31 Michel Bonnin, The Lost Generation, 349.
32 Lena Henningsen, “Crime, Love, and Science,” 103–106.
33 Zhang Yang has provided us with a detailed account both of the creation (and recreation) of his text as
well as of his imprisonment: Zhang Yang, The Literary Inquisition of “The Second Handshake”.
34 Zhang Yang, The Second Handshake. For detailed discussion of the circulation of the Zhang Yang’s The
Second Handshake during and after the CR, see Lena Henningsen, “Crime, Love, and Science”.
35 For a detailed discussion of this hand-copied novel, see: Lena Henningsen, “What Is a Reader?”
36 Jin Fan (Liu Qingfeng) 1980: “Open Love Letters” (Gongkai de qingshu), in October (Shiyue) (1980),
no.1, 4–67.
37 The text was first published under Bei Dao’s birth name: Zhao Zhenkai, Waves (Bodong) (Hongkong:
Chinese University Press, 1985); Bei Dao, Waves (Bodong) (Beijing: Shenghuo dushu xinzhi sanlian
shudian, 2015). This is the only hand-copied entertainment novel that has been translated into Western
languages, for example: Bei Dao 1990: Waves: Stories, trans. Bonnie S. McDougall and Susette Ternent
Cooke (New York: New Directions).

433
 Lena Henningsen

3 8 Perry Link, “Hand-Copied Entertainment Fiction from the Cultural Revolution,” 20–26.
39 Lena Henningsen and Sara Landa, “Verliebte Helden, rebellische Dichter und das ‘Erwachen des Selbst-
Bewusstseins’: Heldenstilisierung in der chinesischen Literatur der langen 1970er Jahre,” in helden.
heroes. héros 3.2 (2015): 15–29.
40 Ye Fei travels three times to Jiangnan (Ye Feisanxia Jiangnan), in Bai Shihong, ed., Treasury of “Cultural
Revolution” Hand-copied literature (“Wenge” shouchaoben cun) (Beijing: Xinhua shudian, 2001), 67–93.
41 My sample contains five different hand-copied manuscripts all of which are rather similar so that the
present analysis is based on only one of them: Three Travels to Jiangnan (Sanxia Jiangnan) (original CR
hand-copied manuscript in the author’s collection, undated).
42 Three Times to Nanjing (San jin Nanjingcheng) (original CR hand-copied manuscript in the author’s
collection, 1974/1977).
43 This text is mentioned by Perry Link but could not be consulted for the present analysis. Perry Link,
“Hand-Copied Entertainment Fiction,” 22.
44 Roderick MacFarquhar, Michael Schoenhals: Mao’s Last Revolution, 335.
45 Three Times to Nanjing, 2.
46 People’s Daily (Renmin Ribao) March 1, 1971.
47 The bracketed elements appear only in Three Travels to Jiangnan, 46. Elements missing from this version
are not marked.
48 Ye Fei travels three times to Jiangnan, 90.
49 Three Times to Nanjing, 9.
50 Michel Bonnin, The Lost Generation, 49ff.
51 Three Times to Nanjing, 11.
52 For Educated Youth Literature, see: Zuoya Cao, Out of the Crucible: Literary Works about the Rusticated
Youth (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2003); and:Yanjie Wang, The “Sent-down”Vision: Poetics and Poli-
tics of Zhiqing Literature in Post-Mao China (Dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne,
2011).
53 Shuyu Kong, Consuming Literature. Best Sellers and the Commercialization of Literary Production in Contem-
porary China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005).
54 Shuyu Kong, “For Reference Only: Restricted Publication and Distribution of Foreign Literature dur-
ing the Cultural Revolution,” in Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art (2002), vol. 2, 76–85.
55 Perry Link, “Fiction and the Reading Public in Guangzhou and Other Chinese Cities, 1979–1980,” in
Jeffrey C. Kinkley, ed., After Mao: Chinese Literature and Society 1978–1981 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1985), 229–331.
56 Zhang Yang, The Literary Inquisition of “The Second Handshake,” 376–378.

Further readings
Clark, Paul. The Chinese Cultural Revolution: A History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Henningsen, Lena. “What Is a Reader? Participation and Intertextuality in Hand-Copied Entertainment
Fiction from the Chinese Cultural Revolution.” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 29.2 (2017):
109–158.
King, Richard. Milestones on a Golden Road:Writing for Socialism, 1945–80.Vancouver: UBC Press, 2013.
Link, Perry. “Hand-Copied Entertainment Fiction from the Cultural Revolution.” In Perry Link, Richard
Madsen and Paul Pickowicz, eds. Unofficial China. Popular Culture and Thought in the People’s Republic.
Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1989, 17–36.
Mittler, Barbara. A Continuous Revolution: Making Sense of Cultural Revolution Culture. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2012.
Song,Yongyi. “A Glance at the Underground Reading Movement during the Cultural Revolution.” Journal
of Contemporary China 16.51 (2007): 325–333.
Yang Jian. Underground Literature from 1966 to 1976 (1966–1976 de dixia wenxue). Beijing: Zhonggong
dangshi chubanshe, 2013.
Yang, Lan. Chinese Fiction of the Cultural Revolution. Hong Kong: Hongkong University Press, 1998.

434
 PART III

Late modern literature

(late 1970s–early 1990s)

Part III: introduction: humanist revival and literary renaissance

The ending of the Cultural Revolution in October 1976 brought a new era to China, but
did not stop the literary momentum in the second period abruptly. The ideologically laden
trend continued until 1977, when Liu Xinwu published his story “The Class Teacher,” which
reveals the negative impact of the ultra-leftist ideology on the mind of youth and ushered in a
Renaissance of Chinese literature in the New Period. The Literary Renaissance was predicated
on a revival of humanism as the core of thematic concerns and gave rise to a series of literary
trends of writings, which appeared one after another: “Scar Literature,” “Reflexive Literature,”
“Reform Literature,” “Root-Searching Literature,” “Historical Fiction,” “Avant-garde Fiction,”
etc. In literary forms and techniques, Chinese writers became avid assimilators of Western
schools of literary thought and creative methods. Not only were the old Western styles of criti-
cal realism, romanticism, symbolism, futurism, and expressionism reintroduced, but practically
all Western schools of literary thought, creative methods, and artistic forms, such as surrealism,
stream of consciousness, absurd drama, magical realism, Black Humor, Imagism, Modernism,
New Realism, and postmodernism were assiduously learned and applied in the literary creations
of this period. Shortly after Liu Xinwu’s “Class Teacher,” Lu Xinhua’s story “Scar” captivated
the literary circles and gave a large group of fictional works produced in this period an offi-
cial epithet “Scar Literature.” Writers of this school include Chen Guokai, Wang Yaping, Chen
Shixiu, Cong Weixi, Zong Pu, Lu Wenfu, Zhou Keqin, and others. Zhou’s novel, Xu Mao and
His Daughters, marked the culmination of “Scar Literature,” for it reveals the emotional and spir-
itual scars of the society by narrating the physical, psychological and emotional sufferings of a
peasant family. Among writers of Reflexive Fiction, Ru Zhijuan,Wang Meng, Zhang Xianliang,
Gu Hua, and others are representative writers who used their literary works to probe into the
root cause of the Cultural Revolution. Literary works with Openness and Reform as its theme
followed “Scar Literature” and “Reflexive Literature.” Reform Literature is composed of two
categories: fictional works focusing on the reforms in the cities and state-owned industry, and
those of reform in the rural areas. The former group of writers include Jiang Zilong, Zhang Jie,
Li Guowen, Cheng Shuzhen, Ke Yunlu, Shui Yunxian, and Chen Chong. Among them, Jiang
Zilong is the most influential writer whose “Factory Administrator Qiao Assumes His Office”
is the best-known. The latter include Gao Xiaosheng, Tie Ning, He Shiguang, Wang Anyi, Jia
 Late modern literature (late 1970s–early 1990s)

Pingwa, Zhang Wei, and others. Among them, Gao Xiaosheng’s “Chen Huansheng” story series,
Jia Pingwa’s novella Two Families in the Chicken Nest Village, and Zhang Wei’s novel Ancient Boat
are three representative works, which penetrate deeply into the past and present of the rural life
from a combined perspective of history, culture, and human psychology.
Another distinctive school of writing is the so-called “Culture Fiction,” which differs from
the critical spirit of the other schools of writing and emphasizes aesthetic qualities of literature.
Writers who belong to this school include Wang Cengqi, Ah Cheng, Mo Yan, Zhang Chengzhi,
and others. Wang Cengqi’s “Buddhist Initiation,” Ah Cheng’s “King of Chess,” Mo Yan’s “Trans-
parent Reddish,” and his novel Red Sorghum are representative works of this school. Chinese
literature has the time-honored tradition of historical fiction. In this period, historical fiction
flourished and hundreds of works were produced. Films produced in this period reflected the
influence of literary thoughts and works, especially in terms of thematic concerns. Most films
were actually filmic reproductions of popular literary works.
The humanist revival in subject matter was accompanied by a strong interest in formal inno-
vation in Modernist orientation. A great deal of literary creation of this period was preoccupied
with Modernism not only in themes but also in forms and styles.The modernist pursuit exhibits
a strong sense of avant-gardism. Avant-gardist fiction began in the mid-1980s and reached its
peak in less than five years. Writers with avant-gardist trappings include Liu Suola, Xu Xin,
Ma Yuan, Hong Feng,Yu Hua, Su Tong, Ge Fei,Ye Zhaoyan, Sun Ganlu, Bei Cun, Pan Jun, Lü
Xin and others. Their writings are characterized by a rebellious and transcendental spirit born
of amplified individualism, self-conscious aggrandizement, and rejection of traditional ways of
writing. Unlike conventional fictional works, avant-gardist fiction shifted its attention from
external reality to internal world of subjective emotions, thereby greatly enriching literary rep-
resentations of the human world and spirit. In poetic creation, while the old generation of poets
like Ai Qing, Gong Liu, Liu Shahe, Lu Yuan and others continued to write their poetry, a new
generation of young poets including Bei Dao, Shu Ting, Gu Cheng, Hai Zi, Ouyang Jianghe, Xi
Chuan, and others assimilated Western techniques of modernism, engaged in experiments with
poetic writing, and invented a new form of poetry called “Opaque Poetry” (Menglong shi).
Similarly, playwrights in this period started their experimental plays, which integrate traditional
Chinese dramatic art with Western dramatic techniques pioneered by Bertolt Brecht, Maurice
Maeterlinck, August Strindberg, Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Engene O’Neill and Arthur
Miller. Playwrights who achieved impressive successes include Liu Shugang, Wang Peigong and
Wang Gui,Tao Jun,Wei Minglun, Ma Zhongjun and Qin Peichun, Sha Yexin, and Gao Xingjian.

436
 SECTION X

Literature of trauma, memory,

reflection
 32
LITERATURE OF TRAUMA
AND REFLECTION
Meng Li and King-fai Tam

Two literary trends, Literature of Trauma (shanghen wenxue) and Literature of Reflection (fansi
wenxue), came to popularity during the late 1970s and early 1980s, a period marked by unprec-
edented intellectual ferment in the history of the PRC. They gained wide popularity because
of their open criticism of China’s political and social shortcomings and in-depth reflections on
the cultural elements behind these problems, often going far beyond the immediate historical
circumstances of the time. Fiction, especially in the form of short stories and novellas, is the
predominant genre in both trends. Coming almost immediately after the Cultural Revolution
which by the official reckoning ended in late 1976, these two trends thrived in what is optimis-
tically called “new period of socialist revolution and construction,”1 a term that made its first
appearance in the Eleventh National Congress held in August 1977. Then in October 1979,
Zhou Yang, a prominent official in charge of cultural affairs, referred to the post-Cultural Revo-
lution literature as “New Era Literature” in his report delivered at the Fourth National Congress
of Literary Representatives Conference. Since then, the term assumed a broader reference to
include literature from the late 1970s to the late 1980s, and was hailed as ushering in an intel-
lectual movement in the history of 20th-century China, comparable to the May Fourth New
Culture movement.
Openness in economic policies and the move towards social modernization brought a relaxa-
tion of government control over literary activities.2 In this period, literature became a hallmark
of the emancipation of thought. On May 11, 1978, an important article titled “Practice is the
Sole Criterion in Testing Truth” appeared in Brightness Daily (Guangming ribao), articulating
ideas that would be sanctified by the new government ideology in the Third Plenum of the
Eleventh Party Congress. During the convocation of the Congress, the rigid dogma advo-
cated by the then Party chairman Hua Guofeng to “resolutely uphold whatever policy deci-
sions Chairman Mao made, and unswervingly follow whatever instructions Chairman Mao
gave”3 came under criticism. As a result, class struggle was no longer upheld as the guiding
principle for the Party’s policies. Documents concerning the “Anti-Deng Counterattack on the
Right Deviationist Trend of Reversing the Party’s Verdicts” of 1975 and “Tian’anmen Counter-
revolutionary Incident” of April 1976 were rescinded. The new policy was welcomed with
enthusiasm in the literary circles, especially by veterans like Mao Dun and Ba Jin, who saw the
opportunity to reaffirm the quintessence of literary creation by calling for openness in literature
and the arts.

439
 Meng Li and King-fai Tam

Due to the relaxation of control over literary activities, a logical consequence of China’s
reform and opening, the literary circles of the post-Cultural Revolution era witnessed a surge in
literary creations. Hong Zicheng, a historian of Chinese literature, classifies these New Era Lit-
erature writers into three groups: (1) the “re-emergent” or “returned writers” who fell foul with
the political campaigns from the 1950s to the Cultural Revolution, including Ai Qing, Wang
Zengqi, Cai Qijiao, Wang Meng, Zhang Xianliang, Gao Xiaosheng, Lu Wenfu, and Cong Weixi;
(2) “re-educated youth writers” who went either voluntarily or involuntarily to the economi-
cally and culturally backward areas during the Rustication Movement (shangshan xiaxiang) in
the Cultural Revolution, including Han Shaogong, Zhang Chengzhi, Shi Tiesheng, Wang Anyi,
Zheng Yi, Zhang Xinxin, Kong Jiesheng, and Ah Cheng (A Cheng); (3) writers who entered
middle age in the 1980s when their writing career began to bloom, including Zhang Jie, Feng
Jicai, Gu Hua, Dai Houying, Liu Xinwu, and Gao Xingjian.4
With the official rhetoric of “Four Modernizations” and the wide-scale introduction of Western
thought leading to an avid interest in the literary world in “the modernist schools,” the ground was
fertile for the growth of New Era Literature. This period saw a rapid increase in the number of
periodicals in literary research and foreign literature translations and the re-emergence of literary
organizations and publishing houses. Modernism and humanism exerted their shaping influence
on the literary expressions of the era, giving rise to these two major schools of literary writings: Lit-
erature of Trauma (also called “Scar literature,” named after the story “Scar” (Shanghen) by Lu Xin-
hua) and Literature of Reflections.The period between late 1979 and 1983 saw the publications of
around 500 articles over humanistic Marxism.Among them, Chinese aesthetician Zhu Guangqian’s
“Problems Concerning Human Nature, Humanism, Human Touch and A Common Sense of
Beauty (Guanyu renxing, rendaozhuyi, renqingwei he gongtongmei wenti),”Wang Ruoshui’s “On
the Concept of ‘Alienation’ from Hegel to Marx (Guanyu “yihua” de gainian: cong heigeer dao
makesi),” and Ru Xin’s “Is Humanism Revisionism? (Rendaozhuyi jiushi xiuzhengzhuyi ma?)”
are the most influential. These articles uphold the value of humanism, which calls on people to
treat human beings as humans, and reconfirm accordingly the importance of humanistic values in
understanding China’s past and present. In this light, the political calamities in the Maoist era were
understood to have been caused by the violation of humanistic principles and values.

Literature of trauma5
The publications of two fictional works, Liu Xinwu’s “The Head Teacher” (Banzhuren) and Lu
Xinhua’s “Scar,” heralded the literary thaw in post-Mao China. Lu’s story, moreover, gave “Lit-
erature of Trauma” its name in Chinese, “Scar Literature.” From then on, literary works which
portray individual’s sufferings brought by the Cultural Revolution, as well as the search for
“subject consciousness,”6 were subsumed under the name of “Literature of Trauma.”7 Literature
of Trauma is characterized by strong emotional expressions, subjective consciousness, and reflec-
tions on the consequences of the Cultural Revolution. Both “The Head Teacher” and “Scar”
inspired other writers to express their concerns over the violation of humanity and humanism.
They raised a public outcry over social and political excesses of the Cultural Revolution and
initiated debates over literary humanism in the 1980s via scathing criticism, exposure, and depic-
tion of the tribulations which occurred during the Cultural Revolution.

Leading writers and their works

The term “Literature of Trauma” came into being in the controversies raised by the publica-
tion of Lu Xinhua’s story on August 11, 1977. Chen Gongmin coined the term in his article

440
 Literature of trauma and reflection

“On ‘Scar’ Literature” in the December 1978 issue of Shanghai Literature (Shanghai wenxue) to
describe both a literary and social phenomenon. In 1979, the American Chinese scholar Xu
Jieyu gave a talk at the “Forum of Chinese Communist Literature” at San Francisco State Uni-
versity in 1979. When he mentioned the short stories that flourished after October 1976, Xu
used the English term “wounded generation” to refer to writers who composed the Literature
of Trauma, further entrenching the idea of “wound” and “trauma” in what he describes as “the
most eye-catching [literary] scene” in the post-Cultural Revolution China.
Indeed, the Chinese literary scene in that period witnessed an upsurge of literary creations
in the style of “Literature of Trauma.” Leading writers and their representative works include:
“What Should I Do?” (Zenmeban) by Chen Guokai, “The Floating Headscarf ” (Piaoshi de hua
toujin) by Chen Jiangong, “Red Magnolia beneath the Walls” (Daqiang xia de hong yulan) by
Cong Weixi, “A Branch Road Paved with Flowers” (Puhua de qilu) and “Alas” (A) by Feng Jicai,
“Birch Forest Remembered” (Sinianni, hualin) by Gong Qiaoming, “The Ivy-Covered Cabin”
(Paman qingteng de muwu) by Gu Hua, “Reunion” (Chongfeng) by Jin He, “A Pre-Ordained
Marriage” (Yinyuan) and “The Other Side of the River” (Zai xiaohe nabian) by Kong Jiesheng,
“Sacrifice” (Xianshen) by Lu Wenfu, “Legend of Mount Tianyun” (Tianyunshan chuanqi) by
Lu Yanzhou,8 “A Sacred Mission” (Shensheng de shiming) by Wang Yaping, “The Noble Pine”
(Gaojie de qingsong) by Wang Zongshan, “Struggle of the Soul” (Linghun de bodou) by Wu
Qiang, “Years of Idling” (Cuotuo suiyue) and “The Young People of Our Generation” (Women
zheyidai nianqingren) by Ye Xin, “A Winter Fairytale” (Dongtian de tonghua) by Yu Luojin,
“Maples” (Feng) by Zheng Yi, “An Offering of Blood and Tears at Mount Luofu” (Luofushan
xuelei ji) by Zhong Jieying, “Xu Mao and His Daughters” (Xu mao he tade ernümen) by Zhou
Keqin, “The Road of Life” (Shenghuo de lu) by Zhu Lin, and the novel Sunset the Color of Blood
(Xuese huanghun) by Lao Gui.9
The much-acclaimed “Head Teacher” by Liu Xinwu is canonized as the story that ushers
in the genre of Literature of Trauma. Published in November 1977, the story is based on the
author’s own experience as a middle school teacher in Beijing No. 13 Middle School from 1961
to 1976. It gave the author a chance to express his long-hidden discontent with the Cultural
Revolution. The story received warm and enthusiastic responses from the readers. According
to the writer, it kindled people’s passion for reform and openness.10 Liu echoes in this story Lu
Xun’s fervent call to save Chinese youth in “A Madman’s Diary,” stirring up social attention over
the great number of young people who had suffered from dehumanizing experiences during
the Cultural Revolution. Xie Huimin, a devoted Youth League secretary in Liu Xinwu’s story,
criticizes her fellow students for reading foreign literature which she considers to be “poisonous
weed,” a derogatory term used in the Cultural Revolution to refer to literature and art deemed
incompatible with socialism. Xie illustrates well the ideological wound inflicted on the young
people by the radical leftist fanaticism. Xie, a misguided youth by her revolutionary fever, is
characterized as someone who has brought suffering to people around her and herself, thereby
serving as an eloquent example of how the extreme-leftist revolutionary fervor has caused peo-
ple to suffer. The head teacher Mr Zhang encourages Xie to read The Gladfly by Ethel Voynich,
a foreign novel which used to be labelled “poisonous” during the Cultural Revolution. Despite
Xie’s resistance to the new waves of thinking in the New Era, Zhang is confident that she will
be liberated from her spiritual dependence on the rigid doctrines and that she will recover from
her spiritual trauma, which, in her case, is the aftermath of extreme-leftist fanaticism.
Lu Xinhua is hailed as another harbinger of Literature of Trauma. The focal point of his
controversial short story “Scar” is the mother-daughter relationship that has been ruined by the
sharp political division prevalent in society at the time. While bringing to light the tremendous
spiritual trauma brought by the Cultural Revolution, the story also calls for the healing of the

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wound. Wang Xiaohua, the young woman in the story, draws a clear line between herself and
her mother who is condemned as a “traitor” during the Cultural Revolution. Ashamed of her
mother, Wang leaves home to settle in the countryside as a rusticated youth. She works hard
to rid herself of the influence exerted on her by her shameful background as the “daughter of
a traitor” but without success, and she becomes increasingly despondent. In the meantime, her
mother, hounded by ceaseless persecution, is fatally ill. She writes again and again to plead with
Wang for a reunion, but to no avail. It is not until early 1978 when a letter arrives from her
mother’s workplace proving her mother’s innocence that Wang finally agrees to see her mother.
But it is too late and her mother is on the verge of death. In desperation, Wang rushes to the
hospital to see her mother, only to find upon her arrival that she has passed away.
The story “Scar” initially appeared on the blackboard display of the 1977 class of Department
of Chinese Literature at Fudan University in April 1977. Inspired by Lu Xun’s story “The New
Year Sacrifice,” Lu Xinhua, then a first-year student of 24, decided to adopt a similar realistic style
used by his admired writer. Expressing a strong distaste for the prevalent writing style marked by
pretentious hyperbole and vacuous bombast in his own times, Lu Xinhua used a direct and real-
ist way of writing to probe into the psychological trauma brought by the Cultural Revolution.
Upon its appearance on the wall-poster, fellow students were often seen crowding in front of the
poster, reading and weeping, and the story soon swept across the university campus. “Scar” was
finally published officially on Wenhui Daily (Wenhui bao) on August 11 of the same year, arousing
even more and greater attention to traumatic memories of the Cultural Revolution.
Today, when we read the story, we can find little in the story that deserves our attention
in terms of themes and writing techniques. But at that time, the publication of “Scar” led to
a nation-wide debate over the new phenomenon of depicting political and social disasters in
literature. It is worth noting that the term “Literature of Trauma” is initially deprecatory. The
debates centered on it also gave rise to other hostile labels such as “Literature of Exposé,” “Lit-
erature of the Thaw,” “Literature of Sentimentalism” and “Literature of Critical Realism” from
its detractors. Among them, Li Jian criticized it vehemently in his 1979 article “ ‘Praising Virtue’
and ‘Lacking Virtue’ ” and argued that rather than revealing the dark side of society, it is the mis-
sion of writers and artists to glorify the CCP and socialist China.
The fierce debate attracted the attention of the Communist leadership.Together with the lead-
ing figures from The Writers Association, Hu Yaobang, Minister of Propaganda, criticized Li Jian
for deviating from Mao’s principle of “Let Hundred Flowers Blooming and Hundred Schools
Contend.” The controversy did not come to an end, however, until the Fourth National Literary
Representative Conference held in October 1979, during which ZhouYang voiced his enthusiastic
support for this new literary trend and encouraged writers not to turn a blind eye to the undeniable
plights that a whole generation had gone through. The same year saw quantitative and qualitative
growth in the Literature of Trauma. There appeared better works which include “The Other Side
of the River” by Kong Jiesheng, “What Should I Do” by Chen Guokai, “Red Magnolia beneath
the Wall” by Cong Weixi, and “Maples” by Zheng Yi. Cong Weixi’s “Red Magnolia beneath the
Wall” centers on the unjust imprisonment of the main character Ge Ling, a Communist cadre. It
marked the advent of another subgenre of Literature of Trauma, the “High Wall Fiction,” which
focuses on the unjust incarceration of the demoralized central character against a setting of prisons
and gulags.Wang Yaping’s “A Sacred Mission” is another example of this subgenre.

Writing historical trauma

Both Literature of Trauma and Literature of Reflection focus on the physical and spiritual
sufferings brought by the Cultural Revolution upon various sectors of people, especially the

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demoralized intellectuals and officials and their eventual vindication and rehabilitation. In his
History of Contemporary Chinese Literature, Hong Zicheng identifies two major themes in the
description of “traumas” in these literary works. The first focuses on the persecution of intel-
lectuals and government officials who put up resistance against repressions; while the second,
narrates the life of the “educated youth” who enthusiastically participated in the Cultural Revo-
lution only to find themselves turning into victims of the revolution.11 The miserable life of the
peasants due to radical policies in rural China also finds their literary expressions in the Litera-
ture of Trauma. But in comparison with the large number of fictional works on the traumatic
experiences of intellectuals and officials, this category of works is relatively small in number.
Zhou Keqin’s story “Xu Mao and His Daughters” is one of the prominent ones.
While Literature of Trauma uncovers the tribulations and confusions brought by political
radicalism and arouses people’s sympathy for the victims, it paradoxically leaves unchallenged the
pervasive extreme leftism that plagued the political scene of the Cultural Revolution. Instead, it
expressed a strong support for the leftist-oriented socialist system. Lu Xinhua is a case in point.
He voiced his condemnation of the Gang of Four, whom he blamed for all the disasters while at
the same time expressing his loyalty to the Communist faith and the Party which, he believed,
had genuinely cared for the benefits and well-being of the proletariat masses and the nation.12 In
his memoir over the writing of “The Head Teacher,” Liu Xinwu also spoke in a similar manner
about the necessity of adhering to Marxism and Maoist thoughts and integrating both revolu-
tionary realism and revolutionary romanticism in his writing.13
Thus, even when Literature of Trauma is credited with exposing the political excesses of the
Maoist era, it also came under criticism for not demonstrating any “fundamental difference from
‘worker-peasant-soldier art’,”14 and only presenting yet another cult of Communist leadership.15
Rather than probing the deep-rooted historical and political reasons for people’s sufferings,
Literature of Trauma often appears to be a mere cathartic expression of individual grievances,
which is mistakenly thought to be capable of healing the historical trauma. In the process, the
internal power struggles within Communist Party as well as the origins of political disasters are
sidestepped in their examination of the Cultural Revolution.

The faults of literature of trauma

Literature of Trauma has certainly played its role in promoting the openness and reform in
China after the ending of political radicalism. But in terms of literary merits, it has a number of
faults. One of them worth noting is the ubiquitous optimistic ending, which can be seen as a
carry-over of the literary tradition of the first seventeen years of the People’s Republic. Litera-
ture of Trauma concludes for the most part with the fall of the villain and a promise of a bright
future for the good. In most cases, the Gang of Four remains the only target of accusation. The
opposition of the good and bad in Literature of Trauma is therefore reminiscent of the dichot-
omy of the good and bad personages – a time-honored model of historical view employed for
a few thousand years to explain the vicissitudes in Chinese history. The dichotomy holds that
with the assistance of the loyal minister, the wise ruler will be able to distance himself from the
villainous minister, in the process strengthening the state in the interest of all. By this model,
neither the system nor the ruler is to blame for the downfall or crisis of the state; only corrupted
ministers and treacherous eunuchs, concubines and officials are blamed. The dichotomy of the
good and the evil is already evident in the 17-Year Literature which implicitly takes the form of
an opposition between the leftist and the rightist, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, and so on.
In this way, the elimination of the villain/reactionary is understood to clear away the major hin-
drance in socialist development, ensuring the triumph of the CCP as well as a bright future for

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the people and the nation.16 This pattern of thought is evidenced in the story “Scar,” in which
the female protagonist expresses her Communist faith while mourning for her dead mother:
“My dear mother, may you rest in peace! I will never forget you and I will never forgive those
[i.e., the Gang of Four] who cause all this harm . . . I will be guided by our Party and devote
to it my lifelong efforts!”17 In a similar way, in “The Head Teacher,” the downfall of “Gang of
Four” is mentioned several times as the premise of healing the spiritual wound. In the ending
scene, Mr. Zhang the head teacher is optimistically drawing his plans to help Xie Huimin shed
the pernicious extreme-leftist influence on her and ensure that Song Baoqi, the former juvenile
delinquent, will become someone fit for socialist construction.
In Zhou Keqin’s “Xu Mao and His Daughters,”Yan Shaochun, the female Communist cadre,
convinces Xu Xiuyun, a peasant woman long suffering from her villainous ex-husband, of a
rosy prospect ahead of them. Similarly, the ending paragraph in Gu Hua’s “The Ivy-Covered
Cabin”18 does not tell the whereabouts of Pan Qinqing and Li Xingfu who have gone missing
after the forest fire. Rather, it hints at an optimistic possibility for the two protagonists:

However, after the collapse of the evil Gang of Four, quite a number of people at the
Forestry Centre maintained the view that if Pan Qingqing and Single-hander were still
alive in some faraway place, they must be leading a different kind of life. There were
even those who speculated that false accusations were being reversed all over the coun-
try, one never knew if Pan Qingqing and Li Xingfu would suddenly turn up at the
center to demand their rehabilitations. Why not? After all, in the last two years, even
the tall and bald trees that had survived the charring fire had again begun to sprout
new green leaves and branches.19

It is necessary to note that a significant number of writers of Literature of Trauma, such as

Liu Xinwu and Zhang Xianliang, assumed important official posts in the literary and cultural
organizations of the government after the Cultural Revolution. It is fair to say that their close
association with the Communist establishment makes it difficult for them to follow through
with a more fundamental critique of the historical trauma in an unencumbered way.20 There-
fore, as Liu Zaifu notes, the heritage of the 17-Year Literature deprives Literature of Trauma
genuine innovation in characterization and in-depth re-examination of history. The murkiness
of the writers’ consciousness, circumscribed by their official associations and conditioned by
habitual ways of thinking and official rhetoric, may be one of the major reasons why Literature
of Trauma is charged with absence of genuine artistic and aesthetical values.21

Literature of reflection
Literature of Reflection, also known as “introspective fictions,” is another literary trend in New
Era Literature, widely considered to have added depth to the writing of historical trauma. It does
not stop at expressing grievances over individual suffering, but approaches the writing of his-
torical wound in a wholly different way. The publication of Literature of Reflection culminated
during the period from 1979 to 1982. In these works, the Cultural Revolution was no longer
seen as the sole source of human suffering in contemporary society, while writers turned their
attention to the “feudal practices” that continued to plague the official ideology, society, culture
and the human psyche. Writers of Literature of Reflection responded to the call of national
modernization with a diverse array of literary styles and expressions. The life paths of the pro-
tagonists in their fictional works seem to run parallel to the vicissitudes of the first 30 years of
history of “New China” which constitute the very subject for serious rethinking. The writer’s

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attention is now focused on the broader concerns of humanism and humanity, taboo topics up
to that point, and not just incidents of unjust persecutions as one finds in Literature of Trauma.

Leading writers and their works

Like Literature of Trauma, for the most part, Literature of Reflection takes the form of fic-
tion. Representative works include: (1) short stories: “Small Town General” (Xiaozhen shang de
jiangjun) by Chen Shixu, “Internal Spy” (Neijian) by Fang Zhi, “Li Shunda Builds a House” (Li
shunda zaowu) and “Master of the ‘Hopper Household’ ” (“Loudou hu” chen huansheng)22 by
Gao Xiaosheng, “Lunar Eclipse” (Yueshi) by Li Guowen, “A Family of Peddlers” (Xiaofan shijia)
by Lu Wenfu, “A Story out of Sequence” (Meiyou jianji de gushi) by Ru Zhijuan, “My Distant
Qingpingwan” (Yaoyuan de qingpingwan) by Shi Tiesheng, “Soul and Body” (Ling yu rou) by
Zhang Xianliang, “The Corner Forgotten by Love” (Bei ai yiwang de jiaoluo) by Zhang Xuan
and “Who am I?” (Wo shi shui) and “The Everlasting Stone” (Sansheng shi) by Zong Pu; (2)
novellas: “A Land of Wonder and Mystery” (You yige meili de difang) by Liang Xiaosheng and
“The Gourmet” (Meishijia) by Lu Wenfu,“At Middle Age” (Ren dao zhongnian) by Shen Rong,
“The Terminal of The Train” (Benci lieche de zhongdian) by Wang Anyi, “Bolshevik Salute” (Bu
li) and “Butterfly” (Hudie) by Wang Meng, “Baptism” (Xili) by Wei Junyi, “Descendants of the
River” (He de zisun) and “Mimosa” (Lühuashu) by Zhang Xianliang, “Story of the Criminal, Li
Tongzhong” (Fanren Li Tongzhong) by Zhang Yigong, ; and (3) novels: Stones of the Wall (Ren
a ren) by Dai Houying, A Small Town Called Hibiscus (Furong zhen) by Gu Hua, and General’s
Chant (Jiangjun yin) by Mo Yingfeng.23 Some of these works are also considered as examples of
Literature of Reform, to be discussed in the next chapter.
Ru Zhijuan’s novella “A Story out of Sequence” is often regarded as inaugurating Literature
of Reflection. Adopting several extended flashbacks in the plot, the story portrays the deterio-
rating relationship between the cadres and the members of the Party in the Ganmu Commune,
and the disasters brought about by the extreme-leftist Party economic policies. One by one, the
Great Leap Forward, the Anti-Rightist Campaign and the Cultural Revolution that span the
first three decades of the history of “new China” are criticized.
A fair number of writers in this trend are “returned/re-emergent writers,” including Ru
Zhijuan, Wang Meng, Zhang Yigong and Zhang Xianliang. All of them suffered from political
persecutions from the 1950s to the 1970s and reappeared on the literary scene only after the
Cultural Revolution. Having been silenced for twenty years, they now looked upon the trauma
of the past with unusual calm and introspection. The Yan’an Spirit and the Communist political
ideal remains a common article of faith among these writers.
The protagonists Zhong Yicheng and Zhang Siyuan in Wang Meng’s “Butterfly” and “The
Bolshevik Salute” were proud Communists when they were young. In the course of the stories,
both of them are persecuted, labeled as rightists and sent to labor camps for reform. Their faith
in Communism is sorely tested as they begin to experience serious doubts about themselves. At
the end of “Butterfly,” for example, the vindicated Vice Minister Zhang Siyuan visits the remote
village where he received his “re-education” during the Cultural Revolution. He expresses his
heart-felt confusion over his various identities (the revolutionary youth, the Communist cadre
and the rightist) he has taken up at different times. Many, as a matter of fact, are put upon him
by force.
While the protagonists in Wang Meng’s fiction often reflect upon the self, Zhang Xian-
liang’s intellectual male characters are led to reflect upon questions of humanism and humanity
through their heterosexual relationships with proletariat women. Zhang’s works highlight the
intellectual men, such as Xu Lingjun in “Soul and Body” and Zhang Yonglin in “Mimosa,”

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who suffer from political repressions. They are usually labelled “rightists,” and they carry their
emotional trauma on their starved and often impotent bodies. In the materially-deprived areas
where they toil, they regain their mental and sexual health under the care of proletariat women
(such as Ma Yinghua in “Mimosa”). These women, often portrayed as noble-minded, healthy
and illiterate (or less educated than men), are much glorified in the stories.They are the mentors
to the male protagonists in rediscovering and reaffirming their masculinity. The charming peas-
ant woman Hu Yuyin who runs a prosperous bean curd stall in Gu Hua’s “A Small Town Called
Hibiscus” plays a similar role.

Humanism and humanistic concerns

On the whole, writers of Literature of Reflection exhibit greater literary complexity in their
writings than writers of Literature of Trauma. Many of them adopt a wide variety of narrative
techniques from the West. Just as the uniformity of literary expressions of Cultural Revolution
literature limits the way people think of humanity, its plurality in Literature of Reflection broad-
ens the writer’s scope of enquiry into humanistic issues. Flashbacks, montage as well as stream
of consciousness are particularly popular in these works, as lengthy depictions of the character’s
psychological leaps and movements are much more commonly seen.
Wang Meng is a writer of the Literature of Reflection who adopts an extensive use of stream
of consciousness and flashbacks in his writings. In both “Butterfly” and “The Bolshevik Salute,”
Wang’s portrayal of the characters’ consciousness becomes an effective approach for him to
think of the past and the present.The plotlines of his stories do not proceed chronologically but
often follow the consciousness of the central characters with a logic of its own. In Shen Rong’s
“At Middle Age” the female ophthalmologist Lu Wenting is overburdened with pressures from
family and work. As the reader enters her consciousness through her dreams, fantasies and hal-
lucinations, he or she gets a glimpse of the pressure, perplexity, anxiety and frustration that she
feels in life. In these two cases, delving into the subjective consciousness of the characters by
means of streams of consciousness and other techniques led these writers to seriously reconsider
the question of humanism.
As mentioned earlier, the discourse of humanism sanctioned by the government in the 1980s
was brought in line with Marxist-oriented socialism which reserves a place for humanism. Such
a position, as Wang Hui observes, surpasses Maoist socialism which neglects human freedom and
liberation and has led to “cruel social dictatorship.”24 Chinese intellectuals of the 1980s, therefore,
endeavored to reinsert “human being” and “humanity” in the reinvigoration of Marxism. Lit-
erature of Reflection is one such attempt. What sets it apart from Literature of Trauma is that it
represents a more profound way of looking at the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution. One finds
in it not only the kind of political stories that Literature of Trauma has to offer, but human stories.
In this regard, they take the writing act of exposé to a higher level. For this reason, Literature of
Reflection became controversial for placing individuals’ material and emotional fulfillment over
collective responsibilities and societal norms. Its emphasis on humanistic values is often coupled
with the implicit or explicit criticism of decades of class struggle and collectivization.
Gu Hua’s A Small Town Called Hibiscus, a representative work of Literature of Reflection, can
be read as an example of this new writing about individual material and emotional fulfillment.
In this story, the complexity of humanity is evident in the depiction of the tension between Hu
Yuyin and Li Guoxiang. Hu Yuyin, who represents the powerless masses, is an attractive young
woman who runs a successful private enterprise in town. She strives for financial stability and
freedom in love while constantly falling prey to the power-hungry Communist cadre Li Guoxi-
ang, the manager of the state-owned restaurant. Hu’s successful business is attacked as going

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against the party doctrine of collectivism. Tani Barlow points out that the denaturalization of
women’s bodies, in the form of sexual abstinence and the denial of femininity in other ways,
was taken as a sign of revolutionary modernity in the Maoist cultural formulation.25 In the story,
Hu’s quest for freedom in love and marriage and her obvious sexual appeal are anathema to the
Maoist ideal. Ironically, the characterization of the villain Li Guoxiang also adds depth to the
exploration of humanity in the novel. Even though Li hides herself behind a tough and asexual
exterior to conform to the extreme-leftist ideal of a revolutionary woman, her sexuality is made
known to the readers through her secret sexual liaisons and abortions, all of which might have
marred her reputation as a rising political star. The good-bad dichotomy appears to be no more
than paper-thin veneer with this sophisticated treatment of humanity in the narrative.
Similar to A Small Town Called Hibiscus, several other works of fiction also choose to focus on
the individual’s autonomy in love and marriage as an expression of humanistic concerns. Zhang Jie’s
“Love Must Not Be Forgotten” represents a breakthrough in the treatment of love and romance
in the New Era. The depiction of the platonic love between the female intellectual Zhong Yu and
a married cadre departs from the long-glorified “romance and revolution” literary tradition, her-
alding a new attitude towards love and romance, i.e., spiritual harmony. Likewise, Zhang Xuan’s
“The Corner Forgotten by Love” overtly criticizes the practice of equating love and sexuality with
obscenity in the Maoist era. During the Cultural Revolution, Cunni the peasant girl is condemned
as immoral when she is found making love with her boyfriend Leopard. Bringing much disgrace to
both families, Cunni commits suicide. Her lover Leopard is imprisoned for being a rapist.Trauma-
tized by their deaths, Huangmei, Cunni’s sister, has great difficulty even after the Cultural Revolu-
tion in responding to the ardent expression of love from the party secretary Xu Rongshu on whom
she has a crush. It takes some time for Huangmei finally to learn to accept the freedom of love of
the New Era, when she realizes that she, too, has almost fallen victim to the traditional ethics.
Writers with experience as sent-down educated youth such as Liang Xiaosheng, Wang Anyi
and Zhang Kangkang, formed another distinct group of writers during this period. Their writ-
ings, a subgenre of Literature of Reflection, are accordingly known as “fiction of the educated
youth.”26 This genre of writing harked back to an earlier period of “underground literature” of
the Cultural Revolution when educated young people languishing in the rural regions circu-
lated their writings in secret. In the relatively relaxed atmosphere of the late 1980s, these writers
now wrote openly about their “re-education” in the backward provinces as well as their return
to the native cities after the Cultural Revolution.The major themes in these fictions include the
reclamation of wasteland, material and spiritual deprivation under which the educated youth
have to live, the physical and psychological trauma from the days of “rustication,” their awak-
ening to the long-suppressed humanity, romance, as well as the pressure and despair that await
them upon their returning to their native cities.
In Liang Xiaosheng’s “A Land of Wonder and Mystery,” the beautiful vice brigade director
Li Xiaoyan tries to set herself up as a model worker for her fellow educated youth. She publicly
renounces her femininity by dressing in a drab and asexual way and taking up tasks meant for
her male counterparts.Yet, in private, she is seen decorating her hair with wild flowers, singing
“forbidden” love songs and dancing Mexican dance. There is a side of humanity, in other words,
that refuses to be suppressed by her overt stance as a political being.
At the end of the Cultural Revolution, a large number of the educated youth petitioned to
return to their home cities. They showed their desperation with extreme actions such as hunger
strike and suicides. Their petitions were finally approved by the State Council in early 1979. In
the same year, around 10 million educated-youth returned to resettle in their home cities where
they encountered problems of a different sort.Wang Anyi’s “The Terminal of The Train” features
the life of a returned-home educated youth in Shanghai.When the Cultural Revolution begins,

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Chen Xin voluntarily takes the place of his elder brother to become an educated youth in Xin-
jiang Province. After spending ten years there, he finally manages to return to Shanghai. Feeling
alienated from the city where he used to call home, Chen faces snobbery from the calculating
people around him and is frustrated with the discords brought by the day-to-day life in the city.
The theme of Chen Xin’s story is re-captured in various guises in other works about the
returned-home educated youth. When the educated youth returned to urban life, they face
unexpected material and spiritual pressures. Their native cities feel strange to them and they
are seized by new frustrations, part of which undoubtedly comes from the romanticized nos-
talgia they have of rural life. In Shi Teisheng’s “My Distant Qingpingwan,” for example, life in
Northern Shaanxi is depicted with idyllic simplicity where people interact with each other in
an almost childlike way.
The humanism sanctioned by the government is the Marxist-oriented socialist humanism.
In Literature of Reflection, however, humanity takes on a universal sense, sidestepping class
distinctions. Such a development displayed a radical departure from the ideology of the CCP
and Literature of Reflection is therefore faulted for taking side with Western humanism and
ignoring class-consciousness. With the 1981 official criticism of Bai Hua’s film script “Bitter
Love,”(Kulian) the CCP began to tighten its cultural policy over literary expression. The “anti-
spiritual pollution” campaign followed, with Hu Qiaomu attacking Zhou Yang for his support
of humanism and the concept of alienation. Hu’s article “Concerning the Issues of Humanity
and Alienation” (Guanyu rendaozhuyi he yihua wenti) targets for criticism western modernism,
expressions of pessimism, solitude and frustration, self-expression, all of which are character-
ized as “spiritual pollution” detrimental to literature and art in socialist China. As a result of the
CCP’s tightening control over literature, the literary trend of Literature of Reflection waned in
the years of 1983 and 1984, but its legacy paved the way for more fundamental changes in both
social life and the realm of literature in the years of the 1990s.

Notes
1 Hong Zicheng, A History of Chinese Contemporary Literature, tran. Michael M. Day (Leiden and Boston:
Brill, 2007), 259.
2 John King Fairbanks et al. eds., East Asia:Tradition and Transformation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer-
sity Press, 1989), 983.
3 Victoria Mantzopoulos and Raphael Shen, The Political Economy of China’s Systemic Transformation: 1979
to Present (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011), 206.
4 Hong Zicheng, A History of Chinese Contemporary Literature, 268–271.
5 “Literature of Trauma” also appears in other translations such as “Scar Literature,” “Literature of the
Thaw” and “Literature of Exposé.”
6 Hong Zicheng, A History of Chinese Contemporary Literature, 275.
7 Zhu Zhai ed., Intellectual Trends of Contemporary Chinese Literature (Zhongguo dangdai wenxue sichao
shi) (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1987), 540.
8 Legend of Mount Tainyun is also been categorized as fiction of reflection by scholars such as Song
Ru-shan.
9 Most of the works in the list were published before mid-1985. Lao Gui’s Sunset the Color of Blood which
was published in 1986 is also considered as Literature of Trauma.
10 Liu Xinwu. “About the Writing of ‘Class Teacher’,” (Banzhuren de qianqian houhou) in Tianya (2008),
no. 3, 190.
11 Hong Zicheng, History of Contemporary Chinese Literature (Zhongguo dangdai wenxueshi) (Beijing:
Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2010), 323.
12 Lu Xinhua, “On My Story ‘Scar’ ” (Tantan wo de xizuo Shanghen) in Mou Zhongxiu, ed., Award-
Winning Short Stories: 1978–1980 (Huojiang duanpian xiaoshuo tan, 1978–1980) (Beijing: wenhua
yishu chubanshe, 1982), 21.

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13 Liu Xinwu, “Stay Rooted in the Fertile Soil of Life,” (Genzhi zai shenghuo de wotu zhong) in Creative
Writing Experiences in Awarded Fictions of the New Era (Xinshiqihuojiang xiaoshuo chuangzuo jingyan-
tan) (Changsha: hunan renmin chubanshe, 1985), 144.
14 Li Tuo, “Resistance to Modernity,” in Pang-Yuan Chi and David Der-wei Wang, eds., Chinese Literature
in the Second Half of a Modern Century: A Critical Survey (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana Uni-
versity Press, 2000), 140.
15 Li Yang, History of Trends in Contemporary Chinese Literature (Zhongguo dangdai wenxue sichao shi)
(Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexueyuan chubanshe, 2005), 130.
16 Li Yang, History of Trends in Contemporary Chinese Literature (Zhongguo dangdai wenxue sichao shi)
(Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexueyuan chubanshe, 2005), 132–133.
17 Lu Xinhua, “Scar,” (Shanghen) in Selective Fictions of Mainland China: Scar (Zhongguo dalu xiaoshuo
xuan: Shanghen) (Taipei:Youth Cultural Enterprise Co. Ltd, 1982), 14. Translation mine.
18 “The Ivy-Covered Cabin” is also considered fiction of reflection by scholars such as Song Ru-shan.
19 Gu Hua, “The Ivy-Covered Cabin,” in Helen F. Siu, ed., Furrows: Peasants, Intellectuals and the State, trans.
Kingfai Tam (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), 206.
20 Cheng Guangwei, “Historical Limitation in ’Literature of Trauma’,” (Shanghenwenxue de lishi juxi-
anxing) in Literary & Art Studies (2005), no. 1, 19.
21 Liu Zaifu, “He Brings Love to Every Green Leave: Preface to Liu Xinwu’s Fictions,” (Ta ba ai tuixi-
ang meiyipian lüye: Liu Xinwu xiaoshuo xu) in On Chinese Literature (Lun zhongguo wenxue) (Bei-
jing: Zuojia chubanshe, 1988), 346. Li Hui made similar comments that “painful experience could be
expressed by narration. However, the narration remains superficial if no further examination of one’s
spirit and complete depiction of the history is provided.” Quoted from Li Hui ed., The Broken Window
Shutter: Red Guards in History (Canque de chuanglanban: lishizhong de hongweibing) (Shenzhen: Hai-
tian chubanshe, 1998), 15.
22 “Master of the ‘Hopper Household’ ” is themed with rural reform. It can be thus categorized as Litera-
ture of Reform.
23 Most of the works in this list are quoted from Hong Zicheng, A History of Contemporary Chinese Litera-
ture, 299. To the list, the authors of this article added the short stories My Distant Qingpingwan by Shi
Tiesheng, The Corner Forgotten by Love by Zhang Xuan and Soul and Body by Zhang Xianliang; novel-
las The Everlasting Stone by Zong Pu, Mimosa by Zhang Xianliang, A Piece of Miraculous Land by Liang
Xiaosheng and The Terminus of This Train by Wang Anyi.
24 Wang Hui, “Humanism as the Theme of Chinese Modernity.” Surfaces, www.pum.umontreal.ca/

revues/surfaces/vol5/hui.html/. Accessed September 10, 2017.
25 Tani E. Barlow, The Question of Women in Chinese Feminism (Durham, DC and London: Duke University
Press, 2004), 254.
26 Song Ru-shan, From Fictions of Trauma to Fictions of Root-Seeking: Schools of Mainland Literature during the
Ten Years after the Cultural Revolution (Cong shanghenwenxue dao xungenwenxue: wengehou shinian de
daluwenxue liupai) (Taipei: Showwe Information Co.Ltd.,2006), 189.

Further readings
Dai Houying. Stones of the Wall. Translated by Frances Woods. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986.
Duke, Michael S. Blooming and Contending: Chinese Literature in the Post-Mao Era. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1985.
Gu Hua. A Small Town Called Hibiscus. Translated by Gladys Young. San Francisco: China Books & Peri-
odicals, 2001.
Hong Zicheng. A History of Chinese Contemporary Literature. Translated by Michael M. Day. Leiden and
Boston: Brill, 2007.
Link, Eugene Perry. The Uses of Literature: Life in the Socialist Chinese Literary System. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2000.
Louie, Kam. Between Fact and Fiction: Essays on Post-Mao Chinese Literature. Broadway: Wild Peony, 1989.
Shen Rong. At Middle Age. Translated by Yu Fanqin. Beijing: China Literature Press, 1987.
Zhang Jie. Love Must Not be Forgotten. Translated by Gladys Yang. San Francisco: China Books & Periodicals,
1986.
Zhang Xianliang. Half of Man Is Woman. Translated by Martha Avery. New York: W.W. Norton & Company,
1988.

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 33
LITERATURE OF REFORM
AND ROOT-SEEKING
Meng Li and King-fai Tam

The late 1970s and early 1980s saw a renewed effort in the pursuit of modernization in China.
In his speech, “Emancipate the Mind, Seek Truth from Facts and Unite as One in Looking to
the Future,” delivered before the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of
the CCP, Deng Xiaoping, who recently returned to the leadership position, called upon the
country to exert itself for the realization of China’s “Four Modernizations” in industry, agri-
culture, national defense, and science and technology. Thereafter, while upholding the four car-
dinal principles in ideology and political life,1 economic construction by means of reform and
opening2 became CCP’s central task. In his “Speech Greeting the Fourth Congress of Chinese
Writers and Artists” on October 30, 1979, Deng made it clear that the reform efforts should be
extended to Chinese literature and art as well.
Two literary trends, Literature of Reform (gaige wenxue) and Literature of Root-seeking
(xungen wenxue), arose in response to the government’s call for modernizations. Appearing
almost at the same time as Literature of Trauma which focuses on the airing of grievances on the
Cultural Revolution, the realist-oriented Literature of Reform shifts the focus from the imme-
diate past to the present and presents the New Era in its historical transition from the close-door
policy to a radical openness to the outside world. By contrast, Literature of Root-seeking harks
back to the more distant past. Strongly influenced by Western modernism, it engages in a fervent
quest for the cultural roots of the Chinese nation and its national spirit.

Literature of reform
As is to be expected from the historical circumstances under which it emerged, a common
theme of Literature of Reform is the social-political transformation that came in the midst of
the turbulent reform in the 1980s. Literature of Reform continued the tradition of the May-
Fourth movement with its preoccupation with national enlightenment, and was largely affirma-
tive of the reform effort. It pioneered the writing of the “present” of the New Era in a way
distinctly different from that of Literature of Trauma, which tended to cast its eyes on the past.
As its name indicates, Literature of Reform produced a large number of fictional works that take
industrial reform in the urban areas and agricultural reform in the rural areas as its main themes.
In these works, reform heroes are characterized by their courageous visions and unyielding
commitment to the efforts of modernization.

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Leading writers and their works

The trend of Literature of Reform was heralded by Jiang Zilong’s “Factory Manager Qiao
Assumes Office” (Qiao changzhang shangren ji) published in the July 1979 issue of People’s Lit-
erature (Renmin wenxue).Widely considered as representative of Literature of Reform, it attracts
considerable attention from both the reading public and the party leadership. The story was
awarded a first prize in a national short-story competition and rose to the top place in the read-
ers’ opinion poll conducted by People’s Literature in the same year.The author, Jiang Zilong, was a
member of the administrative staff at a heavy-machinery factory in Tianjin at the time.With the
publication of the story, he became the famed “worker-writer.” Utilizing his first-hand knowl-
edge of engineering and industrial reform, he proceeded to publish other stories with a similar
theme: “More about Factory Manager Qiao,” (Qiao changzhang waizhuan) “All the Colors of
the Rainbow” (Chi cheng huang lü qing lan zi) and “A Woman Engineer’s Confession.” (Yige
nü gongchengshi de zishu) Other writers followed his example in writing about urban indus-
trial reform. “Leaden Wings” (Chenzhong de chibang) by Zhang Jie, “Trouble Arises” (Huo qi
xiaoqiang) by Shui Yunxian and “No. 5 Garden Street” (Huayuanjie wuhao) by Li Guowen are
influential works in this genre. Because they are all set against a background of industrial reform
in factories, they are sometimes called “factory fiction.”
With the CCP tightening its ideological hold on literary and artistic activities from 1982 to
1985, writers of Literature of Reform turned their attention from urban industrial reform to the
less sensitive topic of rural reform. This change was also a result of their increasing interactions
with Literature of Reflection, as both share humanistic concerns. Accordingly, a large number
of their works published after 1982 were about agricultural modernization in the rural regions,
including “A New Star” (Xinxing)3 by Ke Yunlu, “Seed of the Dragon” (Longzhong) by Zhang
Xianliang, the Chen Huansheng story series, “Master of The ‘Hopper House’ ”4 (“Loudouhu”
chen huansheng) and “Chen Huansheng’s Adventure in Town” (Chen huansheng jincheng) by
Gao Xiaosheng,“Human Life” (Rensheng) by Lu Yao,“Story of Moon Girl,”(Xiaoyue) “Twelfth
Month, First Month,” (Layue, zhengyue) “The People of the Chicken Nest Hollow” (Jiwowa
renjia) and “Turbulence” (Fuzao) by Jia Pingwa, “Old People’s Store House” (Laorencang) by
Jiao Jian, “Wader” (Bashezhe) by Jiao Zuyao, “Descendants of the Carpentry God” (Lu ban de
houyi) by Wang Runze, and “Black Boy Takes a Photo” (Heiwa zhaoxiang) by Zhang Yigong.

Hero worship in fictional works of urban reform

It is an observable fact that Literature of Reform idealizes the reform hero to the point of hero
worship. In a significant number of stories, the reform hero is a member of the higher manage-
rial echelon, taking up a commanding position, responsible for political, entrepreneurial or tech-
nological matters in a factory or industry. Qiao Guangpu in “Factory Manager Qiao Assumes
Office,” Li Xiangnan in “A New Star,” Fu Lianshan in “Troubles Arises” well as Zheng Ziyun in
“Leaden Wings” are examples of such iconic characters.
The idealized characterization of these heroes faintly recalls the politico-aesthetic “three
prominence principles” upheld as the sole guideline for literary creation during the Cultural
Revolution, one of which requires literary and artistic works to give prominence to the central
heroic character to make him stand out among other positive characters.5 The heroes in Litera-
ture of Reform are all well-educated and loyal Communist cadres. They are often described as
having an iron-wrist management style, rich professional expertise, a willingness to take up dif-
ficult tasks that others shy away from and an uncompromised courage to resist incorrect direc-
tives from the authorities.They are always ready to defy or find ways to circumvent unreasonable

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rules and practices. Lacking the patience to navigate complex personal and bureaucratic rela-
tionships, they often encounter resistance and make enemies in the course of their work, and
have to battle against the oppositional forces alone. As products of the literary imagination of the
Reform Era, these haloed characters are too good to be true. A notable example is Li Xiangnan,
the young secretary in “A New Star,” who manages to accomplish fourteen seemingly impos-
sible assignments for his county in a month.
These characters, however, embody the spirit of what Deng Xiaoping envisioned in his call
for “the new socialist man” in the literature of the New Era. According to his “Speech Greeting
the Fourth Congress of Chinese Writers and Artists,” the mission of the writers of the New Era
is to create true-to-life characters of reform pioneers who are able to uphold the socialist ideol-
ogy in the pursuit of the Four Modernizations. The “new socialist man,” according to Deng,
should be good at educating people with ideas of contributing to the nation. He is an indefati-
gable warrior fighting for the victory of the reform, undaunted by the hostile environment in
which he might find himself. His credentials as a reform hero are confirmed by his leadership
position and his unwavering loyalty to the Party.
The focus on the sharp-minded reform hero who ensures the success of the reform accounts
for the uniformity of the plot of most of Literature of Reform. Li Xiangnan in “A New Star”
and Qiao Guangpu, in “Factory Manager Qiao Assumes Office” recall Judge Bao, a historical
figure who has entered the popular imagination as a righteous official who is able to overcome
bureaucratic obstacles in the course of serving justice. In the first story, Li, the young Commu-
nist cadre, is hailed by his people as Judge Bao within the first month of his assumption of office.
Likewise, in the ending scene of the second story, Qiao Guangpu comes onto the stage during a
Peking Opera performance dressed as Judge Bao, symbolizing the role he plays throughout the
story as someone who serve the reform with diligence, ingenuity, and loyalty.
Qiao is formerly the director of a company who voluntarily takes up the lower-rank posi-
tion as the manager of an electrical machinery plant that suffers from a decline in morale and
productivity. In an attempt to revive the plant, he puts in place unprecedented measures of
reform. Some of these measures are inspired by foreign practices. Qiao receives his educa-
tion in the Soviet Union in the 1950s, a clear acknowledgement of the Soviet influence in
his management. In the story, he also expresses preference for foreign industrial and manage-
rial style, as he explicitly shows his approval of the professional skill and energy of the young
West German technician. The story begins with an extract from the notes of Qiao’s speech, in
which he indicates his sympathy with the capitalist work ethics where efficiency and time are
highly valued. “Time and production figures have life,” he writes, “They have feelings. They
belong to you if you show them your whole-hearted pursuit.”6 In a somewhat back-handed
way, then, Qiao attempts to introduce capitalistic practices in the management of a state-owned
enterprise. Qiao also compares the unsatisfactory output of his own plant with that of Hitachi’s
in an oblique way to reveal a feeling of urgency that undergirds the need to “catch up” in the
discourse of modernization.7
Qiao appears most ill-suited in a place where the guanxi type of nepotism runs rampant,
and has a hard time relating to his subordinates. To them, he is aloof and unsociable, when, for
example, he refuses the cigarette that they offer him as a friendly gesture. His outspokenness
also indicates that he is negligent of the much-cherished code of “face” (mianzi), which requires
people to take special pains to make others feel that they are not intentionally or unintentionally
snubbed or disgraced. Soon after he assumes office, Qiao conducts a surprise examination on
professional knowledge which all employees are required to take. Several “permanent” employ-
ees fail the examination, including Ji Shen, the former manager.They are subsequently demoted
and replaced by those who are more capable. The other part of Qiao’s “reform surgery” is the

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merit-based promotion system, which makes him even less popular among his staff and leads to
sabotage in the plant.
It can then be seen that the reform hero has to contend with a hostile environment where
factional rivalry, sloppy supervision, shoddy professional training, poor work ethic, unchecked
power abuse and nepotism are rampant. These malaises are common during the early years of
reform, and many literary works at this time choose to focus on them.
Perry Link argues that being active supporters of the economic reform policies, the reform
heroes are given certain lee-way to expose the dark side of process of realizing the Four Mod-
ernizations, but only to a degree deemed acceptable by the Party leadership.8 For the writers,
it became a difficult act of careful balance to write honestly about the problems of reform and
yet manage to stay within the permissible confines. This probably explains why many choose
to couch the conflicts in the story in terms of personal oppositions between the hero who
supports the reform and the villain who does not. As a result, the reform hero and the reform
saboteur appear in pairs in works of Literature of Reform: Qiao Guangpu and Ji Shen in “Fac-
tory Manager Qiao Assumes Office,” Li Xiangnan and Gu Rong in “A New Star,” and Liu Zhao
and Ding Xiao in “No. 5 Garden Street.” The villains are often portrayed as throwing bureau-
cratic hurdles onto the road of modernization, causing the heroes endless problems. In “Factory
Manager Qiao Assumes Office,” Ji Shen, the former factory manager, plots against his successor
Qiao Guangpu. In “Trouble Arises,” Fu Lianshan’s reform actions are constantly obstructed by
the factional cadres of the Jiajin region where he is assigned to take charge of the hydroelectric
construction. Due to the negligence of the professionally incompetent local cadres, Fu fails to
prevent the explosion of a power plant. For this accident, he is put on trial. While overcoming
bureaucratic management is the prime concern for the reform hero, it is often the removal of a
villainous character from the story that paves the way for the success of the reform.

Fictional works of rural reform

With its realistic portrayal of the life of the ordinary people, Literature of Reform holds up a
mirror to the society under transformation in the Reform Era. This is true of the stories set in
urban industrial plants as much as in villages in the rural regions where agricultural reform has
led to important changes in the life of peasants. The improvement of people’s living standard
and the restructuring of economic production are the two common themes of literature of rural
reform. The educated among the peasants often find themselves in the vanguard of the mod-
ernization efforts. Golden Dog in Jia Pingwa’s “Turbulence” and Gao Jialin in Lu Yao’s “Human
Life” are two prominent examples. They take the lead in changing the rural economy by bring-
ing in modern agricultural and manufacturing equipment as well as management and market-
ing ideas and practices. In Jia Pingwa’s “The People of Chicken Nest Hollow,” for example, He
He is the first in his village to install household electrical appliances. At the end of the story, he
becomes a successful entrepreneur, a much-admired figure in the village.
In the Reform Era, rural residents are exposed to urban lifestyles in ways unimagined before.
They venture out to towns, where they learn the ways of the city folks. The newly acquired
knowledge becomes a frame of references with which they begin to fashion their own life. In
Zhang Yigong’s “Black Boy Takes a Photo,” the flamboyant peasant Black Boy spends 3.8 yuan
out of the total 8.4 yuan that he makes from his sideline production on a photo-shoot where
he dresses up in rented Western suit, something that he has never done before. Immersed in the
joyful imagination of his future gain, Black Boy is confident that he will be able to afford the
Western outfit in two years’ time. Black Boy’s longing for a western suit can be read as the way
people in the rural regions understand modernization. Similar to Manager Qiao who strives to

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“catch up with the West” in productivity, the heroes in literature of rural reform also reveal their
sense of urgency. Black Boy’s way of catching up with the west is to dress up like a westerner.
The key to agricultural reform lies in a household-based system of contracted responsibility9
that links remuneration to output and the inauguration of the free rural market. In many of his
works, Gao Xiaosheng tracks the life paths of his characters, such as Li Shunda and Chen Huan-
sheng, against the major socio-political events in contemporary China.10 In a series of stories
about Chen Huansheng that he published after 1980, Gao depicts how his main character suc-
cessfully rids himself of the humiliating title “Master of the ‘Hopper House’ ” thanks to the 1978
settlement of the quota system of grain production, purchase and marketing. As the government
opened free market to the peasants and allowed them to engage in sideline production, Chen
is able to earn extra income by selling fried dough in town. His most significant adventure in
town is a chance encounter with the party secretary of the county committee, which makes him
a celebrity in the eyes of his villagers, who now believes that Chen would become their way to
power and influence. Responding to the official call for agricultural reform, Chen’s commune
promotes the agricultural responsibility production system.Yet, Chen remains ambivalent about
the reform: Doesn’t the contracted responsibility system go against the collectivist Party line?
The doubt does not prevent Chen from becoming a successful businessman though. Never in
his life could Chen imagine that his success would be broadcast overseas as a model story of
China’s reform, which leads to his later adventures outside of China.
Other reform works examine the tensions between the rising market liberalism and the
waning traditional morality in the post-Mao rural society. The former is associated with the
overweening drive for profit while the latter is concerned with quality and integrity. In Wang
Runze’s ‘Descendants of the Carpentry God,” the honest and upright father carpenter clings to
his traditional techniques and attaches great importance to the quality of his products and the
credibility of the name of the family business. His shrewd adopted son, on the other hand, makes
a fortune out of his fashionable yet poorly made furniture. To maintain the lasting honor of his
carpenter family, the father has to compensate his son’s customers by fixing the low-quality
furniture that comes from his son’s workshop.
In 1981, the CCP launched the “Spiritual Purification Campaign” and Bai Hua’s film script
“Bitter Love” came under attack. The official control over the literary and artistic circles slowly
tightened. By 1984, writers were exhorted to tone down their discussions of political and social
issues. Under such circumstances, Chinese writers turned introspective and directed their energy
to what is later known as Literature of Root-seeking.The Literature of Reform gradually faded
out of the picture.

Literature of root-seeking
The mid-1980s saw a sea-change in the scene of Chinese literary and artistic world. The out-
standing efforts of Li Zehou and Liu Zaifu in depoliticizing culture and remolding human
subjectivity were hailed as a courageous challenge to CCP’s orthodox literary thoughts by
Chinese intellectuals, who, in turn, launched their own exploration of humanistic values.11 Liu,
in particular, urges writers and artists to prioritize human subjectivity in their reflection on the
Chinese tradition.12 Against such a background, Literature of Root-seeking appeared as a liter-
ary trend, directing its efforts to an enthusiastic quest for the essence of Chinese culture and a
reassessment of China’s past.
Literature of Root-seeking has a complicated genealogy as it owes its inspirations to a wide
variety of sources. Harking as far back as to the nativism of the May Fourth movement in
the 1920s, the more immediate inspiration for the root-seeking movement is nevertheless to

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be found in Wang Zengqi’s 1982 article, “Return to Realistic Language, Return to National
Tradition,” (Huidao xianshi zhuyi, huidao minzu chuantong) which holds in high regard social
customs and cultural tradition. Wang’s two stories, “Initiation” and “Stories of the Big Sur,” are
his literary attempts in exploring the relevance of traditional culture in today’s world. In the
same year, Gao Xingjian published a pamphlet titled “First Exploration of Modern Fiction,”
introducing for the first time modern consciousness into the discussion of national culture.
Root-seeking as a concept slowly came to crystallization in the correspondence between the
Daur writer Li Tuo and the Ewenki writer Wure Ertu in 1983, which touched upon a number
of key features of literary works composed in this genre. In their exchanges, Li Tuo acknowl-
edged his inspirations from Wang Zengqi and Deng Youmei, before expressing his heart-felt
wish to communicate with the Daur people in their native language. For his part, Wure Ertu
called for attention to the literature about the marginalized hinterland. In the 1984 Hangzhou
symposium on “Literature and Modernity: Review and Predictions,” the root-seeking mission
was made clear. The symposium concluded with a consensus among the participants to resort
to national culture (minzu wenhua) as a way to save the national spirit (minzu jingshen),13 which
affirmed the keyword “culture” as the focus of root-seeking movement. Many of the writers and
critics who participated in the symposium would later become the nucleus of the widespread
cultural fever.
Culture, as can been seen in the previous paragraph, can be used to refer to traditional, pri-
mordial, ethnic and marginalized ways of life, and writers of root-seeking literature drew their
materials from a wide variety of resources such as classical literature, ancient religion, philosophy,
history, folklores, and ethnography. Natural landscape, local customs and traditions uncontami-
nated by modern civilization also came within their purview. The root-seekers also mined and
critiqued what they called the sediments of national psyche and cultural heritage in contempo-
rary society in a quest for breakthroughs in philosophy and aesthetics.
Han Shaogong published the article “The Root of Literature” (Wenxue de gen) soon after
the 1984 Hangzhou Symposium. It took on the status of a manifesto of the root-seeking move-
ment. In this article, Han echoes the participants of the Hangzhou Symposium with his obser-
vation that “literature has its root,” which goes “deep in the soil of ethnic mythology.”14 A few
other theoretical discussions came out in the wake of Han’s article, including Ah Cheng (A
Cheng)’s “Culture Conditions of Humankind (Wenhua zhiyuezhe renlei),” Zheng Wanlong’s
“My Root (Wo de gen),” Li Hangyu’s “Let Us Untangle Our Roots (Li yi li womende gen),”
Zheng Yi’s “Bridging the Cultural Rupture (Kuayue wenhua duanliedai),” and Wang Anyi and
Chen Cun’s “Dialogue over Little Bao Village (Guanyu Xiaobaozhuang de duihua).”These theo-
retical articles clarify the mission of root-seeking, namely, to explore in depth the root of one’s
bountiful national culture, and to expand the literary horizon in a way that would allow Chinese
literature to enter into a dialogue with world literature.

Leading writers
The leading writers in Literature of Root-seeking include but are not restricted to the follow-
ing: Ah Cheng, Deng Youmei, Chen Jiangong, Han Shaogong, Jia Pingwa, Jiao Jian, Li Hangyu,
Mo Yan, Ma Yuan, Shi Tiesheng, Tashi Dawa (Zhaxi Dawa), Wang Anyi, Wang Meng, Wang
Zengqi, Wure Ertu, Zhang Chengzhi, Zheng Wanlong, Zhang Wei and others. A fair number of
them had experiences as educated youth in the rural regions. Having spent their youth in almost
total ignorance of traditional culture, they were now seized by an unstoppable urge to explore
what they consider to be the authentic Chinese culture, whose root is the very subject of their
intellectual quest.

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It should also be noted that the root-seeking writers of the 1980s came from different
ethnic backgrounds, and they wrote about a range of ethnic minorities and peoples from the
borderlands and remote areas. Some of the representative works are: Jia Pingwa’s essay-novels
on Southern Shaanxi in “Shangzhou:The First Chronicle, 1982” (Shangzhou chulu); Zheng Yi’s
works of fiction based on the Shanxi Province; Wure Ertu’s books on Ewenki hunting culture
of the Northeast; Hui-Muslim writer Zhang Chengzhi’s portrayal of the magnificent landscape
of the Central Asian landscape; and Tashi Dawa’s telling of the mysterious Tibetan folkways and
natural landscape of the Plateau. Whereas Li Hangyu depicts life in the Lower Yangtze River
Region in his “Series of the River Gechuan,” (Gechuanjiang xilie xiaoshuo) while Jiao Jian, Mo
Yan and Zhang Wei, re-acquaint their readers with Confucian culture in their writings about
townships in Shangdong. Ah Cheng turns his gaze onto the far-away Yunnan in his novellas,
“King of Chess” (Qiwang), “King of Tree” (Shuwang) and “King of the Children” (Haiziwang);
while Zheng Wanlong looks at Heilongjiang in his “Other Stories from Other Spaces.” (Yixiang
yiwen) Similarly, many of Feng Jicai’s stories are about the city of Tianjin; those of Chen Jian-
gong and Shi Tiesheng are about the Manchu lifestyles in the hutong alleys of Beijing; and Han
Shaogong’s representations of the mystic Chu culture convey a strong flavor of sorcery worship.

The root-seeking movement and western modernism

In “Let Us Untangle Our Roots,” Li Hangyu argues for an experimental blend of Western
modernism and Chinese traditional culture in contemporary Chinese literature. In response to
this call, root-seeking writers as a group were quick to borrow from a wide variety of Western
aesthetic concepts and literary techniques: the concept of beauty-in-real-life, exoticism and
populism in the works of Russian writers Nicolay Chernyshevsky, Georgi Plekhanov,Vissarion
Belinsky, Chingiz Aitmatov and Viktor Petrovich Astafyev, magical realism of South American
writers Garcia Marquez and Miguel Ángel Asturias, modernist fiction with East Asian char-
acteristics by Japanese writer Kawabata Yasunari, and writing techniques used by other Euro-
American writers like Franz Kafka, Milan Kundera, William Faulkner, and Ernest Hemingway.
Among the Chinese writers who assimilated foreign ideas and techniques of writing, Han
Shaogong, Zheng Yi and Ah Cheng found inspirations from the works of William Faulkner
and Garcia Marquez in their depiction of regional customs and lifestyles. While they took their
source-materials from unofficial history, folklores and mythology, they blended traditional Chi-
nese writing techniques with western surrealism, symbolism, and allegory. Their acceptance of
western modernism in the 1980s coincided with their quest for new artistic forms and a new
understanding of the self. Other writers readily adopted Western modernist ideas and techniques
such as magical realism, narrative shift, and stream of consciousness, at a time when the influx of
foreign modernist literature gave rise to stylistic and artistic innovations.
Han Shaogong’s root-seeking fiction provides adequate examples of the Chinese literary
experiment with magical realism. His stories are often set in the thickly wooded area of the
Miluo County of Hunan, where he spent his early years as a rusticated youth. These stories
about the mysterious Chu culture forge a surrealistic ambiance with the grotesque, enigmatic,
and sometimes barbaric elements. Such is the milieu in which Han puts forth his critique
of Chinese culture. Two of his stories, “Father Father Father” (Bababa) and “Woman Woman
Woman” (Nününü) published in 1985 and 1986, will be analyzed below.
Han’s root-seeking fictions often appear to be obscure in their ideological position. “Father
Father Father” is set in the secluded hinterland that is hit by a severe drought. Rounds of bloody
conflicts over a certain superstitious practice break out between the Chicken Head village and
the neighboring village.The Chicken Head Village loses in the fights. Following their legendary

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ancestors’ example, the frustrated villagers vacate the village and set out to relocate in another
place.Young Bing, the mentally retarded protagonist who lived in Chicken Head Village, is aban-
doned by its people in their move. Critics often regard Young Bing as an Ah-Quesque figure that
symbolizes the blemished Chinese national character. The unsympathetic portrayal of Chinese
culture foregrounds Young Bing’s awkward, complex and ambiguous relationships with the self
and the world. In the eyes of his fellow villagers, Young Bing oscillates between life and death
on the one hand, and marginality and centrality on the other. His mental sluggishness and his
occasional oblivion to his own sufferings parallel his lack of autonomy, as evidenced by his ina-
bility to control his body and his speech (he can only utter two phrases: “papa” and the obscene
“f – mama”). The lack of a father, which is one of the reasons of his suffering, also reinforces a
sense of helplessness in him.Young Bing’s awkward relationship with the world results from his
physical and mental dislocation of time. He is called the “living fossil” in the story, which refers
to the tenacity with which he holds onto life. He has, in a sense, escaped the dictates of time.
After his birth,Young Bing shows no sign of life for three days.When he is about to be given up
as a sacrifice in the heaven worship ritual, a sudden clap of thunder awakes him and brings him
back to life. The presiding sorcerer declares that it is a revelation of Young Bing’s immortality.
During the famine, the old and weak in the village, including Young Bing, attempt to end their
lives by self-poisoning. While others die, he alone survives. No one can tell how old he is. His
mother keeps telling people that he is thirteen and Young Bing looks every way like a child.The
agelessness of the protagonist is underscored by the missing chronological reference in the story.
In this light,Young Bing has no memory of the self and the surrounding, let alone awareness of
the flow of time.
The signification of the self in Han’s story displays another dimension of the crisis of sub-
jectivity. Young Bing is incapable of making sense of the self. He is in turn marginalized and
lionized by his people. The stupidity and ignorance of the villagers are reflected by their dra-
matic worship of Young Bing. When they turn to divination for a glimpse of the outcome of
the impending dispute with the neighboring village, the superstitious villagers find Young Bing’s
utterance “f – mama” an accurate prediction of their defeat. Young Bing is thus worshipped as
“Immortal Bing” and his two utterances are read as oracles for yin and yang.
Han’s other celebrated work “Woman Woman Woman” examines how actions of the indi-
vidual can threaten the survival of the self and others. The protagonist of the story is the half-
deaf and childless Aunt Yao, a victim of the outmoded tradition and radical ideology. The role of
her subjectivity in the unfolding of her life is most unclear, as she fluctuates between selflessness
and self-centeredness, good and evil. In her early years, Aunt Yao is a faithful Communist work-
ing selflessly in emulation of the Communist model Jiao Yulu. She is devoted to the welfare
of others while neglecting that of her own. She willfully suppresses every bit of her individual
desire. Her half-deafness is an allegorical reference to her lack of individuality and autonomy,
which is amply shown by her subservience to the official discourse where collectivism, not indi-
vidualism, is highly glorified. Aunt Yao rejects anything that is modern, including the hearing
aid which would greatly improve her life. Rather, she hoards what other people throw out, in
particular, bottles and papers, and regards them as treasures. Such an unusual behavior symbol-
izes the continuation of the stagnant and residual tradition in her.Without a child of her own to
support her, she lives with the family of her nephew (the narrator), again selflessly taking up the
house work. The status of her dependence further intensifies her lack of autonomy.
Aunt Yao’s selflessness makes an about-face to selfishness when she is recovering from a
sudden stroke. She indulges herself and demands endless attention from people around her.
Annoyed, the nephew put her under the care of her sworn sister in the countryside. During her
last days, Aunt Yao metamorphoses into an ape, and then to a fish, signifying the gradual loss of

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humanity in a process of self-destruction. Like Young Bing, Aunt Yao is never able to express the
trauma in her life, even in her own language. The death of Aunt Yao is as murky as the obscure
attitude of the author. Mischievously, Han perplexes his readers even more in saying that as far
as Aunt Yao is concerned, “There are no final opinions.”15
These two stories, “Father Father Father” and ‘Woman Woman Woman,” center on the mys-
tery of human subjectivity, a common theme in modernist novels. “Father Father Father” is
inspired, as the author acknowledges, by Faulkner’s “Sound and Fury,” while “Woman Woman
Woman” calls to mind Franz Kafka’s “Metamorphosis.”16 As Rong Cai points out, the defective
subjects of these two stories, robbed of their self-awareness and autonomy, symbolize the cultural
defects which jeopardize the post-Mao reconstruction of the subject.17 As allegorical figures,
they allow Han to voice his confusion and anxiety over the crisis of subjectivity in a period of
rapid social transformations.

Quest for the roots in Chinese culture

Garcia Marquez’s award of the Nobel Prize of Literature in 1982 gave Chinese root-seeking
writers a psychological boost, as if their literary experimentations had been finally vindicated.
The extensive use of modern western literary techniques, however, should not blind one to
the fact that Literature of Root-seeking is in the end an exercise in reexamination of Chinese
culture. Invigorated by the world’s recognition of the achievement of a third world writer,Wang
Anyi stepped up her pursuit of “our own narrative style” in her “Liutown” (Da liu zhuang) and
“Baotown” (Xiao bao zhuang).The two novellas are based on Wang’s experience as an educated
youth at Anhui Province, and depict the interpersonal relationships she finds in these two small
backwater towns. The Confucian notions of benevolence (ren), propriety (li), filial piety (xiao)
and righteousness (yi) are well illustrated by the villagers’ pride in their ancestors, and more
importantly, by the action of the much-glorified young boy Laozha (“scoop up the dregs”) in
“Baotown” who dies in saving a senior villager.
In the same vein, Ah Cheng’s search for authentic Han Chinese cultural roots is found in
the meeting of Taoist and Zen Buddhist philosophies. In particular, the primordial and natural
Taoist simplicity is often addressed in terms of human behaviors as well as the unity of man and
nature. The latter point is addressed in “King of Trees,” The title of the story refers to both the
legendary gigantic tree, called the tree king in the story, and the skillful woodman Knotty Xiao
who proves himself worthy of serving as the guardian of the legendary tree. Here, reciprocal
interaction between man and nature is made evident: the legendary “tree king” brings joie de
vivre to Knotty Xiao, while Xiao strives with every effort to prevent the educated youth from
chopping it down for the purpose of socialist construction. Soon after the fall of the “tree king,”
Xiao dies and at his request, his coffin is buried at the site the felled tree. His wordless resistance
against the official ideology and discourse of Anti-Four Olds and the anti-Taoist slogan, “Man
can conquer nature,” is symbolized by the patch of white flowers that blooms vigorously from
where he is buried, “like the white bones exposed in dismembered limbs.”18
Ah Cheng’s achievement in root-seeking literature is illustrated in his meticulous depictions
of basic survival needs. This is a reminder of the root-seeking writers’ worldly approach to the
mundane life, daily necessities of food, clothes, and housing, social customs and rituals, as well as
moments of joy and sorrow. In “King of Chess,” Wang Yisheng devotes his life to chess-playing
and the search of worthy opponents. He wins the famed title of “King of Chess” by his philoso-
phy of chess that combines the Zen notion that the “everyday mind is the Way” and the Taoist
ideas of non-action and ultimate freedom, both of which are celebrated as the quintessence

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of the Chinese tradition. The spirit of Zen finds its reflection in the oft-quoted description of
Wang Yisheng’s attentiveness in eating, his only obsession apart from chess-playing:

When I realized that he was very interested in food I used to watch him when he was
eating. . . . Hearing the banging of aluminum lunchboxes as the people in front took
their meals, he always closed his eyes, his mouth tightly shut as if he felt a little nau-
seous. When he got his meal, he began to eat straight away. He ate very fast, his Adam’s
apple contracting, the muscles on his face all tensed up. Often he’d stop suddenly, and
very carefully, using the full length of his forefinger, he’d push into his mouth a few
grains of rice and oily globs of soup around his mouth or chin. If a grain of rice fell
on his clothes, he’d straight away press it with his finger and pop it into his mouth. If
it didn’t stick to his finger and fell from his clothes on to the floor, then immediately
keeping his feet still he’d bend down to get it. If at this point he’d happen to meet my
glance, he’d slow down.When he finished eating, after licking his chopsticks clean, he’d
fill up the lunchbox with water, suck up the oily layer on top, and then, with an air of
having safely reached shore, he would sip the rest in small sips. . .
He was very reverent and also very meticulous about eating. Sometimes you could
feel sorry for the rice, which he ate down to the very last scrap – it was really a bit
inhuman.19

The attentiveness of Wang Yisheng on the minutiae of everyday life may remind the read-
ers of a transcendent spirit, which is a highly valued in traditional Chinese culture. As Xiaobin
Yang observes, the cultural resistance to the powerful discourse of grand history is expressed
through representing people’s original mind and basic behaviors and the transcendence of real
conflicts and sufferings in historical experiences.20 In Ah Cheng’s other acclaimed story “King
of Children,” Wang Fu the young boy also embodies a similar transcendent spirit in his genuine
pursuit of knowledge.
Apart from eating, Wang Yisheng in “King of Chess” shows no interest in material fulfil-
ments and remains indifferent to other mundane activities in life. He is obsessed with the game
of chess and enjoys every moment of playing it. His idiosyncrasies make him a laughing stock,
and he is mocked for being slow-witted, in addition to lacking the most basic social skills. It is
worth noting that Wang bears the honor of “King of Chess” not only for his almost superhu-
man talent in chess playing but also in reference to his nickname “Chess Fool.”These seemingly
contradictory traits are clear indications of his embodiment of the Taoist idea of non-action, the
inter-connection of man and nature, and harmonious co-existence of the oppositional forces,
as he is described exemplifying the saying: “a man of great wisdom often hides himself behind
a mask of idiocy.”
Mo Yan’s “Red Sorghum Series” (Honggaoliang xilie) is widely considered to be the coda of
the Literature of Root-seeking. Mo Yan’s family saga, filled with the heroic and romantic adven-
tures of “My Grandfather” and “My Grandmother” in the period of the tumultuous national
disasters, narrates a story of self-retrospection by “us unfilial descendants,” giving the narrator
“a nagging sense of our specie’s regression.”21 This sense of uneasiness echoes Han Shaogong’s
anxiety over his antihero Young Bing. Literature of Root-seeking could have produced more
penetrating and thought-provoking examination of Chinese culture, but by mid-1980s, the
Chinese government launched a campaign against Western liberalism.The trend of root-seeking
declined and ended around late 1980s. For all the introspective work the root-seeking writers
have done during this period, fundamental root-seeking questions such as what constitutes the

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roots of Chinese culture and how the cultural roots have shaped modern life remain unan-
swered, perhaps because these are the fundamental questions that each generation is required to
answer in relation to its own time and circumstances.

Notes
1 The four cardinal principles include adherence to first, the socialist road; second, people’s democratic
dictatorship; third, the leadership of the Communist Party; fourth, Marxism Leninism and Mao Zedong
thought.
2 “Reform” refers to internal vitalizations in economic structures and industrial, agricultural, rural and
urban reform. “Opening-up” includes external opening-up, especially in the set-up of Special Eco-
nomic Zones.
3 A New Star was adapted into 12-episode TV drama for nationwide television broadcast in 1986.
4 “The hopper” is a humiliating title for the long-term debtor in the village.
5 The principles include, “give prominence to the positive characters; among the positive characters,
give prominence to main heroic characters; among the main heroic characters, give prominence to
the most important character, namely, the central character.” Quoted from Yizhong Gu, “The Three
Prominence,” in Ban Wang, ed., Words and Their Stories: Essays on the Language of the Chinese Revolution
(Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011), 283.
6 Jiang Zilong, Selected Stories by Jiang Zilong (Beijing: Chinese Literature Press, Foreign Language Teach-
ing and Research Press, 1999), 235.
7 Kam Louie, “In Search of Socialist Capitalism and Chinese Modernization: Jiang Zilong’s Ideas on
Industrial Management,” in Between Fact and Fiction: Essays on Post-Mao Chinese Literature (Broadway:
Wild Peony, 1989), 40.
8 Eugene Perry Link, The Uses of Literature: Life in the Socialist Chinese Literary System (Princeton: Prince-
ton University Press, 2000), 159.
9 The household-based system of contracted responsibility was launched in rural China in early 1980s.
The system allows rural households to contract surplus productions in free markets once national or
collective quotas are met.
10 Hong Zicheng, A History of Chinese Contemporary Literature, trans. Michael M. Day (Leiden and Boston:
Brill, 2007), 305.
11 Liu Kang, “Subjectivity, Marxism and Cultural Theory in China,” Social Text (1992), no.31/32, 115–121.
12 Liu Kang, “Subjectivity, Marxism and Cultural Theory in China,” 133. See also: Liu Zaifu, “Three Dis-
coveries of Humanity in Modern Chinese Literature,” (Zhongguo xiandai wenxue shi shang dui ren
de san ci faxian), in Selected Essays of Liu Zaifu (Liu Zaifu ji) (Harbin: Heilongjiang jiaoyu chubanshe,
1988), 225–237; Liu Zaifu, “Human Thoughts Should be Treated with Prime Importance in Literary
Studies,” (Wenxue yanjiu ying yi ren wei siwei zhongxin) in Selected Essays of Liu Zaifu (Liu Zaifu
lunwen xuan) (Hong Kong: Good Earth Publishing Co.Ltd.,1986), 230–239.
13 Li Qingxi, “Searching for Roots: Anticultural Return to Mainland Chinese Literature in the 1980s,” in
Pang-Yuan Chi and David Der-wei Wang, eds., Chinese Literature in the Second Half of a Modern Century:
A Critical Survey (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2000), 111.
14 Han Shaogong, “Root of Literature,” (Wenxue de gen), http://oldkas.upol.cz/PDF/Han_Shaogong_
Wenxuedegen.pdf/. Accessed November 28, 2016.
15 Li Qingxi, “Searching for Roots: Anticultural Return to Mainland Chinese Literature in the 1980s,”
113–114.
16 Apart from Marquez, Kafka and Faulkner, Han also acknowledged the inspirations from Hemingway,
Joyce, Clavino, the French “New Novel School” and Kawabata Yasunari. See Han Shaogong, “After
the ‘Literature of the Wounded’: Local Culture, Roots, Maturity, and Fatigue,” in Helmut Martin, ed.,
Modern Chinese Writers: Self-Portrayals (New York: M.E.Sharpe, 1992), 149.
17 Rong Cai, The Subject in Crisis in Contemporary Chinese Literature (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,
2004), 61.
18 Ah Cheng,“The King of Trees,” in Three Kings:Three Stories from Today’s China, trans. Bonnie S. McDou-
gall (London: Collins Harvill & Grafton Street, 1990), 153.
19 Ah Cheng, “The King of Chess,” in Three Kings: Three Stories from Today’s China, trans. Bonnie S.
McDougall (London: Collins Harvill & Grafton Street, 1990), 39–40.

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20 Xiaobin Yang, The Chinese Postmodern:Trauma and Irony in Chinese Avant-Garde Fiction (Ann Arbor: The
University of Michigan Press, 2002), 36, 220–221.
21 Mo Yan, “Red Sorghum,” in Red Sorghum: A Novel of China, trans. Howard Goldblatt (New York: Pen-
guin Books, 1993), 4.

Further readings
Ah Cheng. Three Kings: Three Stories from Today’s China. Translated by Bonnie S. McDougall. London: Col-
lins Harvill & Grafton Street, 1990.
Cai, Rong. The Subject in Crisis in Contemporary Chinese Literature. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,
2004.
Duke, Michael S. Blooming and Contending: Chinese Literature in the Post-Mao Era. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1985.
Han Shaogong. Homecoming? Translated by Martha Cheung. Hong Kong: Renditions Paperbacks, 1992.
Jia Pingwa. Turbulence. Translated by Howard Goldblatt. Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State Uni-
versity Press, 1987.
Louie, Kam. Between Fact and Fiction: Essays on Post-Mao Chinese Literature. Broadway, NSW: Wild Peony,
1989.
Wagner, Rudolf G. Inside a Service Trade: Studies in Contemporary Chinese Prose. Cambridge, MA and London:
Harvard University Press, 1992.
Wang Anyi. Baotown. Translated by Martha Avery. New Nork: W.W. Norton & Company, 1989.
Zhang Jie. Leaden Wings. Translated by Gladys Yang. London:Virago Press, 1987.

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 34
FILMS OF REFLECTION
AND NATIVITY
Yanjie Wang

The cinematic trends of reflection and nativity

Chinese cinema regained its vitality in the wake of the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) and
picked up momentum in the 1980s, an era marked by economic reform, modernization, and
liberation of ideas. Breaking free from a decade of ideological repression and artistic dogmatism,
filmmakers of different generations responded to socio-political changes, taking advantage of
their relative freedom to reflect on recent Chinese history and explore innovative cinematic
techniques. Key to their inquiry were the following questions: What had gone wrong in the
socialist revolution? What could be done to make the nation and people’s lives better? Two
major trends emerged during this period: the cinema of reflection and that of nativity. Although
these two trends expressed common concerns of the post-Mao era, the cinema of reflection
focused more on the historical forces that led up to the traumatic revolutionary past, whereas
the cinema of nativity intended to excavate the deep-seated cultural factors that formed China,
Chinese history, and socialist politics.
The cinema of reflection was characterized by its rediscovery of humanity and reassertion
of humanistic values. If films made immediately following the Cultural Revolution still largely
dwelled on the exposure of past sufferings and pains, films of reflection moved from emotional
catharsis to deeper problems of the Mao era.These films identified the issue of the past as being,
first and foremost, a contempt for human nature and humanism. Under the prevailing shadow
of the ultra-leftist politics, humanism, humanity, and human desires were deprived of value, rec-
ognition, and respect. Instead, class identity became the sole criterion of a person’s worth, deter-
mining his or her social status and relationships. Films such as The Legend of Tianyun Mountain
(Tianyunshan chuanqi, 1980), A Love-Forsaken Corner (Bei aiqing yiwang de jiaoluo, 1981), and
At Middle Age (Ren dao zhongnian, 1982) represent a keen desire to reinstate humanism, “not
as an abstract concept but as a material force affecting people’s daily life with all its emotional
and political impact.”1 These films’ call for humanism harks back to the May Fourth tradition,
in which self and subjectivity were elevated and enthusiastically celebrated. Ordinary people’s
experiences, as well as their struggles with livelihood, love, marriage and family, gained new
representation. The shift to these subjects evident in the cinema of reflection contributed to the
revival of the human spirit in the post-Mao era.

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The cinema of nativity manifested itself as an endeavor to re-examine Chinese culture

through a return to the customs and mores of local regions. However, it would be misleading to
call it a total embrace of time-honored traditions and ancient myths. Rather, these films at once
“emphasize their staying power while subjecting them to a radical interrogation.”2 Instead of
providing easy answers, these films spurred more questions and further thinking, and constituted
a major force in the culture fever of the 1980s. Significantly, the cinema of nativity marked the
rise of the Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers, including Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou, and
Tian Zhaungzhuang, most of whom grew up during the Cultural Revolution and graduated
from the Beijing Film Academy in 1982. These graduates depicted local cultures in films such
as Yellow Earth (Huang tudi, 1984) and Red Sorghum (Hong gaoliang, 1987), presenting stories
of life in rural areas of China’s provinces. Such depictions symbolically defied the Communist
regime’s arbitrary suppression of tradition. More than a political criticism, the cinema of nativity
also revealed paradoxical attitudes of these directors toward modernism that swept China in the
mid-1980s. Jettisoning traditional methods of storytelling and filmic aesthetics, these younger
directors enthusiastically adopted modernist approaches, favoring ambiguous symbolism and
evocative imagery.Yet, their adoption of modernist techniques coexisted with an intense anxi-
ety about Western influence and native identity. Returning to their native soil and interrogating
their own culture allowed filmmakers to overcome the identity crisis provoked by Westerniza-
tion in the 1980s.

Xie Jin: life and achievements

Xie Jin (1923–2008) was a major force in the cinematic trend of reflection in the 1980s, whose
work placed him among the most remarkable directors in the history of Chinese cinema. Born
into a prominent family in Shangyu, Zhejiang province, Xie Jin grew up during the Japanese
invasion of the 1930s. This experience instilled in him a strong sense of patriotism. In 1941 he
enrolled in the Sichuan Jiang’an National Theatre Academy, studying with pioneering dramatists
such as Cao Yu, Hong Shen, and Jiao Juyin. In 1946, after the War of Resistance against Japan,
Xie resumed his study at the National Drama Institute in Nanjing, majoring in directing. He
entered the Datong Film Corporation after graduation, working as an assistant director, and
eventually became a director at Shanghai Film Studio.
Xie’s initial success stemmed from his ability to combine melodrama with socialist content,
making his films popular both with audiences and with the Communist Party. He gained his
fame through his 1956 feature, Woman Basketball Player No. 5 (Nulan wuhao). The first color
sports movie made in mainland China, this film blended melodramatic themes of love, separa-
tion and reunion with political messages of national pride and the superiority of the socialist sys-
tem. This film, as Michael Berry notes, “also marked the beginning of Xie’s interest in women’s
films and strong female characters.”3
Xie’s notable films of the 1960s included The Red Detachment of Women (Hongse niangzijun,
1960) and Two Stage Sisters (Wutai jiemei, 1965), both of which continued to focus on female
protagonists, who liberated themselves from feudal oppression through revolutionary struggle
on the battlefield or through art. The Red Detachment of Women won the Best Picture and Best
Director awards at China’s first Hundred Flowers Awards in 1962. The finely crafted epic Two
Stage Sisters would have been a pinnacle of his career, but the outbreak of the Cultural Revolu-
tion led to its being severely criticized and Xie’s being denounced.
In the 1980s, Xie Jin regained his prominence by making films critical of the Cultural Revo-
lution while rehashing his familiar mix of melodrama and politics – what Nick Browne terms

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 Yanjie Wang

“political melodrama.”4 From 1980 to 1986, Xie Jin finished his so-called reflective trilogy,
including The Legend of Tianyun Mountain (1980), The Herdsman (Muma ren, 1984) and Hibiscus
Town (Furong zhen, 1986). Employing a realistic style, these films reflected common people’s
lives and feelings under socialist rule at different moments in Chinese socialist history. Though
his patriotism remained unchanged, Xie’s representation of politics tempered its previous revo-
lutionary zeal and became more reflective.Yingjin Zhang notes that “contrary to the majority of
his contemporaries, who vented anger at the Gang of Four, Xie was courageous enough to push
the censorship limits by skillfully integrating a political message into a melodramatic representa-
tion.”5 Instead of casting indiscriminate blame on the Gang of Four, Xie’s films of this period
voiced criticism of erroneous Party polices and continuous mass campaigns.
The Legend of Tianyun Mountain touched upon the sensitive topic of the Anti-Rightist Move-
ment, revealing the inhuman persecution of intellectuals and the pain it caused. Adopting a
unique perspective, this film is narrated by three female characters, all of whom bear witness to
historical wrongs. Adapted from Zhang Xianliang’s short story “Soul and Body” (Ling yu rou),
The Horseman condemned the notorious blood lineage theory,6 which drives the persecution
of the male protagonist. The political victim, however, finds refuge, marriage and family in the
warmth of local herdsmen on the grassland where he is exiled. Considered one of Xie Jin’s mas-
terpieces, Hibiscus Town delves into a much deeper and more daring study of human nature and
social deformation. It stands as a document of the trauma inflicted on individuals and society by
leftist ideology during the Cultural Revolution.
Although Xie Jin was soon overshadowed by the younger directors of the Fifth Generation
on the international stage, his films continued to be immensely popular in China throughout
the 1980s. Xie continued to work into his seventies, and was the first mainland Chinese member
of both the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Director’s Guild of America.

The masterpiece: Hibiscus Town

Hibiscus Town offers one of the most critical looks at China’s socialist history. Adapted from Gu
Hua’s eponymous novel, it tells the change of fortunes of ordinary people in a small border
town before and after the Cultural Revolution. The female protagonist Hu Yuyin, a beautiful
and kindhearted woman, runs a streetside bean curd business with her husband Guigui. Their
hard work earns them some money to build a new house. This new house, however, brings
them curses instead of blessings. During the Four Clean-ups Movement,7 they are classified
as New Rich Peasants; their house is confiscated and Guigui is driven to his death. Hu Yuyin
is sent to sweep streets every morning with the Rightist Qin Shutian, nicknamed Crazy Qin.
Both ostracized, they help each other and gradually fall in love. Their petition to marry after
Qin impregnates Hu irritates the local cadre, who sentences Qin to ten years in prison. Qin is
rehabilitated after the Cultural Revolution and reunites with Hu and their son. At the end of
the film Hu and Qin reopen the bean curd shop. This epic account of the years between 1963
to 1979 makes one ponder what socialist ideology and its attendant movements really brought
to the Chinese people and what facts and values were distorted by them.
Most scholars focus their analyses of Hibiscus Town on its melodramatic representation. Paul
Pickowicz discusses how Xie Jin takes advantage of the conventions of melodrama to “meet the
psychological needs of an emotionally drained and politically battered film audience”8 while
becoming captive to the genre itself, which proposes a binary division between good and evil.
Ma Ning focuses on the spatial positioning of female characters, noting how the director relies
on cultural codes of patriarchy to represent the reigning socialist power structure.9 Commenting
on the intersection between self and society reflected in this film, Nick Browne points out how

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melodrama’s element of moral evaluation connects the private and public realms, being the basis
upon which one’s sexual and political engagements are judged.10
Though they emphasize different directorial choices, these scholars all criticize the reduc-
tive polarization of characters and the orthodox political message Xie Jin conveys. Departing
from their conclusions, I contend that Hibiscus Town is more politically subversive and reflective
than they have assumed. Hibiscus Town depicts a social reality that is exactly the opposite of what
socialist ideals promote, questioning the familiar rhetoric that deems the Communist Party
savior of the oppressed. Divorcing itself from the ideology of class struggle, this film creates a
humanist space that redefines the categories of human and nonhuman. Not only does the film
critique Maoist excesses, it also fundamentally cautions against blind faith in political power and
unclouded optimism about China’s future.

Subversion of socialist ideals

In Hibiscus Town, Xie inverts long-standing socialist traditions with the way he represents oppres-
sor and oppressed, victimizer and victim. At the beginning of the film, country-dwellers live an
idyllic and harmonious life. Even the lot of supposed “bad elements” is not particularly miser-
able. The arrival of the Communist working team led by Li Guoxiang disrupts the usual peace
of village life. Questioning the legitimacy of Hu Yuyin’s newly built-house and her income, Li
publicly denounces Hu and her husband as examples of those who participated in a capitalist
economy. The director of the local granary, Gu Yanshan is implicated in Hu’s case for selling
her rice chaff. So is the secretary of the town, Li Mangeng, a former lover who first helps Hu
hide her money but later decides to hand it over to the Party. Guigui is put to death after being
caught trying to attack Li. Fear and panic soon grip the entire town. The quintessential socialist
representation, in which the Party leaders come down to villages to free the people is unam-
biguously reversed. The Party leaders oppress instead of liberating. The conventional socialist
formula of peasants as pure victims dwelling at the bottom of the social ladder is also inverted.
Wang Qiushe, who was born into a poor peasant family and thus a “red species,” is portrayed as a
local rascal and the running dog of the leftist Party agents. By abandoning such conventions, Xie
Jin draws attention to the glaring contradiction between socialist ideals and their actual practice,
with the latter running completely counter to the former.
The leftists in the film are depicted as not just politically harmful but also morally corrupt.
We learn that Li Guoxiang used to manage a state-owned restaurant located on the same street
as Hu Yuyin’s bean curd stall, and that her enmity toward Hu comes more from jealousy than
principle. Li’s grudge against Hu Yuyin is aggravated when Gu Yanshan gives her the cold shoul-
der in favor of Hu. Li’s later persecution of Hu Yuyin speaks more to her personal vengefulness
than her ideological rectitude. Li’s rise to power is also questionable. It is through the back-
door of her uncle, the Party secretary of the county, that Li is promoted to work in the coun-
ty’s Bureau of Commerce. Her political ascension is thus closely linked to corruption within
the Party system. The other antagonist, Wang Qiushe, appears to be a morally base, good-for-
nothing opportunist. Slovenly, boastful and imperious, he licks Li’s boots to gain political advan-
tages and is ruthless when persecuting his fellow townsmen. Associating the political with the
moral, this film puts into question the very moral legitimacy of the Party’s leadership.
Perhaps the most powerful challenge of politics in this film comes from its masterful portrayal
of the character of Qin Shutian. Originally working at the Bureau of Culture in the country,
Qin is labeled a rightist for collecting local folk songs–artifacts of the so-called “evil feudal
legacy”–and is sent down to his native Hibiscus Town to be disciplined by local people. Being
accused in public, conducting self-criticism, and receiving re-education through heavy labor

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have become integral parts of his daily life. Nevertheless, Qin bears all these unjust punishments
imposed on him with an unusual calm and even a sense of humor. He pays an ironic form of
tribute to local cadres by constantly calling them “leaders” and “superiors.”Thanks to his literacy
he is entrusted with all the revolutionary tasks related to writing and reading. At one point, we
see him paint the revolutionary slogan of “Never forget class struggle” on the wall with full
devotion and seriousness. Instead of bitterly grinding through the job, he affects enjoyment,
acting as though he were perfecting a work of art. In the film, Qin is an outsider, living at the
margins of the community. In many shots, he is shown to stand at the periphery of the frame.
This ostracized position endows him with the critical distance to observe the furious political
movements that sweep up everyone around him. His comic and detached attitude prompts the
audience to step back and recognize the farcical nature of socialist practices. Despite being called
Crazy Qin, he is the soberest person in the film, courageous enough to live through hardship
and indifferent to political changes. The power of Qin’s character ultimately lies in the inner
autonomy he sustains. He may abase himself in front of political leaders, but he never subjugates
himself to politics.The portrayal of such precious freedom amidst social turmoil may be Xie Jin’s
most radical gesture of resistance to tyranny.

Redefining human and nonhuman

Hibiscus Town restores humanism by inviting us to rethink how socialism has categorized peo-
ple. An early dialogue between Hu Yuyin and Qin Shutian is revealing in this regard. Upon
learning of her husband’s death, Hu runs to the graveyard in the wilderness, mourning Guigui
and pleading for him to return. In the dark, she catches a glimpse of a silhouette approaching
her. Frightened, Hu asks, “Are you a human or a ghost?” The figure answers: “Sometimes I am
human and sometimes ghost. I am Qin Shutian.” Hu shouts immediately:“Go away! You rightist,
bad element!” The irony is that Hu has just been labeled as Rich Peasant and is a black species
herself.Yet, she is so steeped in the ideology of socialist class distinction that she intuitively uses
its standard to judge Qin, failing to recognize the fate that they share. This episode urges us
to think how much one is constrained by the system and what role one plays in solidifying it.
Interestingly, the camera shoots Hu and Qin walking out of the graveyard under the pale moon-
light in a manner that makes them look exactly like wandering ghosts. Indeed, Qin and Hu are
labeled as ghosts in new China because of their unfavorable class status.
When it comes to the representation of the ghost and Communism, one is reminded of the
familiar tale of the white-haired girl whom revolutionary soldiers rescue from a secluded ghostly
existence. The household slogan goes, “Whereas the old society turned humans into ghosts,
the new society turned the ghosts back into humans.” However, a decade after the founding
of socialist China, a new generation of ghosts has arisen. The imagery of Hu and Qin as ghosts
provides a sharp counterpoint to the rhetoric of Communist redemption. As they struggle, we
see the dehumanizing nature of the socialist categories they inhabit.
Hibiscus Town depicts a touching romance between Qin Shutian and Hu Yuyin, the two
socially exiled characters. Notably, it is through this romance in the space of exile that human-
ism is upheld and carried forward. Cleaning the flagstone street together every morning when
the rest of the town is still asleep, Qin and Hu enjoy a private, intimate time that deepens their
affection for one another. Seeing that Hu is gripped by her sufferings, Qin asks her to view
things from a different perspective. He teaches her to dance waltz steps while cleaning the street,
turning their punitive chore into a leisure activity. As the two of them waltz down the street, the
film creates a charming romantic space. In these brief moments, they can once again assume a
subject position, relating to each other not as ghosts, but as humans. Indeed, the romance brings

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out humane aspects of a relationship characterized by warmth and love. When Hu has a fever
and is too debilitated to get out of bed, Qin tends to her lovingly. Hu secretly makes bean curd
soup for Qin in return. At one point when they are together, Qin shows his childhood photos
to Hu and tells her about his family. This scene, one of most humanistic of the film, undercuts
the socialist charge that he is a “black species.” Xie Jin’s portrayal of romance moves beyond the
themes of love and sexuality to foreground the fundamental values of humanism and humanity.
Interestingly, the clandestine romance between Qin Shutian and Hu Yuyin is juxtaposed
with the clandestine affair between Li Guoxiang and Wang Qiushe. Unlike Qin and Hu, who
share genuine love and acknowledge each other’s humanity, Li and Wang barely show each
other any affection. Andrew Kipnis suggests that all the attraction Li and Wang feel derives from
their “devotion to Maoism.”11 Kipnis rightly concludes that Wang’s impeccable class status posi-
tions him to consummate his affair with Li. He does not, however, comment on the distorted
humanity that belies their seeming devotion to Maoist ideals. Whereas Li Guoxiang seeks a
relationship with Wang for her own pleasure, Wang enters one to mend his broken ties with
Li, whom he once joined the Red Guard to denounce. Because she wants sex and he wants
to retain political privilege, Ban Wang calls this relationship “political-sexual prostitution.”12 In
this light, their affair is the antithesis of that of Qin and Hu’s, not just because of their opposing
political stances but also because of their lack of integrity.The film seems to suggest a correlation
between Maoism and distorted human character. The authorities that enforce the proletarian
dictatorship undermine human dignity in many respects.When Qin Shutian begs for the Party’s
approval of his marriage with Hu Yuyin, Wang mercilessly rebuffs him, adding that “for people
of your kind – target of dictatorship and bad elements – there is no such a thing as marriage!”
Qin, arguing in a most humble and self-abasing manner, answers, “Yes, we are black species, but
we are still human beings. Even with chickens, pigs, and dogs, you would not forbid them from
mating.”Yet his contention is completely disregarded.When the case is reported to Li Guoxiang,
she is instantly enraged by this request and sentences Qin to ten years’ imprisonment. The class-
based denial of the basic human need for marriage profanes humanity itself. Sadly, in this milieu
humans can only live like animals (or even worse), as is shown when Qin says to Hu tragically
before his departure: ‘’To live, to live like an animal!” Here, we are confronted with the reality
that squeezes its people out of the realm of humanity. The very ideology that defines them as
non-humans is itself most inhuman.

Skepticism in disguise
Previous scholarship has pointed out that in many respects Hibiscus Town has not gone that far in
its examination of the historical past. For examples, Paul Pickowicz notes that although Xie Jin
is critical of the Maoist ideology he nonetheless does not see any problem with the one-party
state system.13 Ma Ning draws our attention to the film’s favorable portrayal of entrepreneurs–
one that obviously accords with the Party’s new policy toward economic development.14 Ban
Wang criticizes the film’s reliance on melodramatic elements such as family and love to solve
complex historical issues and smooth over past trauma, thereby facilitating a smooth transition
to the new period.15 Insightful and illuminating as these comments are, they fail to recognize the
indeterminacy and skepticism Xie Jin implicitly conveys in this film.The film does not promote
a new faith in the Party. Nor is it fully optimistic about the new era.
It is worth noting that the Party representative Li Guoxiang ascends to an even higher posi-
tion at the end of the film. Ironically, she is the very person who approves Qin Shutian’s political
rehabilitation. On his way home, Qin runs into Li, who is heading to the provincial capital for
an advantageous political marriage. Qin advises her not to work against ordinary people any

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more. It is unclear whether Li will take his words to heart or not.What is clear is that the power
holder has not changed in the new era. Nick Browne points out that Li Guoxiang is the personi-
fication of Jiang Qing, Mao’s wife and leader of the Gang of Four.16 Li’s ultimate fate, however,
differentiates her from Jiang. Whereas Jiang fell into disgrace after the Cultural Revolution, Li
gets closer to the center of power. It seems more apt to associate Li with the Party itself, which
likewise managed to maintain and even strengthen its power after the Cultural Revolution.This
connection suggests an attitude of distrust toward Communist leaders of the new era, raising
sensitive questions about the moral legitimacy of the Party.
The film ends with an ominous scene in which Wang Qiushe walks through the crowd,
banging the gong and shouting “another movement!” Wang’s call for another revolution first
seems like a wistful yearning for the “good old days,” when his peasant origins won him a meas-
ure of political power. Yet at deeper level, this scene forces the audience to wonder just what
new movements might await them in the future. As Qin Shutian cautions those who laugh at
Wang, “If the society does not change, what he says might come true.” Xie Jin’s vigilant warn-
ing, delivered indirectly by Qin’s character, is nothing groundless or hypothetical. China’s poli-
tics in the 1980s was particularly volatile, plagued by periodically surging political campaigns
that echoed those of the Cultural Revolution. In 1983, for instance, the Party launched the
“Anti Spiritual Pollution” campaign. Unacceptable writings were confiscated, and people with
Western hairstyles were forced to cut their hair. Wang’s shouting of “another movement” seems
to prophesy the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident, after which Chinese government launched
a full-scale “back to the left” program in politics. Though its ending is ostensibly comforting,
the film still betrays profound worry about and skepticism toward the political situation in the
new era.

Chen Kaige: life and achievements

Chen Kaige is a leading figure of China’s Fifth Generation filmmakers, and a pioneer in the
cinematic trend of nativity. Born in 1952 in Beijing, he is the son of an established director,
Chen Huaikai. Chen Kaige came of age during the Cultural Revolution. Like many teenagers
of the time, he joined the Red Guard, and then was sent down to the countryside to work on
a rubber plantation in Yunnan province. Through his eight-year rustication experience, Chen
became aware of the dire reality of poverty in China. He also noted the gap between the state’s
propagandistic claims and what life actually appeared to be like. After a stint in the army during
the Vietnam War, Chen returned to Beijing in 1975, first finding work in a film laboratory. In
1978 Chen Kaige was admitted to the Beijing Film Academy, which had just reopened after the
Cultural Revolution.With his classmates Zhang Yimou and Tian Zhuangzhuang, he became the
core of the Fifth Generation. Upon graduating, Chen first worked as an assistant director at the
Beijing Film Studio, later joining Guangxi Studio to create the landmark film Yellow Earth, for
which Zhang Yimou served as cinematographer.
Though it was only Chen’s first feature, Yellow Earth (1984) marked an aesthetic breakthrough
of Chinese cinema in the new era. The film’s detached tone, minimal plotline, powerful visuals,
and ambiguous symbolism stunned critics and audiences in its international debut at the Hong
Kong Film Festival, as well as bringing worldwide attention to the changing face of Chinese
cinema. As intellectually subversive as it is stylistically innovative, Yellow Earth challenged the
familiar conception of peasants in the revolutionary discourse and revolutionary history itself.
Chen’s second feature, The Big Parade (Da yuebing, 1985), was a military drama about a group of
soldiers who endure rigorous and often brutal training for the National Day parade in Tianan-
men Square.Though less aesthetically innovative than Yellow Earth, this film explored the crucial

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relationship between the individual and the collective, questioning the foundation of Chinese
patriotism and nationhood. Adapted from the prominent root-seeking writer A Cheng’s novella,
Chen’s next film, King of the Children (Haizi wang, 1987), narrated an educated youth’s vain
attempt to teach rural children to think creatively. Asking what it truly means to be civilized,
this film calls for a reflection on the violence of Chinese national culture, whose transmission,
Chen believes, relies heavily on mechanical reproduction rather than imagination. Chen’s three
early works established him as one of the most culturally engaged, intellectually reflective, and
artistically adventurous of China’s new generation of filmmakers.
In 1987 Chen received a scholarship to study filmmaking at New York University. While
there, he received funding to make Life on a String (Bianzou bianchang, 1991), a visually strik-
ing work about two blind musicians that tackled the fundamental philosophical and spiritual
questions of human existence. Farewell My Concubine (Bawang bieji, 1993) was perhaps by far
his most successful film, both commercially and critically, and was the first Chinese film to win
the Palme d’Or award at the Cannes film festival. Weaving the spectacular with the intimate,
this international hit told a story of love and betrayal between two Peking Opera actors and the
woman who came between them. The narrative of the film spans fifty years of the twentieth
century, exemplifying how personal feelings were shaped by cultural codes and political events.
Farewell My Concubine also marked the director’s turn toward a more commercial cinematic
approach.
Chen subsequently directed the romance Temptress Moon (Fengyue, 1996) and the historical
drama The Emperor and the Assassin (Jingke ci qinwang, 1998) before venturing into English-
language cinema with the poorly received thriller Killing Me Softly (2002). He then returned his
focus to a range of Chinese subjects. Films in his later oeuvre include the sentimental Together
(Heni zaiyiqi, 2002), the martial arts epic The Promise (Wuji, 2005), and Forever Enthralled (Mei
Lanfang, 2008), a biography of the prominent Peking Opera performer, Mei Lanfang. His recent
film Monk Comes Down the Mountain (Daoshi xiashang, 2015) extended his efforts to infuse
commercial films with cultural depth.Though several of them fall short of his aims, all of Chen’s
works still stand out as cerebral, philosophically engaged, and politically daring.

The masterpiece: Yellow Earth

Yellow Earth is not only a masterpiece in Chen Kaige’s oeuvre, but also a truly monumental work
that transformed the outlook of Chinese cinema. This transformation is accomplished with a
very simple storyline. The film narrates an Eighth Route Army soldier Gu Qing’s journey to
the native soil of the Loess Plateau to collect folk songs for the army. A kind of prehistory of the
Communist regime, the story takes place in 1939, as China wages its War of Resistance against
Japan. A family of three local peasants hosts Gu Qing in their cave: the widower father, the
daughter Cuiqiao, and the son Hanhan. During his sojourn, Gu works with the family in the
field and tells them how radically different life is in the Communist Party’s base,Yan’an. While
the father disdains these new ideas, the adolescent sister and the young brother are intrigued
by them. When Gu Qing announces his departure, Cuiqiao begs him to take her with him. Gu
promises to petition to the Party leader and come to get her as soon as the permission is granted.
Cuiqiao has to fulfill her arranged marriage before Gu returns. Unable to bear her suffering,
Cuiqiao decides to run away to join the army. As she crosses the Yellow River at night, she sings
the revolutionary song Gu has taught her, but her voice is soon drowned out by the roaring
sound of the river torrents. When Gu Qing comes back the next Spring, the villagers are pray-
ing for rain. The film ends with Hanhan turning away from the crowd and running toward Gu,
only to see him disappear from view.

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 Yanjie Wang

Despite its use of stock elements from the revolutionary narrative such as solider-peasant
companionship and the feudal repression of women, Yellow Earth proves to be a radical depar-
ture from socialist filmmaking, bringing an ambiguous and ambivalent perspective to these
conventional themes. It also differs greatly from the Xie Jin’s reflection films of the same period.
If Xie Jin homes in on leftist ideology, Chen Kaige seeks to find the deeper cultural factors that
account for China’s ten years of socio-political disaster. In Yellow Earth, Chen’s search takes him
to the Loess Plateau, both the cradle of Chinese civilization and the revolutionary base of the
Communist Party. Unlike Xie Jin, who clings to humanism’s promise of a bright future, Chen
Kaige seems to be enamoured with contradictions, failing to find a new meaning system. Yellow
Earth neither wholly negates the power of nature and tradition nor wholly sympathizes with it.
Rather the film casts nature and tradition in relation to the revolutionary discourse. It is through
such a correlation that Chen Kaige is able to demystify the foundation of the Communist
regime and engage in an in-depth critique of its ideology.

Rethinking nature
With its lavish long shots of the yellow landscape, Yellow Earth imbues its setting with a per-
sonality almost as significant as those of its characters. The film opens with a still image of the
ravines of the Loess Plateau, and then pans over sprawling highland slopes.17 The Eighth Route
Army soldier Gu Qing emerges from the skyline, appearing as just a small dark dot against the
mighty plateau. Although Gu Qing has been occupying the center of the frame in the opening
sequence, his image nevertheless is constantly overshadowed and superseded by the vast expanses
of the yellow plain.This kind of frame composition is executed throughout the film, with nature
foregrounded and humans retreating to the background and the margins. The cinematography
thus departs radically from the social realist aesthetic tradition, which demands visual glorifica-
tion of soldiers, workers, and peasants. De-emphasizing the supposedly heroic character of Gu
Qing, the film draws attention to the formidable natural environment that shapes the local
lifestyle and traditions.
The film’s visual reversal prompts one to rethink the relationship between human beings
and nature. The Maoist discourse promulgated the slogan “conquering nature,” designating the
revolution-minded masses as socialist agents. It stressed their power to transform nature and
create miracles of economic development. This faith in ideologically fueled human agency pro-
pelled the Great Leap Forward, a massive, ultimately disastrous initiative that sought to increase
agricultural yields and steel production far beyond any previous level.
Whereas the Maoist ideology gave supremacy to the human, Chen Kaige shows the menac-
ing power of nature. The yellow earth is so durable and stubborn that it constantly dwarfs the
characters in the film. In the scene where Gu Qing and the peasant family plough the land,
they appear as small dots on the screen, the majority of which is filled by the deep yellow soil.
Indeed, the human appears tiny and insignificant in the midst of such vastness. As the family
gathers for lunch, the father sprinkles food to the earth and prays for its blessing before eating.
When Gu Qing’s laughs at his superstitious gesture, the father sighs, “You tread on the yellow
earth and plough; you must respect it.” For him, the land is not raw material to be exploited but
a life-giving force that merits awe and reverence.
By emphasizing the peasants’ close ties with nature, the film also debunks the myth of peas-
ants’ natural closeness to the Party. Gu Qing comes to the village as a stranger, and is met with
uneasy politeness. As he spends his first night with his hosts, shots emphasize his separateness
from them. Although his noble revolutionary ideals instill hope in the younger generation, they
fail to meet the fundamental need of the peasants who struggle daily to eat and survive. For

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them, land and nature are more reliable benefactors than the Party. The implied supremacy of
nature over the party, as Chris Berry and Mary Farquhar rightly point out, “questions the rheto-
ric of intimacy between Party and people, supposedly as close as fish and water, by returning that
intimacy to the people and their environment.”18

Folk traditions and their communist appropriations

In addition to nature, Yellow Earth also features Chinese folk traditions, the most notable of
which is the folk song. The film’s excavation of this tradition reveals the contradictory ends the
party has put it to. The goal of Gu Qing’s journey to the village is to collect folk songs and use
their melodies for the Communist propaganda. For Gu, as for the Party he represents, folk songs
are meaningful only when they are given new revolutionary lyrics. Only then does he see in
them a chance to raise people’s consciousness. In Gu’s words, his aim is to “put new words to
them, so that soldiers of Cuiqiao’s age can sing them.When people hear them, they’ll know why
they are suffering, why women are beaten, why workers and peasants should rise up. When our
army hears them, they’ll fight the rich and the Japanese more bravely.” For the peasants, however,
folk songs mean something very different. Calling them “sour tunes,” the peasants draw atten-
tion to the emotional dimension of the songs. One sings only when one tastes the joy or sorrow
of life. “Sour tunes” are a natural, spontaneous response to one’s lived experience. So when Gu
Qing asks the father if he can sing folk songs, the father simply responds, “I’m neither happy
nor sad. What’s the point of singing?” In the film, Cuiqiao sings the most. Rather than being a
consciously learned skill, her singing is simply an expression of her innermost feelings.
The “sour tunes” are an unmediated affective response to the peasants’ surroundings, so Gu’s
effort to set new words to them severs the songs from the very context in which they arose.The
spontaneity of the folk songs is replaced by the rote recollection of melodies and words. In his
reflection of the Cultural Revolution, Chen Kaige remarks:

I didn’t know what to do when I faced the Cultural Revolution. I was confused.You
are not a human being, you are part of a machine. If you leave the machine, you can
do nothing. It had become a custom – just copy everything. I think that’s the base of
Communist Party rule in China.19

Chen’s felt sense of mechanization leads him to discern the mechanism through which the
Party rules. Considering this, Rey Chow writes that “the mode that repeats and that derives
its power from mechanicity rather than from ‘spontaneity’ is the one that reigns supreme over
the other.”20 By replacing the individual’s affective voice with transcribed, repeated political
messages, the Party forces upon him or her identification with its ideology, and thus asserts its
authority. The founding myth of the Party lies precisely in this process of appropriation and
mechanical repetition.
The film also shows the waist-drum dance, another custom in the Northern Shannxi prov-
ince. Returning to the Communist base area Yan’an, Gu Qing witnesses an exuberant dance of
this kind, a performance to honor the peasants who join the army to fight the Japanese. Shot
with a handheld camera, this scene captures the passion and energy of the peasant dancers.
However, just as folk songs are appropriated to serve the Party, this expressive local dance is also
turned into a tool to promote the revolutionary agenda. The masses’ excess of energy is chan-
neled into concerted movement and disciplined by the nationalist discourse.
Interestingly, the waist-drum dance has its parallel in a ceremony that occurs in Gu Qing’s
host village. In an equal state of frenzy, local peasants desperately beg the Dragon King of the

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Sea to produce rain that will save their harvest. Kneeling down and kowtowing to the dragon
totem, the praying crowd piously moves and chants in unison. Here Chen contrasts two ways
that men behave as a collective, one drawn from the feudal tradition and one from Communist
culture. Both subjugate the masses to a myth of salvation. As Tonglin Lu incisively notes, “in Yel-
low Earth, the communist regime in Yan’an is criticized not for breaking away from traditional
Chinese culture but for its inability truly to dissociate itself from tradition despite its apparently
revolutionary stance.”21
As the faith in the Communist ideal of salvation has collapsed, adapting the waist-drum
dance for political ends appears no less fantastical than praying for rain. This sense of dystopia is
best captured in the final scene, when Hanhan pushes himself against the crowd running toward
Gu Qing. As he looks to his putative savior, the camera reveals nothing but an empty horizon.
The Communist hope is gone and the new hope is yet to be found.

Woman: the awakened and betrayed

Unlike the majority of the peasants, Cuiqiao is clearly awakened by the revolutionary ideas Gu
Qing brings to the village. At the beginning of the film, as a wedding takes place, Cuiqiao stands
in the doorway, intently observing the ceremony. The couplets on the door stipulate the Con-
fucian standards for female behavior: “three obediences and four virtues.” Confined by feudal
rules and promised in marriage as a child, Cuiqiao knows that she is destined for the same end
as the bride she watches. Part of her betrothal money has been used for her mother’s funeral,
and the rest has been reserved for her younger brother’s marriage. The arrangement appears to
be nothing more than a transaction in which her own will is completely ignored. Though her
father expresses his sympathy for Cuiqiao, he attributes all this to fate. Unable to free herself
from her patriarchal destiny, Cuiqiao is immediately drawn to the ideals of free marriage and
gender equality when Gu Qing introduces them. The Communist revolution infuses her with
hope and a desire for change.
But Gu Qing’s refusal to take Cuiqiao with him and help her join the army reveals the
hypocrisy of his rhetoric. As her own wedding date looms, Cuiqiao feels pressed to escape her
prescribed fate.Yet her dream of freedom is indefinitely postponed when Gu defers to the judg-
ment of a superior. Telling her that he needs official approval to grant her request, he says, “We
public officers have rules.” Hearing this, one is reminded of the very similar expression by Cui-
qiao’s father on the role of women: “We farmers have rules.” Although their rules are different,
they both constrain women and the choices open to them.
Commenting on this phenomenon, Esther Yau calls our attention to the continuity between
the feudal and Communist systems, both of which take women as the Other. While the peas-
ants exchange women to sustain the male-centered village, the revolutionaries use the liberation
of women to promote the Communist cause.22 In neither system are women’s suffering and
needs really given priority, however desperate and urgent their situation may be. Cuiqiao’s real
need does not pass the threshold of significance, and thus goes unfulfilled. In the Party’s ideol-
ogy, the woman is just an empty signifier, which is valid only when she respects revolutionary
rules. Betrayed by Gu Qing, Cuiqiao is married to a man much older than she is and remains
subjugated by her role.
Cuiqiao’s final act of resistance comes with great uncertainty and a heavy price. Determined
to escape her miserable marriage, Cuiqiao dares to cross the Yellow River and join the army
on her own. The disappearance of her and her voice amid the currents suggest the ambigu-
ity of her future. She may reach the other shore, but the likelihood is far greater that she will
drown. If, like Esther Yau, we presume that she does drown, her death can be read as a form of

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punishment. As Yau writes, “she is to be punished (by patriarchy, of course) for overturning the
peasants’ rule (by leaving her marriage), for brushing aside the public officers’ rule (by leaving
to join the army without permission), and for challenging nature’s rule (by crossing the Yellow
River when the currents are at their strongest.”23 Indeed, Cuiqiao’s action is scorned by all these
reigning powers.
Her disappearance, however, has more significance than a mere private punishment. It also
symbolizes the historical erasure of women’s spontaneous feelings and desires. Notably, her voice
vanishes before she finishes singing a revolutionary song. Cuiqiao’s own voice will be forever
silenced even if she survives and manages to join the army. Even as a soldier, she would be forced
to sing revolutionary songs rather than her intimate “sour tunes.” The revolutionary promise
of women’s freedom in this light comes to look like a new form of deprivation. The film thus
demythologizes yet another catchword of the Communist ideology.

Notes
1 Yingjin Zhang, Chinese National Cinema (New York and Landon: Routledge, 2004), 228.
2 Yi-tsi Feuerwerker, Ideology, Power, Text: Self-representation and the Peasant “Other” in Modern Chinese
Literature (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), 192.
3 Michael Berry, Speaking in Images: Interviews with Contemporary Chinese Filmmakers (New York: Colum-
bia University Press, 2005), 21.
4 Nick Browne,“Society and Subjectivity: On the Political Economy of Chinese Melodrama,” in Browne
ed., New Chinese Cinemas: Forms, Identities, Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 43.
5 Yingjin Zhang, Chinese National Cinema, 229.
6 The blood lineage theory was a radicalized version of the Party’s “class line.” The emergence of this
theory coincided with the rise of the Red Guard movement and its attendant violence in 1966. Its
famous slogan goes, “If the father is a hero, the son is a good fellow; if the father is a reactionary, the son
is a good-for-nothing.”
7 “Four clean-ups” was a term for the socialist education movement which was carried out between
1963 and 1966. The movement was aimed at cleaning up corruption and bourgeois tendencies in the
political, economic, organizational and ideological fields.
8 Paul G Pickowicz, “Melodramatic Representation and the ‘May Fourth’Tradition of Chinese Cinema,”
in Ellen Widmer and David Der-wei Wang, eds., From May Fourth to June Fourth: Fiction and Film in
Twentieth-Century China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 316.
9 Ning Ma, “Spatiality and Subjectivity in Xie Jin’s Film Melodrama of the New Period,” in Nick
Browne et al. eds., New Chinese Cinemas: Forms, Identities, Politics (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1994), 15–39.
10 See Nick Browne, “Society and Subjectivity,”
11 Andrew Kipnis, “Anti-Maoist Gender: Hibiscus Town’s Naturalization of a Dengist Sex/Gender/Kinship
System,” Asian Cinema (1996–97) vol. 8, no. 2, 73.
12 Ban Wang, Illuminations from the Past: Trauma, Memory, and History in Modern China (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 2004), 153.
13 See Paul G Pickowicz, “Melodramatic Representation,”
14 See Ning Ma, “Spatiality and Subjectivity,”
15 See Ban Wang, Illuminations, 142–162.
16 Nick Browne, “Society and Subjectivity,” 54.
17 Many scholars have pointed out that the imageries of the landscape in Yellow Earth evoke the Taoist
ideal of inexhaustible emptiness. See, for instances, Chris Berry and Mary Ann Farquhar, “Post-Socialist
Strategies: An Analysis of Yellow Earth and Black Cannon Incident,” in Linda Erlich and David Desser
eds., Cinematic Landscapes: Observations on the Visual Arts and Cinema of China and Japan (Austin: Univer-
sity of Texas Press, 1994), 81–116, and Esther Yau, “Yellow Earth: Western Analysis and a Non-Western
Text,” in Chris Berry ed., Perspectives on Chinese Film (London: British Film Institute, 1991), 62–79.
18 Chris Berry and Mary Ann Farquhar, “Post-Socialist Strategies,” 97.
19 Kaige Chen, “Breaking the Circle: The Cinema and Cultural Change in China,” Cineaste (1990) vol.,
18, no. 3, 32.

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 Yanjie Wang

20 Rey Chow, Primitive Passions: Visuality, Sexuality, Ethnography, and Contemporary Chinese Cinema (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 93.
21 Tonglin Lu, Confronting Modernity in the Cinemas of Taiwan and Mainland China (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002), 26.
22 Esther Yau, “Yellow Earth.”
23 Ibid., 72.

Further readings
Berry, Michael. “Xie Jin: Six Decades of Cinematic Innovation.” In Berry, ed., Speaking in Images: Interviews
with Contemporary Chinese Filmmakers. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005, 20–49.
——— “Chen Kaige: Historical Revolution and Cinematic Rebellion.” In Berry, ed., Speaking in Images:
Interviews with Contemporary Chinese Filmmakers. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005, 82–107.
Browne, Nick. “Society and Subjectivity: On the Political Economy of Chinese Melodrama.” In Browne
et al., eds. New Chinese Cinemas: Forms, Identities, Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994,
57–87.
Chow, Rey. “Silent is the Ancient Plain: Music, Filmmaking and the Conception of Reform in China’s
New Cinema.” In Chow, ed., Primitive Passsions: Visuality, Sexuality, Ethnography, and Contemporary Chi-
nese Cinema. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995, 79–107.
Lu, Tonglin. “Continuity and Subversion: Chen Kaige: Yellow Earth; Big Parade; King of the Children.” In
Lu, ed., Confronting Modernity in the Cinemas of Taiwan and Mainland China. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002, 25–57.
Ma, Ning. “Spatiality and Subjectivity in Xie Jin’s Film Melodrama of the New Period.” In New Chinese
Cinemas: Forms, Identities, Politics Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, 15–39.
Yau, Esther. “Yellow Earth: Western Analysis and a Non-Western Text.” In Chris Berry, ed., Perspectives on
Chinese Film. London: British Film Institute, 1991, 62–79.
Zhang, Yingjin. “Cinema and National/Regional Cultures, 1979–1989.” In Zhang, ed., Chinese National
Cinema, 225–258. New York and Landon: Routledge, 2004.

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 SECTION XI

Literature of experiments
and innovation
 35
AVANT-GARDE FICTION
Can Xue, Ma Yuan, Yu Hua and others
Irmy Schweiger

Literary avant-garde movements are essentially parts of a global phenomenon, with national,
historical and aesthetic differentiations. In recent years revisionist scholars started to revisit Chi-
nese literature of the twentieth century in the light of avant-gardism having two main ways of
interpretation: on the one hand the avant-garde is viewed as a political and utopian force in its
own right, on the other hand it is viewed as a marker of modernity indicating an international-
ist outlook. The contemporary avant-garde, of which the May Fourth period is often regarded
as a precursor,1 can therefore be understood as both a literary phenomenon ascribed to a loose
group of literary vanguards and their radical aesthetic agencies, who made their short-lived
appearances in the second half of the 1980s during a critical historical juncture in post-Mao
history, and also as a marker denoting a hallmark of Chinese high modernism. In both cases the
development and discussion of the Chinese avant-garde has always been deeply embedded in
Western concepts and notions.
In Europe, avant-garde artists and writers took the stage by vociferously and self-assertively
labeling their works and visions as “avant-garde” at the beginning of the twentieth century.
During a period of unprecedented economic and technological revolution and of shaken con-
fidence by the experience of war and destruction, they heralded their political and aesthetic
agendas which were soon shaped into different national and historical “-isms,” like Expression-
ism, Futurism, Dadaism or Surrealism. Literary movements interacted with other forms of art
by creating happenings, events and spectacles that included the reader, the audience and the
recipient as integral part.
The Chinese avant-garde was in fact less of a self-appointed literary movement crying out
its political and aesthetic manifests; this label was instead first pinned on them by literary critics
and editors who proclaimed the advent of a Chinese avant-garde and launched their texts as
“experimental fiction,” “meta-fiction” or “new wave fiction” interchangeably. This is to say that,
when Chinese modern avant-garde literature made its appearance in the late 1980s, Chinese
culture and society had already been deeply penetrated by global influences at large. Mainstream
discourses grappled with appropriating global tendencies to local conditions on the one hand,
and on the other hand, strived to build a legitimate base from where to jump on the bandwagon
of an alleged global modernity. Eventually, according to the chorus of critics, the “new era” (xin
shiqi, 1979–1989) had generated radically new texts by unheard-of writers who ushered in a
new epoch by sending electrifying shockwaves through the cultural scene.

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 Irmy Schweiger

Apart from its “historio-cultural situatedness” and “institutional becoming” avant-garde fic-
tion refers first and foremost to a body of texts produced by individual writers and consumed by
critics and readers.Time and again Chinese avant-garde fiction is identified as a critical narrative
enterprise of high Chinese modernism, undermining canonical realism and mainstream narra-
tion, or alternatively, as a postmodern discourse that undermines the fundamental conceptions
of Chinese modernism in cultural, intellectual and philosophical realms. What holds the core of
avant-garde fiction together is its radical contemporaneity, “its situatedness in the postrevolu-
tionary social world, its participation in the global cultural and symbolic interaction, and finally,
its narrative enterprise, which is itself a product or representation of all these experiences.”2 As a
phenomenon of the late modern Chinese literary field, avant-garde fiction needs to be under-
stood, appreciated and evaluated within multiple contexts.

Historio-cultural situatedness of avant-garde literature

Chinese modern avant-garde literature made its appearance when massive globalization, com-
modification and de-politicization pushed the country’s transition from a revolutionary society
into a post-socialist state. China’s official farewell to ultra-leftism, its massive propagation and
implementation of market economy, reform and opening policy, not only secured the rising
power a vested place in the global market, helped to accumulate national wealth and to achieve
social differentiation, but also created a semi-autonomous public space and cultural autonomy
that was celebrated and eagerly seized by intellectuals and artists. The immediate writing envi-
ronment in the late 1980s had been penetrated by global influences at large, and a gradual rec-
ognition of the significance of symbolical capital through newly introduced Western concepts
prompted the appropriation of global challenges and the establishment of an intellectual bastion,
thus allowing Chinese modernity to go global. In compliance with the growing cultural market,
local literary landscape expanded at the same time as it was flooded by postmodern catch phrases
and the mantra of modernism. The “craze for methodology” (fangfa lun re) revolving around the
weakness and strength of Chinese culture had a strong grip on the Chinese intellectual and
cultural sphere. The frenzied accumulation of capital in the socio-economic sphere was thus
paralleled by the intellectual elite’s breathless accumulation of cultural and symbolical capital and
eager institutionalization of the once largely autonomous literary field. Government-sponsored
mega-projects propagating “forward-looking” (wang qian kan) and “going global” (zou xiang
shijie) mindsets fueled an immense bubble of expectations for an ever wealthier and ever more
enlightened future, a utopian mood that was perpetuated in the cultural sphere. This prevailing
wirtschaftswunder euphoria naturally eclipsed memories of the devastating atrocities of the recent
past, often euphemistically termed as the “ten lost years” owing to “ultra-leftist overenthusiasm,”
and the Cultural Revolution and Maoist cruelty at large were basically relegated to the dustbin
of history.
Commercialization and information explosion together with a growing complexity in every­
day life due to rapid changes in material and social conditions, together created a burning
necessity for a different perception of how to relate to the world. “Literature of the wounded,”
“reform literature” and “root seeking literature” had become obsolete as interpretative guide;
their codes were no longer trustable or made sense. The restoration of humanism (daxie de ren)
and the discovery of cultural rootedness that dominated the so-called “new wave literature”
(xinchao wenxue) from the late 1970s onwards together with the optimism developed in market
economy were no longer at the center of interest for the aesthetic experimentalism and meta-
fiction of avant-gardists.

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Thus while gradual liberation from political control helped to facilitate a semi-autonomous
discursive space for intellectual discussion and artistic freedom, a rapid integration into the
world order of commodification and into the international language of modernism defined this
space. On the home front recurring memories of a repressed past, growing corruption within
state-bureaucracy, abortive reforms, widening gaps between the rich and the poor and recur-
ring political campaigns began to destabilize the taken for granted support for reforms, and
added to these was a widespread social disillusionment that eventually erupted in the Tianan-
men demonstrations and blood bath. The avant-gardists made their debut when this newly won
niche gradually turned into a suffocating space, when a dystopian mood that pirated the utopian
national project of Chinese modernity became the prevailing zeitgeist. The avant-garde move-
ment has expectedly been brought to an end by its inevitable aesthetic self-liquidation and/
or its complicity with market forces and mainstream culture. Losing touch with the burning
issues of present reality, suffering from a declining readership due to its extreme self- and non-
referentiality, together with the shrinking of cultural autonomy and the tightening of political
control at the end of the 1980s, avant-garde literature had become more and more marginalized
by burning political issues and been increasingly absorbed by centrifugal effects of commerciali-
zation and pluralization. The brief blooming of avant-garde literature can be said to be the last
unitary movement in twentieth century China that occupied the central stage; in retrospect its
flowering was but a moribund ecstatic dance on a volcano, soon to erupt.

Creating a space for avant-garde literature

What later came to be dubbed as “culture fever” (wenhua re) refers to the large-scale official
undertaking of the selection, translation, mediation and appropriation of assumedly globally
applicable Western theories and literatures that were later accommodated by local Chinese dis-
course in the 1980s. “Is the modern avant-garde de facto a fabricated myth or is it a historical
truth? [. . .] the product of a specific ideological climate [. . .] not more than a flash-in-the-
pan?”3 This question, intended to be a rhetorical, was made by Chen Xiaoming, one of avant-
garde movement’s earliest and most devoted critics, and recalls the fact that hardly any literary
trend provoked as much controversy as “avant-garde,” “experimental” or “meta-fiction.” A lot
of ink has been spilled to announce and legitimize, to negate and historicize, to praise and
condemn the literary vanguard’s rise and fall, its virtue and futility, its significance and vacuity.
The advent of avant-garde fiction was not simply a consequence of historical necessity and
socio-political development that translated into artistic representation, quite the contrary: it is
also the result of a conscious collaborative effort on the part of critics and editors within state
institutions to establish avant-garde literature as a marker for “national progress” and “(post-)
modernism” in the cultural field. In other words, avant-garde fiction was not only the incen-
tive but to a large extend the discursive product of the “culture fever” (1985–1989), the heated
nation-wide discussion on literature, culture, aesthetics, and history that sought to address local
conditions and challenges against the back-drop of constant national and global shifts. The far
too familiar May Fourth themes of “enlightenment” and “modernity” recurred and were again
dominating the feverish sensations that took intellectuals and urban centers by storm and swept
throughout most social strata and public media. New publication series, periodicals, exhibitions
and happenings mushroomed in urban centers and served as space of communication for critics
and writers.
The journals Harvest (Shouhuo) from Shanghai, Bell Mountain (Zhongshan) from Nanjing,
Contemporary (Dangdai) and Beijing Literature (Beijing wenxue) from Beijing were among the most

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 Irmy Schweiger

efficient dissemination platforms for avant-garde works to approach potential readers and for
critics to ordain certain young savages as literary vanguards.4 At the center of critics’ debate on
avant-garde were the dialectical relationship between reality and fiction, modernism and avant-
garde literature and the question to what extent avant-garde fiction signifies China’s entry into
(post-)modernity. Hundreds of Western works on philosophy, history, literature, and social sci-
ences were translated and published; Western experts, invited as guest professors to hold lectures
and seminars at China’s historical venues of revolutionary and reformist movements, served as
those works’ most assiduous mediators and interpreters. The theoretical discourse of postmod-
ernism, spearheaded by the North-American literary critic and Marxist political theorist Fredric
Jameson (1934), was certainly the most influential source of inspiration for Chinese intellectuals
and laid the fundament for a new intellectual alliance; it was among the most important sources
for theoretical and aesthetic inspiration for the avant-gardists and their critics. In a transnational
procession Kafka, Joyce, Faulkner, Robbe-Grillet, Borges, García Márquez, to name just a few,
traveled in the respectable company of Jameson, Barthes, Derrida, Baudrillard and Lyotard to
find their way into Chinese libraries, bookshops and university classrooms.

Protagonists of avant-garde fiction – trailblazers

and “Latecomers of Life”
The literary avant-gardists spent their formative years in the Deng Xiaoping era and belonged
to the first generation after the Cultural Revolution that had undergone a decent education.
Compared to the “lost generation” who naturally dominated the post-Mao cultural, intellectual
and literary scene, avant-garde writers did hardly perceive of themselves as a group, but existed at
the margins of social and cultural power due to their “inability to take part in the redistribution
of discursive power and their alienation from the ideological debates of the mainstream.”5 Too
young to become Red guards and to partake in the Cultural Revolution, those “late-comers
of life” with little worldly experience, belonged to the first generation of post-revolutionary
China, a fact that made them more suspect than any revolutionary past ever could and led some
of their promoters to point out an existing generation conflict: “Facing not only the classical
and modern masters of the West what’s more they are even bearing the legacy of the ‘educated
youth community’ (zhiqing qunti) whose extraordinary experience of struggle, suffering and
tribulations is already deeply engraved onto the tombstone of history.What is it those latecomers
do possess? A pale, carefree childhood and adolescence! They are but a bunch of ‘latecomers to
life’ condemned to live as ‘the late born’ (wan shengdai) in the history of art and of life.”6 While
they could neither claim victimhood nor heroism for themselves, the atrocities of the Maoist
era stuck with them as intergenerational traumatization, as haunting ghost of a repressed past, as
family secret that had conveniently been swept under the carpet in the face of a social collective
that confidently marched towards a prospering future without a backward glance.Translations of
Russian fiction and the bastion of socialist realism that had nourished their forbearers, was but
a negligible part of their literary diet, which otherwise consisted of a bold mixture of modern-
ist and postmodernist fiction, Latin American magical realism, the French nouveau roman and
any “-isms” or theories that prospered in the cultural ferment of the late 1980s. “Both writ-
ers and critics were avid readers of Western postmodern and avant-garde theories and literary
works, and they wrote with a strong awareness of ‘international’ trends and fashions.”7 There was
however dialectics at work as for one thing the avant-garde movement triggered the opening
of Pandora’s box of Western (post-)modernism, for another it was mainly Western (post-)
modernism that constituted the theoretical armament and incitement to construct and encounter
avant-garde fiction.

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Although Sun Ganlu (b. 1959), Yu Hua (b. 1960), Su Tong (b. 1963), Ge Fei (b. 1964), Bei
Chun (b. 1965) among others are often the names dropped in the context of the Chinese avant-
garde, Ma Yuan (b. 1953) and Can Xue (b. 1953) are generally considered to be the movement’s
indisputable pioneers. More advanced in age as well as in their aesthetic achievements and
experience, Can Xue, often dubbed as the “Chinese Kafka” and Ma Yuan, well known for his
enigmatic tales about Tibet, count as the two trailblazers of the movement. Having lived their
formative years during the heyday of Maoist rule, they were almost exclusively socialized in
revolutionary ideas, but after having gone through the process of complete disillusionment with
tens of thousands of “educated youth” they quickly took the lead in dealing with the traumatic
experience of the Cultural Revolution and Maoist culture and politics in a unique and unprec-
edented way. Can Xue’s nightmarish stories are endowed with Kafkaesque symbols and haunted
by the Maoist legacy. In the mid-1980s they hit the literary scene almost simultaneously with
Ma Yuan’s labyrinthine narrations about roaming Tibet. An unprecedented way of writing was
underway to radically modify and readjust the imaginary relationship between humans and their
world; an impassive experimentalism had taken the stage to carry traditional realist representa-
tion ad absurdum.

Can Xue – fighting against iron-strong reality

Being the only female author denoted avant-gardist, Can Xue (real name Deng Xiaohua),
whose pen name has a double connotation – “dirty snow that refuses to melt” and “purest snow
at the top of a mountain peak,” – was certainly well advised to take up a pseudonym that allowed
her to conceal her gender. Critics made no secret of their misogynist view to basically attribute
the madness of the text to the author being a woman. Her dark enigmatic stories are steeped
in her personal experience while her personal life reads like a surrealist nightmare, detached
from the human world – albeit one is not simply a reflection of the other. Born as one of six
children in a family of veteran Communist intellectuals in Changsha (Hunan province), she, as a
four-year-old, saw her parents branded ultra-rightists in 1957 and sentenced to “Re-Education
through Labor.” In 1959 the family of nine was stripped of their residence in her parents’ work-
ing compound (New Hunan Daily News) and relegated to a tiny hut of ten square-meters at the
foot of Mount Yuelu in the outskirts of Changsha, facing a constant struggle to survive. Her
grandmother lost her life by the time Can Xue started elementary school.8 In 1966, her school-
ing was interrupted and the Revolutionary Committee of Hunan Teachers College imprisoned
her father and sent her mother to May Seventh Cadre School. “The house was taken away from
us. All alone, I was left in the dark, a small room assigned to me. I once moved to a little room
under the staircase on the other side of the river where it was more convenient to send things
to father” (Ibid., 10). Later she was employed as ironworker and assembler for ten years and
after her son was born she started a self-employed tailoring business (getihu) together with her
husband. Hardship, solitude, torment, prosecution, non-belonging, vulnerability and alienation
were consistent companions of her child- and early adulthood and when she had reached the
age of thirty, she felt “I have something to say about these ten years, and about the future [. . .] in
the form of literature and imagination” (Ibid., 11). However it is not its ugly face but the beauty
of life Can Xue identifies as the catalyst for her writing, “the beautiful southern summer, the
blazing sun in the south, the light and ardent artistic conception. In my early years, I walked far
and wide in the scorching sun, bareheaded and barefoot, full of joy and boundless daydreaming”
(Ibid., 11–12). A committed autodidact, Can Xue learned writing and reading in English and
was an extensive consumer and intensive reader of all kinds of literature, marking Russian and
classical Western literature out as her favorites. She has always been generous and outspoken

481
 Irmy Schweiger

in disclosing her world of writing and thinking, and the list of writers that made the greatest
impression on her and inspired her most, is well documented not only in interviews, reviews
and research works, but in her book-length commentaries featuring Borges, Shakespeare, Dante,
Goethe, Calvino, Kafka and Bruno Schulz; not to forget the volume of dialogues with her
brother, the philosopher Deng Xiaomang, about Kant. Can Xue began publishing short stories
and criticism in the mid-1980s, and immediately established herself as a unique and controver-
sial literary voice. Meanwhile she has published three novels, more than fifty novellas, far over
hundred short stories and she has not only taken avant-gardism as far as it can go, but has stayed
the only author of the short-lived avant-garde movement, who, to this day, is still committed
to avant-gardist experimentalism and modernism, to “soul literature” or “life literature,” how
she terms her oeuvre, to unceasing explorations of the Self. Her short texts “The Hut on the
Mountain” (“Shanshang de xiaowu,” 1985) and “Soap bubbles on dirty water” (“Wushui shang
de feizao pao,” 1985) together with the novellas “Old Floating Cloud” (“Canglao de fuyun,”
1986) and “Yellow Mud Street” (“Huangni jie,” 1986) account for her first published works that
puzzled and excited critics and readers alike.
It is hard to imagine that Can Xue’s non-representational stories, which no longer revolve
around social protest or expose the “wounds” of the Cultural Revolution but resist a single
meaning, did not have a resounding effect on the younger generation of emerging young lit-
erary vanguards. Almost without exception her stories dwell on thematic obscurity, they lack
formal coherence and are devoid of a clear governing principle. Most of her narratives begin
in medias res and establish the “I” as unreliable narrator with an absolute, exclusive and non-
ambiguous point of view; the absoluteness and totality of the first-person narrator’s perspective
creates a black box image, an isolated view disallowing the reader to ever catch a glimpse from
another perspective, to glance at an external world or to spot any narrative ambiguity. Locked
into this “caged” point of view, the reader for good or for evil is left entirely in the hands of the
narrator, mostly for evil though. The sensory and visual imagery that unfolds in the narrative
creates and intensifies an alienating and distancing, at the same time a suffusing and penetrating
effect. Can Xue’s fiction is considered to be abstract, expressionistic, absurd, surrealistic, imagina-
tive, ironic and allegorical, making rational, realistic or psychoanalytical engagement obsolete.
“The Hut on the Mountain,” first published in People’s Literature in August 1985, is of pro-
phetic character as it displays many features of modernist avant-gardism that run through Can
Xue’s work at large.9 Like many of her narratives it lacks a linear plot but is made up of dis-
jointed episodes, which are made up of narrator statements on events or accounts of dreams.
Illusion and reality are blurred yet unrelated; like in a dream the episodes are distorted flashlight
reveries, which cannot be verified or reveal any internal or unconscious aspects.“The Hut” gives
a foretaste of Can Xue’s obsession with evocative imagery of squirmy animals as it is already
populated with “dead moths and dragonflies [. . .] lots of big rats running wildly in the wind”
(213), “fat earthworms” and “hideous beetles” (215). The visual images of holes, cracks and fis-
sures, the poking through and the perforation of objects are recurring motifs – “sometimes they
[the wolves] poke their heads in through the cracks in the door” (213) – that might be identified
as symbolizing the violation of privacy, of intimacy, of the family home. The grotesque images
of bodily deformation, absurd swellings as effect of one’s behavior – “I had the feeling she was
glaring ferociously at the back of my head since the spot would become numb and swollen”
(213) – are recurring in most of Can Xue’s narratives and can likewise be read as symptoms of a
reanimated traumatic effect, as casually indicated by the narrator: “Everything has its own cause
from way back. Everything” (215).
In an ironic allusion, “The Hut” evokes Lu Xun’s “iron house” and almost alike the “I” is
trapped in its spiritual shackle of transcendental homelessness and is the only one who can

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“hear the man locked up in the hut banging furiously against the door” (212). The ironic
playfulness with the literary legacy continues with “father [who] stole a glance at me with one
eye, which, I noticed, was the all-too-familiar eye of a wolf ” (213). Apart from a mood of inex-
plicable suspicion, a sense of nightmare and fear of persecution created by the narrative voice,
the author seems clearly aware of her ironic “patricide”; her recurrent recontextualisation and
playful negation of Lu Xun’s allegorical emblems and symbolisms are but to savor killing him
softly. Can Xue’s evocation of a nightmarish notion of groundless persecution and grotesque
distortion, populated with people sans dignity and full of hostility towards each other, leaves
indeed everyone fatally trapped in absolute hopelessness and total reclusion; but her paranoiac
world is devoid of the slightest ambition of “calling to arms” or “awakening the masses.” Instead
of creating madness as the flip side of a cannibalistic and false reality, Can Xue’s fictional reality
is constituted, confronted and realized by endless and mainly painful subjective experiences that
however do not clarify anything. In a sort of reversed world social, historical and personal rela-
tions do not constitute the subject, but it is the engagement and fight of the self with itself and
with the external world that constitutes “reality” which likewise might be a “dream.”
While “Yellow Mud Street,” the first piece she has been working on from 1983 onwards, is
her most obvious political allegory, none of her texts are simply a reflection of a political land-
scape or historical experience. It is always the experience of an internal world that is at the core
of her writing. Although irrational political landscape and spiritual deprivation shine through
her claustrophobic fictional world, the narrative voice shirks away from all authorial duties and
language escapes referentiality. If we perceive of events and facts as relating to external reality
and of experience as something internal, than Can Xue’s texts are not only recording these
experiences but are these experiences themselves: “I’m not as interested in the external world
[as Gabriel García Márquez]. I expel all outside forces in my works.”10 What Can Xue calls her
“constant fight against iron-strong reality” can be detected as a deeper lying structuring mode
of all her works, where “facts” and events of everyday life are transformed into spiritual, internal
and archetypical dramas played out at different axes of reflection. Her stories underlie a tight
system of constantly alternating between “looking” and “being looked at,” the image of mir-
rors being omnipresent. This irreconcilable constellation is doubled in the binary opposition of
the narrator/ protagonist (often “I”) and the others (often family or neighborhood members)
characterized by their mutual suspicion, distrust and non-understanding, yet inextricably linked
together. In a typical avant-gardist gesture the text stages subjectivity as fragmented and discon-
tinuous by creating a series of split personae acting out their conflicting and contradicting roles.
The “I” or narrative voices as well as the others, are all split into numerous personae that reflect
and engage with each other, however it is always the Self that is at the center while the other
figures are not more than distorted metamorphoses of the Self. In her poetic self-conception
Can Xue equates “reality” with “logos” – or the “castle,” as Kafka would have it – a fixed system
that is not to be changed.The characters in her stories are nothing else than performers of “nous”
or the human mind, resisting and fighting against “logos.” Creation and appreciation of the text
allows therefore a sort of self-realization and leads to a deeper understanding of “logos.” Can
Xue identifies this system of production and reception as a “syncretic aesthetic mechanism of
Logos and Nous.”11 This mechanism corresponds to the writer’s mode of breaking her “nous”
into several parts and making them wrestle with “logos” by way of a painful and arduous effort
of self-realization.
The nightmarish and brutal images, the grotesque characters that neither show development
nor engagement in any socially meaningful activities, the vagueness of spatial and temporal set-
ting, the separation of inner and outer worlds, the conflation of objective and subjective reali-
ties, the absence of plot and representation we find in Can Xue’s writing, trigger a pivotal shift

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in contemporary Chinese literature: texts that have been readings about experiences become
experiences themselves through the process of creation and reception. In this sense Can Xue’s
writing can be understood in what Peter Bürger identified as one of the central ambitions of
(Western) avant-gardism: the “reintegration of art into life“ (Rückführung der Kunst in die
Lebenspraxis). While in both literary traditions art had been dissociated from life on completely
different historical grounds, both traditions favor art that is aiming at the sublation (Aufhebung)
of art in life. Neither in the Chinese nor in the Western avant-garde would this process have
been complied with neat integration into the existent rationally organized world of modernity,
and even less with the demand that the contents of works of art should be socially significant.
On the contrary, new art is “the attempt to organize a new life practice from a basis of art.”12 Can
Xue’s radical aesthetic resistance echoes Walter Benjamin’s call to adopt formal and technical
strategies, which subvert and nullify a false imagery of social unity, and to make use of the prin-
ciple of non-organic forms, which fulfill at least two important avant-garde functions: “the abju-
ration of conventionally harmonious formal structures and the disruption of any artificial sense
of unity which might offer the subject a sense of reconciliation within the social imaginary.”13

Ma Yuan – that Chinese writer

Literary critics have more than once spoken of the younger avant-gardists as “post-Ma Yuan
writers.” Ma Yuan is regarded to be the downright pioneer and vanguard model obsessed with
fictionality, employing “the infinity of the inexhaustible form”14 when creating his “narrative
labyrinth.”15 In post-revolutionary China, Ma Yuan, without doubt, has shifted the substance of
literature from content to form, from the question of “what to write” towards “how to write”;
his highlighting of fictionality by writing about writing has, on the one hand, redefined the field
of literary innovation and challenged conventional perceptions and readings of fiction. On the
other hand, his exclusive concern with the medium itself, his aesthetic self-centeredness resulted
in a blank rejection of literature’s social significance.
Born in the same year as Can Xue, Ma Yuan grew up in Northeast China, in the city of Jin-
zhou, Liaoning province. His family was denounced as having a landlord class background and
condemned to the Five Black Categories (Heiwulei). After graduating from junior middle school
Ma Yuan was “sent down” to the Bohai region to learn from peasants. As one of the luckier
ones, he was allowed to return home after only four years and to continue his education, first
as a student of engineering, and later to study Chinese literature at Liaoning University. After
graduation, he moved to Tibet in 1982, and worked first as reporter and editor at the Tibetan
People’s Broadcasting Station and later at a literary journal. He stayed in Tibet for seven years,
before his deteriorating health, on account of the Tibetan altitude, forced him to leave Lhasa.
During his time in Tibet he married, the couple got a son and it was during this stint he built
his reputation as an avant-gardist; it is doubtful that this was a matter of conscious ambition, it
was more likely one of disinterested ironic playfulness, that attracted the critics’ attention. Ma
Yuan himself hardly made a genuine effort to walk the limelight of avant-gardism, nor would
he explicate his poetological self-conception at an early stage. Upon his return from the “roof
of the world” he resolutely turned his back on fiction writing and started a successful career in
the TV business, as scriptwriter for stage and film, adapting mainly zhiqing-related topics before
he left for Hainan to set up his own advertising agency as “self-employed business person”
(getihu). In the mid-1990’s he once again re-adjusted his career by taking up a professorship for
media and communication in the Chinese department at Tongji University, teaching classical
Chinese and creative writing. Apart from his meta-fictional avant-garde stories, including two
novels, he has published drama and movie scripts, literary criticism and academic studies mainly

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on fictional narration, Western and Chinese classics. Ma Yuan discontinued writing fiction for
almost two decades, but once he resumed creative writing, he re-appropriated parts of his earlier
work and gradually took a shift towards realism. His novel Entanglement (Jiuchan, 2013) about
the falling-out of three generations involved in an inheritance battle is quite a move away from
experimental writing towards realist writing. His first creative period came to an abrupt halt in
early 1989, but by that time he had already ascended to the elitist sphere of literary vanguardism,
a “heavenly horse roaming the clouds”16 that “shifted the literary paradigm from the absolute to
the flawed, from the organic to the fragmentary, and from the logical to the puzzling.”17
Starting out from the margins in far away Tibet, some of Ma Yuan’s fiction has understand-
ably been categorized as “zhiqing” or “root-seeking” literature. Several of his stories actually do
have the rural landscape and his own rustification experience as imaginative backdrop, and basi-
cally all of his early texts play out in Tibet and are associated with the “cultural other” of “ortho-
dox Han politics.” His Huckleberry Finn styled narrative “Point Zero” (“Ling gongli chu”), is
a Red Guard coming of age story, which, twenty years later, resurfaced as the starting point of
his autobiographical novel Ox Demons and Snake Spirits (Niugui sheshen, 2012), together with
his early novella Up and Down, Always Smooth (Shengxia dou hen pingtan, 1987), both are often
read as examples of zhiqing stories relating to the period of the Cultural Revolution.Yet, these
texts deviate from the canonical labels in at least two crucial aspects: they are far from establish-
ing an essentialized ethnic/cultural/religious other as counterpart of Han hegemony, and they
completely undermine the ideological imperative and glorification of the “reeducation” record
by featuring everyday trivialities, insignificant and random happenings, and by dissolving plot
and reproducible narration alike.
“The Goddess of Lhasa River” (“Lasa he de nüshen,” 1984), the first story to be published,
coincided with the Chinese translation of a Jorge Borges short story collection, and not much
time passed before Chinese critics made the assumedly obvious connection between the two.
Instead of building dramatic tension or plotting a storyline, we encounter in Ma Yuan’s text a
series of singular narrative strings that remain unfinished, an accumulation of seemingly arbi-
trary scenes, none of them contributing to an overall image or organic structure; rather, an
aggregation of paratactic narrative segments that leave narrated events without tangible progres-
sion and obstruct the story to move forward as it moves sideways, pursuing several unconnected
strings at once.This debut without coherent and unified plot, multiple unfinished plotlines, with
traces of “ethnographic” observations and irrelevant narrative details is but only the beginning of
Ma Yuan’s “mission” to create evidence that fiction not only could be fabricated but could also
be about fabrication itself. His short novel “The Spell of the Gangdise Mountains” (“Gangdisi
de youhuo,” 1985), a text that caused a real sensation among critics, was regarded as a milestone
in literary creativity heralding the era of avant-garde fiction in China. Here the reader already
encounters Ma Yuan’s (self-)ironic literary device as well as his inclination to literally search for
things unknown, thereby creating a permanent desire that can never be satisfied. The moon
seems near-by if measured against Ma Yuan’s fiction, which is light-years away from any sense of
catharsis, happy-end or any ending at all.This sense of permanent desire and incompleteness has
a structural equivalent in a narrative uncertainty combined with multiple unfinished plot lines
that predominate his stories. Teasing the reader’s desire for the end of the story that can offer a
sense of meaning, the narrative voice in “The Spell” taunts: “What, you want another ‘And then,’
Dear Reader?”18
“The Spell” is but a forecast of Ma Yuan’s enduring preoccupation with the narrator. The
novella establishes the recurring notorious double-protagonist Lu Gao and Yao Liang, who live
a curious fictive life of being different but the same, real but maybe fictive, who challenge each
other’s and the narrator’s perspective, and jokingly point to their Wahlverwandtschaft (elective

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 Irmy Schweiger

affinity) with the author: “Now I’ll tell another story. First let me make one thing clear: it is
not really certain there’s any such person as Yao Liang. But there is no reason why a Yao Liang
couldn’t come to work in Tibet” (217). Intertwining the narrator, author and protagonists, many
of Ma Yuan’s stories document his obsession with the narrator, his self-dismantling and explicit
liquidation of the unified narrative voice by displaying multivocal narratives that form several
parallel worlds with hardly any connecting elements. “Since so many writers have already writ-
ten about bear hunts, I won’t relate how you hunted that bear. There’s Faulkner the ­American,
there’s Lagerlöf in Sweden, there’s the Japanese movie about the old hunter Dersu Uzala”
(201). Obviously, not only the reliability of the narrator is disavowed but the literary device of
multiperspective narration too, as neither Faulkner, nor Lagerlöf or Akira Kurosawa add to the
plot by recounting the same story from different angles but actually contribute to the vacuum
in the Chinese story. This however cannot but be read as another parody of the alleged impact
of Western modernism and of patriotic Han-nationalism, as the narrator self-ironically proclaims
in another opening passage: “I am the person known as Ma Yuan, a Han Chinese. [. . .] I tell these
stories in Chinese. [. . .] I take some satisfaction in being able to write in Chinese characters.
None of the great figures of world literature were able to do this. I am the exception.”19
With this self-referential gesture as opener in the programmatic story “Fabrication,” Ma Yuan,
that Chinese writer, explicitly displays the principle of fictionality by not only mixing up the
author with the narrator but reality with fiction. The text reads like a manifesto of how to shat-
ter the aesthetic illusion and unsettle fictional verisimilitude. “Dear Reader, before this tragic
story reaches its conclusion, I must warn you that my ending is contrived. Along with many
other story-tellers, I’m concerned that some of you might take it for the truth” (Ibid., 139–140).
The permanent narrative reminder that the story told is nothing but fabrication, makes fabrica-
tion an end in itself, stripping art of its “affirmative” function by debunking literature as a purely
imaginative product, an aesthetic illusion which is build on certain narrative devices. In its last
chapter, “The Spell” ends in a playful ironic self-exposure of the narrator somehow handing the
unfinished narrative chaos over to the reader: “It’s time to end this story.You’ve been to [. . .] but
[. . .] there are still some problems to settle. A.These are three independent, self-contained stories,
with very little connection between them. There is no coherence. So of course you expect the
author to tie everything up on the last page, right? B. And [. . .] there’s a problem with the end-
ing of the last story. [. . .] C. And one more problem [. . .]” (254) Ma Yuan cultivates avant-gardist
poetics of negation at its finest, by parodying the holy principle of aesthetic creation, of artistic
originality, aesthetic harmony and of organic structure. Thematically his stories are concerned
with “death,” “sex,” “search for the unknown,” “Tibetan mysticism” etc., as if the structural
equivalent of permanent unsatisfied desire was not enough! If we follow comparative literature
scholar Peter Brooks’ concept of narrative desire, which, based on Freud’s Pleasure Principle, he
contends as “desire for the end,” as the process of reading driven by the desire to find totalizing
order to the chaos of life, then Ma Yuan intentionally fuels and boosts this desire by construct-
ing the narrator as “ ‘desiring machine’ whose presence in the text creates and sustains narrative
movement through the forward march of desire [. . .]”20 only, one might add, to come up against
a dead end. The ultimate goal to fulfill the desire and to reach closure is never ever reached
but constantly dismissed by unfinished plot lines and textual incoherencies, missing motifs and
explanations. Although Ma Yuan’s stories might be playful narrative excesses, where fabrication
and truth, fiction and reality are constantly turned upside down and where narrative unreli-
ability seems the only reliable constant; the writer actually is “the only bona fide formalist”21
fabricating for the sake of fabricating, but seismographically registering the disjointed world of
modernity and the crisis of human life-world in the rapid process of desire-creating commodi-
fication and globalization in Deng’s China.

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Yu Hua – history at the dissecting table

Yu Hua is often rated as having incarnated the short-lived avant-garde, starting out with shock-
ingly provocative experimental short stories in the mid-1980s and turning to down-to-earth
realism with his novels in the early 1990s. Born in 1960 in Haiyan, southeastern Zhejiang, his
early childhood memories of the Cultural Revolution are an important back-drop for his stories
and as he revealed in many self-disclosing interviews and essays. Even his literary reading expe-
riences started with Big Characters Posters of the Cultural Revolution, a time where people’s
imaginative powers developed to their full potential and resulted in stories of lies, accusations
and denunciations meant to be displayed publicly and intended to harm others. Growing up
in the neighborhood of a hospital, where both his parents were serving as doctors, Yu Hua
was designed to work as dentist before market opportunities and the emergence of a liter-
ary field in post-Mao China facilitated an alternative career. After he turned to writing critics
quickly labelled him the most promising avant-gardist, especially after publication of his highly
acclaimed anti-coming-of-age story “On the Road at Eighteen” (“Shiba sui chumen yuanxing,”
1987), which by his own account has been written after reading Kafka’s “A Country Doctor”
(1917). Dubbed as the Robbe-Grillet of contemporary Chinese literature, his texts stick out as
clinical descriptions of impossible cruelties and of the evil of human nature, presenting the indi-
vidual stripped of social, emotional and cultural qualities. His fierce aesthetic attacks on human-
ist ideals and on history, by his provocative “phenomenological” descriptions of objects and
scenes, are disavowing not only psychological depth but also the logic of temporal and spatial
order in the narrated world. In 1991,Yu Hua published his only avant-garde novel Crying in the
Drizzle (Zai xiyu zhong de huhuan) before he turned to melodramatic realism with his novel To
Live (Huozhe, 1992) that was later turned into an internationally successful film by the most well
known fifth-generation filmmaker Zhang Yimou. These were followed by the bestseller novels
Chronicle of a Blood Merchant (Xu Sanguan mai xue ji, 1996) and Brothers (Xiongdi, 2005) and by
his latest, less successful novel The Seventh Day (Di qi tian, 2013), which deals with the effects of
explosive consumer society and brutal market economy.
Yu Hua’s early stories revolve around traumatic memories and past experiences. Real life
experiences and imagined life are often blurred and relate to each other in a self-fulfilling
prophecy: reality more often than not is established by the materialization of imagination. The
complicated entanglement of reality and imagination in Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold
(1981) comes to mind when reading for example Yu Hua’s “Predestination” or “April 3rd Inci-
dent.”While Marquez draws on superstition that pervades his “chronicle” but however proves de
facto to be wrong as it does not predict reality but instead obscures it,Yu Hua utilizes indigenous
resources when incorporating chimerical coincidences and supernatural happenings into his
stories in reminiscence of traditional Chinese genres like “transmissions of the marvelous” (lit.
translation of chuanqi) or “recordings of the abnormal” (lit. translation of zhiguai).22 People meet,
disappear and die haphazardly, they reappear unexpectedly, as ghosts or in dreams, as specters of
history; there is no need for explanation as these weird and strange happenings are “recorded”
by an impassive and uninvolved narrator but they are actually more real than reality. In “Predes-
tination” the logic of fate is still confirmed by the plot – as expected by the traditional zhiguai
reader – although in reversed order: evidence is only given when discourse-time and story-time
overlap and the plot returns to its chronological point of departure: “Thirty Years Ago” (first
part of the narrative) the boy, who would be murdered “Now” (second part of the narrative)
hears his own voice screaming for help “from within the dark walls of the mansion.”23 Yu Hua’s
other stories expose the reader to strange abnormalities and absurdities in a mode that seem to
suggest that even in these common sense and empirical registering were still at work; bloody

487
 Irmy Schweiger

family feuds, impassive bodily dissections and sadomasochistic self-mutilations are recorded and
conveyed as ordinary matter-of-facts.Yu Hua exploits the conventions of the tales of the super-
natural (zhiguai xiaoshuo) – a genre that is deeply rooted in Chinese oral tradition, featuring
folktales, historical tales and folk customs – by substituting the imagined abnormal with “real”
abnormality of Chinese history and life world. In effect readers’ expectations are hoaxed, on a
metafictional level generic parody destabilizes the imaginary relationship between humans and
their worlds.
As Liu Kang neatly summarizes, Yu Hua’s work is employing “a realistic or naturalis-
tic mode without succumbing to its ideological and epistemological presuppositions.”24
Yu Hua’s earlier texts can be said to be playful imitations of reality with plots progress-
ing chronologically, while his later stories are structured by juxtaposition and substitution,
detached of linear and consecutive history. Yu Hua makes use of realist mimetic representa-
tion and “clinically objective” naturalism (Ibid., 107), giving plain detailed description of
events, like the cannibalistic feast in the dissection room, and detailing the autopsy of the
perpetrator-turned-victim of a deadly family vendetta.25 The realist, mimetic effort however
is undermined by the extensive use of “wrong,” mis-representative and obscene metaphors,
destabilizing narrative credibility and nullifying the realist effect. The “real” is no longer a
trustable, rationalized picture of an “objective” world. What David Wang calls the “familiari-
zation of the uncanny”26 can be seen as Yu Hua’s realist literary strategy to actually depicting
the real (Ibid., xxxiv). His absolute emotionless perspective, reminding of a camera-eye, leads
the reader through a horror cabinet of sadism and masochism, systematized killing and slow
torture. In effect it “familiarizes” the weird and absurd reality Chinese people have been liv-
ing through and accepting it as a politically and culturally legitimated part of their quotidian
lives. This is nothing less than creating a naked aestheticized representation of the horrors
and atrocities of historical and political experience of the recent Chinese past, completely
stripped of mediating and legitimizing political ideology of the Communist regime and
Maoist revolution.
Yu Hua is applying a similar literary strategy when “disassembling” the Self by description
of its complete dehumanization, disintegration and dissolution, his “surgical knife cuts the con-
nection between sign and meaning by presenting his characters as nothing but signifiers for an
absent self.”27 In “One Kind of Reality” (1988) the individual is stripped of his or her social,
emotional and cultural qualities and the narrative attention is directed towards surface details of
the external world regardless of the fact that this bears no symbolical meaning or relationship
towards the enfolding plot. The characters do not in the least connect to or reflect the external
world, and their actions are not motivated by thinking or negotiating with the world or with
others. What we see is but acting out within confined space, preferably small towns and villages
in South China or the nuclear family.
While the family feud in “One Kind of Reality” can be read as a satire on the Confucian
family myth, as the logic of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth resulting in the complete liq-
uidation of all male members of the family – mainly to deprive each other of the continuation
of the family lineage – its detailed presentation of cruelty and ignorance might as well be read as
Chinese history in a nutshell. The excessive killings (escalating from killing by accident, killing
by callously accepting death, killing as deliberate act, all the way to killing by the legal system)
are meaningless and make no sense; they are executed on the basis of invisible conventions that
are however not anchored in any ground beyond the individual but are carried out by individu-
als in the given world that they are a part of.
Chinese avant-garde literature is not only deeply rooted in a radically contemporary social-
cultural experience but it addresses the past, the present and the future and confronts questions

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of reality, writing and life. Like its Western counterpart it is provocative, innovative and self-
reflective. To accuse Chinese avant-gardist, as pro-democratic journalist Liu Binyan did, of “not
caring enough about the society and the people”28 might as well be understood as a reflex
of the literary establishment provoked by the avant-garde’s bold and playful experimentation
with fictional forms and cultural norms. Their anti-humanist imagination pushed the “socio-
politically centered and culturally invested subject invigorated with a teleological and utopian
vision towards life,”29 construed by humanist intellectuals forcefully off its pedestal. Chinese
avant-garde movement favors art with a radical contemporaneity, dissolving the border between
life and art, modifying the relationship between self and the world and aesthetically reproducing
the fabric of contemporary life.

Notes
1 Chen Sihe, “On Avantgardism of the New Literature of the May Fourth Movement,” Journal of Fudan
University (Fudan xuebao) (2005), no. 6, 1–17.
2 Zhang Xudong, Chinese Modernism in the Era of Reforms: Cultural Fever, Avant-Garde Fiction, and the New
Chinese Cinema (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 1997), 161.
3 Chen Xiaoming, “After the Avant-Garde: The Trend of 1990s Literature and Its Crisis,” Criticism on
Present-Day Writers (Dangdai zuojia pinglun) (1997), no. 3, 36.?
4 Li Jianzhou, “Xianfengxiaoshuo shi nian (1984–1993),” (A Decade of Avant-Garde Fiction, 1984–
1993) Discussions and Debates on Literature (Wenxue Zhengming), no. 10 (2015).
5 Wu Liang, “Re-membering the Cultural Revolution: Chinese Avant-Garde Literature of the 1980s,” in
Pang-Yuan Chi and David Der-Wei Wang, eds., Chinese Literature in the Second Half of a Modern Century:
A Critical Survey, (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2000), 124.
6 Chen Xiaoming, “Zui hou de yishi – ‘xianfengpai’ de lishi ji qi pinggu,” (Closing Ceremony – History
and Evaluation of the “Avant-Garde School,”) Literary Review (Wenxue pinglun) (1991), no. 5, 132.
7 Liu Kang, “The Sort-Lived Avant-Garde: The Transformation of Yu Hua,” Modern Language Quarterly
(March 2002) 63, no. 1, 100.
8 Can Xue, “A Summer Day in the Beautiful South,” in Dialogues in Paradise, trans. Ronald R. Janssen and
Jian Zhang (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1989), 4.
9 Can Xue, “The Hut on the Mountain,” in Jing Wang, ed., China’s Avant-Garde Fiction: An Anthology,
trans. Ronald R. Janssen and Jian Zhang (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1998), 212–216.
10 Can Xue, “The Aesthetic Activity in Modern Fiction,” interview by Jonathan Griffith, February 2010.
11 Can Xue,“Aesthetics and Nature: A Preface,” Journal of Literature and Art Studies (August 2015), 5, no. 8, 643.
12 Peter Bürger, The Theory of the Avant-Garde (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), 49.
13 Richard Murphy, Theorizing the Avant-Garde: Modernism, Expressionism, and the Problem of Postmodernity
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 14.
14 Jing Wang, ed., China’s Avant-Garde: An Anthology (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press,
1998), 5.
15 Wu Liang, “Ma Yuan de xushu quantao,” (Ma Yuan’s Narrative Labyrinth), Criticism on Present-Day Writ-
ers (Dangdai zuojia pinglun) (1987), no. 3, 45–51.
16 Ma Yuan, “Fabrication,” in Zhao Yiheng, ed., The Lost Boat: Avant-garde Fiction from China (London:
Welllsweep, 1993), 101.
17 Yang Xiaobin, introduction to Ballad of the Himalayas: Stories of Tibet, by Ma Yuan, trans. Herbert J. Batt
(Portland, Maine: Merwin Asia, 2011), xiv.
18 Ma Yuan, “The Spell of the Gangdise Mountains,” in Ballads of the Himalaya: Stories of Tibet, trans.Yang
Xiaobin (Portland, Maine: Merwin Asia, 2011), 255.
19 Ma Yuan, “Fabrication,” in Zhao Yiheng, ed., The Lost Boat: Avant-garde Fiction from China (London:
Wellsweep, 1993), 101.
20 Peter Brooks, Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative (New York: Vintage Books, 1984),
40–41.
21 Wu Liang, “Re-membering the Cultural Revolution: Chinese Avant-Garde Literature of the 1980s,” 132.
22 Anne Wedell-Wedellsborg, “Haunted Fiction: Modern Chinese Literature and the Supernatural,” The
International Fiction Review (2005), 32, no. 1 & 2, https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/IFR/article/
view/7797/8854. Accessed January 23, 2016.

489
 Irmy Schweiger

23 Yu Hua, “Predestination,” in The Past and the Punishments, trans. Andrew F. Jones (Honolulu: University
of Hawai‘i Press, 1996), 262.
24 Liu Kang, “The Short-Lived Avant-Garde: The Transformation of Yu Hua,” in Modern Language Quar-
terly (March 2002), 63, no. 1, 107.
25 Yu Hua, “One Kind of Reality,” in Zhao Yiheng, ed., The Lost Boat. Avant-garde Fiction from China (Lon-
don: Wellsweep, 1993), 182.
26 David Der-wei Wang, Chinese Literature in the Second half of a Modern Century: A Critical Survey, eds.
Pang-Yuan Chi and David Der-wei Wang (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press,
2000), 244.
27 Anne Wedell-Wedellsborg, “One Kind of Reality: Reading Yu Hua,” in Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles,
Reviews (CLEAR) (December 1996), vol. 18, 130.
28 Quoted in Zhao Yiheng, “The Rise of Metafiction in China,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African
Studies, University of London, (1992), vol. 55, no. 1, 99.
29 Jing Wang, China’s Avant-Garde, 4.

Further readings
Cai,Yongchun. Postmodernism and Contemporary Avant-garde Fiction. New York: Routledge, 2015.
Can, Xue. Dialogues in Paradise. Translated by Ronald R. Janssen and Jian Zhang. Evanston: Northwestern
University Press, 1989.
Chen, Xiaoming. The Boundless challenge – Postmodernity in Chinese Avant-garde Fiction (Wubian de Tiaozhan –
Zhongguo Xianfeng Wenxue de Houdaixing). Beijing: Zhongguo renmin daxue chubanshe, 2015.
Larson, Wendy and Anne Wedell-Wedellsborg, eds. Inside Out: Modernism and Postmodernism in Literary Cul-
ture. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1993.
Li, Hua. Contemporary Chinese Fiction by Su Tong and Yu Hua: Coming of Age in Troubled Times. Leiden and
Boston: Brill, 2011.
Liang, Luo. The Avant-Garde and the Popular in Modern China:Tian Han and the Intersection of Performance and
Politics. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan, 2014.
Tang, Xiaobin. The Origins of the Chinese Avant-Garde: The Modern Woodcut Movement. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 2007.
Yu, Hua. The Past and the Punishments. Translated by Andrew F. Jones. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i
Press, 1996.
Yu, Zhansui. Chinese Avant-garde Fiction: Quest for Historicity and Transcendent Truth. Cambria Sinophone
World Series. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2016.
Zhao, Henry Y. H. “Ma Yuan the Chinese Fabricator.” World Literature Today 69.2 (Spring 1995): 312–316.

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 36
EXPERIMENTAL AND OPAQUE
POETRY
Bei Dao, Shu Ting, Gu Cheng, and others

Cosima Bruno

In late 1980, on the pages of the first and most important unofficial literary journal of the Peo-
ple’s Republic of China, Today, postgraduate student Xiao Chi, under the pen name of Hong
Huang, wrote: “A new kind of poetry has been born. It is flowing in the winds and waters of
our land, in the blood and breath of a new generation. Some call it a revolution; others an inva-
sion of the world of Chinese poetry by Western monsters.”1 By then, the critic Zhang Ming had
already labelled such new kind of poetry as menglong (misty, obscure, hazy, or opaque), adducing
it to its indebtedness to “foreign” poetry.2
Menglong is indeed a significant epithet that both resonates with classical associations and
reveals the lack of preparation and general disbelief from the literary establishment towards an
aesthetic that aimed at breaking free from the overtly political language, form, and content of
officially sanctioned poetry. The word menglong has gone through many a translation, before
acquiring a somewhat conventionalized version in misty.3
And yet it is rather difficult to draw a precise timeline for the appearance of Misty poetry.
The end of the 1970s proved to be a watershed in Chinese literature, full of arrivals and depar-
tures. Arriving was the policy of reforms and opening up to emancipate the mind and revive the
economy, which departed from the collectivization of agriculture and the isolation of a closed-
door policy. Arriving were the publications of periodicals and authors who had been silenced for
years, and were now trying to find a voice again. Arriving was also a group of poets, gathering
around the journal Today, and departing from literature as the mouth-piece of politics, full of
positive selfless heroes praising the “brightness” of socialism. Taking off from “scar literature”,
they left behind their trust in the capability of the Party to put things right.They started writing
during the years of their rustication and now felt they had the responsibility to guide literature
towards a new era, into the world. But it was not until the early 1980s that the underground
reputation of Misty poetry began to emerge as an influential presence, previously attacked or
lightly dismissed as eccentric, now starting to take shape as a distinct genre.
In a way, the first examples of post-Cultural Revolution poetry continued to be resonant of
the same revolutionary aesthetics of their predecessors: in a mythic fashion, the body-self is often
still idealised and sacrificed in order to accomplish collective triumph.There were however con-
siderable differences in the ways the self is conceived in relation to the state, the future, and the
past, as well as in the poetic form and language used.

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 Cosima Bruno

The Misty poets were born in the first years of the People’s Republic of China, and shared
the dramatic experience of the Cultural Revolution, and the subsequent condition of human
crisis. They also shared the need for theoretical reflection on poetry’s nature and function at the
center of their culture and society. They relied on poetry as means to knowledge and inven-
tion, nursing an intention to reconnect with Chinese pre-modern poetic tradition as well as
with Western modernist poetics, and laying an emphasis on the renewal of language. The poet
resumed the mission of a herald that brings justice and humanity to the world.
This new aesthetic proclivity substituted rhyme with freer, more irregular lines that are rich
in visual imagery. The new poetic compositions were also often paradoxical in attitude. While
employing parallelism and binary structures or antithetical constructions, they also struggled
between the necessity of expression and the awareness of the elusiveness of language.This put the
poet in the difficult position of living in language, and being misrepresented by it. A cross sec-
tion of Misty poetry shows similarities in symbolism, metaphors, syntactical fractures and other
rhetorical devices, which defined a Misty poetry style. It is through this style that Misty poetry
exerted a decisive impact on the disintegration of the conventions of the Maoist revolutionary
rhetoric, and gave aesthetic expression to a more autonomous “self,” charged with emotions,
beliefs, and disbeliefs, standing openly as a challenge to the collective historical crisis.
Having lived in a hard time of political coercion, the poets expressed the need to reveal the
anguish and pain experienced on a national scale. The difficulty of making sense of the trauma
of the Cultural Revolution determined the lack of positive answers, the defiant attitude and
the condemnation in their compositions. Repression, violence, censorship, restriction of liberty,
pain, anguish, sacrifice, and death, all constituted the dramatic dimension of Misty poetry. To
reveal the effects of coercion, the persona is often represented as wounded. The wound is not
just an image for suffering and torture, but it becomes a national symbol for the rupture of equi-
librium between the state and the self, which in fact led a high percentage of the Misty poets
to leave China in the second half of the 1980s and to live in exile abroad for a period of time.
Most representative figures of Misty poetry’s aesthetics include Mang Ke, Bei Dao, Shu Ting,
Gu Cheng, Jiang He, and Yang Lian.

Mang Ke
Although Mang Ke never admitted it, and although his poetry is not always seen as the most
representative of the Misty school, it is generally agreed among poets that he is to be consid-
ered the father of Misty poetry. Born in Shenyang, in 1950, Jiang Shiwei took his pseudonym
from the transliteration in Chinese of his childhood nickname in English, monkey.4 He arrived
in Beijing with his family at the age of 5, and there attended school with a future fellow poet
Duoduo. In 1969, in the middle of the Cultural Revolution, Mang Ke was sent to the rural
area of Baiyangdian in Hebei province, where he spent seven years. Meanwhile, his readings of
Western literature (typically the Russian Romantics Pushkin and Lermontov, the Bengali poet
Tagore, the European poets Baudelaire, Montale, Lorca, as well as many American writers of the
Beat Generation, Hemingway, and Salinger) and the commingling of several activities prepared
the ground for the remarkable literary experimentation that took place throughout the 1970s
and early 1980s. In 1972, Mang Ke, Duoduo, Genzi and others grouped together in the under-
ground literary circle of the Baiyangdian Lake. After returning to Beijing in 1976, he started
working in a paper mill, and in December 1978, joined Bei Dao in founding the unofficial
literary journal Today. It was in Today that the first works of the loose assortment of Misty poets
were published. In the first issue, there appeared Mang Ke’s “Sky” and “Frozen Earth”; Bei Dao’s
“The Answer”; Shu Ting’s “To the Oak Tree” and “Ah, Mother.”

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As for other members of the Misty group, for Mang Ke too, poetry is conceived as essential
to the reconstruction of the self from its position at the crucible between language and life: “it
is you that mends human life.”5 His personae are generally bodily and fully set in the natural
world, transcending social mores, and not subject to the didactic impulse. His criticism of the
social order may take the form of a cold deprecation of the destructive forces of conformity à la
Ginsberg, or of a passionate recording of love and of the painful experience of the individual in a
climate of violence and terror; all conveyed in a poignant figurative language, as in the following
excerpt from “The Vineyard” (1978):

I watched the grapes fall to the ground,

blood flowing amid the fallen leaves.6

Using metaphors that can accommodate a reading of the poem as socially and politically engaged,
Mang Ke’s aesthetic does not look for the theatrical or the mythical, as some of his fellow poets’
works do. Nor does it subscribe to the provocative tone of the ostracized outcast, like most of
his inspiring muses of the Beat generation did. More than utterly provocative, philosophical, or
declamatory, Mang Ke’s approach is humanistic and self-contained with a narrative rhythm that
is deceivingly plain, made of moments, interested in the observation and portrayal of nature and
life, tainted as they are with ephemerality and failure. While all around him there was very lit-
tle poetry except didactic poems to instruct the masses, his most acclaimed poem “Sky” (1973)
stood out with new imagist energy and individual pathos:

The sun rises,

The sky –
a blood-soaking shield.7

When, with the tightening of censorship from the authorities, Today was forced to close down,
and the official publications criticized his poetry as “poison to the mind,” Mang Ke had to go
through a period of uncertainty, losing his source of income. But for the young intellectuals of
the time, his verse had ushered in a revolution, and served as the voice of a thinking generation,
“reacting against the diseased poetry of the last decades.”8 Shying away from any label, school,
or trend, Mang Ke indeed remains a highly individual writer, who exerted a decisive influence
on the other writers of his generation and afterward. His short lyrical compositions, in distinct
contrast to the Maoist guidelines for an aesthetic of long, rhyming poems in the tradition of
the folksongs, were an inspiration for many poets, including Bei Dao, Shu Ting, and Gu Cheng.
Continuing his poetic exploration for a little more than a decade, Mang Ke worked with
other poets to found two more journals: The Survivors (Xingcunzhe) in 1988, and Modern Chi-
nese Poetry (Xiandai hanshi) in 1991.9 His 1992 collection, The Time without Time (Meiyou shijian
de shijian), constitutes a turning point in his poetic form, presenting longer compositions, but
always infused with the same immediacy, sincerity and directness that characterise his whole
work. More recently, after so many years of writing mainly poetry and some fiction, Mang Ke
has turned successfully and almost exclusively to painting.

Bei Dao
Bei Dao (or Island of the North, pseudonym of Zhao Zhenkai, allegedly given to him by Mang
Ke) was born in 1949 in Beijing in a middle-class, Shanghainese family. Participating in the
Cultural Revolution as a Red Guard like the majority of the people of his age, Bei Dao was

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dislocated for the rustication campaign, although he was not sent to the countryside, but to a
construction company in a semi urban environment, where he started writing the novella Waves.
Having completed its first draft in 1972, he however decided to start writing poetry, which soon
attracted attention and gained acclamation from many democracy activists – from the April 5th
Democracy Movement in 1976, to the June Fourth Incident in 1989, and beyond.
Bei Dao’s writings remain rooted in both the Chinese poetic tradition and in the poetry
produced in the first half of the 20th century by poets like Lorca, Mandelstam, Dylan Thomas,
and Celan. Minimalist and yet powerful and suggestive, it assumes the mission to expose both
public and private wounds and reconstruct the self by way of scepticism and open challenges to
accepted norms in society. The poem “Answer,” written in 1972 and broadly circulated during
the repression of the protest movement of April 5, 1976, was then republished in the first issue of
Today in 1978. It has been recognised as one of the most quoted contemporary Chinese poems,
especially in the opening lines of its third stanza:

Let me tell you, world

I – do – not – believe!10

Thus Bei Dao expressed his anti-ideological attitude, frustration, disillusion, despair and desire
for truth, challenging the entire establishment not only for being responsible for the Cultural
Revolution, but also for continuing to portray the sky as “blue.” Indeed, “Red sun,” “white
snow,” “blue sky,” “eastern wind,” “flying flock” were all set phrases that made up the clichéd
symbolism in much of the 1950s and 1960s poetic vocabulary, but all these were now refuted
by the poet for being deceitful, and replaced with a new, more philosophical vocabulary or with
different images, featuring stones, cloudy skies, children, seagulls, and flowers. Old parameters
and categories and even elementary polarities used to define the world are now questioned.
By seeking seclusion or independence, proclaiming in a structure that is incremental, with
repetitions that culminate into the poem’s apex, Bei Dao’s poetic subject awoke a new sense of
idealism among the youth of the Chinese “lost generation” a desire for greater social justice for
the autonomous individual in a post-revolutionary society: “The poet should create a world of
his own, a world that is sincere and independent, a world of integrity, justice and humanity.”11
Another famous poem that is often cited for its philosophical statements about life is “All”.
Like “Answer,” “All” presents a heavily parallel structure that solemnly conveys the demoralised
disillusionment of an entire generation, whose beliefs and hopes have been uncompromisingly
shattered. Both poems express pessimism and portray a world where human emotions are dis-
connected from their faithful expression, and love can only hide in order to escape the historical
failure of death, grief and violence.
At the end of 1983, with the onset of the “anti-spiritual pollution” campaign,12 Bei Dao’s
poems too were harshly criticised until the campaign fizzled out, and he could enjoy a period of
flourishing literary activities, publishing in official journals and participating in many an activ-
ity. When in 1989 students demonstrating in Tiananmen Square circulated Bei Dao’s poems as
anthems venting their anger and protest, the authorities singled them out as examples of sub-
versive poetry and accused the poet of inciting to revolt. Such accusations forced Bei Dao to
embark on a long journey of exile. While on a trip in Europe during the same year, he could
not but stay behind and start his “drifting life,” writing and teaching in Sweden, Denmark,
Holland, Germany, and France, before moving to the United States. While in Sweden, he re-
established  Today with former contributors, making it one of the leading periodicals for the
discussion and dissemination of Chinese literature abroad. In 2006, Bei Dao was finally allowed

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to return to China. He eventually settled down in Hong Kong in 2007, where he once again
resumed the editorial role in Today.

Shu Ting
Shu Ting is the pen name of Gong Peiyu. She was born in 1952 in Fujian province, and like
most of the Misty poets, began writing during the years of her rustication in the middle of the
Cultural Revolution. After three years in the mountainous area of Fujian, she returned to the
city of Xiamen, where she started working in a factory. In the late 1970s, she became acquainted
with other poets in Beijing, and started to publish in Today. She achieved prominence as the only
female Misty poet,13 participating in a number of poetry events, and being twice awarded the
National Poetry Prize, first for her poem “Motherland, My Dear Motherland,” in 1981, and then
for her collection A Boat with Two Masts in 1983. In 1982, she also published a joint collection
with fellow poet Gu Cheng, although the heavy criticism of the “anti-spiritual pollution” cam-
paign almost silenced her for the following three years. She published two other collections of
poetry, The Singing Iris (Hui change de yuanwei hua, 1986) and Archaeopteryx (Shizuniao, 1992),
but soon after, turned almost exclusively to writing prose.
Her poems express the need to enable the emotional self to think about life and society,
about the psychological world of the individual in the face of public issues. Her approach is
different from that of Mang Ke or Bei Dao, substituting rational deprecation and philosophical
scepticism with a more passionate and affective attitude towards life. For this reason, her poems
had great impact on the post-Cultural Revolution readership who was thirsty for human kind-
ness, compassion, and tender emotions.
In Shu Ting’s poems it is not unusual to find images borrowed from other Chinese poets
from the 1920s and 1930s, such as Xu Zhimo, He Qifang, or Ai Qing, as well as from British
romantic poets, such as Byron and Keats, but these allusions are processed into an introspective
exploration of social and human relationships that is quite unique to her poetry. For her frequent
reference to the body, suffering, motherhood and love, her poetry has sometimes been defined
as “feminine.”14 We may also find a discreet amount of religious Christian imagery, employed
as tropes for suffering and sacrifice, rather than expressions of the poet’s credo, as in this 1980
poem, entitled “Nailed to the Cross of Poetry. Dedicated to My Mother in the North”. This
poem can be seen as exemplifying an idea in the aesthetics of Misty poetry, in which the sacri-
ficed and wounded body is cannibalised by the soul (“so the condor, as divine retribution/Shall
return daily to peck at my guts’), but it also testifies to the beginning of a gradual yet decisive
passage from the persona’s body as one absorbed into a collective body to one that stands on its
own for the sake of a society made of individuals.
Many of Shu Ting’s poems can be read as intertextual dialogues with other poets. The first
issue of the journal Today presented her “To the Oak Tree,” which can be read as a sort of
intertextual response to Ai Qing’s use of the same metaphor of the oak tree. Another poem is
dedicated to Gu Cheng (see below), but perhaps the most famous is “This Is Also All,” written
as a direct response to Bei Dao’s “All”, and which concludes with the line “No, not all is as
you say”.15 In this poem too Shu Ting allows for an optimistic return to humanism, perhaps to
contrast the “inhumanity” arisen during the Cultural Revolution, offering a feeling of solidar-
ity and unity. As she has clearly put it: “I would like my poetry to express my felt concern for
the human being. Obstacles should be removed, masks should come down. I am convinced
that people will eventually understand each other, because there is always a path that brings to
their soul.”16

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Gu Cheng
Gu Cheng (1956–1993) is another poet of the Misty school involved in the reconstruction of
the self. He writes in a personal statement:

The old kind of poetry has always propagandized about a “non-individual” I or self,
an I that is self-denying and self-destructive; an I that is constantly reduced to a grain
of sand, a road-paving pebble, a cog-wheel, a steel screw. In short, never a person, a
human being who can think, doubt, and have emotions and desires . . . In short, a robot,
a robot I. This kind of I may have a religious beauty of self-sacrifice, but, as an I who
has eradicated his most concrete, individual being, he himself finally loses control and
is destroyed. The new kind of “self ” is born on this heap of ruins.17

This new self is to be conceived not as the origin of revolutionary emotions any more, nor as the
site through which revolutionary impulses will be channelled into action, but as an autonomous,
restless individual who experiences all kinds of emotions and beliefs, sometimes contradictory.
This subject, so clear and full of direction in revolutionary poetry, is childlike and unsure in the
poetry by Gu Cheng, which imparts to the reader sorrow rather than faith, questions rather
than solutions. Such a poetic redefinition of the self aroused bewilderment in the readers of the
previous generation. It is well-known, for example, that Gu Cheng’s father, Gu Gong, himself
a poet, complained: “I am finding it increasingly difficult to understand my child Gu Cheng’s
poetry . . . I have never read this kind of poetry . . . the lines of poetry we chanted were bright
and exalted . . . Not like this! Not like this at all!”18
Whereas Shu Ting’s creative inspiration is to be found in the real world, in everyday life
relationships, Gu Cheng’s poetic world merges fantasy and reality with lines that expand and
dissolve the real into the oneiric, and enjambments that linger in imagination. Shu Ting put this
into a poem, “The Fairy-tale Poet – Dedicated to G.C.”:

You believed in the fairy tales you yourself wrote

Yourself becoming a hidden blue flower in one of them19

The poet, who was only thirteen when he was sent with his family from Beijing to the coun-
tryside of Shandong Province, soon revealed a romantic impulse to create a psychologised indi-
vidual, who is able to imagine an alternative, a poetic world that is subjective and introspective,
where real is rendered through the deforming mirror of the persona’s flights of imagination.
Although he recognized in Walt Whitman’s lifestyle as a vagabond and free spirit his modern
inspiration, his primary reference is perhaps to be found in Chinese classical poetry, and in its
use of symmetrical and paradoxical constructions, as shown by the most brief and famous of his
poems, “A  Generation”:

The night gave me eyes of darkness

But with them I look for light20

The persona’s search for “light” is in antithetical construction with his “eyes of darkness,” which
has been interpreted as representing the search for knowledge and a brighter future by the
generation of the Cultural Revolution. As in many Misty poems, light can be a metaphor for
potentiality, like youth, birds, or the white page. Darkness, antithetically, may represent danger,
the night with its silence, like black ink, and language. This short composition, like Bei Dao’s

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“Answer,” became extremely popular among the young readers of Gu Cheng’s generation, as
well as among activists in more recent demonstrations for democracy in China, Hong Kong and
Taiwan.
In 1987, Gu Cheng left for New Zealand, where six years after he tragically terminated his life,
killing his wife and then hanging himself.The trajectory followed by his poetry has passed from a
world of fantasy, where nature and beauty find a place, to a world of ruins, where there is less space
for childlike curiosity and imagination, while disruption, disorientation and alienation prevail.

Jiang He
Jiang He, pseudonym of Yu Youze, was born in 1949. Contributing to Today since the first issue,
Jiang He has written several poems that engage with social and cultural issues, in a strong heroic
and epic tone that has been compared to that one of Canto General by Neruda and the post-
WW II poems by Elytis. His poetry indeed offers a clear example of Chinese contemporary epic
poetry, where a heroic voice ponders on history and is concerned with the nation. Among his
collections there are Begin from Here (Cong zheli kaishi) and The Sun and His Reflection (Taiyang
he ta de fanguang).
In the early 1980s, with the onset of the “anti-spiritual pollution” campaign, Jiang He stopped
writing for about four years. He then continued composing long poems exploring themes of
ancient Chinese myths in direct conversation with the famous poet Qu Yuan, from the third
century BC. His most famous poems display a strong political consciousness, in a gloomy atmos-
phere of darkness and coercion, where the persona is portrayed as a martyr, as we can see from
these final lines in the first section of “Unfinished Poem:”

I am nailed to death on the prison wall;

like a flag rising my clothes slowly drift.21

Throughout, the poet expresses deep grief and indignation, and uses the horrors of mutilation
and torture to make the notion of the body speak in a heroic way. The persona’s body is morti-
fied, it is identified with the body of a hero who dies for having forged “the people’s character,”
and to have shaken “the wall till it starts to crumble.” The persona-hero is the spokesman for all
martyrs, while a general scene of cruelty is conveyed at almost every line through images such as
“parts of arms, hands, faces are gone,” “handcuffs and shackles burrow into my flesh,” or “whips
and blood weave a net on my body.” The gruesome images describe the hardship inflicted on
the hero’s body, before he is eventually murdered. But the last line, “like a flag rising my clothes
slowly drift,” indicates that his body and his life have not been given in vain: he succeeded in his
fight for the cause because accessories of his body (his clothes) are his rising flag.
Like Bei Dao, Jiang He expresses a similar poetic notion: “On the basis of his intentions and
desires, the artist creates a self-contained world that both contends with and reflects the real
world.”22 But whereas in Bei Dao this world is portrayed in murky tints, enveloping the subject
with doubt and desolation, in Jiang He, as in Yang Lian, this world with the subject at its center,
encompasses past and present, acquiring a historical and even mythological dimension.

Yang Lian
Yang Lian was born in 1955 in Bern, Switzerland, the son of diplomats, but returned to China
with his family on the same year of his birth. Like the other Misty poets, Yang Lian too was
caught up in the rustication campaign in the 1970s, and started publishing his works in Today.

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Yang Lian’s poetry is often presented in cycles, with intriguing structures that combine with
themes, and establish complex relationships among poetic elements. Among his most famous
early poems, there is the cycle Apologia (Zibai, 1981), which features the post-devastation lyri-
cism of the survivor, within a poetic desolate world of ruins. Reference to Eliot’s Waste Land or
Yeats’ The Tower seem appropriate in a setting that, although undoubtedly specific Chinese, can
also be read as universal, at once personal and yet also collective. Commenting on a historical as
well as existential experience, the persona plays the role of representing his whole generation,
living in the union between self, history, and the people, as demonstrated by these lines from his
1981 poem “Pagoda:”

Recording the travail of a nation

[. . .]
history of millennia heavy on my shoulders.23

The persona, who is often easily identified with the poet, is set in a central position, in a waste-
land, in a world of ruins, as in the famous “Homage to Poetry:”

[. . .]
And in this wasteland piled with stones hear a song
[. . .]
I will return, reopen the furrow of suffering,
Begin to plough this land deep in snow.24

The apocalyptic image of the world around is put in contrast with the persona, who reveals
faith in the subjective creative power of the poet (“I will the rose to bloom and it blooms”),
trusting language and poetry in providing ethical and spiritual support, in challenging the “aged
century” that “cheats its children,” and finally in restoring freedom.
In Yang Lian’s early poems, which are considerably longer than those written after 1989,
the heroic figure of the poet features prominently, trying to fulfill his only purpose of return-
ing justice to the world. In the years that followed, the heroism and idealism of these early
compositions started to gradually fade, diverging from such an evident social mission towards a
more prominent interest in Chinese mythology, legends, and ancient texts such as the Book of
Changes. In his interest in the cultures of the minorities as a force epitomizing anti-establishment
countercultures, Yang Lian can indeed be considered an initial inspiration for the root-seeking
movement, which similarly takes its subject matter from tradition and history, myths and legends,
with the aim of analysing them in relation to politics and culture.
On a journey to the remote regions of Jiuzhaigou at the edge of the Tibetan plateau, Yang
Lian conceived his poetic cycle Nuorilang, named after a Tibetan deity. The overall symbolic
structure and vocabulary of this collection marks a change in focus from the view of the poet
as a human hero to a more metaphysical stance in which the poet, if at all detectable, acts as a
mediator between the natural and supernatural worlds.
At the end of the 1980s, Yang Lian travelled to New Zealand, where he gave some lectures
at Auckland, and met Gu Cheng. Soon after the Tiananmen Incident in 1989, together with
Gu Cheng and others, Yang Lian publicly condemned the Chinese government for its brutal
response to the students’ protest, thus exposing himself to official criticism, which consequently
forced him into a long period of wandering life, in cities such as Berlin, New York, Sidney, and
London.

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In such an exilic life, the poet’s relationship with language became more and more com-
plicated, generating shorter, extremely difficult, hermetic and private poetry in increasingly
complex patterns. Widely translated, his later work include the collections: Masks and Crocodiles
(Mianju yu eyu, 1989), No Person Singular (Wurencheng, 1991), Where the Sea Stands Still (Dahai
tingzhi zhi chu, 1992), Concentric Circles (Tongxinyuan, 1997), Lee Valley Poems (Lihe su de shi
2001), and Narrative Poem (Xushi shi). The last work marks yet another change in the oeuvre
of this very prolific author, displaying a much more extensive use of rhyme and of biographical
elements.25 Together with other fellow poets, he has recently revived the group The Survivors.

Conclusion
The foregoing account covers some of the salient ways in which Misty poetry broadened the
poetic spectrum, enriched forms of expression, strengthened poetic speculation, transformed
literary language, and took those essential, difficult first steps in the reconstruction of the indi-
vidual self. Often defined as a “tide,” the Misty poets as a group began to disperse in 1983, with
the onset of the “anti-spiritual pollution” campaign, after being widely published in most of
the major official and unofficial periodicals,26 as well as in single-author collections and group
anthologies. In its historical development, Misty poetry constituted one of the most controver-
sial phenomena in post-Mao China.Taken as a group, the Misty poets felt they had the responsi-
bility to represent their generation and write an elegy for the historical period and for the social,
cultural and personal failure they had experienced. For this, they delivered a sense of universality
and historical awareness through a language that was subjective and critical enough to become
emotionally and stylistically distinctive.
By the mid-1980s, the Misty poets had already taken different aesthetic directions, becom-
ing less socially engaged and perhaps less idealistic or romantic. One after the other, Bei Dao,
Gu Cheng, Jiang He and Yang Lian all left China in the second half of the 1980s, undergo-
ing a period of exile, or “drifting life” abroad, and becoming well-known also for their pro-
democratic political stance.27 At that point, Misty poetry had already created a rift between two
different creative approaches. For the following generation, poets had to demolish their heroic
aura, and abandon their mission as historical and social spokespersons. Some new poetic trends
began to mock the Misty poets for their presumption of probing the depths of the collective and
individual self and for using a highly emotive and aestheticized language that they themselves
considered old-fashioned and anachronistic. They believed that meaning is always ideological
and that the new poetry should resist conceptualization and intellectual abstraction. In the years
to follow, while some of the Misty poets gave form to a less communal and more solitary prac-
tice, one larger trend took a discordant and de-mystifying turn,28 attracting perhaps a broader
audience, which desire to be entertained and intellectually stimulated at a faster pace.
Notwithstanding all this, Misty poetry initiated a process of literary and linguistic innovation
that was to be taken up and developed to various degrees and in various forms by the succeed-
ing generation of writers.Their personae were no longer blades of grass, or cogs in the machine.
Misty poetry was very much the product of a generation that had a surfeit of political culture.
But promoting the importance of emotions over political needs did not mean a disinterest in
political questions, or in offering their own political judgment. Advocating equality, responsibil-
ity, respect for the individual and love as a solid foundation of life, the Misty poets could be seen
as knights, embracing their mission in the heroic spirit of pursuing their ideals, searching for jus-
tice, light and truth. Partly because the Misty poets were seen as individuals in search of democ-
racy, they were welcomed and received considerable recognition overseas.This is reflected in the

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anthologies of contemporary Chinese poetry available in English, which reveals that Misty poets
are still predominant voices in translation.
Most recently intellectuals in China have undertaken a re-evaluation of the rich cultural
heritage of the early 1980s, including the work of the then criticised and dismissed Misty poets.
Today, there is a consensus that recognizes the profound and lasting impact of Misty poetry on
the development of contemporary Chinese literature.

Notes
1 Hong Huang,“The New Poetry – A Turning Point?” (Xinshi – yi ge zhuanzhe ma?), Material for Internal
Circulation of the Today Society for the Study of Literature (Jintian wenxue yuanjiu hui, neibu jiaoliu ziliao)
3 (1980), translated into English by Zhu Zhiyu and John Minford in Renditions 19–20 (1983): 191–194.
The first issue of the literary journal Today (Jintian) appeared in December 1978. After becoming the
catalyst for change in democratic quests among Beijing’s urban intellectuals, the journal was shut down
by the authorities in October 1980. It continued to circulate in the form of pamphlets for three more
issues. Soon afterwards, its contributors and members of the Today Society faced greater political pres-
sure and were forced to disperse. Since 1990, Today was revived overseas, first with its base in Stock-
holm, and currently in Hong Kong.
2 Zhang Ming, “The Depressing ‘Menglong’,” (Lingren qimen de ‘menglong’) Poetry Monthly (Shikan)
(1980), vol. 8, 53.
3 The translation into English of the term menglong has received extensive attention, having been dis-
cussed by Chinese critics, poets, and Western scholars, including Bonnie McDougall, John Minford,
A.C. Graham,William Tay, and more. See for example William Tay, “’Obscure Poetry’: A Controversy in
Post-Mao China,” in Jeffrey C. Kinkley, ed., After Mao: Chinese Literature and Society 1978–1981 (Cam-
bridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1985), 133; and Yao Jiahua, ed., Essays on the Debates
Over Obscure Poetry (Menglongshi lunzheng ji) (Beijing: Xueyuan, 1989).
4 Lin Mang, “My Impression of Mang Ke,” (Mang Ke yinxiang), Poetry Exploration (Shi tansuo) (1995),
vol. 3, 108.
5 Mang Ke (1973), “October Dedications,” (Shiyue de xian shi) in Selected Poems of Mang Ke, (Mang Ke
shixuan) (Beijing: Zhongguo wenlian chuban gongsi, 1989), 22–29 [my translation].
6 Mang Ke (1978),“The Vineyard,” (Putao yuan), in Selected Poems, 44–45. English translation by Geremie
Barmé and John Minford in Seeds of Fire: Chinese Voices of Conscience (New York: The Noonday Press,
1989), 245.
7 Mang Ke (1973), “Sky,” (Tiankong), in Selected Poems, 9–11 [my translation].
8 Hong Huang, “The New Poetry,” 3.
9 Extensive and detailed information on unofficial poetry journals from 1978 to 2000 is provided by
Maghiel van Crevel in “Unofficial Poetry Journals from the People’s Republic of China: A Research
Note and an Annotated Bibliography.” MCLC Resource Center Publication (2007), http://u.osu.edu/
mclc/online-series/vancrevel2/.
10 Bei Dao, “The Answer,” (Huida), in Selected Poems of Bei Dao (Bei Dao shixuan), (Guandong: Xin shiji
chubanshe, 1983), 25–26, trans. Bonnie S. McDougall in Notes from the City of the Sun (Ithaca: Cornell
University East Asia Papers, 1983), 88.
11 Bei Dao, “Our Daily Sun,” (Women mei tian de taiyang), Shanghai Literature (Shanghai wenxue) (1981),
vol. 5, 90–91 [my translation].
12 The campaign to “eliminate spiritual pollution” (qingchu jingshen wuran), or “anti-spiritual pollution”
campaign (October 1983–December 1983), was an orthodox backlash against what was perceived as a
rising tide of Western “modernism”.
13 One other female poet who could be counted as a member of Misty poets’ group is Wang Xiaoni.
14 Wolfgang Kubin, for example, in his essay “Writing with Your Body: Literature as a Wound – Remarks
on the Poetry by Shu Ting,” presents Shu Ting’s poetry as “typical” female writing, and conducts an
interesting interpretation of trauma, blood and body in her poetry. Cf. Tany Barlow, ed. Gender Politics
in Modern China (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1993), 147–148.
15 Excerpts from “This Is Also All,” (Zhe ye shi yiqie), in A Boat with Two Masts, 80–82, tran. Bonnie S.
McDougall in Renditions 19/20 (Summer/Autumn, 1983), 248.

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16 Quoted in Sun Shaozhen, “New Aesthetic Principles Are Rising” (Xinde meixue yuanze zhengzai
jueqi), Poetry Monthly 3 (March 1981), 56.
17 Gu Cheng, “Listen to Our Voice,” (Qing tingting women the shengyin), Poetry Exploration 1 (1980):
52–53. Cited in English by William Tay in “’Obscure Poetry’.” 147.
18 “Gu Gong and Gu Cheng:The Two Generations,” The American Poetry Review (March/April 1983), vol.
12, no. 2, 19.
19 Shu Ting (1980), “The Fairy-tale Poet” (Tonghua shiren), in A Boat with Two Masts, 64–65, trans.
Simon Patton in “The Forces of Production: Symmetry and the Imagination in the Early Poetry of Gu
Cheng,” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture (2001), vol. 13, no. 2, 134–135.
20 Gu Cheng (1979), “A Generation,” (Yi dai ren) in The Complete Work of Gu Cheng (Gu Cheng shi
quanbian) (Shanghai: Shanghai sanlian shudia, 1995), 121, trans. Simon Patton in “The Forces of
Production,” 142.
21 Jiang He, “Unfinished Poems,” (Meiyou xiewan de shi), in Today 5 (1979), 18–21, trans. Donald Finkel
in A Splintered Mirror. Chinese Poetry from the Democracy Movement (San Francisco: North Point Press,
1991), 67–69.
22 Jiang He, “Essay,” (Wenzhang) in Lao Mu, ed., Young Poets Discussing Poetry (Qingnian shiren tan shi)
(Beijing: Beijing daxue wusi wenxue she, 1985), 23–24.
23 “Pagoda” (1981), original unavailable, trans. Seán Golden and John Minford in Seeds of Fire, 135.
24 Yang Lian (1980), “Homage to Poetry,” (Shi de jidian), trans. John Minford and Seán Golden in Pang
Bingjun et al. eds., 100 Modern Chinese Poems (Zhongguo xiandai shi yibai shou) (Chinese-English
bilingual) (Beijing: Zhongguo dui wai fanyi chuban gongsi, 1983), 303–307.
25 Brian Holton has translated virtually all of Yang Lian’s poetry into English.
26 Apart from Today, other journals that published Misty poems include: The Stars (Xingxing), Shanghai
Literature (Shanghai wenxue), Spring (Chuntian), Spring Wind (Chun feng), Changjiang Literature and Art
(Changjiang wenyi), Sichuan Literature (Sichuan wenxue), etc.
27 They were targeted during the 1983 “anti-spiritual pollution” campaign, for following western models
of life (especially modernism), and received international attention, being invited to give talks and read-
ings abroad. They were outspoken in condemning the Chinese government for the 1989 Tiananmen
Incident.
28 Cf. Maghiel van Crevel, “Desecrations? The Poetics of Han Dong and Yu Jian,” (two parts), Studies on
Asia (2005), vol. 1 and 2, 28–48 and 81–97 respectively.

Further readings
Chen Xiaomei. “ ‘Misunderstanding’ Western Modernism: The Menglong Movement.” In Occidentalism:
A Theory of Counter-discourse in Post-Mao China. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995,
59–86.
Goodman, David S. G. Beijing Street Voices: The Poetry and Politics of China’s Democracy Movement. London:
Marion Boyars, 1981.
Lee, Leo Ou-fan. “Beyond Realism.” In Howard Goldblatt, ed., Words Apart: Recent Chinese Writing and Its
Audience. Armonk, NY and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1990, 64–77.
Li, Dian. The Chinese Poetry of Bei Dao, 1978–2000: Exile and Resistance. New York: The Edwin Mellen
Press, 2006.
McDougall, Bonnie S. “Bei Dao’s Poetry: Revelation & Communication.” Modern Chinese Literature 1, no. 2
(1985): 225–252.
Miao Deyu. “Why Would One Write Incomprehensible Poems?” (Weishenme xie rangren dubudong de
shi?). Poetry Monthly (Shikan) 10 (1980): 53.
Pan Yuan and Pan Jie. “The Non-Official Magazine Today and the Younger Generation’s Ideals for a New
Literature.” In Jeffrey C. Kinkley, ed., After Mao: Chinese Literature and Society 1978–1981. Cambridge,
MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1985, 183–219.
Patton, Simon. “Notes Toward a Nomad Subjectivity: The Poetics of Gu Cheng (1956–1993).” Social Semi-
otics 9.1 (1999): 49–66.
Poems & Art en Chine: Les “Non-Officiels.” Doc(k)s 114.f, 41 (Hiver 1981/82).
Pollard, E. David.“The Controversy Over Modernism, 1979–84.” The China Quarterly 104 (1985): 641–656.

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 37
PLAYS OF LATE MODERN
PERIOD
Liang Luo

How does one define the “Late Modern Period” in modern Chinese culture? What might be
counted as “plays” in this context? Do plays include “Beijing Opera” (jingju) and the myriad
forms of “local operas” (difangxi)? What about translated plays? Are we only concerned about
Mainland China, or our conceptualization should also include developments in Hong Kong and
Taiwan, and other Sinophone locations? Speaking of plays, how can we not be attentive to their
performance history in addition to examining them as written texts? These are only some of the
many questions I have in the process of thinking through the possibilities and limitations this
chapter might present in the context of this handbook on modern Chinese literature.
In a similar fashion, any periodization is bound to invite raised eyebrows and challenges to
its legitimacy and thoughtfulness. In focusing on plays from 1978 to 1992 as part of modern
Chinese culture, we are making explicit linguistic, cultural, and political choices in what might
belong and what should be excluded. Situating the handbook in the context of world litera-
ture of the twentieth century, I venture out in this chapter to give one possible account of the
complexity and muddiness of the plays from 1978 to 1992 from a comparative perspective. Such
an account, of course, is necessarily colored by my own experience studying in the Chinese
Department of Beijing Normal University from 1993 onwards, a sort of missed opportunity in
personally witnessing one of the “golden eras” of Chinese theater throughout the 1980s.

An overview of plays of the late modern period

In most Chinese-language accounts on contemporary Chinese theater, the post-Mao period,
often referred to as the “new period” (xin shiqi), roughly coincides with the beginning of what
we call the “Late Modern Period” here. In the Mainland, the period between 1978 and 1989 is
regarded as a period of “thought liberation,”1 somewhat comparable to Hong Kong in the post-
1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration period and post–Martial Law Taiwan since 1987.
This post-Mao period is considered a “golden era” of contemporary Chinese theater. With
the opening of the floodgate of “thought liberation,” we see in 1978 the emergence of Zong
Fuxian’s play In Silence (Yu wusheng chu), although it was often regarded as stopped short at
the level of political struggle against the Gang of Four. In 1979, Sha Yexin, Li Shoucheng, and
Yao Mingde’s play If I Were for Real (Jiaru wo shi zhende) further broke the silence with its sharp

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social critique on sensitive political issues and signaled a new beginning for socially engaged
theater in contemporary China.
Other representative “spoken drama” (huaju) of the 1980s includes Gao Xingjian’s Bus Stop
(Chezhan) and Absolute Signal (Juedui xinhao), Li Longyun’s Small Well Alley (Xiaojing hutong),
Liu Jinyun’s Uncle Dogge’s Nirvana (Gou’er ye niepan), and Chen Zidu, Yang Jian, and Zhu
Xiaoping’s Sangshuping Chronicle (Sangshuping jishi). In the field of traditional theater, Chen
Yaxian’s Cao Cao and Yang Xiu (Cao Cao yu Yang Xiu, “Beijing Opera”) and Wei Minglun’s
Pan Jinlian (Pan Jinlian, chuanju, or “Sichuan Opera”) are illustrative of the spirit of this period.
Plays of the immediate post-Mao period, however, quickly exhausted their political energies.
Concerned intellectuals started to debate on the “crisis of theater,” and attempted to offer differ-
ent solutions to address the problems resulting from only focusing on “problem plays” (wenti ju)
or “leadership plays” (lingxiu ju).2 Theater practitioners started to seriously reflect on the legacies
of Chinese traditional theater as well as the opportunities of incorporating Western theatrical
theories and practices to enrich Chinese theater practices.
In addition to its spiritual explorations in terms of social critique, historical and cultural
reflection, and a scathing questioning of what it means to be human, all conditioned as a reac-
tion to the dehumanization of the “Cultural Revolution” (1966–1976), theater of the 1980s
also saw a surge of experimental energies in formal explorations. Such explorations not only
included the performance of Absolute Signal in 1982 by Beijing People’s Art Theater (Beijing
Renyi) and the “avant-gardist” (xianfeng) spirit it represented in terms of “Little Theater” (xiao
juchang) experiments, but also covered a broader trend of infusing new forms and new media
into the plays of this period. Countering to the enshrinement of “Beijing Opera” as the model
theater of the previous decade, the immediate post-Mao period saw the revival of myriad the-
atrical genres and local operatic forms.
However, past scholarship often exclusively focused on how the 1980s’ “golden age” of Chi-
nese theater functioned as a reaction against the politicization of theater throughout the “Sev-
enteen Years” (Shiqi nian, 1949–1966) and the “Cultural Revolution.” Such a line of thought
of course has great merits. At the same time, such an emphasis on rapture and reaction largely
ignored theatrical avant-gardism and experimentations from the early twentieth century
onwards, and throughout the Maoist era. In particular, Chinese-language theater scholarship
often negated theatrical experimentations of the Maoist era based on a critique of its ultra-
leftist politics and its connections with what came to be regarded as the formulaic revolutionary
model operas of the Cultural Revolution.3 This chapter takes a different approach. It attempts to
historicize plays of the immediate post-Mao period in the context of the long twentieth century,
paying homage to Chinese theater vanguards from the early to mid twentieth century, while at
the same time situating the plays in the context of comparative studies of World Theater.
In praising the experimentations of the 1980s, scholars have often regarded the 1990s as an
unimpressive era following the “golden age.” The 1989 student movement did end a period
of vibrant cultural experimentations, however, it also started a new tradition, with the spirit of
protest and the practice of performance moving away from streets and squares, and permeating
into the everyday life struggles of artists and activists, many of them went underground after the
government crackdown of student protests and general strikes of the late 1980s.
Early 1990s thus represents an awkward but also rather intriguing transitional period in
contemporary Chinese theater. From 1993 onwards, and beyond the periodization coverage of
this chapter (1978–1992), we see Guo Shixing’s Leisure Trilogy (Xianren sanbuqu) including Bird
Man (Niao Ren), Fish Man (Yu Ren), and Chess Man (Qi Ren), and Tian Jinxin’s The Field of
Life and Death (Shengsi chang) emerging on the main stages in Beijing throughout the 1990s.

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On the other hand, “Little Theater” also thrived after the initial tightening of political control
in the early 1990s, including Meng Jinghui’s Longing for the Mortal World (Sifan), Huang Jisu and
Meng Jinghui’s The Accidental Death of an Anarchist (Yige wuzhengfu zhuyizhe de yiwai siwang),
as well as Zhang Guangtian’s Che Guevara (Qie Gewala).
The “Plays of Late Modern Period,” in this sense, are ridden with a number of compet-
ing impulses and have to sustain strong impacts from multiple sources. A range of established
playwrights in the Euro-American and Russian canons, from Henrik Ibsen, George Bernard
Shaw, Bertolt Brecht, Konstantin Stanislavsky,Vsevolod Meyerhold, to Samuel Beckett, exerted
strong influence on the development of theater theory and practice in this immediate post-Mao
period.

Theater of political and social critique

The immediate post-Mao period witnessed a range of theoretical debates in the cultural sphere,
with a key focus on “depicting truth” (xie zhenshi) in literary and cultural creations, and as a
reaction to the so-called “fake, grand, and empty” (jia, da, kong) portrayals of what came to be
recognized as the mainstream of the Cultural Revolution literary and theatrical productions.
Intellectuals, playwrights in particular, swiftly moved to engage key political questions in their
works, and took it not only as their mission but also an important precondition for the legiti-
macy of their works to raise sharp questions concerning the fate of millions during the previous
decades. They looked to the early twentieth century and in particular intellectuals of the May
Fourth Movement as their models, and were thus variously characterized as creating a new
enlightenment or even renaissance in Chinese theater throughout the immediate post-Mao
period.
In Silence (Yu wusheng chu, 1978) by Zong Fuxian, Primrose (Baochun hua, 1979) by Cui
Dezhi and starring Li Moran, and The Resurgence of Chen Yi (Chen Yi chushan, 1979) by Ding
Yishan were some of the first plays to break the science on some of the key events and symbols
of the Cultural Revolution. In Silence, in particular, was symptomatic of the generation greatly
impacted by the “April 5 incident” on Tiananmen Square, a key historical moment in 1976
symbolizing the outpouring of emotions commemorating the death of Premier Zhou Enlai.
The play was regarded as profoundly impacted by Cao Yu’s Thunderstorm (Lei Yu, 1933), in its
adherence to the classical unities of action, time, and place (sanyi lü), and its use of the specter of
the past to push forward theatrical actions and conflicts.4
If I Were for Real (Jiaru wo shi zhende), written by Sha Yexin, Li Shoucheng, and Yao Mingde
in 1979, signaled an important shift in the theaters of social and political critique. Sha Yexin,
director of Shanghai People’s Art Theater from 1985 to 1993, was born in 1939 to a Chinese
Muslin family. After the 1950s’ ethnic classification in the People’s Republic, the Chinese Mus-
lims are referred to as the Hui minorities.5 Often referred to in contemporary Chinese theater
history as one of the most representative playwrights of the “exploratory theater” (tansuo huaju),
Sha also wrote one of the most emblematic “problem plays” of the time, the above-mentioned
If I Were for Real. However, most theater history accounts often predominantly focused on the
“spiritual” explorations of this play, that is, its unprecedented exposition of corruption as an
unavoidable condition of the unchecked power of the Party in control.6 With the banning of
the play due to its sharp political edge and all attentions to its content, Chinese-language theater
history often overlooked the play’s aesthetic and formal innovations.
The play repeatedly interrupts the actions of its characters to highlight the artificiality of
staging in a Brechtian manner. Director Huang Zuolin’s renaming of the play from Cheater
(Pianzi) to If I Were for Real truly illuminated the spirit of the play.The opening of the play, using

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the structure of “play within a play” to set up the arrest of the male protagonist, an anti-hero
who impersonated the son of a high official to gain favors, was ingenious. The use of Gogol’s
Inspector General suggested a possible genealogy traceable to Lu Xun and the May Fourth gen-
eration’s spirit of social critique.
At the center of the play was the irony between the fake and the real, which went beyond
plays such as In Science (1978) and their exposing the scars of the Cultural Revolution. If I Were
for Real, instead, engaged in a more philosophical reflection on the meaning of genuine human
interactions and the structural limitation of Chinese societies in enabling such interactions in the
previous decades. Moreover, the play enjoyed a fascinating performance history despite its initial
brushes with the censors. Possibly largely due to the ban in Mainland China, it was made into a
celebrated film in Taiwan, and favorably received in Hong Kong.The playwright Sha Yexin con-
tinued to experiment with psychological and absurdist plays throughout the post-Mao period,
including Jesus, Confucius, and John Lennon (Yesu, Kong Zi, Pitoushi Lienong, 1988).

Exploratory theater
With Sha Yexin’s If I Were For Real as one of the first cries, Chinese theater witnessed the rise of
social criticism as well as formal experimentation from the late 1970s onwards. Huang Zuolin,
who renamed Sha’s play, directed Bertolt Brecht’s play The Life of Galileo in 1979, and the first
academic conference on Brecht was held in China in 1985. Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot,
a product of the Cold War cultural politics in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and the “absurd
theater” it represents, became extremely popular in the Chinese theater circle of the period.
Vsevolod Meyerhold and the symbolic movement he represents influenced playwrights such as
Gao Xingjian and directors such as Lin Zhaohua, who were contesting the dominate influences
of Ibsen and Stanislavsky in carving out their own space in the post-Mao theatrical world.
Huang Zuolin (1906–1994) studied for four years at the University of Birmingham in 1925
and again for another extended period at the King’s College of Cambridge University as well as
at the London Theater Studio in 1935, and returned to China in 1937 to work as a theater direc-
tor in Shanghai. However, Huang’s first Brechtian production, Mother Courage and Her Children,
was staged in Shanghai only in 1958. It was considered a failure, as neither audience nor critic
seemed to be ready for such a play at the height of Great Leap Forward. Huang raised the issue
of “theater of the mind” (xieyi xiju) in 1962,7 borrowing from traditional Chinese aesthetics
in highlighting those beyond what meets the eye in theatrical expressions. Huang’s innovative
approach to create a synthesis between traditional Chinese theater and the Brechtian model
continued to influence contemporary Chinese theater practitioners throughout the post-Mao
period.
Huang left strong personal imprints in many of the pioneering theatrical productions in the
immediate post-Mao period. His 1979 production of Brecht’s The Life of Galileo for the China
Youth Theater in Beijing was a phenomenal success. Past scholarship often focused on Huang’s
choice of Brecht, and especially his play The Life of Galileo, as a strong reaction to the well-
established theater of socialist realism dominating Chinese theater in the previous decades. This
was certainly the case. However, there was more to it. For example, scholars seldom touched
upon the very fact that Huang had staged Brecht in 1958. Hence, rather than approaching
Huang’s directing The Life of Galileo in 1979 as a radical breaking away from the past, this chapter
emphasizes a deeper connection between Brecht and Chinese theater, from the early twentieth
century onwards and throughout the Maoist period.
Born at the turn of the twentieth century and educated abroad in the first few decades of
the twentieth century, Huang belonged to the generation of early Chinese theater practitioners

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and was a contemporary to the leading players such as Hu Shi, Tian Han, Hong Shen, Ouyang
Yuqian, and Xiong Foxi. Indeed, Huang expressed his excitement about and support to the “Lit-
tle Theater” movement in Beijing in 1930 when he was a freelance writer and translator con-
tributing to Xiong’s journal, and continued to participate in theatrical experimentations from
the late 1930s onwards.8 More importantly, Huang, during his four-year study at the Wood-
brooke College of the University of Birmingham from 1925, had actively engaged in theater
activities, which resulted in his corresponding and association with Bernard Shaw. Inspired by
Shaw’s response urging him to be “himself ” rather than a disciple of famous masters, and more
importantly, Shaw’s Fabianism, Huang came to commit himself to the larger socialist cause of
using theater to speak on behalf of the poor and the underprivileged in China.9
Huang’s case illustrates the continuity and complexity of theater theory and practice
throughout twentieth century China. Huang was among the first to formally teach Stanislavsky
to Chinese theater students in 1938, contrary to general understanding of how the “Stanislavsky
System” represented soviet influences and the dogmatisms of theater practices in the People’s
Republic;10 similarly, Huang was experimenting with traditional Chinese theater, Shavian
socialism, and Brechtian techniques in his directing long before the “Late Modern Period” of
Chinese theater. Without historicizing Chinese theatrical practices throughout the twentieth
century, we risk privileging contemporary Western influences over a much longer engagement
between Chinese theater and an intricate network of historical and contemporary inspirations,
both domestic and international.
As illuminating as the case of Huang is the example of actor, translator, and director Ying
Ruocheng (1929–2003). In the immediate post-Mao period, Ying starred in an emotional
revival of Lao She’s Teahouse (Chaguan) in 1978, co-directed William Shakespeare’s Measure for
Measure with Toby Robertson in 1981, and was translator and lead actor in Arthur Miller’s direc-
tion of Death of a Salesman in 1983, all at Beijing People’s Art Theater.Ying came to be appointed
China’s Vice Minister of Culture in 1986 and helped to promote artistic collaborations between
China and the world throughout the late 1980s.
Similar to Huang, Ying was also educated in English-speaking missionary schools. He went
on to study Western literature at Tsinghua University and became an actor at Beijing People’s
Art Theater upon graduation. In the post-Mao period, Ying toured the United States in 1982,
1984, and 1993 to direct university and repertory theater productions of modern Chinese plays
in English translation.11 As an actor, he deeply understood the difficulty of performing plays
written by playwrights who do not personally have stage experience. With an actor’s sensibility,
he translated dozens of Chinese and foreign classics, and as a result, contributed greatly to the
promotion of comparative studies of contemporary Chinese theater both inside and outside
China.
One of the plays retranslated by Ying Roucheng, specifically to suit the needs of stage per-
formance was Teahouse, on the occasion of Beijing People’s Art Theater’s 1980 performance trip
to Europe.12 In a series of eight translations by Ying published by China Translation and Pub-
lishing Corporation, five were translated from English into Chinese, and three were translated
from Chinese into English, all published in bilingual versions. Uncle Doggie’s Nirvana (Gou’er ye
niepan, 1985) by Liu Jinyun was the only play from post-Mao China; the other two Chinese
plays are Teahouse and Family.The five English-language plays are Measure for Measure by William
Shakespeare, Major Barbara by Bernard Shaw, Amadeus by Peter Shaffer, Death of a Salesman by
Arthur Miller, and The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial by Herman Wouk.
Ironically, Ying Ruocheng is largely remembered outside China today as the face of Kublai
Khan from the NBC miniseries Marco Polo, or for his role in Bertolucci’s Oscar-winning film
The Last Emperor from 1988. This fact, however, speaks to one of the most important features of

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contemporary theater, Chinese or otherwise, that is, its intricate crossings between stage and
screen, and between so-called traditional forms and experimental ones.
In a similar fashion, Gao Xingjian (1940–), even before his Novel prize fame from 2000, has
long been considered the leading representative of “exploratory theater” in the history of con-
temporary Chinese culture. However, Gao’s Novel Prize fame did make him the most studied
Chinese playwright in the post-Mao era in the English language. Scholars have focused on how
he was influenced by Stanislavsky, Brecht, and Beckett, as well as traditional Chinese theater, and
how he refused to conform to the dominant realist conventions of the time and made a con-
scious effort to renovate Chinese theater.13 A graduate from the French department of Beijing
University in 1962, Gao’s theatrical sensibility was necessarily influenced by his exposure to
French and West European literature and theater. Gao’s 1982 play Absolute Signal (Juedui xinhao,
directed by Lin Zhaohua) represents one of the highest achievements of contemporary Chinese
theater, both as text and as stage performance. It is a serious realistic play in terms of its pro-
found probing of the existential condition and the fate of the Chinese youth in the early 1980s.
How to deal with the vacuum created by the previous decades? What is the way out for Heizi,
Xiaohao, Mifeng, the three protagonists and representatives of the “new youth” of the 1980s?
The play premiered in 1982 at Beijing People’s Arts Theater and was hailed as the first “Little
Theater” performance of contemporary China.14
Although it is a serious realistic play, Absolute Signal also fittingly gave out the “absolute sig-
nal” for the coming of age of a contemporary theatrical avant-garde in the Chinese context. It
went far beyond the formulaic realism of the previous decades, and probed into largely unex-
plored territories both in terms of psychological depth in its characterization and in terms of
stage innovations in presenting such depth. Gao Xingjian and Lin Zhaohua’s (1936-) uses of the
light and the darkness in fostering tensions and conflicts in a story set on a night train running
through tunnels were imaginative and inspired.
As the first “Little Theater” performance in contemporary China, Absolute Signal’s staging of
imagined scenes, its use of musical rhythms, and its borrowing from traditional Chinese theater,
all distinguished the play from other contemporary works. The result is a fully developed play
populated with tensions as strong as a pressure cooker about to go burst! Gao and Lin’s discussion
regarding how to stage the play were full of fascinating insights.Their pursuit of a natural and una-
dorned (pusu, ziran) style in performing and staging the scenes could be read as a direct reaction
to the exaggerated ways of enunciation and acting popular in the previous decades. Lin used film
languages to describe his ideal of using silent long shots and a silent stage to create an “economic”
performance; Gao echoed Lin’s view using the art of painting and sculpture as analogies.15
Hence the experimental nature of Gao’s and Lin’s endeavors in the early 1980s in their “Little
Theater” movement could be reflected in their efforts at genre hybridization, such as explor-
ing the use of traditional Chinese theater and modern dance in “spoken drama” performances.
Absolute Signal, in this sense, became a prime example of the creative collaboration between Gao
the playwright and Lin the director, in their mutual pursuit of a new theater that, for one, would
not abandon realism, but at the same time, would present, in Lin’s words, “an extreme reality but
not a caricature.” Similarly, they advocated for a kind of “neutral” (zhongxing) performance that
was at the same time reflective, suggestive, prophetic, and without the obligatory happy ending.16
In addition, Gao’s The Bus Stop (Chezhan, drafted in 1981 and finished in 1983) signaled a
further break away from conventional realism and moved towards an absurdist and avant-gardist
theater, a move shared by many contemporary Chinese theater practitioners analyzed above.
There was no scene division in the play. It was a polyphonic comedy of life. In the style of Wait-
ing for Godot, the characters in the play waited for a bus that never came for one year, and then
ten years!

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Although it is instructive to situate “Late Modern” Chinese theater in a global context and
tease out “Western” influence to illuminate its exploratory nature, this chapter continues to
insist on considering the experimentalisms of the 1980s in an intricate dialogue with those of
the early twentieth century and throughout the Maoist period. “Little Theater,” for example, is
not an invention of Gao Xingjian and his generation. Tian Han and his cohort were experi-
menting with it around 1927 in Shanghai, while Huang Zuolin was writing about Hu Shi and
Xiong Foxi’s experiments in Beijing in 1930. Throughout the Maoist era, Huang and other
like-minded practitioners kept experimenting with both the content and the form of Chinese
theater. Their efforts should not be relegated to the dustbin of history simply because of their
service to Maoist cultural policies throughout those decades conditioned by heightened politi-
cal rhetoric.
In fact, strong thematic and formal continuities could be seen in Chinese theatrical experi-
ments from the early twentieth century to the “Late Modern Period.” For example, although the
post-Maoist play The Dead Visiting the Living (Yige sizhe dui shengzhe de fangwen) premiered as
late as in 1985, it belongs to a well-established repertory in twentieth century Chinese theater
that consciously attempted to combine seemingly opposing elements as modern and traditional,
Brechtian and illusionist theater, and artistic form and political content.
Liu Shugang (1940-), trained as an actor at the Central Drama Academy, entered Central
Experimental Drama Institute in 1962. His plays were famous for their penetrating examination
of social problems as well as their social reportage style. The Dead Visiting the Living was presented
as a modern absurd musical. Similar to Absolute Signal, it also manipulated realistic time and
imaginary space to form a polyphonic multichorus theater. The play featured an unlikely hero,
a young man named Ye Xiaoxiao, who in real life was far from accomplished, but who fought
two gangsters on a bus and was finally killed by them with seven stabs. Xiaoxiao could not
comprehend why none of the passengers stood out for him, and decided to return from death
to interview them.Through the dialogues between the dead and the living, the play interrogated
both the ugliness and the potential beauties of humanity. It combined absurd theater with a
Brechtian focus on the multimedia use of music, mask, and dance, in addition to revisit the eter-
nal theme in traditional Chinese theater: the return of the ghost in an effort to seek social and
personal justice. The play stoke a strong emotion chord in its contemporary audience, not only
because of its profound revelation regarding the empty abstractions of “heroism” as advocated
in the previous decades, but also due to its refreshing formal experiments crossing traditionally
separated genres and artistic fields.
Wei Minglun (1940-), and his “Sichuan Opera of the absurd” (huangdan Chuanju) Pan Jinlian,
merits our discussion here precisely for his emphasis on such multiple crossings in his plays from
the mid-1980s onwards. Subtitled The Story of One Woman and Four Men, Wei’s 1985 Sichuan
opera was a true product of the spirit of the 1980s.17 It employed a wide range of characters,
both historical and fictional, to reevaluate one of the most infamous female villains of Chinese
literature, Pan Jinlian. For someone who killed her husband to cover up her affairs,Wei not only
brought back humanity in Pan’s characterization, he also raised question about her possible fate
in the “Late Modern” China of the 1980s.
The play was structured around Pan Jinlian and her encounters with four men. A rare rape
scene was depicted in the first encounter. Pan’s loss of innocence as a maid in the Zhang house-
hold set the tone of patriarchal oppression and female subjugation throughout the play. In this
scene,Wei marshaled in a wide range of local theatrical forms as well as modern “spoken drama”
to enrich his modern “Sichuan Opera.” The second man Pan encountered was Wu Dalang, the
dwarf brother of the tiger-killing hero Wu Song. Contemporary elements such as hooligans
dressed in Hong Kong gangster style and disco dance entered into the scene to bring about

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the feel of the 1980s. Unlike the Romantic Anna Karenina and the divorced Lü Shaha, Pan
Jinlian was making pancake and hoping to carve out a space for herself in her new marriage
with Wu Dalang.The third man, her brother-in-law Wu Song’s appearance destroyed Pan’s hope
for tranquility and his rejection of her love pushed her to the fourth man in her life, the cun-
ning seducer Ximen Qing. Wei proceeded to show how the four men in Pan’s life repeatedly
thwarted Pan’s quest for happiness, and how she remained a proud young woman who refused
to be intimidated or humiliated.
Wei brought Brechtian techniques to meet with Magic Realism, and he created a mixture of
Absurdist and Realist Theater in the staging of Pan Jinlian from 1985 onwards.The performance
and reception history of the play demonstrated its extreme popularity despite of, or maybe
because of, its formal experimentation, incorporating characters from across historical times and
geographical locations and combining theatrical genres from disparate traditions in different dia-
lects. Performed by more than two hundred troupes in several dozens of local theatrical forms,
the play was staged in Hong Kong and Taiwan, presented at art festivals in Taiwan and Singapore,
and was translated into English and anthologized widely.
Wei Minglun, however, was not the first in Chinese theater history to write a revisionist play
in the case of Pan Jinlian. In 1928, Tian Han had staged Ouyang Yuqian’s play Pan Jinlian with
Beijing Opera actors (Ouyang impersonated Pan, while Zhou Xinfang was Wu Song) together
with modern drama performers in an experimental fashion in a Shanghai performance.18 Pan’s
absurd Sichuan Opera of the “Late Modern Period,” however, did distinguish itself by not only
transforming the villain into a heroine who dared to challenge conventional moralities, but
also went one step further to examine the status of Chinese women and the Chinese attitudes
toward women throughout history, and in particular, in his contemporary 1980s.

The return of realism in Chinese theater

The rather artificial periodization of the three stages of “Late Modern” Chinese theater –
“Theater of Political and Social Critique,” “Exploratory Theater,” and “The Return of Realism
in Chinese Theater” – does not do justice to the deep continuities and intricate connections
between these stages of developments throughout the first decades of the post-Mao period. For
example, Ying Ruocheng’s collaboration with Arthur Miller in the 1983 staging of The Death
of a Salesman in Beijing left visible traces of influence in a number of contemporary Chinese
theater pieces, both in terms of social critique, formal exploration, and the returning of a realist
spirit.
Among them, Uncle Doggie’s Nirvana was a prominent example. It was in turn selected and
translated into English by Ying Ruocheng himself and included in Ying’s above-mentioned
bilingual translation series. A multiscene modern tragicomedy, Liu Jinyun’s play was part of a
larger trend of theatrical explorations in the post-Mao period. Its use of phantoms, ghosts, as
well as its stream of consciousness narration, echoed the philosophical interrogation of social ills
in contemporary plays such as The Dead Visiting the Living (1985). At the same time, the play’s
peasant protagonist and subject matter focusing on the Chinese countryside spoke to Chinese
intellectuals’ and theater practitioners’ enduring concerns to represent the rural, the disadvan-
taged, as in Tian Han’s The Night a Tiger was Captured (Huohu zhiye) and Hong Shen’s Yama
Zhao (Zhao Yanwang) from the early decades of the twentieth century.
Indeed, the 1985 play Uncle Doggie’s Nirvana was regarded as the culmination of the theatrical
explorations of the “new period,” both in its formal explorations and in its contribution to a
“new realism” (xin xianshi zhuyi). As a play featuring a peasant as its protagonist, Uncle Doggie’s
Nirvana contributed greatly to the history of contemporary Chinese theater by creating the

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weighty image of Uncle Doggie. An ordinary peasant from Northern China, Uncle Doggie’s
life mirrored the historical changes in contemporary Chinese countryside, as well as embodied
profound reflections on the peasant problem throughout the decades since the founding of the
PRC. His deep-rooted “land obsession” (tudi yishi) was also the source of his tragedy. His love
hate relationship with the landlord Qi Yongnian again reflected the double-edged nature of
his peasant identity: hating the landlord but loving to become one. More importantly, Uncle
Doggie is not just representative of Chinese peasants; his image harbors a rich, complex, and
polyphonic soul befitting humanity as a whole.
Aesthetically the play also went beyond typical realistic plays in the style of Ibsen and Stan-
islavsky, and incorporated fantastic, dream scenes from both traditional theater and modernist
experiments to delve deeper into the psychology and a complex range of emotions of the pro-
tagonist. Liu’s use of symbolism, absurdity, stream of consciousness, as well as abstraction, enabled
the play to truly enter into the deeper structure of human soul and social consciousness. Lin
Zhaohua’s directing and Lin Liankun’s performance further enriched the play’s stage presence
and made it a model classic in the history of contemporary Chinese theater.19
One of most highly praised and widely performed plays in the style of May Fourth realism
in the first decades of the post-Mao period, however, was The World’s Top Restaurant (Tianxia
diyilou), a three-act play written by the female playwright He Jiping in 1987 and performed for
the first time by Beijing People’s Art Theater in May 1988.20 Loosely based on the vicissitudes
of the restaurant Quanjude famous for its Beijing duck at the beginning of the Republican Era,
the play portrayed the melodramatic initial decline, temporary revival, and final decline of the
renowned restaurant from the Qing Dynasty onwards. Its young owners’ delinquencies caused
its initial decline, its manager’s restoring the restaurant to its former glory made it the leading
establishment in Beijing, only to be pushed away by the young owners in the end.21 The seem-
ingly unimpressive plot and its less than epic structure, compared to its inspiration, Lao She’s
three-act play Teahouse (1957), did not seem to warrant its 500 plus performances and great
fames in the history of contemporary Chinese theater.
What made the play so important in the study of contemporary Chinese theater history? The
female playwright’s particular touch on the ethnography of Beijing local culture as well as the
revived interest on a “true” realism that gestured back to the social concerns of the early twen-
tieth century, might partly explain its canonical position in this history. Still, such an approach
of taking the restaurant as a miniature world reflecting the changes in Chinese society, although
continued the May Fourth discourse of critical reflecting on the ills of Chinese traditions, none-
theless supplied another route of returning to the grand narrative of the Chinese nation.

Developments in Taiwan theater

Such a geopolitical focus on Mainland China limits our vision on the plays of the “Late Modern
Period.” The late 1970s also witnessed the rise of experimental theater in Taiwan. With the pio-
neering efforts from leading Taiwanese theater practitioners Li Mangui (1906–1975),Yao Yiwei
(1922–1997), and Zhang Xiaofeng (1941-) as foundations, Taiwan saw a surge of “experimen-
tal theater” throughout the 1980s. Ma Sen (1932-) is often regarded as a representative of the
“modernist” movement in Taiwan Theater of the time. His works became favorites of university
theater productions. Ma combined Absurdist Theater with philosophical musings on fundamen-
tal issues concerning all humanity, a shared trope with Mainland Chinese playwrights active
from the late 1970s onwards discussed above. Huang Meixu (1928–2017), similarly educated
abroad and returned to Taiwan in the late 1970s, emerged as another representative playwright
of 1980s’ Taiwan. He became known for his use of comedy as a warehouse for experimenting

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with expressionist, absurdist, and even epic theater, while paying attention to the use of folk
languages and local cultures.
Jin Shijie (1951–), Li Guoxiu (1955–), and Stan Lai (Lai Sheng-chuan, 1954–) are among the
leading figures in Taiwanese theater experiments from the 1980s onwards. Stan Lai, in particular,
emerged as one of the most influential theater practitioners in post-Martial Law Taiwan. Born in
the United States and educated in Taiwan, Lai earned his Ph.D. in Theater and returned to Tai-
wan to teach in the early 1980s. He founded “Performance Workshop” (biaoyan gongzuofang) in
1984, from which he built a solid base for both the development of experimental theater and the
rise of commercial theater in Taiwan from the mid-1980s onwards. In collaboration with his cast
members including Jin Shijie, Lai created Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land (Anlian Taohuayuan)
in 1986, a play came to be recognized as his representative work for the next thirty years. Lai’s
ingenuity could first be seen in the structure of the play: it was indeed two plays – Secret Love
and Peach Blossom Land – joint together. The chaos caused by two groups of actors attempting
to rehearse their own play on the same stage was hilariously illuminating.
Lai’s polyphonic play, moreover, went beyond the combination of tragedy and comedy rep-
resented by the two component plays of Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land, and delved into social
political reflections on the “cross-strait” relationship between Mainland China and Taiwan. Lai
borrowed from Western experimental theater the method of “collective improvisation” and
combined “exquisite art” with “popular culture” in his continued explorations of a commer-
cially viable social theater in contemporary Taiwan.22 For over thirty years, Secret Love in Peach
Blossom Land traveled literary and metaphorically across genres and geographical boundaries to
become one of the most successful Taiwan plays in Mainland China.

Theater scenes in Hong Kong and Macao

The founding of Hong Kong Repertory Theatre in 1977 signaled a new beginning for Hong
Kong Theater. As the first government funded and supported professional theater troupe, it insti-
tutionalized stage performance and provided a home for the introduction of canonical Western
and Chinese plays in Hong Kong. The 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration marked another
milestone in the history of contemporary Hong Kong Theater. The projected 1997 deadline
of Hong Kong’s return to China, designated in the Joint Declaration, provoked a wide range
of reflections, anxieties, and concerns regarding Hong Kong’s fate and its changing identity in
the decades to come. As a result, original plays, rather than translated works and adapted plays,
flourished in the Hong Kong theater circles from the mid-1980s onwards.
Similar theatrical trends influenced both Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese theater of the
“Late Modern Period.” Theater practitioners were comparably keen on their reflections on
realism, Absurdist Theater, and Brechtian Epic Theater in both locations. The renewed surge of
plays focusing on local social realities in Hong Kong as a result of the changing political climate
from the mid-1980s, however, did not damp Hong Kong Theater’s experimental spirit. Similar
to Taiwan, with the rise of “collective improvisation” in the style of theater workshops, Hong
Kong avant-gardist theater focused on multimedia and cross-genre experimentations, which also
resulted in one of the common problems facing contemporary world theater in general, that is,
over-emphasis on performance and less-emphasis on text.23 In Macao, likewise, plays written
by local playwrights only started to take off from 1975 onwards. Before 1985, theater in Macao
often focused on realism, while the latter half of the 1980s witnessed more pronounced mod-
ernist explorations and the formation of a polyphonic Macao theater.24
The intriguing similarities between Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao in
their respective theatrical developments from the late 1970s and early 1980s onwards speak

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volumes about the importance of the “Plays of Late Modern Period.” The years immediately
after the end of the Cultural Revolution in Mainland China, the post-Martial Law Taiwan, the
post-Sino-British Joint Declaration Hong Kong, as well as the post-1985 Macao, share similar
impulses of social critique, formal experimentation, and critical local reflection. This chapter
insisted on situating the “Late Modern” Chinese theater in a global context while not losing
sight of its intricate dialogue with theater of the early twentieth century and throughout the
Maoist period, as the innovations of the “Late Modern Period” must be historicized in their
own cultural context as well as examined comparatively with a critical awareness of contempo-
rary developments in World Theater.

Notes
1 Hong Zicheng, A History of Contemporary Chinese Literature, trans. Michael M. Day (Leiden and Boston:
Brill, 2007), 257.
2 Dong Jian, Hu Xingliang, eds., A Draft History of Contemporary Chinese Drama (Zhonguo dangdai xiju
shigao, 1949–2000) (Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 2008), 273.
3 Gao Wensheng ed., A Literary History of Contemporary Chinese Theater (Zhongguo dangdai xiju wenx-
ueshi) (Nanning: Guangxi renmin chubanshe, 1990), 33–34.
4 Dong Jian and Hu Xingliang eds., A Draft History of Contemporary Chinese Drama, 304.
5 Chuah Osman. “Muslims in China: The Social and Economic Situation of the Hui Chinese,” Journal of
Muslim Minority Affairs (April 2004), vol. 24, no. 1, 155–162.
6 Dong Jian and Hu Xingliang, A Draft History of Contemporary Chinese Drama, 331–332.
7 Ibid., 342.
8 Fei, Faye Chunfang, “Huang Zuolin: China’s Man of the Theatre,” 22.
9 Ibid., 27–29.
10 Ibid., 84.
11 For more on Ying Ruocheng, see Ying Ruocheng and Claire Conceison, Voices Carry: Behind Bars and
Backstage during China’s Revolution and Reform (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009).
12 Ying Ruocheng, “Preface,” (xuyan), in Jin Yun, Uncle Doggie’s Nirvana (Gou’er ye niepan), trans. Ying
Ruocheng (Beijing: China Translation and Publishing Corporation, 1999), 6.
13 For more on Gao Xingjian, see Sy Ren Quah, Gao Xingjian and Transcultural Chinese Theater (Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press, 2004).
14 Dong Jian, Hu Xingliang eds., A Draft History of Contemporary Chinese Drama, 346.
15 Lin Zhaohua and Gao Xingjian, “Absolute Signal in 1982” (1982 nian Juedui xinhao), in Lin Zhaohua,
ed., The Director’s Picture Book (daoyan xiaorenshu) (Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe, 2014), 69–74.
16 Lin Zhaohua, The Director’s Picture Book, 76.
17 Wei Minglun, “Pan Jinlian: The Story of One Woman and Four Men – A New Sichuan Opera,” trans.
Shiao-ling Yu, Asian Theatre Journal (Spring 1993), vol. 10, no. 1, 1–48.
18 Liang Luo, The Avant-garde and the Popular in Modern China: Tian Han and the Intersection of Performance
and Politics (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014), 187–191.
19 Dong Jian and Hu Xingliang, A Draft History of Contemporary Chinese Drama, 356–364.
20 Xiaomei Chen, “Introduction,” in Xiaomei Chen ed., Reading the Right Text: An Anthology of Contempo-
rary Chinese Drama (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2003), 15–18.
21 Dong Jian and Hu Xingliang, A Draft History of Contemporary Chinese Drama, 327.
22 Ibid., 573–575.
23 Ibid., 629–634.
24 Ibid., 637–638.

Further readings
Chen, Xiaomei, ed. The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Drama. New York: Columbia University
Press, 2014.
Chen, Xiaomei, ed. Reading the Right Text: An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Drama. Honolulu: Univer-
sity of Hawaii Press, 2003.

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 Plays of late modern period

Dong, Jian and Hu Xingliang, eds. A Draft History of Contemporary Chinese Drama (Zhonguo dangdai xiju
shigao, 1949–2000). Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 2008.
Fei, Faye Chunfang. “Huang Zuolin: China’s Man of the Theatre,” Ph.D. Dissertation. New York: City
University of New York, 1991.
Hong, Zicheng. A History of Contemporary Chinese Literature. Translated by Michael M. Day. Leiden and
Boston: Brill, 2007.
Luo, Liang. The Avant-garde and the Popular in Modern China: Tian Han and the Intersection of Performance and
Politics. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014.
Quah, Sy Ren. Gao Xingjian and Transcultural Chinese Theater. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004.
Tung, Constantine and Colin Mackerras, eds. Drama in the People’s Republic of China. Albany: SUNY Press,
1987.
Yan, Haiping, ed. Theater and Society: An Introduction to Contemporary Chinese Drama. Armonk, NY: Rout-
ledge, 1998.
Ying, Ruocheng and Claire Conceison. Voices Carry: Behind Bars and Backstage during China’s Revolution and
Reform. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009.

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 PART IV

Postmodern literature
(late 1980s–present)

Part IV: introduction: multiplicity of themes and forms

Part IV covers the historical period between the late 1980s and 2010s. In this period, the full-
scale reform and complete opening to the world in Chinese society provided Chinese literature
with postmodern conditions for generating colorful richness in themes and diverse multiplicity
of styles and techniques, characteristic of modernism and postmodernism. A variety of epi-
thets such as “New Realism,” “New History,” “New Condition,” “New Generation of Writers,”
“individualized writing,” “literature of desires,” “female writings,” etc. were employed to catego-
rize literature of this period. They serve to underscore the fact that in the literary domain, there
were more popular topics than commonly accepted critical opinions, more “hot spots” than
peak creativity, more creative activities than concerted trends, more comet-like literary works
than great masterpieces of enduring value. The multiplicity in theme and forms is also an indi-
cation of the postmodern condition in literature: deep distrust in grand narratives, subversion
of existing cultural order and values, indulgence in carnal desires and sensual escapism, and the
eradication of the demarcation line between elite and popular literature, high and low tastes. For
an overview of the literature in this period, the reader can read the conclusion article by Profes-
sor Chen Xiaoming, especially commissioned for the handbook.
The distinctive feature of multiplicity finds its expression in authorship, subject matter, and
formal innovation. In this period, some veteran writers of the early periods are still alive and
actively writing. In their ranks, we can find such revered names as Ba Jin, Bing Xin, Xu Chi,
Yang Jiang, Wang Meng, Zhang Jie, and others. Middle-aged writers who had been established
in the early period become more sophisticated and productive. And a young generation of
writers born in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s came onto the literary scene with fresh blood and
innovative ideas.Their rebellious spirit and fondness of controversy helped group them together
under the epithet of “New Generation of Writers.” Of the major literary genres, the novel has
the most impressive achievement. Major novelists include Wang Meng, Jia Pingwa, Zhang Wei,
Han Shaogong, Zhang Chengzhi, Chen Zhongshi,Yu Hua, Su Tong, Wang Xiaobo, Wang Anyi,
Chi Li, Gao Xingjian, Ge Fei, Bi Feiyu, and others. Poetry in this period continued its avant-
gardist and experimental trajectory of development. Apart from the already well-known Hai Zi,
Ouyang Jianghe, and Xi Chuan, poets who came to be better known include Wang Jiaxin, Zang
Di,Yi Sha, Zhai Yongming, and others. Drama of this period was also noted for its multiple forms
 Postmodern literature (late 1980s–present)

and styles, and the representative playwrights include Lin Zhaohua, Meng Jinghui, Mou Sen,
Zhang Guangtian, and others. A most distinct form of literature in this period is literary essays, in
which many writers, old and young, dappled their hands. Representative essayists are Yu Qiuyu,
Shi Tiesheng, Han Shaogong, Zhang Chengzhi, Zhang Wei, Wang Anyi, and others.
Postmodernism replicates the logic of late capitalism (Frederic Jameson’s idea), which gives
rise to what Jürgen Harbermas describes as the “splintering of culture.” Chinese literature in the
postmodern period was entangled in the capitalist whirlpool of commercialization, commodifi-
cation, and marketization. Although in this period, literary production has witnessed an unprec-
edented upsurge and Chinese literature has won worldwide recognition with Gao Xingjian’s
and Mo Yan’s winning the Nobel Prize for Literature as a solid proof, the social significance of
literature has been substantially down-scaled and the intensity of interest in literature weakened
as a whole by consumerism and digital revolution. While the literary sphere has been much
eroded by literary works catering to popular demands for leisure and entertainment, writers
of refined literature have persevered in creating literary works for the elite taste. Among these
writers, we have Yan Lianke, Liu Zhenyun, Bi Feiyu, Li E, Tie Ning, and others. The advance in
technology and easy access to the Internet have radically changed the composition, circulation,
and consumption of literature and produced new forms of literature, which take the names of
“Online Literature” and “New Media Literature.” This handbook has devoted a chapter to this
new literary phenomenon.While this handbook mainly focuses on literature produced in main-
land China, it also gives a substantial coverage to the literary production in Taiwan and Hong
Kong in the last section with four essays. Literary works produced overseas are only briefly
mentioned because of space constraint. As a conclusion to the handbook, Prof. Chen Xiaoming’s
article, apart from being a comprehensive overview of the literature of this period, summarizes
the major literary trends, themes, and innovations in forms and styles, and discusses the most
important authors and their works, some of which this handbook is unable to include.

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 SECTION XII

Literature of new realism

 38
FICTION OF WANG MENG
AND ALAI
New approaches to historical fiction

Mei-Hsuan Chiang

Since the end of the nineteenth century, Chinese intellectuals have been preoccupied with
the notion of national survival and grand history in the face of foreign invasion and forces of
modernization. In order to rejuvenate the weakening country, Chinese literature, as the intel-
lectuals’ most powerful weapon, has since been devoted to the idea of social progress, sup-
porting the belief in a teleological history. In the post-Mao era, when writers have tried to fill
in the historical void created by the Great Cultural Revolution, historical teleology remains
significant in the literature of the new era. It works in two ways to look back to the nation’s
recent past and, at the same time, to endorse the “forward-looking” political agenda in Deng
Xiaoping’s regime. Whether it is “scar literature” which focuses on investigating social tragedies
that occurred during the Cultural Revolution, or “root-seeking literature,” which turns to the
premodern and indigenous traditions for the “pure” past, the retrospective literature in the 1980s
reaffirms traditional historical narratives that aim to advance the progressive viewpoint. As Yang
Xiaobin explicates in his discussion of root-seeking literature, the seemingly contradictory view
of time is created “by guiding the historical development toward an ideal future through the
detour of recalling the presumably purer and more vital primitive.”1 In other words, the narra-
tion of the past not only accommodates the present; it ultimately anticipates an idealistic future.
More importantly, with the gradual opening up of society and the literary world since the late
1970s, more and more writers began to shift their attention from the pursuit of historical truth
to history-writing per se. Through experiments in form, they challenged the reader’s faith in
the historical subject, casting doubts on historical determinacy and wholeness, the notion of
progress, and the representability of history. By analyzing Wang Meng’s famous Seasonal Series
and Alai’s Red Poppies (Chen’ai Luoding, aka When Dust Settles, 1999), this chapter examines the
innovative narrative approach to explore the past in Chinese literature of the 1990s, with a focus
on the two authors’ contemplation on the representation of history.

Wang Meng, Alai, and history

Traditionally, people believe there should be a clear boundary between history and literature:
one as factual and the other fictional.Therefore, genres like “historical fiction” have often gener-
ated debates as to whether they can be approached as “history” by a different name or something
completely separated from history. Starting from the 1960s, and influenced by the development

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of critical theories during that time, the boundary between history and fiction became more
complicated, leading to new ways to understand and represent history in literature.
Postmodern literature that emerged in the mid-twentieth century has further challenged
the version of the past and history produced by professional historians, and the clear distinction
between literature and fiction these historians try to maintain. As discussed by theorists like Fre-
dric Jameson,2 postmodernism is often considered “anti-history,” with its emphasis placed on a
depthless, fragmented and waning sense of history.What postmodernism rejects is the traditional
historicism that emphasizes the linear, teleological, Hegelian-Marxist historical narrative. It is, in
fact, interested in the past insofar as it can be used to serve the present. Hayden White also notes,
“What interests postmodernists is the past that continues to exist in the present, but less as herit-
age and tradition than as phantasm, memory, the ‘return of the repressed,’ ghost, enigma, threat,
or burden.”3 Thus, postmodern literature and art move away from traditional “scientific history”
that aims to find out “what actually happened,” in order to explore “what it felt like” in the
past through creative forms and expressions, such as experimental literary devices, mythological
plots, and pseudo-documentary.
In an interesting way, Chinese postmodern literature is created in a similar fashion. It is not
anti-history; rather, it is against the naïve belief in a master narrative and account of the nation’s
past as prescribed by the government or official historiography. By highlighting the problematics
of representation, Chinese literature of the 1990s challenges the apparently seamless relationship
between historical past and its representation in the previous decades, and pays more attention
to self-reflexive history-writing than on reevaluation of the historical past. Among writers who
consciously or unconsciously adopt this conception of and approach to history, Wang Meng
and Alai are two of the prominent ones. The two authors are similar in many ways: Their works
won numerous literary awards and received great popularity in China. Additionally, they both
had close relationships to ethnic literature: Wang Meng used to live in Xinjiang and learned to
speak Uyghur; Alai was born in Tibet and published several works on Tibetan culture. More
importantly, they both employ intriguing and innovative narrative techniques to present mod-
ern Chinese history and further explore the notion of history and history-writing.Wang Meng’s
Seasonal Series can be seen as a metafiction, which reflects the re-construction of the past in a
self-critical manner. Nevertheless, despite its challenging literary format, the series maintains the
teleological narrative in order to support the government’s political agenda in the post-Mao era,
namely, a closure to the past catastrophe and the inevitable trend to move on. On the other hand,
Alai looks at Tibetan and modern Chinese history through the eyes of a Chieftain’s idiot son,
showing an interesting mixture of sublime and ridiculous. Through the novels’ magical realism
and unreliable first person narration, the story is unable to tie up the loose ends of a crumbled
history, presenting the absurd, ironic, and incomprehensible aspect of history instead. Ironically,
contrary to Wang Meng’s attempt to document the personal past, history itself surfaces from the
strange and implausible narrative in Alai’s Red Poppies even though it refuses to make meaning
out of the piece of history represented in the novel.

Wang Meng: life, career, and masterpiece

Literary self-projection
Wang Meng (1934– ) is famous for his challenge to political orthodoxy in his earlier works
and often associated with the more experimental writing techniques in works during the new
era. He is a philosophy professor’s son, and was brought up and educated in Beijing. He came
into contact with communist ideology at an early age and became an underground communist

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member in 1948; later, when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took power in China, he
rose quickly to the position as a Party Secretary for the Communist Youth League.Wang Meng’s
first novel, Long Live Youth (Qingchun Wansui) is about a group of student party members in a
girl’s high school in Beijing, and how the group reach out to their classmates, including the
daughter of a former capitalist and the adopted daughter of a foreign missionary, in order to
help them integrate into the new Chinese state. This seemingly politically correct novel was
completed in 1953, but was not published until 1979 because Wang Meng was attacked dur-
ing the Anti-Rightist Movement that began in 1957.4 Once the story was published in the late
1970s, it was elected as one of the top ten favorite books of Chinese middle school students.
One of the reasons this popular novel was banned and Wang Meng’s novelist career temporarily
terminated was because of a controversy over his famous short story, “The Young Newcomer
in the Organisation Department” (Zuzhibu lai le ge nianqingren). Published in People’s Litera-
ture in September 1956, the story follows Liu Zhen, an ambitious young man who is assigned
to work at a local district council. Working with the conservative old Party officials, such as
Deputy Bureau Chief Lu Shiwu, Liu Zhen gradually learns about the incompetence in the
party bureaucracy. Whenever he reports a comrade’s misdeed, Lu Shiwu would come up with
unreasonable excuses, such as the person’s merit and achievement in the past, to pardon the
old officials’ faults. In addition to depicting the young party members’ frustration towards the
system, the story also exposes problems hidden behind the idealistic façade of new China. Not
surprisingly, the story was considered political dissent during such a historical juncture, and
Wang Meng, like many intellectuals who were mistakenly labeled as rightists, was sent to the
countryside near Beijing for reform through labor.
In 1961, Wang Meng’s Rightist label was removed, so he returned to Beijing to teach at
Beijing Normal College, only to be sent to Xinjiang to be a farmer two years later. He lived in
Xinjiang for almost sixteen years, and there, he learned to speak Uyghur and became engaged
in the local culture.5 After his return to Beijing, Wang Meng was called a “Returning Writer”
(guilai zuojia).The term refers to a group of novelists and poets whose lives were greatly affected
by the Anti-Rightist movement in 1957 and whose literary careers were terminated until their
rehabilitation, but who managed to come back to the literary scene after the Cultural Revo-
lution.6 Beginning in the late 1970s, Wang Meng’s traumatic personal experiences from the
previous decades served as rich sources for his literary creation, but he began to experiment
with more innovative writing techniques. As manifested in his short stories, such as “Bolshevik
Salute” (Buli), “Butterfly” (Hudie), “Voices of Spring” (Chun zhi sheng), and “Kite Stream-
ers” (Fengzheng piaodai), the use of non-linear time sequence and emphasis on his characters’
psychology (often labeled as “stream of consciousness” during that time) began to dominate his
writing. During this period when the government gradually loosened ideological control and
did not forbid the use of Western literary styles, symbols and allegories also become the major
expressions in Wang Meng’s writings.7
In the 1990s, Wang Meng began to write his Seasonal Series, which narrates the life of its
protagonist, Qian Wen, from the post-liberation era to the middle of the Cultural Revolution.
The first of the four volumes, Season of Love (Lian’ai de jijie, 1992), looks at Qian Wen and his
colleagues in their association with the Communist Youth League in the early 1950s. In post-
liberation Beijing, these young people were devoted to the Party wholeheartedly, striving to
become the ideal Party members who would help construct a new China. Nevertheless, parallel
to their fantasy of love, their political dreams are shattered as they realize that they have nothing
but empty goals and theories. Season of Embarrassment (Shitai de jijie, 1994) traces Qian Wen’s
life of reform through labor after the Anti-Rightist movement in 1957. Through Qian Wen’s
experience in the countryside, the volume also looks at the effect of the Great Leap Forward

521
 Mei-Hsuan Chiang

and its following famine on the lives of the commoners. In addition to exposing the ugliness in
human nature during such extreme circumstances, Qian Wen’s false trial and reform experience
also expose the operations of a Kafkaesque bureaucracy. Following Qian Wen’s return to Bei-
jing, Season of Hesitation (Chouchu de jijie, 1995) discusses the meaning of literature during such a
chaotic time.Trying to come back to the mainstream literary world, Qian Wen and the editor he
works with, Li Yuan, have a hard time in understanding what is “legitimate” and proper for the
Chinese literature of that time, although the latter actually has the power to make that decision.
The last part of the series, Season of Carnival (Kuanghuan de jijie, 1999), looks at Qian Wen and
his family’s relocation from Beijing to Xinjiang during the Cultural Revolution and their life
far away from the center of the sociopolitical chaos.
The Seasonal Series expresses the overarching concerns in Wang Meng’s works: politics and
history. It works on themes of youth and political disillusionment, as in his earlier works like
“The Young Newcomer in the Organisation Department,” and continues exploring his experi-
ence of being labeled as a Rightist and the years he spent in Xinjiang, which have served as the
major inspiration for his literary creation. It also pushes Wang Meng’s creative use of irony and
other literary devices to an even more experimental narrative structure. As Chen Xiaoming has
noted, Wang Meng’s works are often based on “individuals who have experienced historical
catastrophe and transformation when entering a different historical stage . . . questioning the
inevitable continuity of history is a persistent theme in his works.”8 It is through the character of
Qian Wen that Wang Meng traces the effect of historical catastrophe on an individual’s life and
psychology; more importantly, it is through the self-reflective awareness of the subjective point
of view that Wang Meng provides an alternative to document the unspeakable and traumatic
past.

Dialogue with the past

Each title in the Seasonal Series clearly summarizes the protagonist’s mental state and his rela-
tionship to the larger sociopolitical context. In Season of Love, political liberation is closely
intertwined with the liberation of romantic relationships. The novel begins with all the young
characters looking forward to the new Chinese state and anticipating love, but parallel to their
failed romance and loss of innocence in the end, the young people’s passion towards politics
eventually turns into disillusionment. The same also goes for Season of Embarrassment, which
shows the public denunciation of Qian Wen and his former colleagues in the reform camp, and
portrays Qian Wen and his contemporaneous intellectuals’ greatest embarrassment: being pun-
ished for the political theories they held religiously during the early 1950s.
As the political tension builds up in the first three novels, Season of Carnival, as the title sug-
gests, is supposed to be the climax of the entire series. Nevertheless, contrary to his predecessors
who often represent this decade of man-made catastrophe as carnivalesque,Wang Meng actually
removes, or at least displaces, the Cultural Revolution, the most important historical event in the
time span covered in the series, from his story. The novel shows Qian Wen and his family mov-
ing away from the center of this “carnival,” living peacefully in Xinjiang instead. Although the
novel offers a hint at the ongoing Cultural Revolution in Beijing through stories told by Qian
Wen’s visitors, the great part of the novel is devoted to Qian Wen’s creative life outside the politi-
cal turbulence: his care of a little chicken farm, the construction of a storage room with stolen
bricks, the culinary experiment of making rice wine, etc. The author-narrator even thought
about changing the novel’s title into “the season of raising cats,”9 because the cat, according to
the narrator, is the sole focus of Qian Wen’s life during the Cultural Revolution. The departure
from the narrative tradition about the Cultural Revolution reveals Wang Meng’s real interest:

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not the specific historical events per se, but the psychology of his characters and their ways
of coping with the changes during the time of extremes. More specifically, compared to the
grand historical narrative, Wang Meng is more interested in tracing his protagonist’s struggle to
understand and make sense of his political problems and the effect of self-doubts on his later life.
In addition to shifting the narrative focus from center to periphery,Wang Meng further ques-
tions literature about the ten-years catastrophe through a new form of history writing. In a way,
Wang Meng projects his personal experience into the series and speaks through the protagonist
Qian Wen. Whether it is the experience of joining the Communist Youth League, the constant
struggle for approval from the authorities, or life in exile in Xinjiang, the novel can be seen as
mirroring Wang Meng’s life from an adolescent to a middle-age family man. Nevertheless, his
relationship to the series is more complicated than that. Through the form of metafiction, Wang
Meng reveals another layer of narrative complexity by making the readers aware of the novels’
fictionality and the presence of the author. It is through this narrative structure that he explores
the relationships between himself and his literary creation, personal and collective memory, and
fiction and history.
The series, published with a two to four years’ interval in between, shows changes in Wang
Meng’s writing style, especially through the presence of the author and his own narrative voice.
This is to say that the novels become more than mirrors of the author’s life; instead, they present
a dialogue between the author and the novels, which is based on his past.The omnipotent point
of view in Season of Love, which is disguised as objective and observational, is soon interrupted
by the author’s subjective voice in the following novels of the series. As in the opening of Sea-
son of Hesitation, Wang Meng’s confusing use of personal pronouns makes the narrative voice
even more complicated. The narrator starts by complaining about Wang Meng’s deviation from
the writing of the series: “So long, my dear friend. What kind of mundane business has caught
you? . . . Wang Meng, you have wasted your talents and the hard-earned future!”10 However, in
the paragraph that follows, the narrator changes to a sentimental tone, “And I think about you
all the time. This long and endless novel is as important as I am. It grows old with me” (Ibid.)
The identity of the “I” speaker in the aforementioned paragraphs is ambiguous. Is it the narra-
tor talking to Wang Meng, the author? Or, has the perspective changed in the second paragraph
from the narrator’s to Wang Meng’s? Either way, the story deliberately separates the narrator
(who at other part of the novels is also the author himself) from Wang Meng, creating an almost
schizophrenic situation.
The series not only presents a schizophrenic dialogue between the narrator and Wang Meng,
but also emphasizes the construction of the novel and the presence of the author. Although it
was not particularly noticeable, the author already breaks the third wall to tell the readers about
the future of one of his characters, Bian Yingchun, in the first novel, and the author’s presence
also become more apparent as the story progresses.11 In Season of Hesitation, the author-narrator
at one point states that, looking at the characters from his era, their actions seem so foolish, and
with such a long writing process, he has already forgotten how he has constructed some of the
characters, like Liu Lifang, and decides to re-paint her image (Ibid., 167). At another point he
even regrets choosing Qian Wen as his novels’ protagonist and shaping the story from Qian
Wen’s perspective (Ibid., 138). It is through these self-reflexive writing techniques that Wang
Meng calls into question the delusion of all truly “objective” history and reminds the reader of
the subjective nature of any interpretation of history.
Like other metafictions, the Seasonal Series self-consciously calls attention to the novels’
fictional status, but, at the same time, examines the form of metafiction in a self-critical man-
ner. Wang Meng suggests that literary form does not stand on its own and is not completely
detached from his central discussion of modern Chinese history. For him, innovative literary

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techniques also work to call attention to Chinese society’s attitude and representation of the
nation’s recent past. In Season of Carnival, he begins by stating that “I know sequentially long
novels are tiring. People are afraid of lengthy novels just as they are afraid of excessive memories,
pasts, and histories.Who’s not afraid of yesterday’s intrusion into today?” (Ibid., 1) He poignantly
points out a symptom of the new era – the refusal to look back at the country’s past. In fact,
after 1976, the CCP simply placed all the blame on the Gang of Four for causing the political
chaos during the Cultural Revolution, and prescribed the forward-looking ideology as a remedy
for the society. This fetish of progress is best explained in Season of Hesitation when the author-
narrator speaks bitterly,

Why is history always so absurd and unbelievable? We don’t want history. We hate
history. Let us forget about history. Why not? The representation of history is disre-
garded and ignored so quickly. It is especially similar to the situation when a man who
has fully recovered from his illness and is leading a good life, tries to tell the others
details about his chest surgery. How could you blame the others for not being patient
enough to sit through his vivid description of the surgery? Once the scar is healed, we
forget that it hurt. Perhaps this is the real reason why human beings can survive.
(Ibid., 2)

In a sarcastic way, Wang Meng mocks the futility of history-writing at a time when the society
thinks it has “fully recovered” from the “surgery” of Cultural Revolution, and in a world that
believes progressive ideology is the remedy. Although it is impossible to reconstruct an “objec-
tive” historical past and make contemporary readers feel the pain, it is still possible for Wang
Meng to capture his subjective truth. As he suggests, he continues to write about the past out
of a personal desire to look back at his youth: “Nostalgia is always right; it has nothing to do
with evaluation of history” (Ibid., 276). Thus, Wang Meng does not aim to subvert the official
account of the Cultural Revolution with this metafiction; nor does he want to leave the series
at the level of mere language play. Although he claims that “perhaps we forget that novels are just
novels.What else is there?” in Season of Embarrassment, he also reminds his readers: “Maybe when
we are immersed in the game of ordering words, phrases, and sentences, we forget the genuine
happiness and sadness.”12 In this light, the series’ innovative form not only offers an alternative
to previous literature that focuses on exposing the oppressive and advance the progressive – on
a sociopolitical level; it also helps Wang Meng to explore the genuine feelings he has toward this
historical period and construct a self-reflexive personal history outside of the grand historical
narrative.

Alai: life, career, and masterpiece

Writing from the margin

Growing up in Tibet during the Cultural Revolution, Alai (1959–, birth name Chen Yongrui)
has a very different understanding of modern Chinese history in comparison with Wang Meng.
Alai’s parents are of Tibetan and Hui decedent, and they raised him in a Tibetan village in the
Ngawa Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province. After graduating from Sichuan
Barkam Nationality Normal School, he took up a job as a teacher while writing poems at lei-
sure. Eventually, Alai turned from poetry to novels, and served as the editor for several literary
magazines, including New Meadows and Science Fiction World. His writings often revolve around
themes and legends in Tibetan culture, which exerted a great impact on his life experience. In

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most of his interviews, Alai acknowledges the influence of Tibetan culture and religion in his
writing, but he also moves between Han and Tibetan languages because of the Chinese educa-
tion he received. The Chinese literary world began to recognize his talent and see him as the
leading Tibetan poet and novelist in China today when he became the first Tibetan author to
receive the prestigious Mao Dun Literature Prize in 2000 with his first long novel, Red Poppies:
A Novel of Tibet.13
Continuing to explore the connections with his roots, Alai’s later works fascinate Han Chi-
nese readers with the authentic Tibetan lives behind the idyllic myth of Shangri-La. Different
from the magical realism in Red Poppies, his second long novel, Empty Mountain (Kongshan),
adopts a realist approach by following the lives of people in a Tibetan village for almost fifty
years. It looks at the impact of political changes, urban expansion and a series of modernizing
projects in new China and how they endangered traditional Tibetan culture and ways of life.
Later, in The Song of King Gesar (Gesar Wang), Alai once again returns to the mythical and the
imaginative through the retelling of the famous Epic of Gesar, an extended long story passed
down by Tibetan bards from generation to generation. In Alai’s retelling of the story, a modern-
day shepherd named Jigmed is visited by dreams of Gesar, the ancient god that has been sent
down to the human world to defeat the demons and unite the tribal communities in Tibet. The
two storylines are parallel and intertwined in many ways, as Jigmed also embarks on a spiritual
journey to learn and see his kingdom from a different perspective. In addition to these long
novels, Alai’s short stories and essays also express his persistent concerns for Tibetan society in
the modern world.
Red Poppies is a starting point for Alai to explore a Tibet that has undergone a dramatic power
transition after entering the modern world. It is an epical saga that follows the destruction of the
chieftain system (tusi) in a Tibetan tribe at the Sino-Tibetan border from the post-WWII era to
the Communist takeover in 1959. Writing with the first-person narrative, the story looks into
Chief Maichi and his tribe’s interactions with their rivals from the region, and Tibet’s encounter
with both Chinese and Western worlds. The entire story is told by Maichi’s second son, who
was born by Maichi’s Han Chinese wife. Unlike his older brother, a traditional warrior and
Maichi’s designated heir, the second son is often viewed as an “idiot” by his family because of his
idiosyncratic behaviors and seemingly foolish speech. However, his pioneering economic plan
to make a big profit out of growing poppies soon helps the Maichi clan to defeat its rivals, and
later, his visionary decision to minimize risk by growing crops once again saves the tribe from
widespread food shortages. What’s more, with his great diplomatic skills, the narrator also finds
himself a beautiful wife, Tharna, the daughter of the female Chieftain of Rongong. The narra-
tor’s success eventually threatens his brother’s status as the chief-to-be – even though he is not
interested in politics at all. To resolve the tension in the family, Chief Maichi tests his two sons
by sending them to guard the southern and northern border, respectively. Instead of building a
fortress and expanding the territory by means of military aggression, the narrator establishes a
market at the border that boosts the local economy and brings the entire family great fortune.
However, Chief Maichi’s past eventually catches up with the present: He once killed a book-
keeper in order to possess his wife, but the bookkeeper’s sons return to avenge their father by
killing Chief Maichi’s first son, and several years later, the second son, leaving Chief Maichi no
heir to continue the chieftaincy.

History, or an idiot’s musing

Previous literature often discusses the novel’s unique narrative style and its representation of
Tibetan society, culture and religious practices. While some scholars praise Alai for bringing the

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marginalized Tibetan culture to the mainstream’s attention, there are also some who blame Alai
for making Tibet an exotic spectacle. Responding to the critique, Alai suggests that what he
tries to deliver is “a universal sense of history and human nature.”14 In other words, he is more
interested in examining history and history writing than just curating an ethnographic exhibi-
tion through the story of Maichi’s tribe. As Nimrod Baranovitch has argued, Alai challenges the
preexisting official account of Sino-Tibetan history in his stories.15 During the Maoist period,
old Tibet is often described as barbaric and brutal, and it was the Communist party that liberated
Tibetan people from their backward, oppressed lifestyle.This narrative, of course, is to justify the
government’s violent takeover in the early 1950s, and even the popular television series adopted
from Alai’s novel in 2002 appropriates this narrative to emphasize the communist’s liberation
of Tibetan society. However, another narrative trend appeared in the mid-1990s to reverse the
negative stereotype in the past and focus on Tibetan society’s spirituality. Departing from these
two paradigms, Alai’s Red Poppies refuses to reduce its characters to either oppressed political
subjects or symbols of mysticism, but instead shows their humanness and vulnerability when
caught in the upheavals of history.
In line with Alai’s goal to capture “a universal sense of history,” Red Poppies is itself a novel
about history and history writing. Alai’s view of history and history writing is explored through
two characters: the narrator and his friend Wangpo Yeshi. The latter is a monk who comes to
Maichi’s land to spread the Buddhist teaching of his sect. The narrator befriends him and lists
him as one of the smartest people he knows in addition to his father and Special Emissary
Huang from China. However,Wangpo Yeshi’s arrogance and contempt against chieftaincy angers
Maichi; as a result, Maichi punishes him by cutting out part of his tongue and locking him in
prison. After reading records of Maichi’s family history that the narrator brings him, Wangpo
Yeshi volunteers to be Maichi’s historian. He believes that “history must tell people what is right
and what is wrong”16 thereby serving to provide “learning about today and tomorrow from
yesterday” (Ibid., 326). However, his honesty and persistence in educating Maichi soon leads him
to lose his entire tongue this time. Afterwards, the historian changes his belief and only serves
as a silent observer and a mentor to the narrator. The idiot-narrator often consults him on the
meaning of history, and gradually develops his own idea of history writing. As the narrator once
contends, many philosophical insights are worthy of being written down, “but many such intel-
ligent phrases have disappeared like scattered dust and dying smoke throughout history” (Ibid.,
158). Therefore, it is a simple desire to work against time and preserve the great humanistic
insights that have motivated the narrator to document the clan’s history.
According to the narrator, the spirit of those considered rebellious when they were alive, like
Wangpo Yeshi, will enter the living body to predict the future (Ibid., 372). Similar to Wangpo
Yeshi, who can see the larger picture of history, the narrator is also mistaken as a divine immortal
when he tells his father the future of chieftaincy.Visionary historians are presented as possessed
by the rebellious, prophetic spirit in the story, which, in a way, suggests that historians are not
only provident; they are also fearless in confronting the mainstream ideology. The narrator’s
eccentric behavior, which makes others around him think that he is ill-witted, is in fact the
perfect disguise to give him great freedom to act as he desires and defy the authority.17 He
knows very well that his intelligence is the greatest threat to his brother in the competition for
the chieftain’s seat; therefore, to be subtle and to pretend to be foolish is a clever way for him to
survive from his brother’s persecution. At the same time, he never needs to worry about offend-
ing the others when he tells the truth, because most of the people would only see him as an
idiot. More importantly, being an idiot also allows him to observe from an outsider’s perspective,
as he comes to understand in the end, that “I’d been an idiot all my life, but now I knew I was
neither an idiot nor a smart person. I was just a passerby who came to this wondrous land when

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the chieftain system was nearing its end.Yes, heaven had let me see and let me hear, had placed
me in the middle of everything while having me remain above it all. It was for this purpose
that heaven had made me look like an idiot.”18 Thus, he is more than a “passerby” who comes
to witness the changes of the old world; he is detached from the mundane world to see the
grandiose history from “above” – a disenchanted, enlightened position. It is in this way that the
narrator, who speaks for the author Alai, writes down the Maichi family’s history, and the history
of Sino-Tibetan relationships.
Unlike Wang Meng’s effort to understand the past in his Seasonal Series, Alai resists tra-
ditional, “rational” historiography by framing history from the perspective of an idiot. More
specifically, instead of re-ordering and making sense of historical chaos, he deliberately presents
history in an absurd, incomprehensible, and shocking manner, as viewed and experienced by the
characters in the story. Alai captures Tibet in its great historical transition, and depicts it as a place
in flux that is forced to change by all kinds of internal and external forces. What is so intrigu-
ing about this novel is more than the fate of chieftaincy; rather, it is the tribe’s limited view of
the outside world and its reaction to the change of power. Chief Maichi welcomes people of
different religious practices, political beliefs, and ethnicities to preach their own ideas in their
territory, but the clan’s people have never been truly influenced by any of these external ideas.
As Alai and several scholars have noted, the idiot character in Red Poppies actually resonates with
Aku Tonpa, the legendary man of wisdom in traditional Tibetan folklores.19 Like Aku Tonpa,
a trickster who exposes and makes fun of Tibetans’ hypocrisy, the narrator treats Tibetans and
outsiders alike with sarcasm and irony. By so doing, the novel refuses to present historical events
in a straightforward manner and leaves the interpretation to the readers themselves.
From the beginning of the novel, the narrator makes fun of the special emissary from the
Chinese central government, who accepts girls from Maichi, but claims that it is for “all five
ethnic groups to live harmoniously for the stability of the Republic of China.”20 The novel
continues to ridicule the Kuomingtang (KMT) government, when the narrator understands
the abduction of the Lama to Nanking as a sign of divine approval of the KMT. Along the same
line, unable to grasp the notion of modern statehood and cultural imperialism, the tribe only
views the KMT government and the Communist as the “White” and “Red” Han Chinese, both
wanting to change the color of Tibet. Instead of focusing on ideological and military intrusion
of the external forces, like the communist’s entrance into Tibet, the novel only presents the
bewilderment and shock of the Tibetans when the Maichi’s estate crumbles down. The greatest
irony in the novel is perhaps the termination of chieftaincy, which does not happen because of
the communist takeover; instead, it comes to an end when the assassin, following the Tibetan
tradition, avenges his father by killing the narrator.
As Alai suggests, the novel is never just about Tibet and the decline of chieftaincy; the story
reflects a universal sense of history. It is best illustrated in the encounter with capitalist moder-
nity by the Tibetans and Chinese. The narrator’s family first tastes the sweetness of capitalism
when it successfully manipulates the market with the trading of poppy seeds and crops. This
ecstasy of experiencing capitalist modernity reaches its peak as the border marketplace estab-
lished by the narrator grows every day. While all the chieftains celebrate the capitalist economy
that connects the old world with the new, prostitution and sexually transmitted diseases are also
introduced. Like capitalist modernity, syphilis, which literally makes living bodies rot from the
inside, transgresses the ethnic and political boundary to reveal the greedy and lustful nature of
both the Tibetans and the White Chinese. Filled with irony, the Tibetan and Chinese history
becomes unfamiliar and absurd, subverting the stability and authority of the Han-centered per-
spective. It is also through the characters’ reactions to the historical changes and the language of
irony that an insight, or a fragment of history, surfaces.

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 Mei-Hsuan Chiang

With the idiot’s absurd yet prophetic narrative, Red Poppies presents a historical view that
defamiliarizes linear, progressive historicism and opens up new and potentially revolutionary
perceptions of time and history. From the beginning, the novel predicts and anticipates the
demise of chieftaincy, which suggests that, once the story begins, it is already in a count-down
process. While traditional teleological history aims for progress of civilization, the history pre-
sented in Red Poppies shows just the opposite: the end of an era and “nothing [left] behind
after the dust settled.” (Ibid., 373). Nevertheless, the end of chieftaincy was never the destiny or
the cumulative meaning of the past; it is only a random, unexpected turn of events amidst the
upheavals of history. As the narrator contends, “I saw only the disappearance of the chieftains,
not the future itself. No one is happy about a future he can’t see clearly” (Ibid., 374). Viewed
in this light, the end of chieftaincy was never the goal of the writing; what the narrator, or Alai
himself, really wants to document is a piece of history amidst the changing times and the uni-
versality of human emotions when confronted by the transforming world.

Conclusion
Departing from earlier retrospective literature that tries to fill in the historical void created by
the Cultural Revolution with stories of the oppressed or the primitive past, writers like Wang
Meng and Alai began to experiment with new forms of narrative that call attention to history
writing itself in the 1990s. Both the Seasonal Series and Red Poppies work against the principle
of progressive time in terms of the narrative structure: one aims to dialogue with the past and the
other to anticipate the end of an era from the beginning. These works demonstrate strong con-
sciousness of time and history, but reveal very different relationships than the official accounts
of the past. Following the teleological view of history, the Seasonal Series dives into the past
to trace the pains that continue to exist in the present, making sense of the personal and the
collective trauma that still haunts today. On the other hand, Alai looks at modern Sino-Tibetan
history through a magical realist narrative, which refuses to be reduced to a progressive (or ret-
rogressive) development and interpreted as a consistent, rational story. It is behind all the ironies
and implausible events that the intangible past unavoidably reveals itself. The novels continue
their predecessors’ tasks in documenting the past, but they push a step further, opening up new
ground and many other possibilities in order to investigate history in contemporary Chinese
literature.

Notes
1 Xiaobin Yang, The Chinese Postmodern:Trauma and Irony in Chinese Avant-garde Fiction (Ann Arbor: Uni-
versity of Michigan Press, 2002), 35.
2 Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism: Or,The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Durham, NC: Duke University
Press, 2005), 367–371. Although the postmodernist notion of time is present-oriented (“eternal pre-
sent” as Jameson puts it), it does not discard the past completely.
3 Hayden White, “Postmodernism and Historiography,” Ritsumeikan University, www.ritsumei.ac.jp/acd/
gr/gsce/news/200901022_repo_0-e.htm. Accessed November 12, 2009.
4 The movement consisted of a series of campaigns that aimed to attack intellectuals who had a Rightist
tendency; more specifically, those who favored capitalism or those against collectivization.
5 His devotion to the unique Uyghur culture is best illustrated in The Scenery Here (Zhebian fengjin,
1978), which made him the laureate at the Mao Dun Literature Prize in 2015. The novel traces a theft
that happened in a commune in the Ili area, where Wang Meng has lived for several years. Through the
investigation, the story also shows the harmonious relationship between Han and Uyghur people.
6 Other writers associated with this group include Ai Qing and Zhang Xianliang.

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7 In 1979, writers included Mao Dun, Xia Yan, Ding Ling, and Liu Bingyan who participated in the
Fourth Congress of Writers and Artists in Beijing to provide guidelines for their fellow writers in
the 1980s. During that time, Deng Xiaoping also promised to end interference in artistic and literary
creation.
8 Xiaoming Chen, Anxiety of Signification: Disenchantment of History and Transformation of Contemporary
Literature (Biaoyi de jiaolu: lishi qumei yu dangdai wenxue biange) (Beijing: Central Compilation &
Translation Press, 2003), 18. The translation is mine.
9 Wang Meng, Season of Carnival (Kuanghuan de jijie) (Beijing: People’s Literature Publishing House,1999),
160. Translations for Wang Meng’s works are all mine unless noted otherwise.
10 Wang Meng, Season of Hesitation (Chouchu de jijie) (Beijing: People’s Literature publishing House,1995), 1.
11 Wang Meng, Season of Love (Lian’ai de jijie) (Beijing: People’s Literature Publishing House,1992), 309.
12 Wang Meng, Season of Embarrassment (shitai de jijie) (Beijing: People’s Literature Publishing House,1994), 92.
13 The novel’s Chinese title is “Chen’ai luoding,” (When Dust Settles). This chapter uses in Howard Gold-
blatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin’s, eds., translation, Red Poppies (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2002).
14 Jian-jun Li, “Fragments of Embroidery Flying Like Butterflies: Critique of When Dust Settles,” (Xiang
hudie yiyiang feiwu de xiuhua suipian: ping chen’ai luoding) Southern Cultural Forum (2003), vol. 2,
36–45. Translation mine.
15 Nimrod Baranovitch, “Literary Liberation of the Tibetan Past: The Alternative Voice in Alai’s Red Pop-
pies,” Modern China (2010), vol. 36, no. 2, 170–209.
16 Alai, Red Poppies, 304.
17 In his insightful study of Red Poppies, Howard Y.F. Choy reads the narrator’s idiocy as a way to explore
an undecidable identity and self-positioning. See Howard Choy, “In quest(ion) of an ‘I’: Identity and
Idiocy in Alai’s Red Poppies,” in Lauran R Hartley and Patricia Schiaffini-Vedani Patricia, eds., Modern
Tibetan Literature and Social Change(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008), 225–235.
18 Alai, Red Poppies, 429.
19 Ran Yunfei and Alai Red Poppies, “A Path to Possibilities: A Dialogue with Tibetan Author Alai”
(Tongxiang keneng zhilu: yu Zangzu zuojia Alai tanhua lu). Journal of the Southwest Institute for Ethnic
Studies (Xinan minzu xueyuan xuebao – zhexue shehui kexue ban) (1999), vol. 20, no. 2, 9.
20 Alai, Red Poppies, 30.

Further readings
Baranovitch, Nimrod. “Literary Liberation of the Tibetan Past:The Alternative Voice in Alai’s Red Poppies.”
Modern China 36.2 (2010): 170–209.
Choy, Howard. “Historiographic Alternatives for China: Tibet in Contemporary Fiction by Tashi Dawa,
Alai, and Ge Fei,” American Journal of Chinese Studies, 12.1 (2005): 65–84.
———. “In Quest(ion) of an ‘I’: Identity and Idiocy in Alai’s Red Poppies.” In Lauran Hartley and Patricia
Schiaffini-Vedani, eds., Modern Tibetan Literature and Social Change. Durham: Duke University Press,
2008, 225–235.
Lin, Min and Maria Galikowski. “Wang Meng’s ‘Hard Porridge’ and the Paradox of Reform in China.” In
Min Lin and Maria Galikowski, eds. The Search for Modernity: Chinese Intellectuals and Cultural Discourse
in the Post-Mao Era. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999, 71–88.
Rojas, Carlos. “Alai and the Linguistic Politics of Internal Diaspora.” In Jing Tsu and David Der-wei Wang,
eds. Global Chinese Literature: Critical Essays. Leiden: Brill, 2010, 115–132.
Song, Bing-hui and Zhang Yi. Research Materials on Wang Meng (Wang Meng yanjiu ziliao). Tianjin: Tianjin
People Publishing House, 2009.
Tay, William. “Wang Meng, Stream-of-consciousness, and the Controversy over Modernism.” Modern Chi-
nese Literature 1.1 (1984): 7–24.
Wang, Yiyan. “The Politics of Representing Tibet: Alai’s Tibetan Native-Place Stories.” Modern Chinese
Literature and Culture 25.1 (Spring 2013): 96–130.
Yue, Gang. “As the Dust Settles in Shangri-La: Alai’s Tibet in the Era of Sino-globalization.” Journal of Con-
temporary China 56 (August 2008): 543–563.
Zhang Dening and Jing Yi. “Open Our Hearts to the Panoramic World: An Interview with Wang Meng.”
Chinese Literature (Spring 1999): 5–24.

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 39
YU HUA’S AND SU TONG’S
FICTION
Anne Wedell-Wedellsborg

Yu Hua and Su Tong are two of the better-known Chinese writers in the West. Widely trans-
lated, both have had works adapted into movies, which have attracted international attention
and won prominent awards. Sharing a background in the areas south of Yangzi, they are
among the foremost exponents of a group of late 1980s experimental writers, who in the 1990s
changed their writing into a more realist style.

Yu Hua

Life and career

Yu Hua was born in Hangzhou in 1960. Two years later the family moved to Haiyan county
where his father got a job as surgeon. Growing up in a typical small southern town with its
waterways and bridges, dialect and landscape, he was deeply influenced by his hometown in his
literary creation. “Although I left the place, my writing never did,” he wrote in 1994.1 Living in
the hospital dormitory close to illness and death made a lasting impression on him as a child and
young adult, and this is reflected in much of his later writing. His early interest in literature was
awakened by reading Cultural Revolution posters and forbidden foreign novels that circulated
despite restrictions. In 1978 Yu became an apprentice in a local dental clinic, and in 1980 began a
job which was mainly to pull out teeth. By then he had already started writing stories, and from
1983 they began to appear in literary magazines, most importantly in the well-known Beijing
Literature (Beijing Wenxue). Because of his literary successes, he was able to leave dentistry and
get transferred to Haiyan Cultural Centre.
His breakthrough came in 1987 when he published the short story “On the Road at Eight-
een” (Shiba sui chu men yuan xing), hailed by critics as an avant-garde work. During the next
few years, he published a number of remarkable novellas and short stories, considered repre-
sentative works of experimental fiction, also dubbed Post New-Wave fiction. He joined the Lu
Xun Academy in Beijing for a course on creative writing, and later took a master’s degree. The
demonstrations on Tiananmen Square in 1989 and the ensuing violence and terror made a deep
impression on Yu Hua. These events were probably instrumental in changing the course of his
writing into a more realist style. During the first half of the 1990s he published three full-length
novels, two of which: To Live (Huozhe) and Chronicle of a Blood Merchant (Xu Sanguan mai xue

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ji) were named among the ten most influential books of the decade by prominent Shanghai
newspaper Wenhui Gazzette (Wenhuibao). His next novel, the two-volume blockbuster Brothers
(Xiongdi) appeared in 2004 and 2005, featuring the Cultural Revolution and the marketization
of the reform period as equally devastating to human relations. In 2013 he published The Seventh
Day (Di qi tian), a novel about a dead man, too poor to pay for his own funeral.
He has also published a number of short story collections, as well as numerous essays on
topics ranging from literary criticism, art and Western classical music to personal reminiscences
and observations on daily life and social phenomena, such as China in Ten Words (Shige cihuili
de Zhongguo).

Literary achievements
Yu Hua’s early fame is based on the fifteen novellas and short stories he published between 1987
and 1989. Though different in style and theme, they are characterized by a cool, detached style
and lack of psychological portrayal or moral underpinnings, many containing graphic descrip-
tions of violence. While his earliest fiction betrays influence from Japanese writer Kawabata
Yasunari, Yu Hua recognizes Kafka as a major inspiration for these avant-garde texts. He once
said, “Kawabata taught me how to describe, but Kafka taught me how to write.” What Kafka
gave the young experimental writers was the courage to formulate an individual artistic vision
beyond what they saw as the one-dimensional reality of realism.
It is perhaps ironic then, that Yu Hua’s fiction from 1990 on took a more realistic turn.Yet this
transition, as evidenced in his three novels written between 1990 and 1995, may not be as dra-
matic as was deplored by some of the critics who praised his avant-garde work. In his first novel
Cries in the Drizzle (Zai xiyu zhong huhan), published in 1991, his characteristic technique of
direct description without moral explanation is combined with the subjectivity of an emotionally
sensitive, highly individualized observer. The story is told as the reminiscence of a grown up nar-
rator, yet everything is seen through the eyes of a lonely child growing up in the countryside dur-
ing the Mao period. Memory as a structural frame and narrative principle took on a more direct
expression in his next, and hugely popular, novel To Live (1993) while Chronicle of a Blood Merchant
(1995) tells the story of the protagonist, forced by poverty to sell this blood to support his family,
mostly by way of dialogue. Both are historical narratives that relate the turbulence of individual
human life, as well as the resilience generated by attaching importance to one’s close family as the
community that gives meaning to existence. Family relations are also at the core of his next two
novels, focusing more directly on contemporary problems, and marked by a strong social concern.
Yu Hua is a versatile writer of fiction and essays, widely read in China and abroad. His pre-
1989 texts exhibit postmodern traits, exploiting a mixture of classic Chinese genres, magical
realism, absurdism and the terse laconic style of French modernist Robbe Grillet. His later fic-
tion, short stories and novels, have mostly been best-sellers, criticized by some as catering to the
ever expanding literary market. Their realism spans from low-key simplicity to comedy, tragedy,
and what some have termed hysterical.2 Yet they all vibrate with Yu Hua’s special tone of voice,
his scarce use of adjectives, his adherence to the storyline and his loyalty to characters.They pre-
sent no intricate psychological portraits, but deep concerns with ordinary man and his troubled
existence in times of social upheavals.

Masterpieces
To Live is Yu Hua’s best-known novel. It has come to be regarded as a kind of national epos,
reprinted numerous times and adapted to the theatre. Zhang Yimou’s film adaptation won the

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grand jury prize on the Venice film festival in 1994. It continues to attract new readers who see
China’s modern history reflected in its narrative. In the two-volume Brothers,Yu Hua takes the
family theme into the present, and shows how family relations become more fragile with tre-
mendous changes in the new era. This novel generated controversy, but is generally recognized
as a tour-de-force, combining farce, tragedy, slapstick, irony and satire in its portrayal of the
extremes of political frenzy and consumerist excesses.3
To Live follows the main narrator, Xu Fugui and his family from the 1940s into the 1980s
as they experience all the major political and economic upheavals in Chinese society: civil war,
the Great Leap Forward, famine, Cultural Revolution and its aftermath. By the time the book
begins, all of Fugui’s family is dead, and the old man is left alone with a decrepit ox he calls by
his own name. The novel is framed as a memory, as he – in the course of a single day – tells his
life story to a young man, wandering the countryside to collect folk songs.We may even call it a
double memory, in that the text is structured as the young man’s memory of his experience ten
years earlier, and his recollection of what the old man said.
As a young man, Fugui gambled away the family fortune and had to start all over at the bot-
tom of society with his wife, Jiazhen and children, Fengxia and Youqing. After narrowly escaping
death when being forcefully drafted into the nationalist army, he returns to live a humble yet
satisfying peasant life with his family. But disaster strikes and deaths follow, one after another. His
son and daughter both die of loss of blood: the son’s veins are drained so as to donate blood to
the wife of a high official during childbirth. Later his deaf-mute daughter, lacking the resources
that might have saved her, bleeds to death while giving birth to his grandson. His wife dies from
malnutrition and hard work, his son in law in an accident, and finally his grandson chokes to
death as he too eagerly swallows a simple delicacy. Thus all deaths are the results of political or
social malfunctions in tragic combination with fate. Yet the novel also shows the fluidity and
paradoxes of fortune and misfortune. Fugui’s gambling away of his family’s land and fortune
saves him from being executed as a landlord. His old friend and fellow survivor in the war,
Chunsheng, becomes a high official who indirectly causes his son Youqing’s death, but later
commits suicide after being persecuted during the Cultural Revolution.
The framing of the story, as oral history told to an outsider who just happens to come across
this eloquent old man, has the effect of underscoring the message that Fugui’s life story is but
one out of millions of equally ordinary Chinese peasant lives, marked by poverty and hardship.
Fugui’s recollections of the past are formulated in a straightforward, almost understated manner,
with a scarcity of adjectives and no descriptive reinforcement of emotional reactions. Disasters
are shown, tears are shed, but with no interfering or moralizing voice to mediate events. Not
even the initial narrator, the young man, reacts emotionally to the story by offering sympathy, or
displaying shock, horror or sadness, as disasters abound. He is a listener, leaving it to the reader
to ponder what it means to live.
This dual structure, with two first person narrators – the listener/recorder and the story-
teller protagonist – creates a gently progressing storyline with natural pauses in the narrative as
the old man rests or the listener observes the rural scene. These interruptions are reminiscent of
traditional oral storytelling as reflected in older colloquial novels, allowing the reader to reflect
and wonder what happens next. The frequent use of the phrase, “who would have guessed
that. . . ,” as a forewarning of things to come, also adds to this flavor.
The distance of time between when Fugui told his story, and the narrator writes it down
or remembers it ten years later, is redoubled by the gap in time between the actual events
and Fugui’s recollections. Thus memory is the basic principle constituting both narrative and
identity as intertwining concepts. Fugui must reexamine his life from a certain distance, relate
it to another person as seen in retrospect, in order that, rather than the haphazard images and

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fragments that generally fill up people’s minds, it becomes coherent, meaningful and defining.
To live is to remember and to tell your story.
The identification of man and animal, between Fugui and the ox that bears his name, in the
opening and ending of the novel becomes a metaphor for the human condition as reflected in
this work: powerlessness when confronted with the forces of nature, history or fate, combined
with the patience, resilience and dignity that give meaning to existence.
The novel relates the turbulence and tragedy of individual human life, but also the endurance,
vitality and will to live generated most of all by attaching importance to the close family as the
community that creates identity. Historical events such as revolution and political movements
are not there for the individual to step into and establish himself within. On the contrary, their
arbitrariness, absurdity and irrelevance to what really matters, is the underlying theme. Reinstat-
ing individual agency,Yu Hua shows people not as grand players or innocent victims in history,
but as autonomous units of meaning in the defining collective of significant others made up by
members of the close family.
In Brothers Yu Hua continues the family theme, though in Part II with a narrow focus on
the two brothers (who aren’t actually blood-related) of the title and one wife. The two main
characters, Song Gang and Li Guangtou become brothers at age seven, when Li’s mother, Li Lan
and Song’s father, Song Fanping marry. Part I deals with the fate of this nuclear family before
and during the Cultural Revolution. Li Lan and Song Fanping’s marriage is a very happy one,
and Song Fanping is described as an ideal husband and father, an upright honest person whose
primary loyalty is to his family. This ends up costing him his life, when he is beaten to death by
red-guards, because he breaks out of house arrest in order to keep a promise to meet his wife.
The madness and absurdity of political zeal is strongly contrasted with the warmth and integrity
of family life and with the genuine feelings of love and respect between parents and children.
Part I ends with the death of Li Lan, after she has made Song Gang promise to look after his
slightly younger foster brother Li Guangtou and share with him even the last bowl of rice and
the last piece of clothing.
Already in Part I the differences in character of the two brothers are evident, with Song
Gang as the more passive, weak and modest, tall, lean and bespectacled, and Li Guangtou as the
active, enterprising, crude, coarse, earthy and straightforward. This contrast is fully developed
in Part II, which takes the narrative into the present reform-period. Here the two brothers,
after initially living together harmoniously, fall apart as Li Guangtou fails to win pretty Lin
Hong for himself despite persistent pursuit, and she instead marries Song Gang. In frustration
Li Guangtou decides to get sterilized, and throws himself whole-heartedly into his already
thriving business career as “king of garbage.” The story really takes off when Li, on top of his
economic and entrepreneurial powers, arranges a nation-wide beauty contest for virgins (who
turn out to be not that virginal after all), and Song Gang, by contrast, is lured into a disastrous
business trip which takes him to southern China for a long period. His overall misfortune and
humiliation culminates when he has a silicone breast implanted on his chest, as advertisement
for the fake breast-enlarging medicine, he is trying to sell in order to make a living, and for the
sake of securing a better life for his wife, Lin Hong. In his absence, Lin Hong falls into the arms
of Li Guangtou and experiences great sexual fulfilment. When Song Gang, upon his return to
Liuzhen, finds this out he commits suicide by lying on the rail-tracks. Li Guangtou and Lin
Hong get this news in the middle of hot sexual intercourse. Li consequently becomes impotent
and loses all interest in his business enterprise. In a kind of postscript we learn that Lin Hong
later became the successful owner of the local brothel, and we meet Li Guangtou for the last
time as he prepares to go on a space trip carrying the ashes of Song Gang to be put in orbit
around the Earth.

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It can be said of all the persons in the novel – including the brothers – that they are flat
characters, there is no attempt at inside psychological description, and most of the characteriza-
tion is by way of dialogue or action. Many key events take place in public space with the masses
(qunzhong) as spectators on the sideline, cheering or booing, and gossiping. Yu Hua’s manner
of telling the story is by focusing on episodes which are described in great detail, in between
letting long periods of time pass in a few paragraphs. Scenes and episodes are told through
short-sentenced dialogue, but sometimes, as with the haunting description of Song Fanping’s
death by red-guards and Li Lan’s grief, Yu Hua closes in on his characters and through minute
observations of their outward reactions manages to convey deep psychological insight.The story
is narrated by an omniscient narrator, who by the recurring reference to “our Liuzhen” points
to his presence as story-teller, and indicates that he himself is one of the inhabitants of Liuzhen.
Obviously, behind this voice hides an implicit narrator who knows more than what could pos-
sibly be known by any one person in Liuzhen.
All these traits – the one-dimensional characters, the explicit narrative voice, the repetition
of stock phrases, the tying together of the plot by successions of events, the simple unadorned
language, the atmosphere of small town gossip – provide the novel with a strong oral quality.
Indeed, it is very much a xiaoshuo in the traditional sense of the word: a small story opposed to,
but at the same time intertwined with, the grand narrative of history. As such, it can be read like
a disrespectful and subjective comment on the official version of recent history, or (in Part II)
even as a parody on government-sponsored pictures of economic reform and its social conse-
quences. This recalls a scholar’s discussion, through the lens of Lyotard’s work on postmodern-
ism, of the relationship between traditional Chinese historiography and fiction. Sheldon Lu
distinguishes between “grand narratives” of legitimation and “small stories” of de-legitimation:

The fictional texts are small operations, guerrilla wars against the giants of historical
narrative. The written texts, the acts of oral storytelling, or the extended novels, dislo-
cate and deconstructs historical texts, produce heretical, apocryphal records, unofficial
documents, and create ideological instabilities, moral vacuums and aporias in the vast
inescapable meshes of Confucian society.4

Although the structure of contemporary post-socialist Chinese society is hardly identical

with the “inescapable meshes of Confucian society,” it was nevertheless precisely the per-
ceived ideological instabilities and moral vacuum in Yu Hua’s novel that made some readers
of Brothers uncomfortable. Other readers saw this aspect as a conscious act of deconstruction
or de-legitimization of an officially recognized version of recent and contemporary history.5
Perhaps the most conspicuous feature of Brothers is its humour and satire ranging from the
gross to the more subtle. Especially in Part II this takes on surreal dimensions, as shown in
descriptions of the consequences of rampant economic reform. No one is spared as the frenzy
of economic progress sweeps over Liuzhen, whether workers, writers, vendors, women, party-
bosses, entrepreneurs, or masses. The narrative does tend towards the exaggerated, parodic
or just a bit simplified – perhaps reflecting the overall atmosphere of gossip, which would
always tend to exaggerate or distort as an aspect of delightful Hörensagen. This tendency is also
exemplified in the description of the lives of the two brothers. Li Guangtou, man of the times,
active entrepreneur, becomes ever richer, (we note a symbolic satire in his wealth being built
on buying and selling second hand western clothing from the Japanese) getting all of Liuzhen
more prosperous. Song Gang, by contrast, is weak and without initiative. He loses work and
his health deteriorates. With no money and no welfare, his fate represents the material dark
side of reform.

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Such dichotomies, epitomized by the personalities and fates of the two brothers, permeate
the main themes of the novel: sex vs love, masculine vs feminine, active vs passive, loyalty vs
betrayal, spiritual vs material values. Li Guangtou’s masculinity and sexual potency is prominent
already in Part I, when as a young boy he peeps at women and masturbates publicly. In Part
II he sleeps with hundreds of women without loving any of them, before finally giving Lin
Hong total sexual fulfilment. Song Gang’s relationship with Lin Hong, by contrast, is described
as loving but almost asexual and his feminized nature is absurdly symbolized by the pathetic
breast operation towards the end of the novel. Li Guangtou’s affair with Lin Hong is certainly a
betrayal of Song Gang, yet Song Gangs’s marriage to Lin Hong is also a betrayal of Li Guangtou,
since she was and remained Li’s first and only love.Yet through his suicide and final letter to Li
Guangtou and Lin Hong, Song Gang yields and fulfils his original promise to Li Lan (of sharing
everything with his younger brother) by giving Lin Hong to Li Guangtou. Thus the underlying
theme is that of brotherly loyalty, a Confucian moral code where elder brother is supposed to
care for the younger, and the younger to respect the elder. In this novel the Confucian ideal is
either turned upside down or eroded by social and material forces. Nevertheless, it is constantly
present as an implicit force and shown to be the true source of meaning, which by its absence
ultimately invalidates the powers of sex and money. In Part I the family love of Li Lan, Song
Fanping and the two boys represents integrity and uprightness, amidst political madness, and in
Part II the brotherly bond between Li and Song is constantly referred to as part of their identity,
even as they fall apart. Li Guangtou’s impotence and withdrawal from business is directly linked
to Song Gang’s suicide, and both the opening and the closing scenes of the novel underscore the
fundamental importance of this relationship. Therefore, Brothers can certainly be read as a novel
that celebrates classical family values.Yet, at the same time as showing their importance,Yu Hua
more or less declares them dead, or at least dysfunctional, in contemporary consumerist society:
the two brothers are not even biologically related, and what is more, they have no descendants –
the line is cut off, the family stops here. Could Brothers then be understood as a moral tale in a
traditional vein, in which great disorder is shown to disrupt the harmony of family and society,
with a Confucian admonition of moderation, telling us that every virtue, if carried to extremes,
becomes a vice (cf. the goodness of Song Fanping and Song Gang as well as the dynamism of
Li Guangtou)? Or is it rather the other way round: an ironic comment on the obsolescence of
traditional wisdom and values in post-socialist China? This kind of ambivalence or contradic-
tory messages seemed disturbing to a great number of critics (Ibid.).
Sheldon Lu has diagnosed the contemporary Chinese cultural scene as characterized by
simultaneously co-existing, multiple temporalities.6 In that sense Brothers could – regarding both
contents and style – be shown to include traits of all: the pre-modern as well as the modern
and postmodern. First, the traditional aspects include its pre-modern xiaoshuo-style story-telling
which narrates two crucial periods in modern Chinese history through a focus of “typical”
characters in “typical” surroundings (here bordering on the extreme), and the thematic presence
of classical values and obligations. Second, the novel also evinces modern traits such as a focus
on individual development, capitalist accumulation of wealth and control (in the figure of Li
Guangtou), and perhaps a submerged humanist enlightenment ethics, if viewed as a critical text
exposing the ills of contemporary society. Third, viewed in a postmodern light, the novel’s lament
over the loss of traditional values in consumerist society looks more like parody or pastiche, and
amounts to a kind of carefree recognition of their dissolution. The heterogeneity and ambiva-
lence of message is underscored by what would in this case be viewed as a subversion of, or play
on, established literary conventions (such as the family saga, the literature of scars, the Bildung-
sroman, popular stories of success and progress). Further, the technique of subjectively selecting
and incorporating tropes and themes from other periods and genres is often seen as a defining

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trait of postmodern literature.7 Examples here could be the narrative voice of the story-teller,
the role of the masses as a kind of “choir” (commenting on events like in Greek tragedies), the
Confucian ethics, and – as pointed out by one perceptive critic – even the use of Shakespeare’s
Hamlet as subtext.8

SU TONG

Life and career

Su Tong was born in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, in 1963. His original name is Tong Zhongkui.
His pen name simply means child of Suzhou. He was born into a family of six, with father as a
cadre, mother a worker, and four children. Growing up during the Cultural Revolution, he had
extremely limited access to reading material. However, when he was nine years old, he fell ill
with nephritis and was confined to bed, unable to attend school for nearly a year. During that
period, he spent most of his time reading the newspapers plastered on the wall as wallpaper, until
his sister started bringing him copies of forbidden novels, circulating at the time, thus awakening
his interest in literature.
In 1980 he was admitted to the Department of Chinese Literature at Beijing Normal Uni-
versity, graduating in 1984. In 1985 he worked for a short time at a high school in Nanjing. In
that same year, he became an editor of the influential Nanjing based literary magazine, Zhong-
shan. This position enabled him to discover new talent, as well as to promote his own work.
Starting from 1986 his texts appeared in other leading journals as well. He has been living in
Nanjing ever since, and is vice-chairman of Jiangsu Writers Union.
His first short story was published in 1983, but it was not until 1987 that he got his nation-
wide breakthrough, and was hailed by critics as an important writer of the late 1980s avant-
garde. Since then he has published at least eight full-length novels, and more than two hundred
short stories and novellas.

Literary achievements
Like Yu Hua, Su Tong’s early fame was based on stories published in 1987, when those two, along
with others, changed the literary scene by creating texts that challenged the ordinary reader’s
realist perceptions. “Memories of Mulberry Garden” (Sangyuan liunian) and “The Escape of
1934” (Yijiusansi nian de taowang), both use metafictional devices, blending memories and
scraps of history in the narration, so as to effect a sense of ambiguity and uncertainty. The first
is about love, sex and death among a group of teenagers, partly inspired by J.D. Salinger, and
prefigures Su Tong’s many later stories about young people’s coming of age. In the second he
traces his family history in a mixture of fiction and historical fact, while casting doubt on the
narrator’s reliability.This novella is followed by a number of stories taking place in the 1930s and
40s, often situated in the South, and with characters in the grips of fate or their own depravity.
Coming of age stories and neo-historical fiction are two main categories in Su Tong’s oeuvre.
Others are narratives about women, and fiction about modern Chinese urbanites.9 “Wives and
Concubines” (Qiqie cheng qun) 1989, famously filmed by Zhang Yimou, is the first of a series
of women’s portraits. Among them is Blush (Hong fen) 2004 (originally written in 1992) about
two prostitutes and their fates after the government clean up in 1950. The 2002 novel Why Can
the Snake Fly (She wei shenmo hui fei) is a darkly realistic narrative on the lives of contemporary
urban people. Empress Wu Zetian (Wu Zetian,1994/2004), My Life as Emperor (Wode diwang
shengya, 2005) and BINU and the Great Wall (Binu: mengjiangnü ku changcheng de chuanshuo,

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2006) – all have historical settings, whereas two recent novels, The Boat to Redemption (He’an,
2009) and The Tale of a Siskin (Huangque ji, 2013) take place on a contemporary background.
Su Tong is a prolific and versatile writer, able to write in a variety of styles, from the intricate,
self-consciously crafted, early texts to the more straightforwardly realistic narratives of the 2000s.
He is widely read in western literature and mentions Salinger, Faulkner, Hemingway, Borges
and Marquez as his influences. He is viewed by many as incarnating the so-called Jiangnan style,
characteristic of the region south of Yangzi. Many stories are replete with regional color, featur-
ing details of southern culture and scenery with its rivers and narrow streets, as presented in
fictional localities such as Maple Poplar Village or Toon Street. There is often a dark, decadent
atmosphere of futility, decay and abandonment, as characters float with fate or are caught by
their own greed and obsessions. Su Tong’s refined narrative style is able to convey human deg-
radation and graphically depicted violence through an aesthetically bewitching, even glittering,
lyrical language.

The masterpiece
Su Tong’s first full-length novel Rice was published in 1996, but written a few years earlier, in the
aftermath of 1989. Taking place in the 1920s and 30s, it belongs to his neo-historical narratives.
It is also perhaps the most consistent depiction of human callousness and brutalization in con-
temporary Chinese literature. There is not a single sympathetic person to be found among the
characters in this novel.The reader is presented with an array of scenes where abuse and violence
abound, accompanying the protagonist’s progressing mental and physical descent.
Twenty-year-old orphan Wulong, meaning Five Dragons, fleeing a devastating flood in his
home Maple-Poplar village, jumps on a freight train laden with coal, and arrives in the city. He
succeeds in getting himself a lowly job in The Great Swan Rice Emporium (note: dragon vs.
swan), initially paid only by bowls of rice to curb his hunger. From being an underdog in the
family firm, he manages to marry both daughters. First the sexually loose and pregnant, Cloud
Weave – mistress of both the wealthy Sixth Master and the gangster, Abao – then the younger
daughter, the ever complaining Cloud Silk, heir to the rice emporium. He fathers three children,
and after getting rid of his opponents, he gradually emerges as a wealthy rice merchant, local
tyrant and head of the gangster syndicate. Completely debauched, he ends up dying on his way
in the train back to Maple-Poplar Village, his body rotting away from venereal disease.
Five Dragons’ initiation into the norms of the city starts from the moment he gets off the
train, munching the last few kernels of rice brought from his home village.The description of his
first few hours in the city is like a foreboding of his later fate. He lies down to rest beside a man
sleeping on the street, but the man turns out to be dead. Gaudy painted advertisements of soap
and cigarettes – tokens of modern city life – are plastered on the wall, and tucked in between
pictures of sexy women are names and addresses of VD clinics.

This is the city: chaotic and filled with weird things that draw people like flies, to
lay their maggoty eggs and move on. Everyone damns the city, but sooner or later they
come anyhow. In the dying light Five Dragons sees the legendary city smoke rising
into the air, confirming his image of what a city is: one gigantic smokestack, just as
Maple-Poplar villagers had told him.
(p. 3)10

So from the start of the novel the city is presented as a harbor of evil and decay, irresistible and
damned at the same time. That violence and lack of morality is part of the syndrome becomes

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clear in his next encounter. Scared, he runs away from the dead body and ends up by the river
front, where the gangster leader, Abao and his Wharf Rats are eating and drinking. His begging
for a tiny share of the meal, results in utter humiliation, as his outreached hand is crushed by
Abao’s foot, and he is forced to address this bully as Daddy. This brutal enforced recognition
of his position at the bottom of a hierarchy that reaches everywhere and turns out to be built
on crime, money and physical violence, plants in him a burning hatred and desire for revenge.
So the corruptible influence of the city is highlighted from the start. As Five Dragons jumps
off the train, he is still presented as an ordinary village boy with a basic morality which leads
him to expect empathy and help from other people. But his socialization into city life and into
the dysfunctional family of the Rice Emporium, soon leads to what Sabina Knight has termed
“decadence of defiance.”11 All his efforts to be accepted as an urbanite are by way of verbal or
physical defiance, either self-provoked or in retaliation of other people’s reaction to him. Some-
thing that gets increasingly violent and destructive throughout the narrative. Death follows upon
death: His opium addicted father in law, proprietor of the Rice Emporium, dies from a stroke
after having stuck out Five Dragons’ right eye; his rival and arch enemy, Abao is killed and has his
penis cut off by Sixth Master as a result of manipulations by Five Dragons; his first wife, Cloud
Weave becomes Sixth Master’s sixth concubine, and is killed when that house explodes; his
daughter is suffocated to death by being buried in a rice pile by her elder brother; his daughter
in law and her unborn baby are killed by Japanese bayonets. All these deaths (and others too)
are met by nothing but scorn or glee from Five Dragons who, by the way, kills eight prostitutes
when he learns that he contracted venereal disease from frequenting the brothel. Towards the
end of the novel, his body ravaged by the disease, he reflects upon the deadly impact of the city:

The idea that the city was an immense, ornamental graveyard occurred often to
Five Dragons at night. That’s what cities are for: They come into being for the sake of
the dead. Throngs of people materialize among crowded, noisy streets, only to disap-
pear, like drops of water evaporating in the sun’s rays.Throngs of them are murdered, or
carried away by disease, or killed by depression and apoplexy, or impaled on Japanese
bayonets, or dispatched by Japanese bullets. For them the city is a gigantic coffin that
emits thick black industrial smoke, scented powder, and the hidden odor of women’s
sex as soon as the lid is raised. An arm, shapeless yet limber and powerful, grows out of
the coffin, which contains gold and silver, fancy clothes and delicacies.The arm reaches
into the streets and alleys to drag wanderers into the cold depths.
(p. 241)

This is how the once young village boy, now assimilated into this ornamental graveyard,
and on the brink of his own demise, describes the morbid lure of the city. As a contrast to this
observation of the present, the text intermittently narrates his recurring dreams or memories
of his childhood in Maple-Poplar village. They are presented as nostalgic, idealized scenes of
rural life.Yet the actual images visualized are not that harmonious after all: mischievous taunting
of newlyweds, laughter as children watch hogs being slaughtered, mixed with the memories of
flooding, people and animals drowning, cries of anguish (p. 79). The archetypical dichotomy of
the city and the countryside, the urban and the rural, is played out in the person of Five Dragons
as a contrast between past and present. However, it is not really a contrast between an idyllic
village life and a hostile city environment. With all their differences, both spaces are contami-
nated, leaving the individual rootless, restless and alienated. Hence the only really comforting
recollection or fantasy in the protagonist’s mind is that of the boxcar of a freight train, and the

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 Yu Hua’s and Su Tong’s fiction

rocking movements of the train, as it travels along the tracks.Thus, a symbol of displacement – a
non-place so to speak – feels more like home than either city or village.
The urban-rural dualism is not the only pair of conventional opposites that are cancelled out.
Or rather, a number of well-known complementary concepts such as love-hate, harmony-strife,
good-bad, peace-war, are cut off from one another, leaving only the dark and negative side. The
reader looks in vain for even the slightest sub plot or a minor character to represent a tinge of
something positive. The general rhetoric of abuse and disgust reaches everywhere.
The novel’s description of family life reads as a total deconstruction of this central institution
in traditional Chinese culture. It is interesting to note that Su Tong wrote his story around the
same time as Yu Hua wrote To Live. Both novels could be said to focus on the role of the family
and on the relations between its members, but they differ in every aspect of their treatment of
the topic. The family under Yu Hua’s pen is poor and small and the message of his text seems to
be that it is the love and warmth between its members that carries the individual through calam-
ities and deaths. In contrast, the family under Su Tong’s pen is rich, and with more than one
generation living together in the compound of the Rice Emporium. Here relations between
husband and wife, parents and children, brothers and sisters consist of nothing but verbal, sexual
and physical violence.The old proprietor hires men to kill his son in law, Five Dragons, but pays
too little, so they only shoot him in the foot. Five Dragons’ son, Rice Boy, kills his little sister
when she reveals that he stole the family treasure to buy sweets. As punishment his father crip-
ples his leg.Years later, Rice Boy’s wife tries to kill the whole family by poisoning their porridge.
Finally, the son of Five Dragons’ first wife, Cloud Weave and gangster Abao blinds and tortures
Five Dragons, thereby hastening his already imminent death from venereal disease.
The gradual degrading of body and soul is set in motion from the start of the novel and
continues throughout, as increasing mental cynicism, cruelty and depravity are paralleled by
the ongoing physical destruction of the protagonist. Inflicted by others – hand crushed, toes
bitten off, foot shot, eyes blinded – but also by himself: to flaunt his wealth and confirm a new
identity he has all his healthy teeth pulled out and substituted by gold teeth, and his final bodily
dissolution is caused by extreme sexual indulgence. This process seems to happen in a reverse
relationship to his rising wealth and status. As his material and social status goes up, morality and
health deteriorates further. We may look upon the interaction of physical and moral destruction
as an allegorical representation of a hollowing out of values that ultimately leads to disaster. Or,
in the words of Howard Choy, this amounts to “a translation of history into the biological space
of the body.”12
Robin Visser, in her analysis of this novel, comments how “the body as a recipient of such
violence, functions as a text that is inscribed with both actively inflicted redefinitions of iden-
tity and passively recorded effects of the brutal environment.”13 But if the body can be a text
to be read, then the text may also visually reflect a bodily experience. Su Tong’s use of boldface
at certain points in the written narrative (words and phrases such as “hungry,” “new forms
of torture,” p. 200, “they are cutting me up, slowly, limb by limb,” p. 218) graphically
expresses such correspondence.
The title of the novel, Rice, is simultaneously the all-pervading theme and a central symbol,
able to represent an almost infinite variety of things. As inextricably linked to its function as
the most basic staple food of the Chinese nation, rice may be viewed as a national emblem,
“a constant symbol for the collective self throughout all historical processes.”14 But beyond
and beneath such overarching meaning, it functions, literally and metaphorically, in multiple
contradictory ways on different layers of the narrative. As commodity, as token and provider of
material wealth, as fetish and sex tool, as healer and as weapon of sadism, as killer and murder

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 Anne Wedell-Wedellsborg

weapon, as means of survival, as nostalgic image, as comfort, as cradle and death bed, as identity
marker, and so on.
To Five Dragons it is hunger, the lack of rice, that drives him to the city, and it is through rice
that he gains his social position. Rice is the defining element in this reverse Bildungsroman, from
the moment he arrives after resting on hard black coal in the boxcar, with only a few coarse
grains left in his pocket, till he leaves and dies in another boxcar, resting softly on a huge mound
of bright white rice. His increasing obsession with rice is perhaps most poignantly expressed
through its eroticizing effect: the combination of rice and female flesh is irresistible to him and
manifested in his habit of stuffing rice into women’s vaginas. Rice, like sperm, then comes to
represent his male identity and masculine dominance.Yet it can also substitute for parental care,
when the orphan Five Dragons feels like being in a cradle as he rests among huge piles in the
storeroom (p. 78).
Its concrete material presence notwithstanding, the multiple less tangible connotations of
rice in relation to identity, power, memories and fantasies, values or lack thereof, may lead one
to look at it as an open signifier, pointing to a void, that waits to be filled. Therefore, the identi-
fication between Five Dragons and rice may indicate an existential void, metaphorically dupli-
cating his precarious identity. Arriving in the city as an orphan with no family name, Wulong
(Five Dragons) manages to get his name entered into the genealogy of the Feng clan through
his fathering of two sons, only to have it erased again towards the end of the novel. And on his
deathbed of rice, his son, in flagrant defiance of filial behavior, yanks out his gold teeth, symbol
of his acquired city identity. Even the token of his rural identity, a box supposed to contain the
land deeds he bought in his home village, turns out to be filled only with rice.
Thus, this story of city and village, of hunger and poverty vs. wealth and crime, which in
orthodox communist literature would be clearly framed in terms of class struggle, reads in Su
Tong’s narrative like a critique of a culture hollowed out. In this culture, the erosion of morality
leaves no room for any submerged, or even temporarily abandoned, values of humanity.

Notes
1 Yu Hua, “The Earliest Years” (Zui chu de suiyue), in No Road Is Repeated (Meiyou yitiao daolu shi
chongfu de) (Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi chubanshe, 2004), 65.
2 Julia Lowell, ”Finding a Place: Chinese Literature in the 2000s,” Journal of Asian Studies (2012), vol. 71,
no. 1, 7–32.
3 Anne Wedell-Wedellsborg, “Multiple Temporalities in the Literary Identity Space of Post-Socialist
China: A Discussion of Yu Hua’s Novel Brothers and its Reception,” in Postmodern China (Berlin: LIT
Verlag, 2008), 63–77.
4 Sheldon Hsiao-peng Lu, China: Transnational Visuality, Global Postmodernity (Stanford: Stanford Univer-
sity Press 2001), 65.
5 See Wedell-Wedellsborg, “Multiple Temporalities in the Literary Identity Space of Post-Socialist China:
A Discussion of Yu Hua’s Novel Brothers and its Reception,” 63–77.
6 Sheldon Hsiao-peng Lu, China:Transnational Visuality, Global Postmodernity.
7 Matei Calinescu, Five Faces of Modernity (Durham, NC: Duke University Press 1987), 296–309.
8 Chen Sihe, “My Interpretation of Brothers” (Wo dui Xiongdi de jiedu), Discussions and Debates on Lit-
erature and Art (Wenyi zhengming) (2007), vol. 2, 55–64.
9 See “Featured Author, Su Tong,” Chinese Literature Today (2013), vol. 3, no. 1/2, 50–75.
10 All quotations and references refer to Howard Goldblatt’s translation, Rice (New York:William Morrow,
1995).
11 Deirdre Sabina Knight, “Decadence, Revolution, and Self-Determination in Su Tong’s Fiction,” Modern
Chinese Literature (1998), vol. 10, no. 1/2, 91–112.
12 Howard Y.F. Choy, Remapping the Past: Fictions of History in Deng’s China, 1979–1997 (Leiden: Brill,
2008), 195.

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 Yu Hua’s and Su Tong’s fiction

13 Robin Visser, “Displacement of the Urban-Rural Confrontation in Su Tong’s Fiction,” Modern Chinese
Literature (1995), vol. 9, no. 1, 128.
14 Howard Y.F. Choy, Remapping the Past: Fictions of History in Deng’s China, 1979–1997, 150.

Further readings
Choy, Howard Y. F. Remapping the Past: Fictions of History in Deng’s China, 1979–1997. Leiden: Brill, 2008.
Hong, Zhigang. A Critical Biography of Yu Hua (Yu Hua Ping Zhuan). Zhengzhou: Zhengzhou daxue chu-
banshe, 2004.
Knight, Deirdre Sabina. “Decadence, Revolution, and Self-Determination in Su Tong’s Fiction.” Modern
Chinese Literature 10.1/2 (1998): 91–112.
Li, Hua. Contemporary Chinese Fiction by Su Tong and Yu Hua: Coming of Age in Troubled Times. Leiden: Brill,
2011.
Liu, Kang. Globalization and Cultural Trends in China. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press 2004, See esp.
102–126.
Visser, Robin. “Displacement of the Urban-Rural Confrontation in Su Tong’s Fiction.” Modern Chinese
Literature 9.1 (1995): 113–138.
Wedell-Wedellsborg, Anne. “Yu Hua.” In Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 370, Chinese Fiction Writers
1950–2000. New York: Gale, 2013.
Wedell-Wedellsborg, Anne. “Multiple Temporalities in the Literary Identity Space of Post-Socialist China:
A Discussion of Yu Hua’s Novel Brothers and its Reception.” In Postmodern China. Berlin: LIT Verlag,
2008, 63–77.
Zhang, Xuexin. “Su Tong’s Aesthetics.” Chinese Literature Today 3.1/2 (2013): 62–65.

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 40
MASTERWORKS OF JIA PINGWA
AND CHEN ZHONGSHI
Temporalities of modernity

Yiju Huang

Life and career

In his commemoration of Chen Zhongshi (1942–2016), Jia Pingwa (1952–) borrowed a verse
from a Buddhist poem to express the everlasting presence of Chen even after his death: “the
wave is fundamentally part of the ocean, the moon that descends is inseparable from the sky.”1
Reflecting on death, Jia asserts, “each life expresses the whole . . . when a person dies, part of a
whole is lost, part of I is gone. But what get lost are illness, physical pain and fear. Life itself is
inextinguishable.”2 Jia’s pithy commemoration illuminates not only a sense of existential inter-
connectedness but also expresses his and Chen’s shared writerly concerns of cosmic structure,
time, historical change and loss.
Along with Lu Yao (1949–1992), Jia and Chen are known as the three charioteers of
Shaanxi literature. They are two prominent literary stars that first rose to national fame in the
1980s. Their works continue to attract and fascinate wide readership in the Chinese-speaking
world and beyond. There is a certain similarity between Jia and Chen’s life trajectories: their
peasant origin, their relocation to the provincial capital Xi’an in adulthood and the common
land of Guanzhong Plain that nourished Jia and Chen as writers. Jia Pingwa was born in Dihua
Village of Shangzhou prefecture in Shaanxi Province and grew up in an extended family. His
father was the fourth child of his generation and became educated because of his three elder
brothers’ support. A village teacher, Jia’s father was extremely strict with Jia. Much education
occurred at home particularly when the political atmosphere became too unbearable. Jia was
admitted to study in the Chinese Department of Northwestern University in Xi’an in 1972
and from then on, to evoke a local saying, shed the skin of a peasant (tuo le nong min pi). Chen
Zhongshi was born to peasant parents in Xijiang Village which nests beneath the White Deer
Plain of Shaanxi Province. Chen’s grandfather was a teacher at a traditional private school. His
father enjoyed reading and retelling classical works of fiction to his son and similarly attached
great importance to education. After failing his college entrance exam in 1962, Chen became
a village teacher. He started to write diligently, published his first essay as early as 1965 and was
finally relocated to Xi’an in 1978 as a professional writer. What united Jia Pingwa and Chen
Zhongshi in one important aspect is their inherited ethics of farming and reading as family
lineage (gen du chuan jia).3

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 Masterworks of Jia Pingwa and Chen Zhongshi

Literary achievements
Jia and Chen were both intellectually curious and prolific.They produced short stories, novellas,
novels and essays. Both practiced calligraphy. Jia composed poetry and Chen wrote miscellane-
ous essays on soccer games. Jia has produced more than a dozen novels since the 1980s, among
which, Turbulence and Ruined City have appeared in English translation. In contrast to Jia Ping-
wa’s large corpus of novels, Chen Zhongshi wrote only one major novel, White Deer Plain. It is,
however, a monumental one and continues to resurface in various incarnations and afterlives in
a variety of formats: a play, a film, a TV drama, and even a Qin opera. Although Chen and Jia
have been accorded comparable esteem and critical attention in the Chinese-speaking world,
much less attention has been given to Chen’s work in North American academia. Both Jia and
Chen’s novels are notably bound to Guanzhong Plain, its local customs, folklores, and cultural
traditions. Yet it would be false to compartmentalize them to be native soil writers of Shaanxi
region or writers who only engage in peasant themes. There is a universal glimmer in their
writings that sheds light on human desire, actions, sufferings, time and historical change. Taking
the route of education as a means to leave the countryside, Jia and Chen were equipped with
dual perspectives – these perspectives provided not only insight into the spatial gap between the
countryside and the city, but the temporal lag between the past and the future. More precisely,
these perspectives can contribute to the question of temporality. If Chinese experience since
the onset of modernity is characterized by change, Jia and Chen can capture that experience.
They are attuned to a variety of temporal strata and travel between times in their writings and
in life. While Chen Zhongshi insisted on returning to his parents’ home when writing White
Deer Plain in order to be enveloped in the aura of the ancient plain, Jia Pingwa regularly visited
his extended families in Dihua Village and is still referred to as “the son of the fourth child of
Jia family” by the villagers. Carlos Rojas, in his article “Flies’ Eyes, Mural Remnants, and Jia
Pingwa’s Perverse Nostalgia,” redirects the scholarship on Ruined City from almost unvarying
preoccupation with sexual politics to the issue of time and the provincial city itself.4 Indeed,
it should be remarked that Guanzhong Plain, the home of ancient capitals of thirteen Chinese
dynasties, which “has the fortune to be immersed in the halo of China’s emperors but also bears
the pathos of each dynasty’s demise,”5 is undoubtedly a most essential aspect in understanding
Jia and Chen’s works. Its layered temporalities of old and new and paradoxical aura of glory and
disgrace have very much informed Jia and Chen’s sensibilities as writers.

The masterpieces
Jia’s masterpiece Qin Opera (2005) won two prestigious literary prizes, Hong Lou Meng Prize
and Mao Dun Literature Prize. The novel, not unlike a painting, unfolds the daily life of villag-
ers of Clear Wind Street, the literary incarnation of Jia’s hometown Dihua Village. The novel is
grounded in everydayness from petty activities such as meals, fights and even loud farts to big
events like weddings and funerals. Most strikingly, Qin Opera mesmerizes the reader as a porous
world where there is no clear boundary between the seen and unseen, the living and dead, the
humans and other living entities such as dogs and trees. But there is another temporal layer – Jia
also depicts the historical change of the countryside from the 1990s to the present and inter-
weaves into narrative events such as turning the farmlands back to forests, peasants’ refusal to
pay land tax and a gradually desolate village with the young detached from the land and seeking
work in the city. Chen’s White Deer Plain (1993) is equally sensitive to the experience of transi-
tion.6 Chen casts his eyes further back to the historical period from the end of Qing dynasty to

543
 Yiju Huang

the founding of People’s Republic of China in 1949 and sketchily forays into the Cultural Rev-
olution. The novel traces the intertwined fates of Bai and Lu families on White Deer Plain and
delineates layered temporalities of Confucian China, its modern struggles and transformations.
What looms large amongst the chaos of historical change is a spiritual figure of a white deer.

Qin opera
Qin Opera centers upon the Xia family on Clear Wind Street, the oldest street alongside the
Shang River. Of the four Xia brothers, the oldest brother, Xia Tianren, is long deceased and
his son, Xia Junting, serves as the current village cadre; the second brother, Xia Tianyi, a retired
communist cadre, has a pre-communist mindset. Deeply attached to the land, Xia Tianyi con-
stantly fights with his nephew regarding the path of the village’s development; the third brother,
Xia Tianli, has a lurking desire for money and trades silver dollars (yin yuan) illegally; the fourth
brother, Xia Tianzhi, a respected retired headmaster of the village school, has a passion for Qin
opera and a talent to paint its facial designs on wooden spoons used for water (ma shao). Each
brother bears within their name an essential concept from Confucianism: benevolence (ren),
righteousness (yi), rite (li) and wisdom (zhi).The very name of the village, Clear Wind (qing feng),
is a familiar poetical element, usually paired with bright moon (ming yue), in classical poetry.
The physical layout of the village also emits an ancient, although transformed, aura: it includes
a theatrical stage named Qin Mirror Stage (qin jin lou), a temple that has been used as village
office for the cadres and a pavilion dedicated to God of Examinations (kui xing ge).The narrative
informs the reader that due to the merit of the pavilion, Clear Wind Street has generated two
college students, one of whom is Xia Tianzhi’s son, Xia Feng. A famous writer who now dwells
in the provincial capital, Xia Feng marries the village beauty and Qin opera actress Bai Xue,
the daughter of another influential family of Clear Wind Street. The narrator of the novel is the
village orphan, Zhang Yinsheng, who is passionately obsessed with Bai Xue and seen by the vil-
lagers as partially insane. His narrative voice shifts, most of the time as the first person narrator,
but sometimes as an omnipotent narrator. This peculiar phenomenon is deeply meaningful and
can be explained by Yinsheng’s very being – of how he is endowed with supernatural powers.
A most moving and memorable character in Qin Opera, Yingsheng, with his unique narra-
tive voice, unveils an enigmatic and interconnected world beyond manifested phenomena. The
very fluidity of this world is expressed through the transformation and communication among
human beings, animals and plants: “there is reincarnation: the person in this life might be a tree
in his previous life and a pig in next life. All this is contingent upon the individual’s self-cultiva-
tion.”7 Yinsheng sympathizes with the trees and flowers and understands their physical feelings.
Consider the following narration, which is representative of the kind of narration used at times
throughout the novel: “I could tell that the branches of the locust tree are full of emotions,
whether thin or thick, twisted this way or warped in that direction. This branch is showing its
affection to that one. That branch is holding resentment towards another one. I could tell who
are the couples and who are conversing with each other” (58). In another instance, he laments
that although Xia Tianzhi loves gardening, he does not necessarily know that flowers listen to
the human beings attentively and communicate reciprocally: “besides bees and butterflies, only
I know this” (30). Yingsheng’s extra-linguistic ways of communication is also extended to his
relation with animals: he has a special relation with Xia Tianyi’s dog, Laiyun, and is able to tell
that the dog was a Qin opera actress in her previous life, although he keeps this observation to
himself.
Yinsheng’s connection with supernatural forces is further reflected by his unexplainable abil-
ity to know the thoughts of other minds intuitively. Oftentimes he realizes, only belatedly, that

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others did not utter a word and what he heard was just their inner thoughts. His fantastic ability
also manifests in his visual faculty.Yinsheng sees that each person carries a mutable flame on top
of his or her head, sometimes strong and other times weak. He is thereof able to judge a person’s
health condition and even predict his or her impending death. Another extraordinary thing is
that Yinsheng can voluntarily separate himself, part of his soul, from his physical body (ling hun
chu qiao). In one scene, while playing chess with one villager, his soul left and went on to enjoy
listening to the Qin opera drumming by three other villagers including Xia Tianyi, who was
a Qin opera drummer in the local band of Clear Wind Street in youth. His soul did not leave
until the three drummers went down stairs to have some food. Upon returning, his physical self
already lost four rounds of the chess game.
Indeed, these supernatural details form circular undercurrents to the story in Qin Opera.
Ghosts, to invoke another example, their sounds and spectral presences, infiltrate the whole
narrative. One notable detail is that the appearances of ghosts are not meant to be sensational
incidents but commonplace occurrences known to the villagers as well as the reader.Yinsheng’s
dead father returns whenever Yinsheng is in distress. His quarrelling noises with the ghost of
another villager are often heard by the villagers who pass by their tombs. The newly dead, such
as the ghosts of the villagers Gousheng and Bai Lu, would leave inconspicuous signs to com-
municate with the living and have their wishes fulfilled. There are also other types of ghosts,
such as those of the forcefully aborted babies in the operation room located in Big Clear Hall
of the temple. Three hundred of them would cry in the night. These various kinds of ghosts
are endowed with heterogeneous significances – some are bound to local customs and unveil
anachronisms, some signify specific historical milieus and function as stringent political criti-
cism. They form strata of simultaneously existing temporalities that characterize a transitional
time.
How should we make sense of the fact that it is this problematic and unrealistic character
who plays the epistemological role of a narrator and orients the very unfolding of the story?
I propose to read Yinsheng as an antithesis to Xia Feng, the college student who left Clear Wind
Street. On a grander level, he is a symbol of schism in the historical process of modernization
and functions to frustrate the desire for rapid development that occurs in the countryside.Yin-
sheng is different from other famous characters of retardation to modernity in the contemporary
Chinese literary scene, such as Bing Zai in Han Shaogong’s Ba Ba Ba. Rather than an emblem of
backwardness,Yinsheng is vital. His vitality is implied by his suggestive name: that which generates
life. He carries within himself an older, passionate and folk element that is mysterious, super-
natural and romantic.The divide between Yinsheng and Xia Feng, as I will show, is connected to
the issue of temporality and illustrated through their respective (failure of) love of their mutual
object of desire, Bai Xue.
Xia Feng and Bai Xue’s marriage is foreshadowed as ill-fated from the very beginning. This
is immediately reflected in their names: the combination of summer wind and white snow is
doomed to be transient. Beyond the surface difference, there is a deeper reason for the failure of
Xia Feng and Bai Xue’s marriage: their non-contemporaneity of existences. The husband and
wife each have his or her own times. Xia Feng already left Clear Wind Street. His non-belonging
to the village, the unique spatial-temporal entity in transition, is reflected in his contempt
for the local opera. Qin opera is fundamentally the unconscious language of the villagers that
flows out as a means of expression, communication and connection. It permeates every possible
scenario in mundane life: weddings, funerals, festivals and birthday banquets.The illiterate villag-
ers would spontaneously sing out a highly poetical and ancient lyric in happiness, sorrow, self-
mockery or anger. Qin opera sustains life, as Xia Tianzhi recalls how it was the beauty of Qin
opera that dispelled his thought of suicide when imprisoned in a cowshed during the Cultural

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Revolution (36). Bai Xue, the village beauty, is unmistakably an emblem of Qin opera. A famous
performer of female roles (ming dan) in the declining county troupe of Qin opera, Bai Xue is
structurally connected to this obsolescent art. Xia Feng disrespects his wife’s gift and has long
intended, in vain, to transfer Bai Xue to the city with a different job. The couple’s difference in
stances towards Qin opera discloses, once again, layered, interrelated and conflictive temporal
strata of history. Their non-contemporaneity gives birth to an aporia – an ugly, mouse-like lit-
tle girl devoid of an anus. Lack of an anus, more than a realization of a common curse of the
villagers, is an extreme metaphor of constipation – an inability to let go of what should be the
past. Xia Feng divorces Bai Xue and never returns to Clear Wind Street by the end of the novel.
Different from Xia Feng, Yinsheng shares the common temporal plane with Bai Xue. The
whole novel begins with Yinsheng’s declaration of love for Bai Xue: “Let me say, the woman
I love most is still Bai Xue” (5). Yinsheng’s love for Bai Xue can be understood through a tra-
ditional aesthetic concept of chi: extreme single-mindedness. This is perhaps another reason why,
in addition to his connection to supernatural forces,Yinsheng appears to be mad in the eyes of
the villagers. After finding out that Xia Feng is marrying Bai Xue,Yinsheng cried inconsolably,
fainted, vomited blood and sensed the return of his father’s ghost. Even his curse over Bai Xue
and Xia Feng’s marriage is magical, extreme and folkloric:

That afternoon, I resented whomever I met. A tooth of mine then fell off. It landed
in the dust. I asked: where is my tooth? Picking it up, I planted the tooth in the corner
of my yard. Planting of a grain of wheat would result in a wheat sprout. I cursed that
the planting of my tooth will grow a tree with thorns. I damned that Xia Feng’s mar-
riage would not last long.
(7)

During the wedding banquet,Yinsheng sang a Qin opera lyric from The Peach Blossom Fan: “In
a blink of an eye, one sees the rising of a tall building. In a blink of an eye, one sees many guests
in his house. In a blink of an eye, one sees the collapse of the building” (9). Like his curse with
his fallen tooth, Yinsheng’s borrowed utterance is equally nurtured in resentment and carries a
similar ominous and prophetic air.
Another aspect of Yinsheng’s love for Bai Xue is that it is generally desexualized, or at least
subdued on a somatic level. Such a trait is nevertheless consistent with Yinsheng’s chi – his pure
single-minded obsession with Bai Xue. Carnal desire is but a distraction. There is one, perhaps
partial, sexual encounter between Yinsheng and Bai Xue early in the novel.Yinsheng stole Bai
Xue’s bra hanging in the yard and masturbated. This incident, however, functions to textually
fulfill the desexualization of their relation. Soon discovered by the villagers,Yinsheng reacted by
“killing” his penis out of regret and shame. In parallel with his buried tooth, Yinsheng also had
his penis buried in the earth, significantly under a white peony (28–9). This repeated organic
action of burial ritual suggests more than a purified and transcended bodily desire. Perhaps it is
connected with Yinsheng’s unfathomable power. His resentment and desire are able to perme-
ate beyond the physical self, not unlike his strange ability to travel in his spirit self and leave his
physical self in a different location. It is unclear whether or not Bai Xue ever harbors a romantic
longing for Yinsheng. She is at least sympathetic towards him. Upon hearing of Yinsheng’s self-
inflicted castration, Bai Xue cried. Yinsheng was on his way to the hospital. He felt Bai Xue’s
remorsefulness and was relieved that she was not angry with him. Bai Xue’s tears on the other
hand infuriated her husband Xia Feng, who slammed the door and left. Yinsheng, as the nar-
rator, informs the reader that this is their first fight. Significantly, Bai Xue’s tears connect the
three characters together in conflictive and bifurcating manners, as reticent sympathy and as the

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 Masterworks of Jia Pingwa and Chen Zhongshi

beginning of estrangement. Throughout the novel, the interaction between Yinsheng and Bai
Xue remains extremely minimal, traditional, almost always disembodied (in a much later scene,
another object of Bai Xue, a handkerchief, was picked up by Yinsheng and eventually circled
back to Bai Xue who used it to wipe tears).
The portrayal of Bai Xue is incorporeal.Yinsheng does not give any concrete physical attrib-
ute of his heroine. This is particularly striking in light of Jia’s usually sumptuous, sensual and
sexual portrayals of heroines in his other novels. In fact, Bai Xue strikes the reader as someone
who walks directly out of the conventional catalogue of classical Chinese beauties.Ying Sheng’s
delineation of her is borrowed. He memorized and often recited an exceptionally lengthy poem
dedicated to Bai Xue by a fan of Qin opera. The poem cleverly weaves together the names of
different operas sung by Bai Xue. The image of Bai Xue is a familiar one, as conveyed through
the first several stances of the poem: “The Qin Opera Troupe of Zhou River County, witnesses a
fruition of a famous dan in time of ten years. Still at a tender age, Bai Xue is her luminous name.
Her demeanor entices birds to fall. Her lovely face sinks fish” (99). As one reads on, this poem
links Bai Xue and her acclaimed beauty inseparably with the art of Qin opera. In addition to this
prevailingly poetical image, a careful reading unveils Bai Xue to be decisively a spiritual image.
The very first and last images of Bai Xue in the novel are religious. They are directly perceived
through Yinsheng’s eyes.When Yinsheng went to the wedding banquet, his lowered eyes noticed
Bai Xue’s narrow leather shoes and how they elegantly tightened her feet. This highly sugges-
tive detail of fetishism quickly elevates Bai Xue to another plane: “Zhongxin’s father believes in
Buddhism and told me that when Bodhisattvas walk, lotus flowers will receive their feet. I saw
that Bai Xue walks back and forth in trails of flowers.” If the first image of Bai Xue is still primed
with sexual tension, the last image of her is purely transcendental and significantly redemptive.
Yinsheng has followed Xia Tianyi’s effort on soil-retaining project and worked diligently with
him on the dam of the village channel. In one fateful day which occurs at the end of the novel,
both Yinsheng and Xia Tianyi saw strange acts of the birds while working – these are signs of
imminent catastrophe of a landside, which will soon bury Xia Tianzhi’s tomb and bury Xia
Tianyi alive. In that critical moment, Bai Xue appears at the end of the village channel. To Yin-
sheng’s dazzled eyes, the sun behind her shines towards him. “Bai Xue is then simply a painted
Bodhisattva from a wall, beaming in rings of halo. This is the first time I saw Buddha light from
her body. I threw away the shovel and ran towards Bai Xue.”This moment is the first time when
Bai Xue receives Yinsheng: “Bai Xue was indeed truly a Bodhisattva-like woman. She did not
move and looked at me in all smiles” (282).
While Bai Xue redeems Yinsheng and sheds light into his very being, she has all together
lost her luminosity for Xia Feng.This difference, as suggested earlier, is caused by heterogeneous
temporalities. There is not a single interaction between Yinsheng and Xia Feng. Yet Yinsheng
sighs: “the greatest sadness of my life is to exist simultaneously in the world with Xia Feng . . .
As Zhou Yu from the Qin opera sings: ‘why did heaven give birth to both Zhou Yu and Zhu
Geliang?’ ” (248) Beyond the surface tension of the love triangle, there is the issue of contem-
poraneity of conflictive temporal layers. The relationship between Yingsheng and Xia Feng is
in truth complex and deep. Despite Yinsheng’s long nurtured resentment against Xia Feng, the
novel ends with his longing for Xia Feng’s return. This does not result from his concern over
Bai Xue. After Xia Tianyi was buried alive, the villagers of Clear Wind Street erected a word-
less epitaph stele for him. The novel ends with the very sentence, “From then on, I have looked
forward to the return of Xia Feng” (283). As if the past can only be defined by the words of the
future, Yinsheng self-consciously looks forward and perhaps hails the possibility of a different
and just future. How about Xia Feng? An obvious literary incarnation of Jia Pingwa himself, Xia
Feng is not only a famous writer but also the son of the fourth brother of a big family in the

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village. Xia/Jia looks at his village through the mournful and elegiac eyes of farewell, as if gazing into
a ghost world. In the postscript of Qin Opera, Jia announces the novel to be a shadow of real-
life milieu: “My hometown is Dihua Street. My story is Clear Wind Street. Dihua is the moon
and Clear Wind is the moon in water. Dihua is a flower and Clear Wind is a flower in mirror”
(287).The shadow metaphor expresses unreality. And Jia expresses his disquiet over the impend-
ing disappearance of his acquaintances, the old street, the land and the countryside in general.
He states how his writing process is full of agony and conflict: “I am not sure I should praise or
condemn, celebrate or grieve for the fellow villagers. Those dead people, including my father,
and my uncle who has served as village cadre his whole life, and my three aunts, as well as those
undead such as my cousins who now serve as village cadres . . . they crowd in front of my eyes to
confide in me as dead ghosts and living ghosts . . . I sense that ghosts and phantoms float about in
my room.”8 Writing then becomes an act of mourning a time that is about to become past and
erecting a stele for the dead and living ghosts. As Xia Feng never returns to the village within
the confines of the narration, Jia bids his farewell to his eclipsed memory of his hometown in
the postscript.Yet there lingers hope. Against the writer’s desire to forget,Yinsheng still expects
him in the threshold between the fictional world and reality. In addition, there is also Bai Xue,
the sublimated image of the past, poetical and spiritual and pregnant with future. As Jia writes
in the postscript: “my hometown might become a scarred apple in the future, rotten and oozing
with pus. But perhaps, out of this mud will grow a lotus follower in in her full bloom” (286).

White deer plain

Qin Opera and White Deer Plain share their mutual concern over the temporal experience of
change.While Jia uses Yinsheng’s voice and senses to engage with topics of ghosts and reincarna-
tion and mixes these topics with everyday, down-to-earth issues of village life in a transitional
time, Chen portrays the memorable character of Mr. Zhu, who is at once a Confucian scholar
and a mystical figure, and uses him as an epistemological stance to unveil a panorama of vio-
lence and suffering in the political events of modern Chinese history. While Jia delineates a
model of schism splintering the historical process, Chen offers a structure of order and unity.
White Deer Plain takes White Deer Plain, Chen’s hometown, to be the fictional setting and
traces the intertwined fates of the Bai (White) family and the Lu (Deer) family, both belonging
to the same clan: Bailu (White Deer). Together their surnames allude to an ancient local myth
of a white deer that heals the ill, brings harvest and generates abundance. With the emperors
gone, Bai Jiaxuan, the head of the clan, relied on the County Rules (xiang yue), written by his
brother-in-law Mr. Zhu, as an ethical foundation for the villagers to endure through chaotic
historical changes. Bai Jiaxuan was initially cursed with an ominous fate of not being able to
have any offspring. The first six women he married all died shortly after marriage. The ghosts of
the dead wives would haunt the new wife and cause her demise. Only after Jiaxuan accidently
discovered the plant form of the spirit of the white deer (Mr. Zhu interpreted for him what he
had encountered upon) and seized the land where the plant grew from the Lu family, his fate
began to change. Bai Jiaxuan married Xiancao, his seventh wife, who gave births to three sons
and one daughter.The patriarch of the Lu family, Lu Zilin, who served as the county head, both
cooperates with and rivals Jiaxuan throughout the novel. His two sons, Lu Zhaopeng and Lu
Zhaohai, received modern education in the city and grew respectively into a communist and a
nationalist. Both of them were romantically involved with Bai Jiaxuan’s daughter, Bai Ling, an
enthusiastic participant of the communist revolution, a tragic figure who was eventually buried
alive during the communists’ internal campaigns. Heiwa, the son of Bai family’s hired hand,
revolted against the moral code by marrying an adulterous woman, Tian Xiaoer. In the turmoil

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of historical changes, the rebellious Heiwa first joined communism and then became a bandit.
But he eventually returned to the moral order through becoming a student of Mr. Zhu, endeav-
oring to become a good person.
White Deer Plain won the fourth Mao Dun Literature Prize in 1997. The decision on
the award, however, took three years in the making. The controversy over the novel boiled
down to two issues: the political and the sexual. One official commented: “Writing history
should not repeatedly tear off the old scars.” There is also the perceived connection between
White Deer Plain and Jia’s sexually scandalous novel Ruined City.9 The award committee
eventually requested two changes from Chen, one concerning Mr. Zhu’s view on the nature
of the struggles between Communists and Nationalists, the other involving some detailed
sexual scenes.10
The creation of Mr. Zhu is directly inspired by and even strictly follows the life of a histori-
cal figure, Niu Zhaolian (1876–1937), from Shaanxi province. Also known as Niu Caizi, Niu
Zhaolian passed the imperial examination before its permanent abolishment and was the last
heir of the Shaanxi branch of neo-Confucianism (guanzhong xuepai). Niu’s legendary life – such
as his creation of the County Rules, his persuasion of the Qin governor of Shaanxi and Gansu
provinces to abandon the plan of counterattacking Xi’an in 1912, his establishment of a tra-
ditional school (shuyuan), his devotion to the amendment of county histories in his old age, as
well as his suprarational ability to read astronomic phenomenon11 – all enters into Chen’s novel
with vivid details. Mr. Zhu is portrayed as a sage who embodies and ordains humanistic ethics
and a transcendental seer who can read the stars and predict the future. His dual identities, at
once ethical and spiritual, have powerfully linked morality with the natural movement of stars.
In other words, ethics is an extension of cosmology.This scholar-prophet, it should be remarked,
signifies not temporal regression but provides a synchronic structure that contains all knowledge
of the past and future. Through this figure, White Deer Plain affirms that there is not only his-
tory with its violent conflicts, there is also the moral and unfathomable cosmic mystery. Indeed,
Chen writes about Mr. Zhu with much reverence, associates him with the spirit image of the
white deer, and lets him comment on the revolutionary movements with authoritative voice.
Mr. Zhu even foresaw before his death the coming of the Cultural Revolution and how the
red guards would dig up his grave. When the red guards did open his grave, they encountered
inscribed verses (from Mencius) on a brick to their great astonishment. One side of the brick
reads: “Calamities sent from Heaven may still be avoided (tian zuo nie you ke wei).” The other
side: “ A man who does evil deeds shall not live (ren zuo nie bu ke huo).”12 What is in the act
of prophecy? Mr. Zhu’s more than human voice is above time and transcends historical expe-
riences. From the point of view of a seer, the whole of the unfolding political events are not
diachronic but synchronic and always already known. Does Chen see the transitional period of
modern Chinese history as unique? Chen certainly has portrayed the changed temporal rhythm,
the radical sense of conflict between generations, the stimulating ideas of Marxism and the
violent movements of revolutions. Yet, I would argue, Chen does not convey newness in the
temporal scheme of the novel.
White Deer Plain does not take conflicts seriously, at least in a Marxian sense of the term.
A recurring metaphor used by Mr. Zhu in expressing his view on the political struggles between
Communists and Nationalists is fan aozi, a regional term which means turning the griddle.
Chen was asked by the award committee to change the metaphor, for it might “elicit political
misunderstanding.”13 Here we have an interpretation of the political world through a domestic
expression of a cooking method (we are reminded of Chapter 60 of Tao Te Ching). Historical
movement then becomes a to and fro, top and bottom, force against force motion of repetition.
It seems to me that this metaphor, above all, functions as a conceptual counter to the prevailing

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Marxist view of historical process as self-conscious, dialectical, and necessarily violent. CCP
certainly interprets itself to be the very historical agent of this progressive process. Mr. Zhu’s
metaphor dampens that. Politically affiliated with neither CCP nor KMT, he depicts the con-
flicts to be an irrational cycle lacking a plan (also a familiar one as expressed through a cooking
category) and therefore devoid of historical significance. In this light, the communist revolu-
tions lose its temporal dimension of modernity and CCP’s struggles with KMT are but circular
occurrences of violence.
The atemporal nature, in contrast to an epochal character, of the political struggles between
the Communists and the Nationalists is further conveyed through Mr. Zhu’s elaboration of “the
conflict between husband and wife” (gong po zhi zheng).14 This metaphor is fleshed out in Bai
Ling’s romance with Lu Zhaohai. Their relationship – the mutual attraction and fate of separa-
tion – is in truth an affective and microcosmic rendering of the ideological cooperation and
struggles between CCP and KMT. The historical time seems to be released through an internal
conflict. Indeed, CCP and KMT, from Mr. Zhu’s enlightened perspective, are “parts from a pri-
mal unity” (Ibid).The historical process of struggles, with its modern consciousness, is effectively
enfolded into the larger significance of an original unity, as the myth of the white deer, in its
absent presence, fundamentally unites the Bai and Lu families and the novel as a whole. The
usual characters see multiplicity, division and conflicts. Mr. Zhu remains the perceiving eye of
the novel. It is interesting to note that the CCP tried to bring Mr. Zhu’s visionary under control
before granting Chen the Mao Dun Literature Prize.
Bai Ling, on the surface, is a character endowed with a complete sense of newness. A modern
girl who received new education and rebelled against her arranged marriage, Bai Ling accepted
new moral orders and fresh political ideas, first the democratic revolution, later Marxism. Yet a
closer examination shows that Bai Ling’s newness is but a false projection of her spiritual condi-
tion into the political sphere of class struggle and the progressive history. After Bai Ling took the
oath to join the Communist Party, Lu Zhaopeng said to her: “Everything has to start anew. Bai
Ling, what is on your mind now?” Bai Ling responded: “I think of the white deer told by my
grandmother, that white deer comes from our plain. Perhaps communism is that white deer?”
(279). The secularization of spirit, and the faith in how history can be made by man would
eventually give way to the working of fate. Bai Ling was buried alive during CCP’s ultra-leftist
campaign of eliminating spies from the revolution body. All these unfold under the purview of
Mr. Zhu who foresaw Bai Ling’s dark fate and warned her at one point: “The left side of your
face has an abyss. Take precaution and don’t step into it” (269). On the night of Bai Ling’s tragic
death, Bai Jiaxuan dreamed of the white deer coming to him and then floating away in tears.
This dream illustrates not only the death of a daughter but also the awakening from a dream of
the spiritualization of communism.
One must notice that the ethical and spiritual framework established in White Deer Plain is
challenged. The challenge, however, does not come from the new political figures such as Bai
Ling, the girl student, or Hei Wa, the proletarian revolutionist. It comes from a remarkable per-
sona who suffers from and profanes the ethical order and local customs. Tian Xiaoer, originally
a concubine of a successful candidate of imperial provincial martial exam (wu ju ren), had an
adulterous relation with Hei Wa. After she came to White Deer Plain, her marriage with Hei
Wa was not acknowledged by the clan authority, Bai Jiaxuan. Neither was she tolerated by the
villagers. Her name cannot enter the ancestral temple (symbolically she had become a rootless
ghost). After Hei Wa left the plain to avoid being persecuted by the KMT, the vulnerable Xiaoer
held sexual relationships with multiple partners, including Lu family’s patriarch Lu Zilin, and
Bai Jiaxuan’s eldest son, Bai Xiaowen. She was murdered secretly by her father-in-law, Lu San,
the loyal hired hand of the Bai family. Her rotten body emits an awfully malodorous odor that

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flooded the plain. Her ghost makes the village rumble with her tremendous rage. White Deer
Plain is engulfed by an unprecedented plague. Death hangs over each person. Families perish
one after another. Here the traditional concept of bao, or retribution, is at work on a narrative
level. Xiaoer’s powerful passion and revenge is her repayment of grudge. Her ghost repeatedly
seizes her murderer, Lu San’s body and confronts the clan head. In one encounter, Bai Jiaxuan
says to the ghost who now takes Lu San’s form: “You were a rotten kind when alive. Neither
are you a good ghost now. I do not mind you torturing me . . . It would even be good if I die.
I will then drag you to Yama for judgment and find out who will undergo the trials of climb-
ing the mountain of knives and plunging into a sea of flames. When alive, I do not allow you to
enter the ancestral temple. Neither will I tolerate you in death” (308). One senses that Xiaoer
can never be rationalized morally, either in Bai Jiaxuan’s ancestral temple or Lord Yama’s hall
of justice. There is a kind of continuity between Xiaoer’s promiscuity that offended the moral
code and her extreme emotion and rage that assault the plain. Out of desperation and fear, the
remaining villagers plead to Bai Jiaxuan to take actions to appease Xiaoer’s fury. They conveyed
her demand to him:White Deer Village must build a temple for her and honor her as a deity. Bai
Jiaxuan refuses the request and decides on unearthing Xiaoer’s remains and burning them for
three days and nights to subdue the vengeful ghost. Mr. Zhu complements his idea, recommend-
ing building a pagoda and having her cremated remains suppressed underneath it.
Xiaoer’s end (or suspension) bears a peculiar parallel with Bai Ling’s fate. Both suffer a strange,
abhorring act of burial. With Bai Ling, it is her young life and passionate political faith that are
buried. What gets buried alive in Xiaoer’s case is her defiant, vengeful and powerful ghost. Bai
Ling’s spirit remains free, a disillusioned sort of freedom, as it manifests as the distraught white
deer in motion. But Xiaoer’s ghost endures permanent live imprisonment. After Xiaoer’s ghost is
suppressed underneath the pagoda, she does not even haunt the dreams of the villagers anymore.
Yet she continues to dwell on the edge of the village, just as she had done when she was alive.
The sense of emergency still remains and serves to separate the prevailing unity from within.
It is important to note that Chen writes both characters, Mr. Zhu and Tian Xiaoer, with
care and sympathy. If the idealized image of Mr. Zhu represents the desired unity (positive) and
structure (with limitation) in a time of transition, Tian Xiaoer epitomizes the unassimilated
remainder to this unified structure. The image of Tian emerged when Chen was doing research
on histories of three counties near Xi’an:

Invariably, I encountered volumes of chaste and heroic women. They lay silently there,
in their surnames, in their similarities . . . And at that moment, the image of Tian
Xiao’er surfaced in my mind and mocked the seriousness of the county gazetteers.
Over the years, I have heard of countless ‘fermented and yellowed vegetables’ (suan
huang cai). They are the stories and jokes about lustful women. These women in folk
hearsay and those surnames in county gazetteers form a unitary whole, one text.15

Xiaoer is then an antithesis taken from county histories. This antithesis has its own unwritten
genealogy of folk hearsays. She has been effaced and yet integral to the kind of history amended
by Mr. Zhu. Although buried, she is nevertheless part of that whole. One is sure that she is
bound to remerge, even if only transiently, and demands representation sensually and fully. In
retrospection, one realizes the reason why the novel begins with Bai Jiaxuan’s endeavor of con-
taining the vengeful ghosts of his dead wives. For their spectral content constitute the invisible
kernel of all history.
If Jia Pingwa’s Qin Opera engages in a project of unveiling multiple strata of temporali-
ties of modernity, Chen Zhongshi resorts to the pre-May-Fourth spirit of an uncontaminated

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Confucian root for meaning and structure. Through the mythical image of the white deer, the
novel signifies an anachronical attempt to spiritualize modern Chinese history against the Marx-
ian understanding of it as a stage, a linear temporality of progression. Modernity is positioned
within the enlightened purview of the extrahistorical persona of Mr. Zhu. Tian Xiaoer in her
ancient, familiar form of a femme fatale, not the progressive female student Bai Ling, complicates
its meaning, reveals its gaps and brings perhaps the very emergence of the new within the static
structure.

Notes
1 “Jia Pingwa’s “Commemoration of Chen Zhongshi: He is Still in the World” (Jia Pingwa zhuan wen
huainian Chen Zhongshi, ta yiran zai renjian),” www.people.com.cn, last modified May 1, 2016, http://
culture.people.com.cn/n1/2016/0501/c22219-28317770.html.
2 Ibid.
3 This deeply ingrained value can be glimpsed through a couplet offered by Jia Pingwa during his daugh-
ter, Jia Qian’s wedding: “the noblest person is a loyal subject and filial son, the noblest things are reading
and farming.” “Jia Pingwa’s Speech During His Daugter’s Wedding (Jia Pingwa zai nu er hun li shang de
jiang hua),” 360doc, www.360doc.com/content/11/0522/15/2023124_118559321.shtml (translation
mine). Accessed January 14, 2017.
4 Carlos Rojas, “Flies’ Eyes, Mural Remnants, and Jia Pingwa’s Perverse Nostalgia,” Positions: East Asia
Cultures Critique (2006), vol. 14, no. 3, 749–773.
5 Chen Zhongshi, Looking For Sentences of My Own (Xunzhao ziji de juzi) (Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi,
2009), 16.
6 When analyzing the issue of temporality in the modern context, I draw inspiration from David Lloyd’s
book, Irish Times,Temporalities of Modernity (Dublin: Field Day, 2008).
7 Jia Pingwa, Qin Opera (Qinqiang) (Nanjing:Yiling Publishing House, 2015), 25.
8 Ibid. (emphasis added).
9 He Qizhi, “Archive of White Deer Plain (Bailu yuan dang’an),” in Feng Xizhe and Zhao Runmin, eds.,
Infinite White Deer Plain (Shuobujin de Bailu yuan) (Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin, 2006), 18–25, 23.
10 Yiju Huang, “Plain, Time, and Catastrophe: A Conversation with Chen Zhongshi,” MCLC Resource
Center, https://u.osu.edu/mclc/online-series/chen-zhongshi/. Accessed August 2013
11 To learn more of Niu Zhaolian’s life, see Zhou Bin, “The Legendary Confucian Scholar, Niu Zhaolian
of Guanzhong Plain (Zhou Bin, Guanzhong da ru Niu Zhaolian chuanqi),” References for Literature and
History (Wenshi Cankao) (2012), vol. 18.
12 Chen Zhongshi, White Deer Plain (Bailu yuan) (Beijing: Shiyue wenyi, 2008), 442.
13 He Qizhi, “Archive of White Deer Plain (Bailu yuan dang’an),” 25.
14 Chen Zhongshi, White Deer Plain, 220.
15 Yiju Huang, “Plain, Time, and Catastrophe,”

Further readings
Chang, Guangyuan. Treaties on Chen Zhongshi: A Cultural Angle (Chen Zhongshi lun: cun wenhua jiadu
kaocha). Beijing: renmin wenxue, 2003.
Fen,Youyuan. Pingwa’s Buddha’s Hand (Pingwa de foshou). Shanghai: Shanghai renmin, 1997.
Lai Daren. Where Could the Soul Settle? On Jia Pingwa (Hungui hechu: Jia Pingwa lun). Beijing: Huaxia,
2000.
Lei, Da. Research Materials of Chen Zhongshi (Chen Zhongshi yanjiu ziliao). Jinan: Shandong wenyi, 2006.
Li, Qingxia. Chen Zhongshi’s Person and Words (Chen Zhongshi de ren yu wen). Beijing: Zhongguo shehui
kexue, 2013.
Stowe, John Edward. “The Peasant Intellectual Jia Pingwa: An Historico-Literary Analysis of His Life and
Early Works,” Ph.D. Dissertation. Toronto: University of Toronto, 2003.
Wang,Yiyan. “Jia Pingwa.” In Thomas Moran and Ye (Dianna) Xu, eds. Chinese Fiction Writers, 1950–2000.
Dictionary of Literature Biography, vol. 370. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2013, 111–120.
———. Narrating China: Jia Pingwa and His Fictional World. New York: Routledge, 2006.
Xing, Xiaoli. Biography of Chen Zhongshi (Chen Zhongshi zhuan). Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin, 2015.

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 41
FEMALE NEO-REALISM
Masterworks of Zhang Jie, Wang Anyi,
and Chi Li

Hui Faye Xiao

Chinese feminism
Since the 1980s, China has seen the blossoming of profuse literary productions by women writ-
ers that continues and expands the female tradition in modern Chinese literature. According
to Lydia H. Liu, “terms such as nüxing yishi (female consciousness) and nüxing wenxue (female
literature) are invented by critics who wish to conceptualize a female tradition that will recog-
nize women as historical subjects rather than objects of male patronage.”1 Li Ziyun, a prominent
woman literary critic, expresses a similar opinion: “We are witnessing a second upsurge in the
literary output of female writers in mainland China. This is marked not only by the extraordi-
nary number and quality of women’s works but by the vanguard role some of those works have
played in Chinese literature.”2
The vanguard spirit of such a female tradition has often been traced back to the turn of
the twentieth century when women writers have joined their male peers to publish feminist
writings advocating women’s rights and gender equity that were considered to be essential
components of nation-building and modernization of Chinese consciousness. In comparison to
the pioneering figures such as He Yin Zhen, Qiu Jin, and Ding Ling, post-Mao women writers
appear to be less committed to those master narratives such as nationalism, revolution, mod-
ernization, and women’s liberation but are concerned more about women’s individual struggles
and existential angst in their everyday lives, particularly in the domestic realm, as well as their
awakening gender consciousness and norm-bending self-expressions.
This new direction in the post-Mao Chinese women’s writings has been shaped by a series
of interlocking socio-economic developments and cultural changes, among which three are the
most prominent: the legacy of the Maoist state feminism; gendered reflections on grand nar-
ratives ranging from revolution to marketization; and influences of the second-wave feminist
movement in the West.
Women’s liberation has always been a significant part of Chinese socialist revolution, which
was formally institutionalized as a top-down state campaign. As a result of the state feminism,
women’s social status, literacy rate, educational level, and participation in work force have all
been enormously improved. These issues fundamental to women’s emancipation in China
can rival favorably with those same issues even in developed Western countries according
to the recent statistics.3 As a result, unlike Western feminist writings, in post-Mao female

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 Hui Faye Xiao

writers’ works, not much space has been dedicated to a discussion of women’s equal rights to
work and education, as those have already been legalized and granted by state policy. Instead,
women writers are more concerned with how the state-led campaign, while having brought
substantial material benefits to Chinese women, tends to constrain the social and cultural spaces
for women’s individualized expressions of gendered consciousness and personal needs.
This new literary direction parallels the global trend of second-wave feminism which
focuses on various gender-specific issues centered upon women’s self-discovery and gender
consciousness-raising, which is succinctly summarized in one famous slogan “the personal is
political.”4 This emphasis on the woman’s personal journey of achieving individual autonomy
and self-actualization is shared by post-Mao feminist writings that yearn to break a new path for
women’s self-empowerment and self-expression outside of the institutional boundaries of the
top-down state feminism. As a counter discourse to the hegemonic official ideology, the post-
Mao feminist theories emphasizing individual development had enormous liberating power,
particularly when combined with a wave of feminist writings in Chinese literature in the 1980s.
However, there is also a striking difference between the second-wave Western feminism and
post-Mao Chinese women’s writings.
Chris Berry has pointed out that post-Mao women’s cinema tends to assert the importance
of women’s “self-adornment and making oneself attractive to the opposite sex, connecting this
to the process of self-discovery and self-awareness that for many Western women has involved
rejection of the very same thing.”5 Berry’s observation is equally applicable to the contempora-
neous literary works penned by women writers. For example,Tie Ning’s award-winning novella
“A Button-less Red Shirt” (Meiyou niukou de hong chenshan, 1983), which was also adapted
into a popular film (dir. Lu Xiaoya, 1985), establishes a close link between a young woman’s
admiration of fashion and beauty with her bold expressions of individuality that challenge social
expectations. Chi Li’s novella Good Morning, Miss (Xiaojie nizao, 1998) also centers on a middle-
aged woman’s metamorphosis from an asexual Maoist “iron girl” to a hyper-feminine fashion-
able woman. In these literary works, woman’s self-discovery and gender consciousness are often
materialized through their hearty consumption of the latest fashion brands and unabashed pub-
lic display of feminine charm as a negation of the Maoist doctrines of austerity and asceticism.
This divergence can be better understood if we consider that the development of post-Mao
liberal feminism is an indispensable part of the capitalization and marketization of post-Mao
China. Fighting against the hegemony of socialist collectivism, post-Mao Chinese intellectuals
engaged in heated debates about individual subjectivity, which complements the reform ideol-
ogy of promoting personal responsibility and freeing individuals for the market. As a part of the
intellectual discourse about market individualism, post-Mao Chinese liberal feminism criticizes
the allegedly gender-erasing and de-sexualizing state feminism and affirms the value of asserting
individual gendered identity based on anatomical differences.
However, over-emphasis on the gender differences based on physiological foundation runs
the risk of essentialism and the objectification of woman’s body, which has been further ampli-
fied by the accelerating commercialization of women’s literature. In the 1990s, the publica-
tion of the “Cloth Tiger” (Bu laohu) series best illustrates how literary explorations of gender
consciousness have been repackaged as sensational bestsellers catering to the voyeuristic gaze at
woman’s body and sexuality on the book market.
Among the present-day writers who explore women’s issues in the era of commercializa-
tion, Zhang Jie, Wang Anyi, and Chi Li are three prominent women writers who have pro-
duced a series of highly praised fictional works which may be grouped under the category of
“female realism.” Published at the turn of the twenty-first century, Zhang Jie’s Wordless (Wuzi,
1998/2002), Wang Anyi’s Song of Everlasting Sorrow (1995) and Chi Li’s To and Fro (Lai lai wang

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wang, 1998) have explored contemporary Chinese women’s changing everyday experiences,
subject positions and gender consciousness, and responded to and negotiated with the legacy of
the Maoist revolution, the accelerating market ideology and global consumerism, as well as the
second-wave Western feminism in their different ways.6

Zhang Jie

Life and career

Born in Beijing in 1937, Zhang Jie is a highly controversial Chinese woman writer for her
outspoken social critique and innovative literary experiments. Not long after she was born,
her parents separated, and she was raised by a single mother. In 1969, Zhang Jie divorced her
first husband due to maltreatment and became a single mother herself. For years Zhang Jie, her
daughter, and mother lived in a small cramped apartment where she composed her fiction on a
chopping board in the kitchen. The strong matrilineal bond is best illustrated with the writer’s
adoption of her mother’s family name.
She started writing fiction in 1978 and won a national prize with her literary debut “The
Music of the Forests” (Senlinli laide haizi), a short story depicting the adversities endured by
Chinese intellectuals during the Cultural Revolution. In 1986, Zhang Jie married Sun Youyu, a
high-ranking CCP cadre who served as the real-life archetype of many of Zhang’s works. Sun
died in 1998. Recently, Zhang Jie moved to New York City to live with her daughter. After
publishing her latest work A Homeless Old Dog (Liulang de lao gou, 2013), a collection of essays
recording her globe-traveling experiences, Zhang Jie bade farewell to the literary circle.

Literary achievements
No one can skip Zhang Jie’s works when it comes to a meaningful discussion of post-Mao femi-
nist writings. Her deep concerns for women’s existential issues were not fully manifested till the
publication of “Love Must Not Be Forgotten.”This piece depicts a divorced woman writer’s pla-
tonic relationship with a married high-ranking CCP official, which had remained a taboo topic
in Chinese literature. In 1981, she published what is arguably the first Chinese feminist novella
“The Ark.” Through a realistic depiction of three divorced women’s daily struggles to maintain
a “normal” life, Zhang Jie exposes unequal treatment, sexist discriminations and harassments
that they have to endure at home and in workplace. What marks this novella’s breakthrough is
an audacious fantasy of a “matriarchal” commune composed of divorced women living together
in a small apartment in 1980s’ Beijing. In addition to her feminist writings, Zhang Jie also tried
her hand at other literary themes and styles. Her novel Leaden Wings (Chenzhong de chibang,
1980) draws a panoramic picture of China’s industrial restructuring at the onset of the reform
era. Its revised version won her a Mao Dun Literary Prize (1985). Two decades later, Wordless
brought her one more Mao Dun prize, which made Zhang Jie the only Chinese writer who
got this prestigious prize twice.

The masterpiece: Wordless

Zhang Jie spent twelve years (1989–2001) to complete Wordless that contains over 800, 000
characters. The three-volume heavyweight revolves around four generations of women’s lives
spanning from the early twentieth century to the new millennium. The unique structure of the
novel does not follow the order of a progressive temporality. Rather, it centers upon the female

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protagonist Wu Wei’s relationship with Hu Bingcheng, a veteran revolutionary and high-ranking

CCP cadre. This main thread interweaves with several parallel subplots about Wu’s grandmoth-
er’s, mother’s, and daughter’s (only briefly) life paths.
Given its extended time span and vast volume, this novel reads like an epic of China’s long
twentieth century, narrated from women’s perspectives. Though covering major historical mile-
stones such as the second Sino-Japanese war, the Long March, and the Cultural Revolution, the
focus of this novel never deviates from Zhang’s persistent concern for women’s seemingly cycli-
cal doom in a patriarchal society in which sexist discriminations and misogynist rhetoric evolve
into different manifestations in different historical periods.
Similar to Zhang Jie’s previous works, Wordless also contains abundant autobiographical
details under a thin veil. Wu Wei, the central character and narrator in the novel is a divorced
woman writer who has enjoyed an international renown, but has endured a bitter personal life
since her childhood. Following the opening chapters about Wu’s alienated marital life in con-
temporary China, the rest of the first volume then takes us back to the early twentieth century
when the maternal side of Wu’s family history unfolds. Mohe, Wu’s grandmother, works like a
domestic slave after getting married in a rural village in Northeast China. At the age of thirty-
four, she dies in a difficult labor when giving birth to the ninth baby. The graphic description
of the woman’s swelling body in a bloody birth visualizes the horror of the woman’s forced life
sacrifice to carry on the patrilineal line.Ye Lianzi, her six-year-old daughter pleads and screams
with all her might on Mohe’s deathbed, which, of course, cannot prevent Mohe from leaving
the world. Since then, no matter what happens to her,Ye learns to confront it in silence, because
she comes to the realization that her words are totally powerless that cannot change anything in
the patriarchal world.
Volume Two continues this meticulous account of Ye’s bumpy life journey in the first half of
the twentieth century. As Ye struggles to survive in the straitened circumstances caused by wars,
famines, natural disasters, domestic violence, and stark poverty, her daughter Wu Wei’s childhood
is also traumatized by the verbal and physical abuses of her father and teacher. The recurring
statement “It’s our fate!” (Dou shi ming!) throughout the novel as a fatalistic comment on
women’s plights and sufferings reveals a strong sense of resignation.
Breaking the androcentric myth of linear historical progression, such a nihilistic account of
woman’s cyclic fate passed down from one generation to another interweaves with multiple
anecdotes and legends of historical figures such as Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, and Zhang
Xueliang. However, rather than celebrating their revolutionary heroism, the re-written bits and
pieces of his-story from the woman’s perspective often questions the supremacy of the official
version of the Communist revolution. For example, the relentless political purge during the
Yan’an period and the persecution of Liu Shaoqi during the Cultural Revolution are graphically
described and explicitly criticized. Moreover, the class conflicts between the privileged CCP
cadres and the rank-and-file PLA soldiers are represented not only as power struggle within the
Communist bureaucracy, but more often as the naked competition of male sexual prowess and
possession of women. In Wu Wei’s eyes, these veteran Communists’ (lao Gong) erotic encounters
with women are more revelatory of their true colors than their revolutionary deeds.
Volume Three jumps back to the present, picking up where the first chapters of Volume
One have left off to continue the lengthy account of Hu Bingcheng’ divorce with his first wife
Bai Fan. During the years of the drawn-out divorce lawsuit, both Hu and Wu are exhausted by
constant bureaucratic interrogations and administrative interventions with their love affair. After
enduring many years of political intervention and sexist discrimination, Wu Wei finally gets
married to Hu. However, rather than bringing them hard-earned domestic bliss, their marriage
is only a series of lies, betrayals, and Hu’s financial and sexual exploitations of Wu. As a result,

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this alienated marital relationship ends up in a divorce, and the woman writer is ultimately
driven mad. She even loses her linguistic ability: the only words she can say now are Mom, and
occasionally Dad. She even calls her divorced husband Dad, conflating the abusive husband with
her equally relentless father. At the end of the novel, the world-renowned writer dies alone in
a mental hospital, completely cut off from the outside world, leaving nothing that contains any
trace of writing, not even a note of contact information of her family.
This highly gendered narrative of an “anti-romantic romance” can be read as a self-parody
of Zhang Jie’s canonical piece “Love Must Not Be Forgotten.” Many inter-textual references
to this earlier piece can be found in Wordless. There is even a direct quote of the story’s title in
Wordless. However, instead of celebrating undying romantic love, here the declaration of indi-
vidualist romanticism in post-Mao Chinese literature is recycled by Zhang Jie herself to describe
a veteran Communist revolutionary’s unceasing jealousy of and relentless revenge on her love
rival (52). In addition to this deconstructionist self-allusion, Zhang Jie also mocks the time-
honored tradition of romantic fiction ranging from the Chinese literary classic Dream of the Red
Mansion to canons in Western literature. She concludes bitterly, love is only a self-invented fan-
tasy that drives different generations of women to poverty, suffering, physical abuse, and mental
breakdown (88).
Clearly, there is a distrust of literary writings in Zhang’s writing, which marks a new stage in
Zhang Jie’s feminist critique. As Lydia Liu contends, in Zhang Jie’s earlier works the “relation of
writing, gender, and authorship” has already been explored: “Love Must Not Be Forgotten” is
a story about a daughter’s reading and critical interpretation of her mother’s diary.7 Similarly, in
her later novella “The Ark,” the intersubjective camaraderie of the three divorced or divorcing
women is forged on the feminized mechanism of airing grievances (“speaking bitterness” in
Chinese). In this work, the use of human language, be it talking or writing, continues to serve
the essential function of intersubjective communication. But the linguistic function has been
subverted in Wordless: despite its stunning length, the novel is paradoxically entitled “wordless.”
Such a self-contradictory gesture compels readers to reflect upon the meaning (or its lack) of
the writing system and its everyday use. Throughout the voluminous work, readers can spot
a high-frequent appearance of words denoting various ways of speaking, talking, and writing
such as old sayings (laohua), accusation (qianze), public opinions (yulun), and blasphemy (zaoyao).
However, all these different ways of using the human language are not to facilitate interpersonal
communication but to create a repressive sociolinguistic regime in which Wu Wei’s voice is
silenced and no truth can be spoken.
The oppressive nature and alienating effect of human language is best illustrated by Wu Wei’s
ultimate madness and her illusory vision. After Wu’s mental breakdown, she starts to see a man
wrapped in an ancient official scholar’s garb: he has a blank face without five organs but a huge
lishu (clerical script) character that she cannot decipher. Followed around and closely monitored
by the uncanny figure of this ghostly man, Wu Wei finally loses her ability to talk or write.
This can be read as the woman’s totalistic rejection of entering the symbolic order inscribed in
the linguistic system, as it is stated at the end of the novel: “madness is the failure of meaning-
making.” By self-blocking the entry to the androcentric language, Zhang Jie offers readers no
meaning and no redemption through words.
The failure of human languages as effective communicational tools has been a constant
theme in modernist fiction in world literature. Given the novel’s exclusive focus on the wom-
an’s perspective, what Zhang Jie tries to suggest in this work is not only the limits of human
language, but more about the impossibility of communication between the opposite sexes by
using the androcentric linguistic system. This radical gesture, rarely found in her contempora-
neous Chinese women writers, resonates with the second-wave feminist critique in the West.

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Drawing on Lacanian psychoanalytical theories, they argue that the symbolic order inscribed
in human language is fundamentally patriarchal because it produces meaning “through sets of
binary oppositions – for example, man/woman, mind/nature, activity/passivity – in which the
‘male’ term is always privileged.”8
Zhang Jie’s persistent concern for woman’s marginal position not only in a patriarchal soci-
ety but also in a phallocentric symbolic order has added a meaningful gender dimension to the
modernist theories on language and writing. In this sense, this wordy novel Wordless can also be
read as a fable of the eternal gendered paradox: Can women’s existential angst be expressed in
the androcentric linguistic system? With this questioned, Zhang Jie seems to have gone beyond
the Maoist state feminism: she calls for a woman’s liberation not only in the economic realm
(woman’s participation in labor force and equal pay) but also a more radical one in the symbolic
order inscribed in our everyday use of human language.

Wang Anyi

Life and career

Wang Anyi was born in Nanjing in 1954, and moved to Shanghai with her family in the fol-
lowing year. Her mother Ru Zhijuan was a renowned woman writer in China. Her father
Wang Xiaoping was a left-leaning overseas Chinese intellectual who returned from Singapore
to fight the Japanese in 1940, and worked as a director of Shanghai People’s Art Theater. Dur-
ing the Cultural Revolution, Wang Anyi was sent down to a small village in Anhui province,
which provided her with first-hand experiences of rural China and rich materials for her later
publications. At the end of the Cultural Revolution, she returned to Shanghai in 1978. After
working shortly as an editor of Children’s Era (Ertong shidai),Wang became a professional writer.
Recently, Wang was invited by Fudan University to offer courses on creative writing and liter-
ary studies. She has also been elected Chair of Shanghai Writers’ Association and Vice Chair of
Chinese Writer’s Association.

Literary achievements
Wang Anyi has won multiple national and international literary awards in her career. On Sep-
tember 21, 2016, she was selected as the winner of the 2017 Newman Prize for Chinese Litera-
ture. Dai Jinhua, a prominent feminist cultural critic at Peking University nominated her. In her
nomination statement, Dai wrote: “Over the past thirty or more years, Wang Anyi has continu-
ously transformed her writing and altered her literary directions to produce a spectacular array
of works, through which she has created a reality of Chinese-language literature, a city in litera-
ture, or even a nation in literature.”9 Dai Jinhua’s statement serves as the best summary of Wang
Anyi’s literary career which has never ceased to re-invent itself. As one of the most hard-working
and prolific Chinese writers, Wang Anyi is a leading figure in various literary movements since
1980s and has experimented with a wide range of literary genres, themes, and styles. What has
first drawn critical attention to Wang is her “Wenwen series” (Wenwen xilie). Wenwen is the
name of the protagonist of Wang’s earlier set of short stories that focus on contemplating the life
experiences of the sent-down youth generation.
In 1985, she published Bao Town (Xiao bao zhuang, 1985), a work often viewed as a repre-
sentative piece of “root-seeking literature” for its nostalgic portrayal of a rural village with its
communal lifestyle and traditional value system. In the following years, Wang Anyi once again
surprised her readers and literary critics by publishing the groundbreaking “Three Themes on

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Love” series (San lian), which consists of three novellas: Love in a Small Town (Xiaocheng zhi lian,
1986), Love on a Barren Mountain (Huangshan zhi lian, 1986), and Love in the Brocade Valley (Jinxiu
gu zhi lian, 1987). Its emphasis on women’s self-expression and an awakening sense of gendered
subjectivity is in line with both the second-wave feminism in the West and post-Mao Chinese
feminist trend. After 1990s, having lost interest in telling a coherent story in the conventionally
realistic style, Wang Anyi has become more preoccupied with the intricate relationship between
fictionality and reality, as well as between individuality and historicity. Her novel Documentation
and Fabrication (Jishi yu xugou, 1993) is a representative work of her new literary experiment.
Published in 1995, the Song of Everlasting Sorrow can be read as a transitional work that bridges
Wang’s earlier realistic mode of storytelling and her later philosophical and metafictional explo-
rations. The novel won the Mao Dun literary award in 1995, and was later adapted into stage
play, film, and TV show.

The masterpiece: Song of Everlasting Sorrow

Not unlike Zhang Jie’s Wordless, Wang Anyi’s award-winning Song of Everlasting Sorrow can also
be read as a woman’s epic that spans China’s long twentieth century. With historical events
receding to the background, a woman’s everyday lifeworld takes the center stage with all its
mundane and seemingly trivial details. However, in terms of its overall style, Song of Everlasting
appears less avant-garde than Wordless. Rather than interweaving different temporalities and
subplots, the Song of Everlasting Sorrow provides a mostly linear narrative centered upon the life
story of a beautiful Shanghai lady, Wang Qiyao, from 1940s to 1980s.
The meticulous description of a woman’s urban experiences in Republican Shanghai in
the first half of the novel appears to follow the latest urban fashion of nostalgia for the “Old
Shanghai.” Zhang Ailing’s literary works set in Shanghai have regained phenomenal popularity
among urban-based middle-class readers since 1980s. Chen Danyan and Cheng Naishan, two
Shanghai-based women writers, published a series of fictional and non-fictional works celebrat-
ing Shanghai’s glamorous past with its cosmopolitan cultural taste.
In terms of the nostalgic yearning for the Old Shanghai, Wang Anyi is viewed as one of the
most orthodox successor of the Shanghai-style literature that touts Zhang Ailing as its God-
mother. However, her position in the Shanghai-style tradition is actually quite ambiguous.While
the bulk of Wang’s fictional works are set in Shanghai, she can also be viewed as an outsider of
this literary lineage, because “by birth and descent [she is] unable to claim insider status as an
authentic Shanghai bourgeois writer” (Ibid., 63). Wang’s parents were northern Communist
cadres delegated to south China on the demand of socialist revolution after the founding of
the PRC. This unique family background, combined with Wang’ coming-of-age experiences
in the Mao era, makes Wang’s distinct style and vision when it comes to represent Shanghai as
a heterogeneous historical site bustling with multilayered urban modernities. Keeping a critical
distance from other “Old Shanghai” writers, Wang Anyi has paid idiosyncratic attention to the
politics and poetics of everyday life and labor aesthetics that underscores the historical legacy of
Shanghai’s socialist past. Given Wang Anyi’s literary proclivity towards delineating the making
of everyday landscape “beyond the neon lights” (to borrow Hanchao Lu’s words) through aver-
age Shanghai urbanites’ honest labor and lived experience, it is not hard to understand why the
opening chapter of the Song of Everlasting Sorrow devotes elaborate descriptions to vernacular
Shanghai life.
The opening section of her novel captures a bird-eye view of Shanghai longtang, or back
alleys, the most typical life space of Shanghai urban dwellers: “The longtang are the backdrop of
this city. Streets and buildings emerge around them in a series of dots and lines, like the subtle

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brushstrokes that bring life to the empty expanses of white paper in a traditional Chinese
landscape painting. As day turns into night and the city lights up, these dots and lines begin to
glimmer. However, underneath the glitter lines lies an immense blanket of darkness – these are
the longtang of Shanghai.”10 In contrast to the cosmopolitan splendor and enchantment of the
Paris of the Orient as admired in nostalgic literary and media representations, the vast darkness
here becomes the focal point of Wang’s literary lens to draw readers’ attention to the eternal
everydayness that often goes unnoticed in the consumerist wave of “old Shanghai” nostalgia.
Only after establishing such a narrative focused on the gendered everydayness as the material
and spiritual core of the city, the writer introduces us to the female protagonist Wang Qiyao:
“Wang Qiyao is the typical daughter of the Shanghai longtang. Every morning, when the back
door squeaks open, that’s Wang Qiyao scurrying out with her book bag embroidered with
flowers. In the afternoon, when the phonograph plays next door, that’s Wang Qiyao humming
along with ‘Song of the Four Seasons.’ Those girls rushing off to the theater, that’s a whole
group of Wang Qiyaos going to see Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind” (22). Thanks to her
beauty of a typical next-door Shanghai longtang girl, Wang Qiyao wins the third place in the
Miss Shanghai beauty pageant and later becomes Director Li’s mistress. After Li, a high-ranking
bureaucrat in the Nationalist government, dies in a plane crash in 1949, Wang Qiyao develops
a second romantic liaison with Kang Mingxun, a young man from a bourgeois family who
cannot marry her either due to his parents’ objection. Wang insists on giving birth to their
illegitimate daughter and single-handedly raises her up. Having survived a series of political
campaigns including the Cultural Revolution, Wang Qiyao is unexpectedly strangled to death
by her daughter’s friend Long Legs who breaks in to steal her gold bars given by Director Li
several decades ago.
The seemingly melodramatic story about a former Miss Shanghai arouses readers’ curiosity
for the city’s legendary past. However, Wang Anyi is not satisfied with telling an Old Shanghai
story to cash in on the latest fashion of the “Old Shanghai” nostalgia. Rather, the novel contin-
ues her persistent reflections upon the relationship of gendered everydayness vs. media repre-
sentation and consumption, as well as the production of the city’s cultural identity through an
intersubjective labor aesthetics. The reflections on the entanglement between media consump-
tion and lived reality is best illustrated by Wang Qiyao’s film studio experience. As the center
of early Chinese film industry, Shanghai attracted many young girls who dreamed of becoming
film stars and enjoying a more thrilling lifestyle under the spotlight. However, the writer seems
determined to remove the mystical veil of the dream-making machine that has already “become
an important part of our everyday lives” (34).
At the beginning of Chapter Two, through her friend’s connection, Wang Qiyao pays a visit
to a film studio, which later leads to an opportunity of screen test. Rather than her long-awaited
chance encounters with film stars and shock experiences of the audiovisual splendor produced
by the modern cinematic apparatus, Wang’s first moment in the film studio actually is quite
banal and anti-romantic: the studio is chaotic, messy, “littered with wooden planks, discarded
cloth scraps, and chunks of broken bricks and tiles – it looked like a cross between a dump and
a construction site” (30). Later, Wang’s performance in a screen test is equally disappointing
because she lacks the charisma or dramatic appeal of a film star. Her beauty is not the femme
fatale type, but characterized by the non-threatening next-door girl charm, “to be admired by
close friends and relatives in her own living room, like the shifting moods of everyday life” (38).
During her studio visit, Wang happens to witness the shooting of a woman’s death scene in a
bedroom set, which surprisingly gives her a sense of déjà vu: “The strange thing was that this
scene did not appear terrifying or foreboding, only annoyingly familiar” (31). It is until the end
of the novel that readers are told that the scene shot in the studio actually is a pre-enactment

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of Wang’s murder four decades later, or put it another way, Wang’s death is re-enactment of the
filmed domestic scene.
Such an uncanny moment in this overall linear-structured novel complicates the conven-
tional view of art reflecting social reality as the boundary between media representation and
reality is nearly indistinguishable. Given the fact that Wang Anyi had got her inspiration from
reading a piece of gossipy tabloid about a former Miss Shanghai’s murder case, the novel’s ending
can be read a simulacrum of another simulacrum in an age of mass media. Moreover, the title
of the novel offers another inter-textual reference to Bai Juyi’s poem Song of Everlasting Sorrow
about Consort Yang, another legendary beauty in the Tang dynasty who was hanged for alleg-
edly leading Emperor Xuanzong of Tang astray and thus toppling the country. With an endless
chain of simulation, the only moment of authenticity is made possible by the constant en-
gendering of qing, which can be roughly translated as love, passion, affect, sentiments, or feelings.
However, this qing is not artificial romanticism copied from pages of sentimental novels “brim-
ming with luxuriant and gaudy language,” but should be gradually cultivated out of people’s
day-to-day experience and social intercourse (48).
In this light, we can understand why Wang Qiyao is viewed as the embodiment of the eternal
essence of Shanghai, not for her extraordinary beauty but her persevering affective labor, per-
formed day in and day out to forge and maintain intimate and honest interpersonal exchanges.
Such an intersubjective labor aesthetics is highlighted in the middle section of the novel set in
the Mao era. Instead of living off the gold bars that Director Li has given her as a farewell gift,
Wang Qiyao works as a nurse and lives a hand-to-mouth life. However, her austere lifestyle in
the Mao era is not depicted as particularly distressful. Rather, an intimate, nearly utopian, salon-
style small circle has been established around her: Madame Yan, a former factory owner’s wife;
Sasha, a frail, jobless young man of a Russian mother and Chinese father, and Kang Mingxun,
Madame Yan’s cousin. Thanks to their shady past or ambiguous associations with the bourgeois
“old Shanghai,” neither of the four can be recognized as legitimate members of the highly-
politicized community of revolutionary “comrades” prescribed by the rigid Maoist ideology
demarcating “people” and “class enemy.”
Exiled to the margins of the new socialist regime of the proletarian dictatorship, they fre-
quently get together to play mahjong or card games in Wang’s place. Although they are not a
family bound together by blood ties, Wang’s place appears to provide a homelike warmth in
Shanghai’s cold winter. In a way, this underground salon occupies an interstitial space straddling
public and private. As a result, their affective association and communal solidarity is neither
kinship-based patrilineal Confucian sociality nor Party-sanctioned socialist sociality, but is an
alternative everyday sociality shared by a small group of strangers who are glued together by the
hostess’ everyday practices described in a patient, minute, reverent, and nearly poetic manner.
On one occasion, to prepare for a dinner party of their small club, “Wang Qiyao bought a
chicken, saving the breast meat to be sliced and stir-fried. She used half of the rest to make soup,
and chopped the other half into bite-sized pieces to be parboiled and served cold with sauce as
an appetizer. . . .This was simple fare, making with no pretense of competing with the delicacies
served at the Yan household; yet, presented together, the dishes were elaborate enough to show
her respect for her guests” (181). A plethora of similar passages aestheticizes the most ordinary
circumstances of the quotidian life: it is not pretentious or wasteful, not intended to compete for
glory but to make best use of every bit of foodstuffs to fulfill everyday life’s needs and interactive
pleasures. Wang Qiyao’s careful management, down-to-earth attitude, and artful labor, through
Wang Anyi’s equally methodical narration, generates moments of authentic feelings, which serve
as the steady source of intersubjective bonding to help these social outcasts survive the most
tumultuous period in PRC history.

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Emphasizing the significance of female writing, Jill LeBihan contends that “Ecriture femi-
nine – ‘feminine writing’, or ‘writing the body’ as it has been variously termed – is the practice
associated with French feminism and a discourse concerned with subjectivity, sexuality and
language.”11 In the Song of Everlasting Sorrow, the ecriture feminine practiced by Wang Anyi is a dif-
ferent type of body writing, not about sensational consumption or explicit description of sex or
physical intimacy, but more on the gendered subject’s laboring body engaging in the production
of a lived space where affective associations are forged outside the restraints of state politics and
patriarchal family. Moreover, this intersubjective labor aesthetics also characterizes Wang Anyi’s
metafictional awareness, which manifests itself in the above-quoted description of the “blanket
of darkness”: it not only indicates the backdrop of the Shanghai romance, but also highlights the
narrative skills of the writer – only through accumulating seemingly trivial details, the writer,
not unlike a fastidious craftsman, is able to masterfully gather and weave together all the dan-
gling ends and broken threads of everyday fabrics. As a result, the texture of the spider web of
everydayness can be represented to and felt by the readers via the literary form.Through such an
accumulative writing process of patient storytelling and incremental additions, an intersubjec-
tive communicational network between the writer, the character and the reader is established.

Chi Li

Life and career

Chi Li was born in Hubei province in 1957. After a brief period of being “sent-down” to the
country during the closing years of the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), she returned to Wuhan,
the capital city of Hubei, and attended college there. Since 1979, Chi Li has published numerous
stories, novels and essays and become one of the most popular bestseller writers in China. In
1985, Chi Li married Lü Xiaoyun and later co-authored several works with him.Their marriage
ended up in a divorce in 2000, and Chi Li single-handedly raised their daughter.12 As a single
mother like Zhang Jie, Chi Li shares the senior writer’s unswerving concerns about women’s
gendered dilemmas in their marital lives. In an essay written in 1994, Chi Li talks about how
she was awestruck by the unprecedented portrayal of divorced women in Zhang Jie’s “The Ark”
when she first read the novella.13 Probably intended to be both a tribute and a parody of Zhang’s
groundbreaking fiction, Chi Li’s novella Good Morning, Miss creates a contemporary fairy tale
about the sisterhood of a group of divorced women who are allied against a newly rich man
who commits adultery.
As one of the most prolific women writers in contemporary China, Chi Li’s literary works
have also achieved great popularity. In 2003, she signed a contract with the Shiji Yingxiong Film
Corp to establish the “Chi Li Film and Television Workshop” and became a pioneering cultural
entrepreneur who transforms her literary creativity into profitable cultural commodities. She
was elected Vice Chair of Hubei Federation of Literary and Art Circles in 2007.

Literary achievements
Together with Fang Fang, He Dun, Liu Zhenyun and others, Chi Li is often categorized as a
writer of the neorealist fiction (xin xieshi zhuyi xiaoshuo). As indicated by its name, this type of
fictional works focus on the mundane lives of urban dwellers who aspire to join an emerging
middle class in contemporary Chinese society. In terms of style, the advent of neorealist fiction
is considered a literary reaction “against the avant-garde (xianfeng xiaoshuo) of the mid to late
1980s.”14 Neorealist writers abandon the 1980s’ avant-garde experiments with language and

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re-emphasize the readability of fictional works with a linear and logical narrative. Meanwhile,
neorealism also keeps a critical distance from the earlier dominant mode of socialist realism that
aims to penetrate the chaotic and “superficial” surface of reality to reveal the unquestionable
Real, or the ideological truth of a “historical movement toward a Communist utopia” through
casting typical characters (dianxing renwu) in typical situations (dianxing huanjing).15
Chi Li’s “Life Trilogy” (shenghuo sanbuqu) has been regarded as the representative works
of the neorealist fiction. The first installment “Troublesome life” (Fannao rensheng, 1987) de-
sublimates the revolutionary image of the working class by painting a realistic picture of their
domestic chores, mundane concerns, and everyday conflicts when post-Mao China transitions
from pursuing revolutionary modernity to capitalist modernity. The overwriting of grand ideals
by the materiality of paltry life events extends into “Talk Anything But love ” (Butan aiqing,
1988), the second installment that cast doubt on the utopian vision of the romantic love that
has been held as one of the highest humanist ideals by the May Fourth and the New Enlighten-
ment generations. In her 1990 story “Sunrise” (Taiyang chushi), the last installment of the “Life
Trilogy,” the maternal body is portrayed as the only thing tangible and reliable in an increasingly
commercialized world. Thus, all the conflicts and problems, trials and tribulations of the histori-
cal transition, as depicted in Chi Li’s “life trilogy,” are resolved not by a powerful state or social
movements, but by a maternal figure embedded firmly within a middle-class nuclear family.
Similar cultural imagination of a new middle-class domestic life in post-revolutionary China is
also prominent in To and Fro, the focus of analysis in the following section.

The masterpiece: To and Fro

Published first in October (Shiyue) in 1997, To and Fro is one of Chi Li’s most widely read novel-
las. It revolves around the metamorphosis of Kang Weiye, the male protagonist, from an ordinary
factory worker, reminiscent of Yin Jiahou in “Troublesome Life,” to a newly rich entrepreneur
as China transits from high socialism to high capitalism. Different from other literary works
centered upon China’s “economic reform and opening up” like Zhang Jie’s Leaden Wings, Chi Li
did not draw a panoramic picture of the reform and its profound social effects in broad strokes.
Rather, she chose to portray the unparalleled social transformation of post-Mao China by focus-
ing on one individual man’s several romantic relationships before and after his marriage at the
transitional moment.
Evading the grand narrative of a revolutionary utopia as the ultimate destination of social
progression, To and Fro is a representative neorealist fictional work that tends to accumulate
fragmented details of individual urbanites’ mundane lives and domestic affairs in a naturalistic
manner. The novel’s emphasis on the quotidian, the superficial, and the trivial leads to a more
individualized mode of writing that tends to depoliticize history with an emphasis on the idea
of everydayness as the eternal and the unchanging in the historical vicissitudes. The novella
starts during the closing years of the Cultural Revolution when Kang Weiye and Duan Lina,
our female protagonist, have their first date. From a privileged family of the high-ranking Party
cadre, Duan Lina looks demure, high-minded, and strong-willed, much like the image of “iron
girl” such as Li Tiemei in the model opera The Red Lantern (Hongdeng ji). Even their love letters
are filled with revolutionary slogans and quotations of Mao’s poems and essays. This revolution-
ary spirit has been extended into their marital life even when the Party ideology has already
left it behind during the reform era that re-directs the state agenda to attracting foreign capital
so as to boost a rapid economic development and to reintegrate China into the global capitalist
system. Born and brought up during the Maoist era, Duan is informed by the gender values
and moral code developed along the line of women’s liberation and revolutionary tradition. She

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prefers Maoist terms like “comrade ” (tongzhi) and “ the loved one” (airen) to the personal titles
of “madame” (taitai), the latter of which were always associated with the colonial modernity
of treaty ports such as Shanghai, and thus undesirable either for the May Fourth-style ‘New
Woman” or “de-gendered” Maoist subjects.16
After Kang Weiye, her husband, “plunges into the sea of business” with the expanding market
economy following Deng Xiaoping’s “southern inspection” in 1992, Duan continues to work in
the Municipal Women’s Federation of Wuhan. Duan’s work unit makes her more in alignment
of the socialist women’s liberation and thus a more typical target of Chi Li’s mocking of state
feminism and its model of revolutionary femininity, which has been illustrated by the woman
writer’s contrastive descriptions of various types of feminine details. With the acceleration of
market economy in the 1990s, Kang becomes a newly rich entrepreneur with transnational
capital. His new image is a perfect match of the cultural imaginary of China’s rising middle
class: “They wear name-brand suits, work in modern office buildings go abroad for holidays,
invest in the stock market, and send their children to study abroad.”17 By contrast, Duan fails to
adapt herself to such a high-quality middle-class life accompanying Kang’s career advancement.
Duan’s refusal “to subjugate herself to consumer culture” makes Kang conclude that his wife still
belongs to the Maoist generation who “has always been poor, is used to being poor, and is proud
of being poor.”18Thus, the middle-aged Duan is represented as an old-fashioned woman from
the past who fails to fit in the middle-class domestic order of the present. Her “internal poverty”
and lack of capacity to consume are transcoded into her lack of corporeal consumability.There-
fore, I coin the term “consum(er)ability” to refer to the corporeal consumability extracted and
transferred from the consumability of commodities, which is used as a measurement of feminine
qualities as displayed in everyday details of a middle-class domestic life.
In To and Fro graphic details are provided to depict Duan’s lack of consum(er)ability in the
eyes of her entrepreneur husband: “Her chest was no longer full and the skin of her neck was
flabby.” Furthermore, set in sharp contrast with the commodity aesthetics reified by her hus-
band’s Rolex watch, Montague leather belt and English air-cushion leather shoes, the blouse
Duan wears is “a mass-produced one without style” that erases her individual distinction from
the vast masses.19 As a result of her lack of consum(er)ability to be an individualized and sexual-
ized woman, Duan loses her husband to Lin Zhu, a younger woman who can speak fluent Eng-
lish and Cantonese, the two business languages at the onset of the reform era, can enjoy red wine
at a candlelight dinner, and knows how to enhance the sexual attraction of her eroticized body
with Chanel perfume and rose bud spa in a luxury hotel suite. While enjoying romantic passion
with Lin, now his mistress, Kang feels that he has reclaimed the ownership of his erotic fantasy
swept away during the Cultural Revolution. Obviously, this can be read as an explicit critique,
from the male perspective, of the de-sexualization of women during the Mao era.
Through comparing and contrasting the different “feminine details” of different genera-
tions growing up in the socialist revolution and post-revolutionary periods respectively, the
novella seems to suggest a re-education of the Maoist ‘iron girl” with new femininity codes that
embed the gendered self-development rhetoric firmly into the network of a global consum-
erist culture. Going along with this literary ambition of showcasing a new cultural imagina-
tion of post-revolutionary femininity, Chi’s trademark realism in depicting “feminine details”
runs throughout the novella. Quoting Rey Chow, Jason McGrath suggests that Chi Li’s use
of “feminine detail” renounces the master narratives (Enlightenment or revolution) of history
with its “engagement with an intractable daily reality.”20 However, I would like to point out that
rather than being pure, uncontaminated, unmediated, or apolitical, the “daily reality” with all
its “feminine details” is always already tinged with ideological forces of the bourgeois cultural
imaginary. Unlike Zhang Jie’s awareness of class division based mainly on differences in people’s

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educational attainments and social status, Chi Li’s female characters display their mastery of
certain class markers through their different degrees of familiarity with an emerging consumer
culture and its accompanying gender norms.Thus, a critical inspection of the fictional “feminine
details” under Chi’s pen reveals the ways in which the imagination of new models of femininity
engages and negotiates with a discursive interplay of legacy of state feminism, a global consumer
culture, and emerging middle-class domesticity.

Conclusion
The three novels by three leading women writers in contemporary China have provided critical
reflections on the Maoist state feminism, and explored an alternative gendered version differ-
ent from the official his-story. Meanwhile, at the turn of the new millennium when China has
quickly metamorphosed into a consumer-oriented economy and media-saturated society, these
women writers also explore different engagements with global consumerism and mediated real-
ity. While Chi Li appears to be the most enthusiastic among the three, to embrace the newly
acquired autonomy and pleasures of consumption of an emerging Chinese middle class, Wang
Anyi put her emphasis on intersubjective labor aesthetics that not only constructs the female
subjectivity in the text, but also indicates her metafictional contemplation on the writer’s act of
accumulating a plethora of everyday details to seek an alternative vision of gendered history. In
comparison, Zhang Jie shows a fundamental distrust of human language and literary writing as
valid communicational tools. Throughout her Wordless, the emphasis is put exclusively on the
failure of communication and the uselessness of feminine writing that is bound by an androcen-
tric linguistic system and cultural establishment, which appears to be the most radical feminist
critique of the still largely patriarchal Chinese society.

Notes
1 Lydia H. Liu, “Invention and Intervention: The Making of a Female Tradition in Modern Chinese Lit-
erature,” in Susan Brownell and Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, eds., Chinese Femininities/Chinese Masculinities:
A Reader (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 150.
2 Li Ziyun, “The Vanguard Role of Women Writers in Contemporary Literature,” (Nü zuojia zai dangdai
wenxue zhong de xiangfeng zuoyong) Dangdai zuojia pinglun (1986: 6), 30.
3 W. Lawrence Newman, East Asian Societies (Ann Arbor: Association for Asian Studies, Inc., 2014), 73.
4 Joshua Zeitz, “Rejecting the Center: Radical Grassroots Politics in the 1970s-Second-Wave Feminism
as a Case Study,” Journal of Contemporary History (2008), vol. 43, no. 4, 678–679.
5 Chris Berry, “Chinese ’Women’s Cinema’: Introduction,” Camera Obscura (1988), vol. 18, 6.
6 Zhang Jie, Wordless (Beijing: Beijing shiyue wenyi chubanshe, 2002). My analysis of this work is based
on a close reading of the 2002 edition.
7 Lydia H. Liu, “Invention and Intervention,” 156.
8 Sue Thornham, “Second Wave Feminism,” in Sarah Gamble, ed., The Routledge Companion to Feminism
and Postfeminism (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), 41.
9 “Wang Anyi Wins 2017 Newman Prize for Chinese Literature,” www.ou.edu/uschina/newman/
home.html. Accessed November 3, 2016.
10 Wang Anyi, Song of Everlasting Sorrow, trans. Michael Berry and Susan Chan Egan (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2008), 3.
11 Jill LeBihan, “Feminism and Literature,” in Sarah Gamble, ed., The Routledge Companion to Feminism and
Postfeminism (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), 134.
12 Kunze Rui, “Chi Li,” in Thomas Moran and Ye (Dianna) Xu, eds., Chinese Fiction Writers, 1950–2000:
Dictionary of Literature Biography, vol. 370 (Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2013), 47–53.
13 Chi Li, “Dare Not to Cry Together with You – To Zhang Jie” (Bugan yu ni tongku – Zhi Zhang Jie),
in Anthology of Chi Li’s Works (Chi Li Wenji) (Nanjing: Jiangsu wenyi chuban she, 1995), vol. 4,
108–112.

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 Hui Faye Xiao

14 Jason McGrath, Postsocialist Modernity: Chinese Cinema, Literature, and Criticism in the Market Age (Stan-
ford: Stanford University Press, 2008), 62.
15 Jason McGrath, Postsocialist Modernity: Chinese Cinema, Literature, and Criticism in the Market Age (Stan-
ford: Stanford University Press, 2008), 83.
16 Wang Zheng, Women in the Chinese Enlightenment: Oral and Textual Histories (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1999), 20.
17 Li Chunling, “Characterizing China’s Middle Class: Heterogeneous Composition and Multiple Identi-
ties,” in Cheng Li, ed., China’s Emerging Middle Class: Beyond Economic Transformation (Washington, DC:
Brookings Institution Press, 2010), 141.
18 Jie Lu, “Cultural Invention and Cultural Intervention: Reading Chinese Urban Fiction of the Nine-
ties,” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture (2001), vol. 13, no. 1, 126, 129.
19 Chi Li, To and Fro (excerpts). trans. Wang Mingjie. Chinese Literature. (1999:4), 28–29.
20 McGrath, Postsocialist Modernity, 67.

Further readings
Gong, Haomin. “Constructing a Neorealist Reality: Petty Urbanites, Mundaneness, and Chi Li’s Fiction.”
In Gong, Uneven Modernity: Literature, Film, and Intellectual Discourse in Postsocialist China. Honolulu:
University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2012, 57–84.
Lu, Hongwei. “TV Romance and Popular Cultural Mood: The Chi Li Phenomenon.” The China Review
6.1 (Spring 2006): 125–152.
Wang, Ban. “Love at Last Sight: Nostalgia, Commodity, and Temporailty in Wang Anyi’s Song of Unending
Sorrow.” Positions: East Asia Cultures Critiques 10.3 (Winter 2002): 669–694.
Xiao, Hui Faye. “Utopia or Distopia? The Sisterhood of Divorced Women.” In Xiao, Family Revolution:
Marital Strife in Contemporary Chinese Literature and Visual Culture. Seattle and London: University of
Washington Press, 2014, 85–115.
Zhang, Xudong. “Shanghai Nostalgia: Postrevolutionary Allegories in Wang Anyi’s Literary Production in
the 1990s.” Positions: East Asia Cultures Critiques 8.2 (Fall 2000): 349–387.

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 SECTION XIII

Postmodern realism
 42
MO YAN’S FICTION
Human existence beyond good and evil
Tonglu Li

Life and career

Mo Yan (b. 1955), one of the most proliferate fiction writers in contemporary China, has so
far published over 10 novels, about 30 novellas, more than 80 short stories, and numerous
essays. Born into a family of landlord class in Gaomi County, Shandong province in northern
China, Mo Yan experienced hunger, exclusion, and solitude during his childhood. Meanwhile,
he indulged himself in observing the natural world of the countryside, listening to folktales that
are full of ghosts and foxes, and extensive reading in classical and socialist literature. In 1966,
when the Cultural Revolution started, he dropped out of school when all schools were closed.
He then started to work as a farmer in the People’s commune and then a worker until 1976. As
a young farmer, he herded sheep for the production team. These life experiences became the
inexhaustible resources and inspirations for his literary creation. The life-changing event is his
joining the People’s Liberation Army in 1976. Later on he was admitted to the Army’s art insti-
tute in 1984 on the strength of publishing a short story “Folk Music.” In 1986, Mo Yan became
nationally renowned with the publication of Red Sorghum (Hong gaoliang jiazu), a novel con-
sisted of five novellas with a theme on “the retrogression of modern civilized man comparing to
their Dionysian ancestors.” From 1988 to 1991, Mo Yan attended Beijing Normal University’s
graduate program for writers and received an MA.While studying there he finished The Republic
of Wine (Jiuguo, 1992), a critique of metaphorical cannibalism through surrealistic imaginations.
In 1995, Mo Yan published an important novel Big Breasts and Wide Hips (Fengru feitun)1 to
commemorate his deceased mother, yet soon he was criticized for its extensive sexual content
and unconventional depiction of history. In 1997 Mo Yan left the army and joined The Procurato-
rial Daily, during which he published Red Woods (Hong shulin, 1999), Sandalwood Death (Tanxi-
ang xing, 2001), POW! (Sishiyi pao, 2003), and Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out (Shengsi pilao,
2006). The publication of Sandalwood Death marks Mo Yan’s conscious return to China’s native
traditions. It tells the story of Sun Bing, troupe leader and performer at the local Cat Tune (mao-
qiang) opera house. He once lived a peaceful yet “decadent” life with his daughter but ultimately
joins the Boxers against the Germans. POW! is exclusively dedicated to the rural reform in the
1990s, particularly to its diabolical consequences. Contrary to the official account of “reform
and opening up” as the greatest social transformation in Chinese history, POW! depicts the
era as a violent world reigned by people’s insatiable desires. In 2007, Mo Yan started working

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for the National Academy of Arts, and published another important novel Frog (Wa, 2009). It
demonstrates the ways in which the peasants’ cultural memory endorses their resistance to the
state one-child policy, and the ways in which such a repressed memory is revitalized in a quasi-
religious form in the era of market economy. Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize in literature in 2012
as a writer “who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary.”2
Since then Mo Yan has not published any significant works.

Literary achievements
As a writer, Mo Yan has provided a unique vision in his novels for readers to reexamine the
turbulent history of the 20th century China. He covers significant historical events as the Boxer
Rebellion, the Sino-Japanese war, the Land Reform, the Cultural Revolution, the post-Mao
Reform, and the one-child campaign. As “a subverting voice”3 to the official narratives on the
Communist revolution, in which individuals are regarded as merely building blocks to sacrifice
themselves unconditionally for the grand projects of nation-building and national salvation, his
works exhibit a tendency of new historicism. In this new historicism, history is understood as
dystopic and violent from the perspective of a commoner (mostly a peasant).4 Equally impor-
tant, he also questions the elite view of history based on the May Fourth enlightenment view,
which perceives the peasantry as backward or even barbaric. He then focuses on the misery and
struggle of the ordinary individuals from countryside, celebrating their “beyond good and evil”
life experiences, such as the violent, the irrational, the superstitious, the affective, and the spir-
itual. These experiences have been denied expression in the official and elite versions of history
on behalf of revolution or science. Mo Yan constructed a fictional hometown, the Northeastern
Township in Gaomi County as his concentrated site to accommodate his historical narrations.
His creation is under the influence of two foreign writers’ works. One of them is William
Falkner, who created the Yoknapatawpha County. Nevertheless, his fictional world is far from
being “objective.” Inspired by Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude he was able
to rediscover the value of the native stories of ghosts and fox spirits, from which he has drawn
both inspiration and narrative resources and created a hallucinatory version of magical realism
in his historical narrative.5
A ubiquitous dimension in world literature, religion is uncommonly present in modern
Chinese literature. In Mo Yan’s works, however, there are often heavy religious presence, such as
Christianity (Big Breasts and Wide Hips), Buddhism (Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out), and folk
beliefs (Red Sorghum, Sandalwood Death, POW!, and Frog). As a hero resisting colonial invasion
and government oppression with the assistance of the deities he summons with magic, Sun Bing
in Sandalwood Death could have escaped with the beggars’ assistance after being captured. How-
ever, he chooses to die by enduring a level of pain that lesser men could not bear. His choice is
made because he believes that to be made into a hero-deity, he has to pass “as the path of saints
and martyrs”6 the test of torture and death. Therefore, the punishment ensures his becoming
part of the people’s eternal memory. Life and Death uses the Buddhist concept of reincarnation
to follow two families during the second half of the 20th century. Ximen Nao, a benevolent
landlord, is killed during the 1948 land reform. Persistently seeking justice from the underworld
king Yama, he is reincarnated into a series of animals before being reborn as a human being.
Ximen Nao’s innermost agony abides in his failure to understand his death. He believes that
he is an innocent casualty in an unprecedented tragedy. Over time, however, he realizes that he
did not extend the benevolence he showed his tenants to his own family. Though filled with
much anguish, reincarnation offers the soul a chance to rehabilitate itself through reflection and
confession.7

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Thus, being condemned as “the opium of the people”8 or the agent for imperialist invasion
in modern China, religion in Mo Yan’s novels acquires new meaning. Mo Yan has to defend
himself for including the numerous disturbing, graphic scenes of dismembering of human body,
unbearable punishment, and shedding of blood, arguing that it is a form of cultural criticism.
Religion not only adds to the hallucinatory effects, but also forms a critical space in which the
denial of historical violence – the violence occasioned by war, famine, and political struggles, as
well as the cultural codes that legitimate the daily use of violence – becomes possible. Against
the historical violence, religion provides another possible way of life. In the religious space he
constructs, individuals are able to communicate directly with the transcendental to imagine the
meaning of life and to pursue a spiritual life beyond the hegemonic discourses of revolution and
secular modernity, which in practice lead to the endless historical violence.

Masterpiece: Big Breasts and Wide Hips

Violence and the human condition

Mo Yan’s critique of historical violence is exemplified in his Big Breasts and Wide Hips, which Mo
Yan regards as the only “must read” book to understand him.9 In this novel covering the chaos
of the whole 20th century, violence becomes the norm and spreads across the full spectrum of
human society, sparing no race, class, age or gender. It even extends to the animal world. It tells
of a nurturing common rural mother Shangguan Lu (maiden name Lu Xuan’er) and her nine
children. Unable to give birth to a son, she has a status lower than their donkey in the family,
and is forced to have sex with different people. As “a searing vision of rural China,”10 the novel
covers her suffering during the Boxer movement (1900), the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–
1945) and the Civil War between the Nationalists and Communists (1946–1949). It provides
detailed descriptions of her struggle during the political calamities and famines in the socialist
period (1949–1976), and with unique acuity, it also traces the monstrous neoliberal development
of economy since the 1980s.
In the novel, there is not a moment that passes without destruction of life. History to the
mother is nothing but a violent intrusion, a force that pushes humanity back to the realm of
the beasts. From a Marxist perspective, the blood in which the novel steeps might be just “the
form in which the motive force of historical development presents itself.”11 In this interpretive
scheme, violence is the “necessary evil” whose operation opens the path to human emancipa-
tion. Here, however, much less room is given to the discussion about what violence means to
the numerous individual lives sacrificing themselves.To the mother, the great social events mean
only one thing, which is the ultimate cause of her and her children’s suffering. In her whole
life, as an indispensable part of the human condition violence only changes in form, with dif-
ferent people ceaselessly trading the roles of aggressor and victim. This is not to deny that all
perpetrators of violence act in specific contexts, harming specific people for a specific purpose.
However, from the individual victim’s perspective, no matter what its rationale, violence has the
same effect on their body and soul.
In this novel, Mo Yan constructs a world in which no violent act is inherently more right-
eous than another: the conventional line of distinction between “evil” and “righteous” violence
becomes harder and harder to draw. For example, the mother’s only son Jintong (“golden boy”)
survived from her difficult labor thanks to a Japanese military doctor. Meanwhile, the violence
inflicted by the Communists in name of justice and revolution is presented as equally cruel, as
shown in the case the two young children of the counterrevolutionary Sima Ku (Second Sis-
ter’s husband) are executed during the land reform of late 1940s. When Lu Liren (Fifth Sister’s

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husband) is ordered by the mysterious VIP (representing higher authority in the revolutionary
camp) to carry out the execution, he rationalizes in the following way: “By executing Sima Ku’s
children, we avoid taking the wrong path. On the surface, we’ll be executing two children. And
yet it’s not children we’ll be executing, but a reactionary, backward social system. We will be
executing two symbols!”12 In the political contexts of class struggle, symbols are more important
than human life. People are taught to believe that it is mandatory to defend the symbolic at the
cost of their lives for their ultimate emancipation in the future.Yet, as the novel shows, this view
is eventually bankrupt when the promised emancipation is indefinitely deferred or displaced by
more violence. Nevertheless, it also portrayed violence in a politically (if not morally) neutral
way: no matter who inflicts violence on innocent people and for what excuses, their actions are
equally evil.
Mo Yan’s juxtaposition of mundane and cataclysmic violence continually underscores the
nearness of death in the life of the mother. In a realistic sense, the “progress” of history in the
whole 20th century is also the process of the mother’s losing struggle against historical violence.
Throughout the novel, she experiences different forms of atrocities. These include torture and
humiliation in daily life, brutal wars, great famine, and endless political struggles – all of which
could reduce her to the state of an animal whose only concern is survival by whatever means.
The mother’s mother-in-law even holds her animal counterpart, the donkey, in higher esteem
than her. As she explains, the latter contributes significantly in farming, while the former has
repeatedly failed to give birth to a son. Such a failure debases the mother in her family’s eyes.
Abuse she suffers at the hands of her impotent husband and her malicious mother-in-law (She
later kills the latter to save her child) dramatizes her lowly status within the family.
The novel’s violent tone is set at the beginning with intensified scenes of concurrent agony.
The mother suffers from severe complications while giving birth to Jintong. At the same time,
her family’s donkey is itself in the throes of labor. The life-and-death situation is intensified by
the simultaneous Japanese invasion of the village. At this point, Mo Yan also juxtaposes a scene in
which villager Aunty Sun chases and kills a rooster.The scenes bring to mind similar events from
Xiao Hong’s (1911–1942) Field of Life and Death (Shengsi chang, 1935), which Lydia Liu praised
for the way they contested a nationalistic, phallocentric view of women and their bodies.13 Liu’s
analysis certainly inspires one to re-evaluate the hegemonic national discourse that surrounds
women’s bodies in China. Motherhood, as represented in the novel, however, relates to issues of
gender, but does not limit itself to them.
The challenge for the suffering individual is not to eradicate or to avoid violence, but to
endure it. The novel inspires us to go beyond moral condemnation and understand violence as
“universally generative” in the production of meaning. It demarcates an arena in which humans
have to respond, and in which they may have the chance to enrich humanity. With the myriad
attacks that befall her, the mother figure is a metonym for countless victims of similar violence.
Yet she endeavors to live on no matter what crime she has to commit. She resorts to murder,
theft, and adultery, but is never subsumed to the violent logic of history. Therefore, the humili-
ated and powerless mother becomes the very symbol of human resistance to senselessness and
inhumanity. Meanwhile, in a bloody milieu, all people, especially commoners like the mother,
need to live their lives and seek enough spiritual strength to survive. Through their different
responses, they demonstrate the richness of their subjective world, expand their search for mean-
ing, and testify to the indestructibility of human dignity. Thus, the various forms of historical
violence that dominate the novel can be understood as constitutive elements of the suffering
characters’ inner worlds.
To some extent, the novel marks Mo Yan’s shift from an anthropological approach (which
he deployed in Red Sorghum) to a philosophical-religious one. The former is related to the

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roots-seeking literature of the 1980s, whose exponents tried to reestablish their cultural roots
and regain “national vitality” outside of dominant political discourses.The latter is, on one hand,
a way to bid farewell to the official historiography, and on the other a form of new historicism.
This new perspective provides a point from which Mo Yan can broaden his critique of violence,
moving from commentary on particular violent acts to philosophical reflection on all forms of
historical violence.

The quotidian and the corporeal

The novel disturbs some readers with its focus on this radically nontraditional mother figure.
Because she becomes deeply involved in acts of murder, theft and adultery, she is sometimes
said to profane the traditional image of motherhood. To improve her chances of bearing a son,
all seven of her girls receive names that carry the connotation “expecting a brother.” She also
prays to all sorts of the otherworldly spirits, but in vain. Desperate to be impregnated one more
time, she even sleeps around with different men. This crew includes a peddler, a quack doctor,
a butcher, a Buddhist monk, and a Christian missionary. However, it excludes the uncle-in-
law who is the real father of her first two daughters. Also excluded are the four soldiers who
gang rape her, one of whom unwittingly fathers her seventh daughter. Such a brutally debased
mother figure is unprecedented in modern Chinese literature. Even the most grievously humili-
ated mother figures, such as the mother-slave in Rou Shi’s short story A Slave Mother (Wei
nuli de muqin, 1930) and the film Goddess (Shennü, 1934), would not be associated with such
extreme descriptions of moral impurity.
Though it drew criticism for the sordid way it portrayed a maternal figure, the novel was
intended as a eulogy for the author’s late mother14and for the divinity of motherhood in general.
It persistently challenges the Confucian idea that a mother is permanently “stained” when she
is unchaste or violent. For one thing, such “stains” need to be covered up by her children. For
another, women’s chastity is traditionally conceived of as more important than their life. Para-
doxically, however, her unethical affairs are motivated by the Confucian ethical obligation: pro-
ducing a male heir for the Shangguan family. To Mo Yan, exposing the “stains” is the mother’s
only route to authentic divinity. For divinity is not a natural trait in the mother’s personality, but
a quality honed by the devastating, life-endangering experiences. Therefore, the divinity of the
mother first needs to be understood from a secular perspective. It is rooted in her bodily suffer-
ing, and growth as the result of her unique responses to historical violence. It is manifested in the
way she negates the absurd reality, as well as the way she affirms a secular way of life. Here Mo
Yan raises a topic that has been repressed in the symbolic order: the spiritual aspect of individual
life. He played a dialectical game to argue that the “fallen” and “decadent,” the “humiliated” and
“filthy,” is the very embodiment of the most divine, generative and protecting spirit of mother-
hood. That spirit prevents her from becoming schizophrenic or psychotic. What we observe as
contradictions in her conduct come not from the split of the psyche itself, but from her strug-
gle with the external forces beyond her control. She possesses a strong, indomitable psyche that
withstands all varieties of harm.
The mother’s instinctive nurturance, tolerance, and love, endow her with “divine” qualities of
a saint despite her lack of ties to institutional religions. She has given birth to seven girls before
giving birth to a son, and she unselfishly nurtures them all by any available means. Motherhood
is represented with two body parts of the mother: while “wide hips” indicates the superior
capability of reproduction, “big breasts” is the symbol of nurturance. In the novel, the numer-
ous detailed description of the Mother’s breasts becomes the central trope for the origin of life.
This does not mean, however, that she can always protect them from harm. One is executed for

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accidentally killing her husband; one is shot in a battle and sees her young children killed by
the revolutionaries; one goes insane after her lover is sent to Japan as a coolie; one becomes a
prostitute to save her entire family; one commits suicide during the Cultural Revolution; one
cannot bear hunger and dies from overeating. Finally, one who is blind by birth kills herself to
save food for others.
To some extent, the daughters come into the world as the “extended body” of their mother,
appendages whose brutal severance causes her immediate and lasting pain. Observing their suf-
fering adds another layer to transform her suffering into psychological and spiritual torture. No
matter what their political orientation is, or whether they even claim one, their life unavoidably
becomes the concentrated site of naked violence. This violence is often exercised by their hus-
bands, frequently portrayed as the agents of political antagonism. As a result, the mother gives
birth to all these lives and sacrifices everything to make sure their survival, but ultimately she is
unable to protect them and has to leave them to the hands of historical violence. Nevertheless,
carrying on “the glorious tradition of Shangguan women, with big breasts and wide hips,”15
these women altogether demonstrated the indestructible power of life against the historical
violence.
Her only son Jintong turns out to be a total failure, socially speaking. As the fruit of a tryst
with her only true love, the Swedish Pastor Malory, he is the child whose passage into the world
she cares for most scrupulously; he is also the one she has to take care of for the rest of her life.
As a “bastard” by blood, he can fit neither physically nor psychologically into Chinese culture.
He is addicted to breastfeeding and refuses regular food. He is also symbiotically attached to his
mother, finding in her breasts his sole consolation. Deng Xiaomang provides a stark psychoana-
lytical interpretation of Jintong, arguing that, there is a “Jintong” obsessed with the breasts in
every Chinese man’s mind.16 Despite his obsession, Jintong must take his historical responsibili-
ties as a man. He knows that his brothers-in-law expect him to join in their bloody games, or
at the very least protect and support his family. However, he refuses to do so. For that reason, he
contributes to the mother’s suffering the longest and deepest.
Paradoxically, Jintong is also the most filial and considerate of her children. He is simply an
outsider to the events of history, one who refuses to be offered as a sacrifice to the meaningless
historical, masculine world with his failure and refusal to engage. In this sense, he is similar to
Jia Baoyu in Dreams of the Red Chamber (Honglou meng, 1791), who escapes from the outside
world into the circle of women, thereby redefining life and masculinity. Success means overcom-
ing; failure means being the one who is overcome. Jintong is in a non-engaging position; he
fails socially even as he excels spiritually. If the mother’s daughters duplicate and intensify her
physical and psychological suffering, this apparently useless son adds to the mother’s suffering
an existential dimension.
Jintong’s fixation on his mother’s breasts contributes to his sexual and social impotency and
uselessness. He never reaches mature manhood, and he lacks the masculinity that his bandit
brother-in-law Sima Ku attains. As the role model mother sets for Jintong, Sima Ku resembles
Yu Zhan’ao (“my grandfather”), a character in Red Sorghum. In the early work, Mo Yan laments
the regression of the Chinese race, calling for a return to masculinity (unconstrained desire for
freedom, the Dionysian vitality and passion, and physical and mental strength for action, etc.) as
a way to forestall it. In writing Big Breasts and Wide Hips, instead of using gender hierarchy as a
national-cultural allegory, Mo Yan is more concerned with the uselessness of Jintong. To some
extent, Jintong is the novel’s still center – the secure vantage point from which the lives of other
characters are viewed. He lives in a time of violence, but in a Daoist twist, his very “useless-
ness” spares him any engagement with it. His unsuitability for battle or family life allows him
to stay alive and observe ruthless acts with detachment. As their ultimate victim, he seems to be

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oblivious to any external threat, yet sensitive enough to act as an omniscient narrator. For him,
being a total loser is the only way to maintain his humanity and avoid harming others. A more
ostensible winner might commit numberless atrocities. Jintong’s social failure mirrors the ten-
sion between the ruthless world and his benevolent mother. The mother’s care for him in spite
of this failure makes her an embodiment of maternal divinity.
Through the mother’s doomed struggle, the novel frees the meaning of motherhood from
the nation-state centered grand narrative that has dominated the concept since modern times.
The mother figure in modern literary works, as Sally Taylor Lieberman argues, is a “crucial
sign profoundly and intricately implicated in the discursive battles of China’s modern period,
battles fought in the names of modernity, nationhood, and revolution.”17 In these discourses,
which weave a grand narrative of historical progress, Lieberman categorizes a number of differ-
ent maternal figures. Among them are the idealized mother, the father’s second woman who is
the object of the son’s oedipal love, the mother as the symbol of national humiliation, and the
mother as the fomenter of revolution. Each inevitably serves an ideological agenda somehow
related to national salvation or nation-building. Literary creation of motherhood in modern
China is redirected to serve the “sublime object” of nationalism from the outset. Such a nation-
alist image of motherhood fits the Western conception of the Third World literature as “national
allegory,” as well as the self-conception of many Chinese. Some scholars argue that, “female
fecundity becomes more significant in Fengru feitun only when channeled into the nationalist
contest with the foreign Other.”18 To extend this statement, we can speculate that all such work
that features a mother figure allegorizes the mother’s body as the national body.
Yet the irreducible corporeal experiences, particularly the suffering of the mother as an
individual human being are repressed in the creation of the mother figure comparable to the
national, the modern, and the revolutionary. Suffering and humiliation of the mother has to be
abstracted, and the dark, filthy details have to be purged. Only sanitized by “tears and blood,”
as Zheng Zhenduo (1898–1958) puts it, can redemption be granted. Mo Yan’s mother figure
largely resembles the traditional image of the mother figure in her capacity for nurturance,
tolerance and forgiveness. It also fits the modern re-imagining of women that began with the
May Fourth movement, whose members portrayed women as having been humiliated and
insulted. However, dissociating her from the nationalist discourses and with so many morally and
politically questionable acts, Mo Yan’s divine mother figure contests the traditional sublimity of
motherhood. It is in this sense that Mo Yan’s creation of the impure mother figure is regarded as
a scandal, a profanation of motherhood that traumatized readers upon its publication.19

Mother’s religious conversion

What deviates from traditional notions of motherhood in Big Breasts and Wide Hips is the turn
toward religious belief. Bringing up the issue of religion itself allows the author to question the
nation-centered secular version of modernity that emphasizes scientific, rational, and progressive
ways of thinking. How to come to terms with suffering is a subject of importance in politics
and religion. The enlightenment and revolutionary literature of the 1920s and 1930s uses suf-
fering, especially women’s suffering as an ideological and political trope to legitimize change
to the existing social order. The agenda of this kind of literature can be epitomized by Mao’s
well-known call to revolution, “Where there is oppression, there is resistance.” Furthermore,
by underwriting various forms of violence, modern secular doctrines failed to support people
spiritually. For their victims, grand narratives failed to assuage a sense of inner emptiness. The
mother is one of the millions who harbor this kind of internal void. As the modern approach
does not permit the mother to rationalize her suffering, she must seek meaning outside the

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realm of historical struggle. When she has a sense of the transcendental to hold her up, her sor-
rows grow more bearable. There has to be a meaning, a purpose for life beyond suffering, and
there has to be a way to express it. In this alienated world, religious belief – in this novel, Chris-
tianity – provides a transcendental element. From it, she gains the agency to face the historical
violence, as well as a spiritual home. This is why, despite witnessing various political events, she
is never motivated to join or please any side.
Although repressed in the discourse of secular modernity, religion was once central to daily
life, especially for women. Mo Yan’s mother figure is not commonly seen, but it can be traced
back to the Daoist, Buddhist and cult-originated conceptions of motherhood in pre-modern
China. According to the Daoist philosopher Laozi, the mother must be regarded as the funda-
mental generative force in nature, and her power is that of a mythic valley spirit.20 Motherhood,
then, represents the enormously deep, subtle and invisible power to give birth to all things in
the world. For Laozi, the mother stands for the ultimate creator of the world. In the Buddhist
tradition, Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (Guanyin) exudes maternal compassion, eternally ready
to save innumerable living beings.21 While Confucianism was the major target of criticism in
modern Chinese literature, a few intellectuals also paid attention to the bias against women in
Buddhism. For in Buddhism, life itself is a cycle of suffering, but women suffer more because
of their physical inferiority to men. In Mo Yan’s novel, as a human being, the mother figure is
concerned only with a tiny corner of the human world, her family. The power of her compas-
sion extends no further than the sum of her efforts to protect it.
Why does the mother convert to Christianity, a foreign religion widely different from a tra-
ditional faith? In a way, the mother might have drawn resources from the aforementioned native
beliefs for her spiritual journey. As an individual experiencing endless suffering, she directly
negotiates the meaning of her life in terms of the transcendental, and eventually acquires divin-
ity in a Christian sense. Historically, Christianity has played a complicated role in modern
China and been viewed in mostly negative light by the ordinary people like the Boxers and
May Fourth intellectuals. In nationalist, colonialist, imperialist discourses, Christianity is often
negatively portrayed by chroniclers of social practice. In terms of this general intellectual trend,
Mo Yan’s novel may be seen as abandoning China’s cultural subjectivity and identifying with the
hegemony of a Western colonial power.
However, Big Breasts and Wide Hips offers another perspective to perceive Christianity. It is
not dictated to or imposed upon the mother, as it is not presented to her as the one universal
truth. Put in the larger context of modern Chinese intellectual history, Christianity in this novel
represents a space different from the secular materialist world of desires and bloodshed, a buffer
zone, and an escape. The mother is physically and morally impure for sleeping with so many
men, including a “foreign devil.” She is also politically problematic for her empathy with her
bandit son-in-law. At the historical moment, when the traditional beliefs (Confucianism, Bud-
dhism, and Daoism) do not work for saving a sullied woman like her, Christianity occupies this
cultural void to provide the possible hope for her to seek enlightenment, dignity and the mean-
ing of life. To the mother, Christianity functions as a last resort for the helpless, and the ultimate
home for the homeless souls toiling in the meaningless, barren world. Here Mo Yan seems to be
going back to classical Marxism, rather than following its Sinicized version. A humane mother
and devoted guardian of her children, her conversion is a choice out of no choices. Therefore,
although divinity is rooted in her secular conduct of nurturing and protecting her children, she
turns, perhaps involuntarily, to the transcendental domain as an alternative when the secular
political beliefs fail to provide a meaning for her life.
Thus, we can turn the question, “What does Christianity mean to China?” to “What does
Christianity mean to the hopeless mother?” To the mother, Christianity is not a predestined,

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singular hope for her salvation, or the teleological goal of her spiritual search, but a faith that
happens to be present and works for her as an alternative and potent spiritual space. Only in
this spiritual space, can she rediscover herself and enjoy herself as a woman, wife, and Mother.
Of course, Christianity is not the only cultural institution that endorses the individual quest for
divinity.The way the mother protects her children can still be explained in Confucian humanist
terms. The problem is that, due to its hierarchical nature, practiced Confucianism has become
the instrument of her tormenters, who use it to enforce gender inequality. In this sense, Mo Yan
inherited the May Fourth’s critical attitude toward Confucianism. Buddhism does not work for
her either. The novel also describes her relationship with a Buddhist monk. Though the monk
fathers one of her children, he dares not take responsibility when she seeks help. It turns out
that there is no room for her to gain salvation in her native culture. Christianity as a doctrine
ostracized by her fellow Chinese offers an alternative space for her redemption.
Basing myself on the above analysis, I may conclude that in Big Breasts and Wide Hips, Chris-
tianity is less an agent of cultural invasion or universal salvation than a private, psychological
space. This space is concretely built with what Pastor Malory represents to the local community,
and how he communicates with the local people, and, how he interacts with the mother. Pas-
tor Malory, a physical and cultural outsider, brings hope for the desperate mother in an illicit
way. He has a dubious clerical background, and does not have much institutional endorsement
from the church of his home country, Sweden.22 Rather, his presence forms a direct contrast
to another foreign figure, American citizen Babbitt (Sixth Sister’s husband), who, helping with
China’s resistance to the Japanese during the time, brings modern technology such as film
and paragliding with a condescending attitude. Malory comes to the mother’s village and stays
there, living a rootless isolated life. However, to the desperate mother, his affair with her is not
an offense. Nor is it the symbolic invasion of the national body by a “foreign devil.” Instead, it
affords her a chance to be reborn as a human being. Rather than being culturally contaminated,
she is humanely transformed.
Her conversion process and her affair with Pastor Malory are the rare poetic moments in the
narration of the bloody reality. After being severely tortured by her parents-in-law and husband,
she gives up the hope to survive. Suddenly, she hears the church bell: “Although the bell was
rung daily, on this day it seemed to be talking to her, the enchanting peal of bronze on bronze
stirring her soul and sending ripples through her heart. Why haven’t I heard that sound before?
What was stopping up my ears? As she pondered this change, the pain racking her body slowly
went away.” Pastor Malory’s preach and his words “I have been waiting for you for a very long
time” sound to her as though she eventually found her ultimate home. In the ensuing descrip-
tion of their affair, the author borrows from “Song of Solomon” and creates a moment when the
sacred and sensual merges.23 Therefore, to some extent, the mother is also a savior, insofar as she
helps him to enjoy secular family life. Through Christianity, they have saved each other. It is at
this moment that the boundary between races and between the secular and the religious blurs.
Yet for all the years, she conceals her faith and love until the 1990s, when her life finally ends.
Eventually, after a century of struggle, she dies a graceful death, coming home to God and the
spirit of her departed lover.

Coda: resistance and beyond

For the Mother, the meaning of life mostly relates to the meaning of suffering.With Christianity,
she finds a refuge and a lover, though the latter is taken away from her by local soldiers. She has
to carry on with the child he left her. As a victim of historical violence, she acquires an unshak-
able faith that supports her through otherwise unbearable years. She finds reasons to continue a

577
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life that has little to do with political ends or personal loyalty. As her private creed, Christianity
inspires the mother to value non-violent resistance. Facing lifelong suffering, she endures and
shows forbearance. Rather than “an opiate for the people” in the Marxist view, religion offers
her an alternative to suffering and inspires her for the ultimate good. No matter how desper-
ate she is, she never yields to oppression, never begs for mercy, and never pleases the powerful.
Silently but persistently, she manages to survive until all the victimizers fall from power and
take their turns as victims. She may not fit into the traditional image of a good mother, but she
nonetheless has the strength to stand up to a senseless world. Second, although she could not
protect her children against the ravages of historical violence, she brings them to the world, cares
about them, and is always awaiting their return, no matter which political actor they side with.
As such, fecundity retains its meaning independent of nationalist considerations, embodying her
faith in higher human principles. With her unalterable faith, she refuses to conceive of her life
as a mere instance of “trauma.”
The creation of such a divine (yet impure) mother figure pursuing the transcendental in
Christianity reflects the author’s attitude towards enlightenment, modernization, and revolu-
tion. The mother’s existence reveals a need for the transcendental realm that has been down-
played since the May Fourth enlightenment era. Nevertheless, the novel should not be read as a
theological allegory about Chinese or human redemption in a literal religious sense. Instead, it
should be taken as a story that gives voice to marginalized people like the mother. The progress
of history perhaps can never be less violent, and there is no alternative to it. But the individu-
als who suffer and sacrifice through these processes deserve more attention. Highlighting the
suffering of individuals is at the core of Mo Yan’s proposal to go “back to the people” and to
write a “people’s history.” History has been viewed as a process with a telos, but for Mo Yan,
this teleological trajectory should be subverted. Being subversive is not merely to overturn the
political centeredness of history, but to historicize the multiple ways people make sense of their
life against history in a philosophical-theological sense.

Notes
1 The English version differs in many details from the Chinese original which itself underwent sig-
nificant revisions. See Mo Yan, Big Breasts and Wide Hips, trans. Howard Goldblatt (New York: Arcade,
2012). Citations of the novel are from the English version unless otherwise noted.
2 Nobel Media A.B., “The Nobel Prize in Literature 2012,”2014, Nobelprize.org, www.nobelprize.org/
nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2012/. Accessed January 10, 2017.
3 See Shelley W. Chan, A Subversive Voice in China:The Fictional World of Mo Yan (Amherst and New York:
Cambria Press, 2011).
4 Mo Yan, “Writing as a Commoner,” (Zuowei laobaixing xiezuo) in Yang Yang, ed., Research Materials on
Mo Yan (Mo Yan yanjiu ziliao) (Tianjin: Tianjin renmin chubanshe, 2005), 61–69.
5 For a detailed discussion, see M. Thomas Inge, “A Literary Genealogy: Faulkner, García Márquez, and
Mo Yan,” Moravian Journal of Literature and Film (Spring 2014), vol. 5, no. 1, 5–12.
6 Nancy Scheper-Hughes, “Sacred Wounds: Making Sense of Violence,” Theater Symposium (1999), vol. 7,
26.
7 For detailed analysis of these two novels, see Li Tonglu, “Exploring the Cultural Memory of the Com-
mon People: Desire, Violence, and Divinity in Mo Yan’s Sandalwood Death (2001),” Concentric: Literary
and Cultural Studies (2016), vol. 42, no. 1, 25–48. “Trauma, Play, Memory: Life and Death Are Wearing Me
Out and Mo Yan’s Strategies for Writing History as Story,” Frontiers of Literary Studies in China (2015),
vol. 9, no. 2, 235–258.
8 Karl Marx, Marx on Religion, ed. John Raines (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002), 171.
9 Mo Yan, New Dialogues (Mo Yan duihua xinlu) (Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 2010), 106.
10 Howard Goldblatt, “A Mutually Rewarding yet Uneasy and Sometimes Fragile Relationship between
Author and Translator,” in Angelica Duran, and Yuhan Huang, eds., Mo Yan in Context: Nobel Laureate
and Global Storyteller (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2014), 29.

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 Mo Yan’s fiction

11 Friedrich Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical German Philosophy (New York: Interna-
tional Publishers, 1996), 37.
12 Mo Yan, Big Breasts and Wide Hips, 293–294.
13 Lydia H. Liu, Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity – China, 1900–
1937 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 199–213. Tani Barlow made similar observations in
her discussion on Ding Ling’s “When I was in Xia Village.” See her The Question of Women in Chinese
Feminism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004), 190–252.
14 Mo Yan, New Dialogues, 93–94.
15 Mo Yan, Big Breasts and Wide Hips, 135.
16 Deng, Xiaomang, “Maniac Obsession with the Breasts,” in Research Materials on Mo Yan, 257–269.
17 Sally Taylor Lieberman, The Mother and Narrative Politics in Modern China (Charlottesville: University
Press of Virginia, 1998), 4.
18 Cai Rong, “Problematizing the Foreign Other: Mother, Father, and the Bastard in Mo Yan’s ‘Large
Breasts and Full Hips’,” Modern China (January 2003), vol. 29, no. 1, 137.
19 Besides the political and ideological considerations, Confucianism also works as a religion in people’s
everyday life. Confucius discussed what upright is with the following comments: “The father conceals
the misconduct of the son, and the son conceals the misconduct of the father. Uprightness is to be
found in this.” See Tu Wei-ming, Centrality and Commonality: An Essay on Confucian Religiousness (Albany,
NY: SUNY Press, 1989), 137.
20 Theodore De Bary and Irene Bloom comps., Sources of Chinese Tradition, vol. 1 (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1999), 82.
21 A male Bodhisattva in India, Avalokiteshvara is transformed into the female figure “Guanyin” during
the Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127). For details, see Barbara E. Reed, “The Gender Symbolism
of Kuan-yin Bodhisattva,” in Jose Ignacio Cabezon, eds., Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender (Albany, NY:
SUNY Press, 1992), 159–180.
22 For a historical account of the Swedish missionary activities in China, see Yin Jianping, “Swedish Mis-
sionaries in China (1847–1949),” World History 2000, vol. 5, 96–103. According to Mo Yan, Swedish and
Norwegian missionaries entered the Gaomi area since 1894 and had exerted a deep influence on local
people’s life. See Mo Yan, Duihua xinlu, 94.
23 Mo Yan, Big Breasts and Wide Hips, 74–75.

Further readings
Chan, Shelley W. A Subversive Voice in China:The Fictional World of Mo Yan. Amherst and New York: Cambria
Press, 2011.
Choy, Howard Y. F. “Banditry and Bastardy: Mo Yan’s Family Romances in Shandong.” In Choy, Remapping
the Past: Fictions of History in Deng’s China, 1979–1997. Leiden: Brill, 2008, 44–63.
Duke, Michael. “Past, Present, and Future in Mo Yan’s Fiction of the 1980s.” In Ellen Widmer and David
Wang, eds. From May Fourth to June Fourth: Fiction and Film in Twentiety-Century China. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1993, 295–326.
Duran, Angelica and Yuhan Huang, eds. Mo Yan in Context: Nobel Laureate and Global Storyteller. West Lafay-
ette: Purdue University Press, 2014.
Inge, Thomas M. “Mo Yan and William Faulkner: Influence and Confluence.” The Faulkner Journal 6.1
(1990): 15–24.
Lieberman, Sally Taylor. The Mother and Narrative Politics in Modern China. Charlottesville: University Press
of Virginia, 1998.
Riemenschnitter, Andrea. “Mo Yan.” In Thomas Moran and Ye (Dianna) Xu, eds. Chinese Fiction Writers,
1950–2000. Dictionary of Literature Biography, vol. 370. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2013, 179–194.
Wang, David Der-wei. “The Literary World of Mo Yan.” World Literature Today 74.3 (Summer 2000):
487–494.

579
 43
GAO XINGJIAN AND
SOUL MOUNTAIN
Carolyn FitzGerald

Life and career

Gao Xingjian (1940–) is an émigré writer of fiction and drama, translator, painter, film and stage
director, and critic. In 2000, he was the first author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature
on the basis of a body of works written in Chinese. According to the Swedish Academy, Gao
was awarded the prize for “an oeuvre of universal validity, bitter insights and linguistic ingenu-
ity, which has opened new paths for the Chinese novel and drama.”1 Born in Ganzhou, Jiangxi,
Gao extensively read translated literature from the West during his youth, and studied sketch, ink
and wash painting, oil painting, and clay sculpture. Having graduated with a degree in French
Literature from Beijing Foreign Studies University in 1962, he began writing fiction and essays
while also working as a translator for the French edition of China Reconstructs. Following the
outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, Gao burned a suitcase full of his manuscripts for
fear he would be denounced for his writings. Nonetheless, he was still sent to be reeducated in
Anhui during the Down to the Countryside Movement. At this time, he continued to write in
secret and buried his works underground to protect himself. When he won the Nobel Prize,
Gao recalled that, “it was only during this period [the Cultural Revolution], when literature
became utterly impossible, that I came to comprehend why it was so essential.”2
After the ending of the Cultural Revolution, Gao published short stories, essays, and dra-
mas in literary magazines and several books, including A Preliminary Exploration of Modern
Fictional Techniques (Xiandai xiaoshuo jiqiao chutan), A Pigeon Called Red Beak (You zhi gezi
jiao hong chun’r), Collected Plays of Gao Xingjian (Gao Xingjian juzuo xuan), and In Search of a
Modern Form of Dramatic Representation (Dui yi zhong xiandai xiju de zhuiqiu). He also wrote
and directed plays for the Beijing People’s Art Theater, where his works pioneered a new
experimental dramatic form, inspired by Brecht, Artaud, and Beckett. Although Gao’s plays
were enthusiastically received by audiences in Beijing, government officials were critical of his
embrace of modernism. In particular, Bus Stop (Che zhan) was singled out by Chinese officials
during the 1983 Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign as “the most pernicious text written since
the creation of the People’s Republic.”3 In an effort to avoid government harassment and
regain better health after a misdiagnosis of lung cancer in 1983, Gao left Beijing and began a
5-month trek along the Yangtze River, a journey he later described in his novel Soul Mountain
(Lingshan).

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 Gao Xingjian and Soul Mountain

In 1987, Gao Xingjian traveled to Germany on a German government writer’s fellowship,

and subsequently applied for permanent residency in France. After publicly condemning the
1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square, Gao resigned his membership from the Communist Party,
and his works have been banned in mainland China since 1990. Despite his self-exile in France,
this period of Gao’s career has been very prolific. In addition to publishing Soul Mountain in
1990, Gao wrote the novel One Man’s Bible (Yi ge ren de shengjing) and published many short
stories, dramas, and essays. His ink paintings have been featured in over 50 international exhibits,
and he has created three films, The Silhouette/Shadow (La Silhouette Sinon l’Ombre), After the
Flood (Après le déluge), and Requiem for Beauty (La Deuil de la Beauté).

Literary achievements
One of Gao’s greatest contributions to Chinese literature and drama lies in his innovative use
of language, which draws extensively from modern, premodern, Chinese, and Western literary
traditions. As Leo Ou-fan Lee comments, Soul Mountain is characterized by “a rich fictional lan-
guage filled with vernacular speeches and elegant wenyan (classical) formulations as well as dia-
lects, thus constituting a ‘heteroglossic’ tapestry of sounds and rhythms that can indeed be read
aloud (as Gao himself has done in his public readings).”4 In order to uncover what he himself
has referred to as an “uncontaminated” form of the Chinese language, Gao researched oral folk
literary traditions, various local dialects, and the works of premodern vernacular fiction writers,
including Feng Menglong, Jin Shengtan, Pu Songling, Shi Nai’an, Cao Xueqin, and Liu E. In his
essay “Without Isms” (Mei you zhuyi), Gao describes his formal experiments with the unique
characteristics of Chinese as an uninflected language:

Pronoun subjects and temporal states in Chinese have fewer restrictions than in West-
ern languages, so there is enormous flexibility when describing the activities of the
human consciousness. . . . In my search for a modern language that would more pre-
cisely express modern man’s rich feelings and perceptions, I wrote novellas and short
stories one after another. It was not until I wrote the story “Buying a Fishing Rod
for My Grandfather” that I began to understand that in Chinese, reality, memory
and imagination are manifested in the eternal present, which transcends grammatical
concepts and hence constitutes a time-transcending flow of language. For thoughts
and perceptions, consciousness and the subconscious, narration, dialogue and solilo-
quy, and even the alienated consciousness of the self, I turn to tranquil contemplation
rather than adopting the psychological or sematic analysis of Western fiction, and unity
is achieved through the linear flow of language. This sort of narrative language has
directed the form and structure of my novel Soul Mountain.5

Indeed, in his works Gao creates a fluid “flow of language,” which shifts seamlessly between
past and present and different narrative positions.Yet even though Gao’s writings draw from the
unique aspects of the Chinese language and are inspired by traditional Chinese literature and
thought, he was influenced as well by Western modernism and “stream-of-consciousness” nar-
ration. In particular, Gao claims to have been inspired by writers, such as Chekov, Joyce, Kafka,
Proust, Tolstoy, and nouveau roman authors.
In addition to his fictional works, Gao has written a significant body of literary criticism
about his experiments “in search for a modern language.” He has selected what he views as the
most important of these writings in two English-language volumes: The Case for Literature and
Aesthetics and Creation. In these essays, Gao discusses his theories on fiction, drama, and visual arts,

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and his efforts to express the voice of the individual. Through these writings, Gao has not only
created “new paths for the Chinese novel and drama,” but also made important contributions to
theoretical discussions about modern aesthetics in both Chinese and world literature.

The masterpiece
Gao Xingjian’s 563-page novel Soul Mountain is a fictionalized autobiography and account of
his five-month trek, wandering across 15,000 kilometers of the Chinese hinterland along the
Yangtze River. After beginning the novel in 1982, he spent seven years completing the hand-
written manuscript, which he took with him to Europe upon emigrating from China in 1987.
When the Swedish Academy awarded the Nobel Prize to Gao Xingjian, they described the
“great novel Soul Mountain” as one of those “singular literary creations that seem impossible to
compare with anything but themselves.”6 Indeed, Gao’s novel is highly unique, and its 81 chap-
ters contain a disparate mixture of stream-of-consciousness monologues, ethnographic writings,
journalistic reportage, folklore, ecological commentary, historical accounts, and other traditional
and modern forms.
In the opening chapter, Gao’s narrator discusses his journey in search of Lingshan (Soul
Mountain), a place he hears about from a fellow passenger on a train. Traveling eastward toward
the East China Sea through southern Sichuan, Guizhou, and Hunan, the narrator meets various
ethnic minority people, archeologists, and forest rangers, and describes the stories they share
with him and scenery he sees along the way. Marian Galik notes that ancient texts, such as A
Great Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Chinese Geographical Names (Zhongguo gujin diming da
cidian), Classic of the Mountains and Seas (Shanhai jing), and Annotated Water Classic (Shuijing
zhu) contain references to places named Lingshan, and “to reach one of them, if they really
exist (some of them are mythological) would not be difficult when using the transportation
means of our days.”7 Nonetheless, in many ways Gao’s book is more about a spiritual quest,
paralleling the narrator’s observation that Lingshan is where “Buddha enlightened the Venerable
Mahakashyapa” (5).8 As such, Galik concludes that Gao’s Lingshan is in fact “a product of his
imagination, a place of inner and socio-political freedom, of spiritual communion with equally
free human beings, men and women, our countrymen, foreigners and strangers.”9 In a speech
given at City University of Hong Kong, Gao described Soul Mountain as a novel about both an
“actual journey” and “a spiritual journey”:

Soul Mountain has many real characters and authentic depictions, but is, ultimately, a
novel. It is about my actual journey, but it’s also a spiritual journey. It is also a recording
of the private dialogue between “you” and “I.” In Soul Mountain I realized that plot is
not the only foundation for the novel. It can be other things, such as life. In this case,
I used my heart and consciousness as the basis for the novel. The book is not plot-
oriented, but based on the inner world of the author. Rather than plots and incidents,
my heart is its basic structure. That’s why it doesn’t really fit into any category as a
novel. In fact, there is no such novel in the history of literature.10

Pronouns and the divided self

According to Gao, a disinterest in plot is more generally a distinguishing feature of modern fic-
tion. In place of the focus on the omnipotent narrator in premodern literature, there has instead
grown an increased concern with how the narrator narrates. In keeping with this view, Gao’s
narrator in Soul Mountain often self-consciously discusses his process of narration, referring to

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the novel as a “lengthy soliloquy” in which the self is analyzed from divergent deictic perspec-
tives by “I,” “you,” and “he” narrators (312). Gao claims that through such experimentation,
he sought to “observe the psychological levels of human language” since “human awareness
of language begins with pronouns.”11 In Mabel Lee’s essay “Pronouns as Protagonists: On Gao
Xingjian’s Theories of Narration,” she writes that “these pronoun protagonists without faces
dissect the author’s self, subjecting its various facets to the scrutiny of the author and the reader,”
and constitute the novel’s “most radical experiment in artistic expression.”12
In the first thirty chapters of Soul Mountain, “I” and “you” narrators alternate. Whereas odd
numbered chapters are recounted by “you” narrators and feature interior monologues and
stream-of-consciousness narration, even numbered chapters are told by “I” narrators and con-
tain more realist depictions of the narrator’s journey and the people and places he encounters.
In Gao’s words, the first-person narrator travels in the “real world,” while “you” is “making a
magical journey of the imagination” in search of the allegorical mountain of the soul (Ibid.). In
chapter 72, Gao for the first time employs a third-person “he” narrator who is depicted as the
implied author of the novel. Gary Xu observes that “through these three characters, represented
by three pronouns, we are given three perspectives from which we can read, see, and dissect
Gao Xingjian the autobiographer, the wanderer, and the author,” adding that these three voices
create a “strange yet fascinating dynamic, feeding off, supporting, or criticizing each other.”13 In
chapter 52, Gao describes the interrelationship between the different pronouns used in his novel:

You know that I am just talking to myself to alleviate my loneliness.You know that this
loneliness of mine is incurable, that no-one can save me and that I can only talk with
myself as the partner of my conversation.
In this lengthy soliloquy, you are the object of what I relate, a myself who listens
intently to me – you are simply my shadow.
As I listen to myself and you, I let you create a she, because you are like me and also
cannot bear the loneliness and have to find a partner for your conversation. . . .
Like me, you wander wherever you like. As the distance increases, there is a con-
verging of the two until unavoidably you and I merge and are inseparable. At this point
there is a need to step back and to create space. That space is he. He is the back of you
after you have turned around and left me.
(312–13)

Through utilizing shifting pronouns, Gao’s narrator is able to gain a new understanding of
the self by viewing it as a bystander. As Gao commented in his Nobel lecture, “The portrayal
of one character by using different pronouns creates a sense of distance from the character. It
also provides actors on a stage with a broader psychological space, so I have introduced chang-
ing pronouns into my drama too.”14 In the above passage, distance is depicted between “you”
and “I,” which subsequently makes possible the creation of “he,” the story’s implied author. In
addition, the narrator creates a “she” in order to alleviate his loneliness. In his essay “The Art of
Fiction” (Xiaoshuo de yishu), Gao comments that “she” represents a “composite female image”
or “variations on the female” whom the narrator has encountered in his lifetime.15 According to
Mabel Lee, the creation of such an unnamed “she” similarly gives the author “immense freedom
to explore his own past relationships, particularly with women, and his own past.”16
In addition to examining the self and his past from a variety of perspectives, Gao succeeds
in engaging the reader on different levels through his use of shifting pronouns. In “The Art of
Fiction,” Gao discusses “the magic of the second-person pronoun.”17 Commenting on nouveau
roman writer Michel Butor’s use of a second-person narrator, he points out that the “you”

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narrator elicits greater participation on the part of the reader since “you” could refer to either
the protagonist or the reader (Ibid.). At times, Gao uses the second-person pronoun to directly
address the reader. For example, at the end of chapter 72, which contains reflections on the
meaning and process of writing fiction, the narrator comments, “reading this chapter is optional,
but as you’ve read it, you’ve read it” (455). Similarly, some of Gao’s plays, such as Wild Man (Ye
ren), contain segments of dialogue that directly address the audience in second-person. Remi-
niscent of Gao’s breaking of the fourth wall in drama, his use of “you” to address the reader and
his depiction of shifting pronouns add a dramatic and performative element to his writing.
While Gao’s treatment of pronouns has ties to drama, Kwok-Kan Tam argues that it is linked
as well to traditional Chinese philosophy, in particular Daoist thought, which views language
as setting limits on perception. Citing Gao’s desire to attain freedom from the “prison house of
language,” Tam argues that through his use of interchangeable pronouns, Gao seeks to “free the
speaking subject.”18 Indeed, by switching subject positions, Gao’s narrator is imbued with tre-
mendous flexibility to move between narrating his actual and spiritual journeys, as he intermin-
gles thoughts, dreams, memories, discussions, and reflections. Likewise, Gao himself understands
his formal experimentation in the context of Daoist thought. Arguing that Daoism and Chan
Buddhism “embody the purest spirit of Chinese culture” through their “play with language,” he
encourages “recapturing this spirit in the modern Chinese language.”19
However, in response to Tam’s analysis, Gary Xu critiques Tam for “emphasizing the ‘univer-
sal’ or ‘transcendental’ elements in Gao Xingjian’s switching of pronouns” and for constructing
an essentialized view of Chineseness.20 Rather than showing transcendence, Xu argues that
Gao’s deployment of shifting pronouns reflects the “desperation of someone trapped in lan-
guage” (Ibid., 106). Although the narrator yearns for freedom, he is constantly harangued by
different voices in his mind and finds himself locked in endless discussions with the self. Using
the metaphor of a net to describe language, Gao’s narrator finds himself “entangled in floating
strands of language, like a silkworm spitting out silk, weaving a net for [himself], wrapping [him-
self] in thicker and thicker darkness. . . . ” (351). Moreover, the narrator finds himself trapped
by the weight of the self and comments that “whenever I observed other people I found this
detestable omniscient self of mine interfering, and to this day there is not one face it hasn’t
interfered with” (151).
Nonetheless, despite the narrator’s frustration with such an omnipresent self, Gao insists that
the writing and reading of literature is an inherently solitary experience, or rather “an affair for
the individual.”21 As such, he uses singular pronouns since he views the fiction writer as some-
one who speaks on behalf of the individual, rather than any collective. Describing his reluctance
to use the pronoun “we,” Gao’s narrator comments, “As soon as I refer to we I am immediately
uncertain, how many of me are in fact implicated. . . . There is nothing more false than this we”
(313). Eschewing such a false “we,” Gao seeks to move away from various “isms” and any politi-
cal or utilitarian function for literature. In “The Art of Fiction,” Gao discusses his experimenta-
tion with narrative viewpoint as a tool to better portray sentiment rather than “abstract theory”:

My novel Soul Mountain . . . . broke through conventional patterns and molds for fic-
tion yet tenaciously defended the narration and retained a firm control on the nar-
rative viewpoint of the characters simply by fragmenting the protagonist into three
different pronouns. . . . Man’s cognition of the external world and other people can
never be divorced from a subjective viewpoint. The world and human events inher-
ently lack meaning: meaning is conferred by human cognition.The difference between
the narration of the novelist and the commentaries of the philosopher lies in the lat-
ter’s direct reliance on thought, whereas the novelist’s cognition of persons and events

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cannot bypass the characters that have been created: it is through their eyes that the
characters’ real perceptions are brought forth. The thoughts embedded in the novel
must be revealed through the experiences of the characters, otherwise they will be
nothing more than propaganda or preaching. And what is even more interesting is that
the thoughts articulated in the novel must, through a character’s experiences, transform
feelings into a thought process that is tinged with the protagonist’s sentiments, and it
is in this way that the novelist presents the thinking of living people and not abstract
theories.22

Through his deployment of interchangeable pronouns, Gao ostensibly seeks greater freedom
from the dictates of ideology and “abstract theory,” just as he also searches for more flexibility in
narration. His formal experimentation with shifting deictic perspectives thus reflects his ambiva-
lent relationship to language and the self. Although Gao’s narrator longs for Daoist freedom
from the “prison house of language” and the ubiquitous self, he nonetheless willingly entraps
himself in a cocoon of language and organizes his entire novel around examining the self. Yet,
in doing so, he firmly grounds the novel in the narrator’s subjective perceptions, and rejects the
dogma of any politicized theory.

Fiction as literary criticism

In addition to holding conversations with different aspects of the self, Gao’s narrator converses
with an imaginary critic. In chapter 72, the critic rebukes the writing self and claims that his
work “isn’t a novel,” and he doesn’t “even understand what fiction is,” given that his writing
is “all fragments without any sequence” (452). In response, Gao’s protagonist defends his style
of writing and the novel’s loose form without any definitive plot or clear beginning and end.
Asking whether “fiction can be written without conforming to the method which is common
knowledge,” the protagonist states, “It would just be like a story, with parts told from beginning
to end and parts from end to beginning, parts with a beginning and no ending. . . . ” (496–97).
Without answering the protagonist’s questions, the critic proceeds to find fault with his use of
pronouns. “These pronouns of yours, even if they are characters, don’t have clear images, they
are hardly described,” he complains and adds, “Do you really think the petulant exchanges
between these pronouns can replace the personalities of characters?” However, when asked by
the writing self for a definition of fiction, the critic is unable to respond and simply redoubles
his critique of the novel by attaching labels, “This is modernist, it’s imitating the West but fall-
ing short” (453).
While Soul Mountain’s plot is loosely centered around the protagonist’s journey in search
of Soul Mountain, it is in many ways a novel about the process of writing, which interrogates
the meaning of fiction and its own form, as well as the psyche of the writing self. As Gary Xu
notes, the novel “is first and foremost a ‘metafiction,’ a fiction about the writing of a fiction.”23
According to Gao, he began writing the novel in 1982 after publishing A Preliminary Explora-
tion of Fictional Techniques the previous year. In his essay, “Literature and Metaphysics: About Soul
Mountain” (Wenxue yu xuanxue guanyu Lingshan), Gao recalls how the book stirred up a debate
about modernism versus realism, but also helped him to secure a book contract. In the sum-
mer of 1982, after his collection of essays on fiction technique was published, an editor asked
him to write a novel to show “whether the things [he] had proposed for fiction were actually
possible.”24 Eventually, after Gao completed the manuscript in Paris, he did not send it back to
the publisher for fear of getting him in trouble. Nonetheless, his recollections about the process
of writing are noteworthy in that he initially envisioned the novel not simply as a record of his

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journey, but rather as a formal experimentation intended to realize his theories about fiction
writing.
Although the style of Gao’s novel is in many ways Westernized and modernist, at the same
time it draws heavily from traditional culture, a topic that Gao’s protagonist discusses with the
critic. Defending the novel’s loose form to the critic, the protagonist argues that classical Chinese
fiction also lacks “any fixed models.” Next, he proceeds to give a list of premodern modes of
fiction writing characterized by loose form, including gazetteers of the Warring States period,
chuanqi romances, prompt books of the Song dynasty, the episodic novels and belles-lettres of
the Ming and Qing dynasties, morality tales, and miscellaneous records of strange events (453).
Indeed, Soul Mountain draws from a diverse array of traditional forms. According to Gao, some
classical forms found in his novel include: “records of scenery and geography, records of people
and the supernatural, chuanqi romances, historical tales, episodic novels, biji jottings, and miscel-
laneous records.”25
In chapter 48, the narrator announces that he wants to tell a Qing dynasty biji tale (anec-
dotal essay), a form in classical literature comprised of anecdotes, quotations, random musings,
philological speculations, and literary criticism. The narrator then proceeds to tell a story about
a powerful Grand Marshall who lived during the Jin dynasty and a beautiful nun who comes
begging for alms.The Grand Marshall secretly watches the nun while she is bathing and sees her
use a pair of scissors to take out her intestines and wash them in the tub before replacing them.
The Marshall is standing in the hall waiting for her when she emerges from her bath, and he asks
her about her self-dissection. She answers that she wanted to show him how he would have his
belly cut and intestines removed if he were to attempt to usurp the throne. The Marshall, who
had been planning to overtake the ruler is disappointed, but decides to remain a loyal minister
(283–84). Reflecting on the story’s meaning, the narrator comments that it could be understood
as a political warning, a morality tale to warn against lechery and encourage self-introspection,
or a religious tale to persuade people to convert to Buddhism. Alternately, he claims it could be
“developed with numerous intricate and complex theories,” depending “on how the storyteller
tells it (284–85).
Rather than trying to promote a particular political or moral message, Gao’s narrator draws
attention to the instability of the story’s meaning and to the power of the storyteller to shape
such meaning. Moreover, he asserts that his primary reason for telling the story is just the joy
of doing so. Although the narrator comments that “a great deal of textual research, examining
historical texts and old books, could be carried out,” what appeals to him is actually “the superb
purity of the story” (285).Yet, despite this claim, simply telling the story is not sufficient for the
narrator, as he repeatedly stops and reflects on his style of writing, the function and definition
of fiction, the author’s role in society, and the meaning of tradition in contemporary society.
In “Literature and Metaphysics,” Gao elaborates in greater detail on his vision of the author’s
role in society. According to him, the responsibility of Chinese writers is to “develop the poten-
tial of the [Chinese] language, so that it will more fully express the experiences of modern
people.”26 As such, his “rationale for writing Soul Mountain” was to “demonstrate that there was
greater space in the language for creativity” (Ibid.). The narrator of his novel similarly muses
about his search for a language to adequately express his experiences and emotions:

How is it possible to find a clear pure language with an indestructible sound which
is larger than a melody, transcends limitations of phrases and sentences, does not distin-
guish between subject and object, transcends pronouns, discards logic, simply sprawls,
and is not bound by images, metaphors, associations or symbols? Will it be able to give
expression to the sufferings of life and the fear of death, distress and joy, loneliness and

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consolation, perplexity and expectation, hesitation and resolve, weakness and courage,
jealousy and remorse. . . .
(351)

In his effort to find such a “clear pure language,” the narrator not only transcends grammati-
cal “limitations of phrases and sentences,” but also crosses various generic boundaries. At times,
he draws from musical imagery when he attempts to find a “melody.” Similarly, in his essay
“The Modern,” Gao comments that “writing is foremost a search for the music of language,”
and “once the language with the right charm and rhythm has been found, the sentences to be
recorded or written become audible, like musical phrases. . . . ”27 In other instances, Gao’s nar-
rator uses metaphors drawn from visual art and observes that “language is like a blob of paste
which can only be broken up by sentences” (351).
However, despite his yearning to transcend boundaries in search of self-expression, the nar-
rator encounters many difficulties in doing so. In one scene, the narrator has trouble writing
about his past when he finds that all he has are “memories, hazy, intangible, dreamlike memories,
which are impossible to articulate.” Even when he “tries to relate them, there are only sentences,
the dregs left from the filter of linguistic structures” (329). As previously noted, the narrator also
finds himself trapped in language “like a silkworm, weaving a net.” Similarly, in other passages,
the narrator uses the metaphor of language as a net. After embarking on his journey, the narrator
writes that he has “extricated [himself] from the bustling literary world” and his room where
“oppressive and stifling” books are “piled everywhere” (12). According to the narrator, these
books “expounded all sorts of truths,” but only leave him “enmeshed in the net of those truths.”
Additionally,Thomas Moran points out that Gao’s protagonist finds that “nature is beyond rhet-
oric,”28 as becomes evident in one scene when the protagonist hikes through a mountain forest
and finds that the “lust to express which keeps tormenting [him], in the presence of this awe-
some splendor, is stripped of words” (59).
Although he views literature as artifice and is repeatedly stymied in his efforts to write about
his experiences, the narrator still devotes himself wholeheartedly to his literary endeavors. “You
have only the desire to narrate, to use a language transcending cause and effect, or logic,” the
narrator explains. “People have spoken so much nonsense, so why shouldn’t you say more?” he
rhetorically asks (350). Gao’s narrator thus pokes fun at the writing self and discourses on the
limitations of language, even as he tirelessly explores new ways to deploy the Chinese language
to write about his experiences, in particular the experience of producing literature.

Soul mountain as ecoliterature

Despite the formally experimental nature of Gao’s metafictional novel, he also uses very precise
and scientific terminology when describing natural scenery that he traverses through, particu-
larly in the “I” chapters. In his essay “Lost in the Woods: Nature in Soul Mountain,” Moran
includes a partial list of animals and plants named in Gao’s novel: common crane; black-necked
crane; Manchurian crane; house sparrow; magpie; Hwamei, cuckoo; tit, snowcock; bar-headed
goose; golden pheasant; myna; Qi snake (agkistordon acustus); pallas pit viper; giant panda; bear;
golden monkey; south China tiger; panther; masked civet; muntjac; serow; coypu; ermine; giant
salamander; maple; linden; Chinese hemlock; dragon spruce; ginkgo; plum; metasequoia; white
oak; sweet gum; tamarack; Chinese torreya tree; cold arrow bamboo; red bayberry; alpine azalea;
catalpa; Kudzu; actinidia vine; goldthread; winter jasmine; and eucommia (Ibid., 214).
Writing in 2002, Moran comments that “the detail of Gao’s ornithological and botanical
taxonomy” diverges from other contemporary Chinese writers in whose works, “the natural

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environment is hushed into a mere setting for the cultural imaginary” (Ibid.). Nonetheless,
Moran notes that very little has been written about the representation of nature in Gao’s works
or more generally in Chinese literature.29 Moran’s observations about such a dearth of literary
criticism dealing with Chinese nature literature are less applicable today, given that increased
concerns over global warming and the environment have helped to spur a growth in ecocriti-
cism, a field of literary criticism defined by Cheryll Glotfelty in The Ecocriticism Reader as the
“study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment.”30 Recently, several
volumes have been published on East Asian ecocriticism, and more has been written about the
depiction of nature in Gao’s works.31
Although Gao’s depiction of nature is characterized by the deployment of scientific tax-
onomy, it has ties as well to Daoist recluse literature. Moreover, Jeffrey Kinkley has pointed out
parallels between Gao’s novel, Shen Congwen’s fiction about West Hunan, and the portrayal of
shamanistic practices, non-Han ethnic groups, and folklore in Songs of the South.32 Following
these traditions, the narrator views the natural environment of China’s southern hinterland not
only through a scientific lens, but also as the destination of a spiritual journey in search of free-
dom. Near the beginning of the novel, the narrator asserts that he sets out to Soul Mountain to
find an “authentic life” (12), and later he states that Soul Mountain is a place where “suffering
and pain can be forgotten, and where one can find freedom” (68). At first, the narrator appears to
attain his goal while hiking through forests in the mountains of southern China, where he feels
“the very depths of [his] soul being cleansed.” Taking deep breaths, his “body and mind seem to
enter nature’s grand cycle,” and he achieves “a sense of joyful freedom” that he had “never before
experienced” (61). In addition, the narrator finds spirituality in various Daoist practices and folk
art that he witnesses during his journey, which help to reconnect him to nature. In chapter 49,
the narrator describes at length a Daoist incantation to invoke the spirits of Heaven and Earth
that he sees at a monastery in a small country village. Afterwards, a girl sings folk songs, and the
narrator is “instantly transport[ed]” from “the shadows to the mountain wilds,” where the “sad-
ness of the murmuring stream and the mountain wind are remote but clear” (295).33
However, distinct from earlier literary traditions dealing with China’s southern frontier, Gao’s
narrator focuses extensively on environmental destruction that he finds, including deforestation,
pollution in rivers and streams, and threats to China’s endangered species. When he travels to a
nature reserve in Caohai, the narrator discovers that the lake has receded and large areas have
turned into swampland, surrounded by “bald hills” (108). According to a local forest ranger,
preservation efforts have not gone well. A biologist with a Ph.D. traveled from Shanghai to
Caohai in the 1950s to launch a breeding program to reestablish populations of coypu, ermine,
and bar-headed geese, but was beaten to death by local poachers. Later, the narrator journeys to
the “primeval forest” of Shennongjia, where prior to 1960, “even sun was not visible” due to the
density of the forest. However, in 1966 a highway was built through the forest, which has since
been used to supply 900,000 cubic meters of timber to the state every year. Later, the narrator
travels to Shanghai, and find pollution there as well. The black Wusong River “gives off a per-
petual stench” and many fish and turtles have become extinct (471). After witnessing so much
environmental degradation and loss of biodiversity, the narrator exhorts his readers to recognize
the critical importance of protecting the environment for future generations: “I can only say that
protecting the environment is important work and has implications for later generations of our
children and grandchildren. The Yangtze has already become a brown river bringing down mud
and silt, and yet a big dam is to be built on the Three Gorges!” (363–64)34
A recurrent theme in Soul Mountain is that harm to the environment is the result of public
works projects undertaken by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), such as the construction

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of a highway through Shennongjia and the Three Gorges Dam. The Daoist purity, freedom, and
return to a more natural state that the narrator hopes to attain is thus juxtaposed against Maoist
revolution and modernization. At the same time, Gao’s treatment of nature as the site of Daoist
primitivism sets up a contrast to his more scientific discussions about various fauna and flora. As
Thomas Moran observes, Gao’s depiction of nature is multivalent, and Soul Mountain “introduces
to contemporary Chinese literature a precise, detailed discourse of nature,” while it also does not
“los[e] sight of the fact that this is a discourse that can be decentered when one looks at nature
from other vantage points (including the Daoist vantage point).”35 In doing so, Moran argues
that Gao combats “a too-neat distinction between Western science for the control of nature and
Eastern philosophy for harmony with nature” (Ibid., 216). Though prevalent in popular culture,
this dichotomy is suspect since “scientific control of nature is helpful for understanding what
needs to be done for the environment and how to do it” (Ibid.).
Given its focus on examining different discourses on nature, another way to understand Gao’s
novel is as itself a text of ecocriticism. Just as the narrator interrogates language and the self from
multiple perspectives, so too does he explore different ways to write about nature. Some of
these include: journalistic writing about damage to the environment, ethnographic collection of
folk literature about nature, scientific taxonomy, lyrical depictions of the protagonist’s subjective
response to nature, and impassioned exhortations to save the environment for future generations.
As mentioned the narrator asserts that language is inadequate to describe nature, but this does
not deter him in his quest to do so. In one scene, the narrator writes, “What is real is the experi-
ence of this moment. There is no way to describe this to anybody,” before he proceeds to write
about the scene he is witnessing: “The blanket of fog outside, the dim blue mountains, the echo
in your heart of the sound of water rushing down a stream somewhere, this is enough” (15).
While Gao sees the goal of the modern author as searching for a language to write about mod-
ern experience, a crucial component of this involves man’s experience in nature. In particular,
Gao explores various ways to write about the relationship between the divided modern self and
nature in the wake of massive damage wreaked by rapid modernization.

Notes
1 See “The Nobel Prize in Literature 2000,” www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/
2000/press.html. Accessed June 19, 2017.
2 Gao Xingjian, “The Case for Literature,” in his The Case for Literature, trans. Mabel Lee (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2007), 34.
3 See note 1.
4 Leo Ou-fan Lee, “The Happy Exile,” Muse Magazine (June 2008), vol. 17, 93.
5 Gao Xingjian, “Without Isms,” in The Case for Literature, 68–69.
6 See note 1.
7 Marian Galik,“Gao Xingjian’s Novel Lingshan (Soul Mountain): A Long Journey in Search of a Woman?”
Canadian Review of Comparative Literature (2003), vol. 30, no. 3–4, 615.
8 All English citations are taken from Gao Xingjian, Soul Mountain, trans. Mabel Lee (New York: Harper
Lee, 2000).
9 Marian Galik, “Gao Xingjian’s Novel Lingshan,” 616. For the Chinese original, see Gao Xingjian, Ling-
shan (Taibei: Lianjing, 1990).
10 Gao Xingjian, “A Literary Journey,” Gao’s lecture at City University of Hong Kong, January 31, 2001,
www.talawas.org/talaDB/showFile.php/%3C/showFile.php?res=246&rb=0401. Accessed June 19,
2017.
11 Gao Xingjian, “Literature and Metaphysics,” in The Case for Literature, 96.
12 Mabel Lee,“Pronouns as Protagonists: On Gao Xingjian’s Theories of Narration,” in Kwok-Kan Tam, ed.,
Soul of Chaos: Critical Perspectives on Gao Xingjian (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2001), 236.

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13 Gary Gang Xu, “My Writing, Your Pain, and Her Trauma: Pronouns and (Gendered) Subjectivity in
Gao Xingjian’s Soul Mountain and One Man’s Bible, Journal of Modern Chinese Literature and Culture (Fall
2002), vol. 14, no. 2, 112.
14 Gao Xingjian, “The Case for Literature,” 45.
15 Gao Xingjian, “The Art of Fiction,” Aesthetics and Creation, trans. Mabel Lee, tr. (New York: Cambria
Press, 2012), 123.
16 Mabel Lee, “Gao Xingjian’s Lingshan/Soul Mountain: Modernism and the Chinese Writer,” Heat
(1997), vol. 4, 139.
17 Gao Xingjian, “The Art of Fiction,” 121.
18 Kwok Kan-Tam, “Introduction,” in Soul of Chaos, 12.
19 Gao Xingjian, “Literature and Metaphysics,” 93.
20 Gary Xu, “My Writing,Your Pain, and Her Trauma,”108.
21 Gao Xingjian, “Without Isms,” 67.
22 Gao Xingjian, “The Art of Fiction,” 123.
23 Gary Xu, “My Writing, Your Pain, and Her Trauma,” 110.
24 Gao Xingjian, “Literature and Metaphysics,” 83.
25 See Ibid., 96.
26 Ibid., 84.
27 Gao Xingjian, “The Modern Chinese Language and Literary Creation,” in his The Case for Literature, 110.
28 Thomas Moran, “Lost in the Woods: Nature in ‘Soul Mountain’,” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture
(Fall 2002), vol. 14, no. 2, 224.
29 One exception Moran gives is Wu Dingbo’s 1998 overview of Chinese ecological literature (shengtai
wenxue). See Dingbo Wu, “Environmental Literature: A Chinese Perspective,” in Patrick D. Murphy,
ed., Literature of Nature: An International Sourcebook (Chicago and London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers),
300–303. Moran notes that Wu’s bibliography of representative works is only partially reliable since it
doesn’t mention writers, such as Ah Cheng, Gao Xingjian and Dai Qing.
30 Cheryll Glotfelty and Harod Fromm, eds., The Ecocriticism Reader (Athens: University of Georgia Press,
1996), xviii.
31 See, for example, Simon C. Estok and Won-Chung Kim, eds. East Asian Ecocriticisms: A Critical Reader
(New York: Palgrave, 2013), which contains seven chapters on mainland Chinese and Taiwanese eco-
literature. Also, see Karen Laura Thornber, Ecoambiguity: Environmental Crises and East Asian Literatures
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2012). Sheldon Lu’s Chinese Ecocinema: In the Age of Envi-
ronmental Challenge (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2009) focuses on the related topic of
ecocinema. For an ecocritical reading of Soul Mountain, see Krishna Barua and Anurag Bhattacharyya,
“Place, Landscape, and Self in Gao Xingjian’s Soul Mountain,” in Simon C. Estok, I-Chun Wang, and
Jonathan White, eds., Landscape, Seascape, and the Eco-Spatial Imagination (New York: Routledge, 2016),
197–208; and Bhattacharyya’s dissertation, Places, Landscapes and Lives: Towards an Ecocritical Reading of
Gao Xingjian, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, India.
32 Jeffrey Kinkley, “Gao Xingjian in the ‘Chinese’ Perspective of Qu Yuan and Shen Congwen,” Modern
Chinese Literature and Culture (Fall 2002), vol. 14, no. 2, 130–162.
33 In terms of his portrayal of such Daoist folk practices, Gao also has ties to “roots-seeking” writers
in China during the 1980s. Describing this literary movement in “The Root of Literature,” Han
Shaogong wrote that the “root of literature” could be found in the “coagulated” traditional culture of
the countryside, “the magma that lies under the earth’s shell.” In his essay and writings, Han focused
on the countryside in West Hunan and asked where the “many splendored” culture of the Chu had
gone. See Han Shaogong, “The Root of Literature” (Wenxue de gen), in Writers (Zuojia) 4 (1985): 2–5.
However, Gao claims to “reject the ‘searching for roots’ label, because my roots have been under my
feet from the time of my birth. It is simply a matter of how I understand these roots, including how
I understand myself.” See “Literature and Metaphysics,” 103.
34 In other passages, the narrator similarly exhorts the reader to protect the environment. For example,
at one point he exclaims, “Don’t commit actions which go against the basic character of nature, don’t
commit acts which should not be committed” (48).
35 Thomas Moran, “Lost in the Woods,” 21.

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Further readings
Gao, Xingjian. Aesthetics and Creation. Translated by Mabel Lee. Amherst: Cambria Press, 2012.
Kinkley, Jeffrey C. “Gao Xingjian in the ‘Chinese’ Perspective of Qu Yuan and Shen Congwen.” Modern
Chinese Literature and Culture 14.2 (Fall 2002): 130–162.
Lackner, Michael and Nikola Chardonnens, eds. Polyphony Embodied: Freedom and Fate in Gao Xingjian’s
Writings. Berlin: DeGruyter, 2014.
Lee, Mabel. “Gao Xingjian’s Lingshan/Soul Mountain: Modernism and the Chinese Writer.” HEAT 4
(1997): 128–143.
———. “Returning to Recluse Literature: Gao Xingjian.” In Joshua Mostow Kirk A. Denton and China
section, eds. Columbia Companion to Modern East Asian Literatures. New York: Columbia University Press,
2003, 610–616.
———. “Aesthetics in Gao’s Soul Mountain.” CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 14.4
(December 2012).
Li, Xia. “Cross-Cultural Intertextuality in Gao Xingjian’s Novel Lingshan: A Chinese Perspective.” Canadian
Review of Comparative Literature 31 (2004): 39–57.
Tam, Kwok-Kan, ed. Soul of Chaos: Critical Perspectives on Gao Xingjian. Hong Kong: Chinese University
Press, 2001.
Yeung, Jessica. Ink Dances in Limbo: Gao Xingjian’s Writing As Cultural Translation. Hong Kong: Hong Kong
University Press, 2008.
Zhang, Yingjin. “Cultural Translation between the World and the Chinese: The Problematics in Position-
ing Nobel Laureate Gao Xingjian.” Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies 31.2 (July 2005): 127–144.

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 44
GE FEI AND HIS SOUTH OF
YANGTSE TRILOGY
Andrea M. Riemenschnitter

Life and career

Ge Fei, pen name of Liu Yong, was born on August 22, 1964 in Dantu, Jiangsu. His parents are
barely literate peasants. Despite the poor educational environment in the rural hinterland, he
was able to move to Shanghai to study Chinese literature at East China Normal University in
1981. From there, he graduated in 1985. But initially, his parents wanted him to be a carpenter
in spite of his excellent schoolwork. Fortunately, his teacher intervened and persuaded his par-
ents to send him to study at a better middle school in the district city. This lucky turn of events
not only brought him to Shanghai, but moreover lay the ground for his later career as one of
China’s most poetic, profound, and clairvoyant literary talents.1 After nineteen years of study-
ing, doing fieldwork, creative writing, publishing his early experimental novellas and teaching
at East China Normal University, he received his Ph.D. from the same institution in 2000 with
a thesis on Fei Ming (1901–1967), an important writer of modernist fiction between the 1920s
and 1940s. Since then Ge Fei has taught at Tsinghua University. Currently he acts as head of
the Chinese literature department and full professor at the Tsinghua School of Humanities. Ge
Fei started writing in 1984, and quickly rose to fame as a member of a group of internationally
renowned avant-garde writers during the 1980s including Mo Yan, Su Tong,Yu Hua, Zhai Yong-
ming, and others. English translations of his work include Remembering Mr.Wu You, The Lost Boat,
Whistling, Flock of Brown Birds and The Invisibility Cloak.2 After his early experimental stories
received broad critical acclaim during the late 1980s, he began traveling and offering lectures
and readings to audiences in Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Moreover, his fictional works were
complemented by several highly praised monographs of literary criticism on Chinese and world
literature. He has won numerous awards for his literary works. Among them, the notable awards
include the prestigious Lu Xun Literary Prize (2010–2013), Dream of the Red Chamber Prize
(Hong Kong, 2012), Mao Dun Literature Prize (2015), and the most recent Best Novel of the
Year Award (18th session) of the journal Dangdai for his latest novel, Waiting for the Spring Breeze
(Wang chunfeng, 2016).

Literary achievements
In his early publications, Ge Fei explored alternative ways of situating individual experience
with respect to larger historical frameworks. Experimenting with strategies of decentering,

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fragmentation, polyphony, multiple temporalities and the like, he challenged general histori-
cal assumptions such as the predominant role of human players, cast in dualistic settings of
heroes and villains, as determining factors of armed conflicts in The Lost Boat and The Encounter.
A similar approach was taken for the interrogation of historical progress; Whistling and Flock of
Brown Birds, for instance, focus on the impact of the entanglements, and mutual estrangement,
of human and non-human forces on both natural environments and human memory and desire.
One of the earliest stories reflecting on the utopian and cultural dimensions of China’s socialist
modernity was Remembering Mr. Wu You, published in 1986. Written after a field trip, the story
addresses the problem of amnesia and emotional numbing resulting from collective trauma. It
also reflects on the devaluation of traditional values in a semi-modernized rural framework,
where the cadres are fed with revolutionary dogma without being able to integrate its new ethi-
cal principles into their daily routines. A boy acts as the first person-narrator telling the story
of Mr. Wu You’s execution several years after the incident, when a group of urban investigators
show up in the village. The victim of the execution – an herbal doctor whose name hints at
the Buddhist idea of the (human perception of the real) world as nothing but an illusion – had
arrived in the village from somewhere else, bringing along no possessions except his medical
library. He was given a shabby hut for shelter and ever since generously offered free medical
treatment to the villagers. Having at his disposal nothing but local herbs and natural products,
he even cures epidemics based on therapeutic advice and recipes derived from his books. When
his young woman apprentice is raped and killed, he is judged guilty of the crime. Several years
after his execution, some strangers arrive to investigate the case. The boy carefully records the
incoherent bits of information offered by villagers and marvels at the varying degrees of the
investigators’ attention to his own, equally scattered reminiscences.
In this narrative, a momentary implosion of national and mythical times happens. On the one
hand, the Dragon Boat Festival, which coincided with the execution, commemorates the sui-
cidal drowning of the first Chinese poet-dissident Qu Yuan (and the tragic erasure of his native,
southern Chu culture in antiquity), and thus the narrative positions Mr. Wu You as a modern
reincarnation of the ancient poet and folklore hero. On the other hand, the archaic structure
of revolutionary politics is exposed. Consequently, various facets of the inhuman agency clash:
the children’s utopian inhuman, the power holders’ regressive inhuman, the universal inhuman
of erotic desire, the nostalgic time of modernist faith in progress, and the redundant sameness as
lived by the forever-indifferent villagers. In this way, Ge Fei’s text stages a fateful intersection of
various temporalities and spatial extensions, which blast in the sublime Now! of the execution
ground, where the person is killed who not long before had successfully rescued many village
children’s lives. By employing a child narrator, the short story renews Lu Xun’s earlier emer-
gency call to save the nation’s children.3 In the rural hinterlands, where individual reformers are
not recognized and the state has failed to mitigate rural poverty, the children of the revolution
are sadly left to tell their uncanny stories to strangers. The strangers’ perplexing appearance
moreover bears traces of Franz Kafka’s grotesque configuration of inhuman systemic power in
his novel The Castle. At the same time, the gentle bibliophile Mr. Wu You exhibits a Quixotic
spirit when insisting on his efforts to save the world against all odds. Remembering Mr. Wu You,
with its terror and the transculturally articulated disillusionment in the face of endless dystopian
repetitions, is one of the finest examples of 1980s avant-garde fiction deconstructing the high-
handed utopianism of modernity. The focus on an entanglement of multiple temporalities and
chronotopes renders human agency a derivative force, while at the same time envisioning the
aporia of a community forever struggling to reach its delayed future. Resorting to defiance vis-
à-vis historical grand narratives, and openly recognizing human weakness, it pointedly questions
the ideological trajectories of May Fourth modernism and the socialist utopia.The figure of the

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 Andrea M. Riemenschnitter

political inhuman as embodied by the three mysterious strangers and the village head brings to
the fore the shortcomings of post-revolutionary modernization, and raises the question of what
role modern urban culture should play in the process of refashioning rural, poverty-stricken
environments like Mr. Wu You’s village.
In some other stories, the legacy of late 1980s zeitgeist is traced back to the disrupted cul-
tural practice and values of ancient elites as transmitted through the legends surrounding them.
Whistling, for example, reconnects the present with the past by invoking the political climate of
the Wei-Jin period, when a discourse of Taoist mountain hermitage emerged, which was orches-
trated by the metaphysical language of whistling. Sun Deng (209–241) and Ruan Ji (210–263)
are members of the Wei-Jin period’s Seven Heroes of the Bamboo Grove, who by now have
aged and grown senile. In a seemingly timeless present, they still play chess in their remote
mountain retreat, but find themselves no longer able to arouse, with their whistling, cosmic reso-
nance for the benefit of the human world. Having grown old, their brains are in disarray, which
is reflected in the scattered landscape views and the bits and pieces of surfacing memories that
they can no longer put together into a meaningful narrative. Alienated from their spiritual selves,
they find themselves abandoned by the metaphysical forces, and too emaciated to summon their
whistling skills. From the earliest stories published in the late 1980s through his fiction of the
1990s, among them The Enemy (Di ren, 1990), The Margin (Bianyuan, 1992), The Banner of Desire
(Yuwang de qizhi, 1994), and The Prognostication Chart (Tui bei tu, 1996), up to the recently
published Jiangnan trilogy, history shrouds itself in mystery. This has been identified as Ge Fei’s
personal style and singular contribution to the contemporary literary avant-garde.
Ge Fei is also a successful critic whose critical writings offer insights into both his and other
writers’ literary works. His theoretical works, such as A Survey on the Art of the Novel (Xiaoshuo
yishu mian mian guan, 1996), Syren’s Songs (Sairen de gesheng, 2000), A Study of Belletristic Narra-
tion (Xiaoshuo xushi yanjiu 2001), Kafka’s Pendulum (Kafuka de zhongbai, 2004), The Invitation of
Literature (Wenxue de yaoyue, 2010), engage with issues of literary structure, multiple temporali-
ties, character design, and intertextuality. His analysis of Chinese and world literary masterpieces
was hailed for combining critical and creative writing, thus enlivening the original works with
new perspectives. Moreover, many of these in-depth readings of world literature bleed into Ge
Fei’s creative writing, thus opening up the experiential horizon of his fictional characters. His
storytelling successfully combines a delicately wrought language, leisurely narrative manner and
labyrinthine structure, thus conjuring up a remote atmosphere laden with ancient Chinese lyri-
cal and metaphysical traditions.4 Literary traditions continue to play an important role in the
Jiangnan trilogy, as can be seen from the three novels’ interlocution with the great family saga of
the eighteenth century, The Dream of the Red Chamber (Honglou meng), along with an in-depth
inquiry into the full specter of Chinese utopian imaginations, past and present.

The masterpiece
Ge Fei’s award-winning Jiangnan trilogy (Jiangnan sanbuqu, 2004/2007/2011) offers a grand
view on China’s twentieth century from the perspective of three generations of a family origi-
nally based in a tiny village south of the Yangtse River. The narrative situates their hopes for
a better future at the core of its exploration of this era’s utopian dreams. Navigating through
Chinese modernity’s quickly changing faces, the plot links them to the people who strove to
build their different utopias in this particular place, and the adversarial forces they were wrestling
with when doing so. These utopian communities were simultaneously, successively or randomly
put in place, and quickly went awry, both in the setting of a Yangtse River island and in various
other fictitious locations.

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 Ge Fei and His South of Yangtse Trilogy

From early on, utopian models were developed in the framework of what in western contexts
would be called Arcadian topoi: rural communities living in perfect harmony with nature.5 The
most broadly received ancient utopia was created by Tao Yuanming (ca. 365–427). He described
the chance encounter between a fisherman and an ideal society hidden from the world in a
deep valley, and living according to the simple rules of a long extinct kingdom. Another highly
influential utopian space appeared in an artificial paradise called Grand View Garden (Da guan
yuan) in the Qing novel Dream of the Red Chamber (Cao Xueqin, 1791), and contains allusions to
Tao’s much earlier Peach Blossom Spring (Tao hua yuan, 421) as well as to a plethora of fictitious
or real heterotopian landscapes stemming from China’s long cultural history.The novel describes
how an aristocratic banner family built the garden for the home visit of its most high-ranking
member, Imperial Consort Jia Yuanchun. On her order, Grand View Garden is turned into a
home for her younger brother Jia Baoyu and his teenage sisters and female cousins. Taken care
of by their young maids, a private troupe of actresses and Buddhist nuns, and rigorously shielded
from the corrupted world of the patriarchs by Baoyu’s protective grandmother, they spend their
days pursuing elegant pastimes including writing poetry, making music, playing, and exchanging
Buddhist kōan riddles. Dreams play a significant role as prognostications transmitted to them
from a higher sphere. Inspired by love for beauty, the adolescent garden dwellers appreciate the
arts and their nonhuman companions in the garden while at the same time trying to cope with
the physical and mental sufferings accompanying their transition to adulthood. The girls prove
to be superior to the boy in terms of creative talent, virtue and mindfulness, whereas Baoyu
does much better than the other men. He is sensitive, respectful and affectionate in his attitude
towards the girls regardless of their social status, loves poetry and flowers, and despises, from
the bottom of his heart, everything smacking of Confucian elite pursuits such as the study of
canonical texts, a bureaucratic career, or the acquisition of wealth. The family’s golden days end
when Imperial Consort Jia Yuanchun and grandmother Jia die in quick succession, and the fam-
ily’s property is confiscated in the wake of a court intrigue. The decay of the garden coincides
with unhappy marriages of Baoyu and those among the girls who survive their adolescence.
The Jiangnan trilogy communicates with the Qing novel in several ways. Firstly, breathing
the spirit of the Dream, this epic tale of early modern to contemporary Chinese society once
again summons China’s utopia – from the Confucian model of Datong (Great Unity) to Arca-
dian spaces including Tao Yuanming’s famous incorporation of the Taoist supernatural realm
into a dreamlike, imaginary real, in his Peach Blossom Spring and Cao Xueqin’s fusion of the
former with a Buddhist metaphysical realm.6 From there the trilogy travels all the way to the
most recent (post-)revolutionary revamping of the early modernists’ New Village movement
by transplanting a fictitious avatar of the same called Huajiashe into a remote rural space by
the river Yangtse. This utopian village community is modeled after several real places in today’s
China, for instance Huaxi village in Jiangxi province, and serves as the symbolic center of the
three volumes. Not a place fabricated based on political doctrines of progress, the Lu family’s
home village of Puji has grown naturally, and it constitutes Huajiashe’s “real” other that awaits
liberation from an abject past. Added to this are China’s assets in global New Age tourism, such
as Shangri La in Yunnan Province and Lhasa in Tibet.7 Secondly, Jiangnan Trilogy emulates the
Dream’s encyclopedic structure and offers a contemporary response to the predecessors’ social
critique, aesthetic trajectory, and yearnings for a better world. In Dream of the Red Chamber, liter-
ary history is screened for its imaginary gardens and interconnected mythologies, and everything
is reassembled in a multilayered narrative meant to awaken readers to the eternal truth of the
world’s transience. As seen from the garden’s otherworldly beauty and peacefulness, human vice
and folly moreover appear all the more incomprehensible.Thirdly, the trilogy stages its main pro-
tagonists as modern reincarnations of the Dream of the Red Chamber characters, and at the same

595
 Andrea M. Riemenschnitter

time shows some of them as self-consciously living in two worlds, the real of their own time
as well as the Dream’s deep cultural universe. Time and again, the modern novels’ protagonists
evaluate their acquaintances by referring to the original Dream of the Red Chamber characters.8
Finally, Ge Fei’s novels reflect the contemporary location, in Chinese culture, of the tradition
of poetic as well as real heterotopia, and they explore twentieth century human sensitivities as
mirrored in the characters’ self-fashioning as well as their attitude towards their natural environ-
ment. Hence, Ge Fei, like his predecessor Cao Xueqin, highlights the gap between individual
utopian or escapist visions on the one hand, and the worldly forms of social order imposed by
ruling elites on the other.9 The contemporary novels’ characters are equally immersed in the
world of literature, and metafictional qualities are emphasized as in the eighteenth century text.
Yet, the modern characters’ attempts to settle, no matter how temporarily, in a heterotopian
space such as Grand View Garden invariably fail, so that their poetic universe becomes a more
and more distant imaginary homeland.10 Indeed, they have become disenfranchised exiles whose
host world is rapidly falling apart, with the former parallel universes of sublime landscapes laced
with spiritual energies and a disenchanting mundane sphere gradually flattened into one homo-
topian wasteland by over-zealous revolutionary idealists and packs of marauding robber-knights
who take no responsibility for their devastating activities.11 Moreover, the location and role of
traditions in the construction of a social equilibrium has changed dramatically: Ge Fei moves
away from the wrath directed at the dehumanizing educational practice of Confucianism by
the eighteenth century author. Instead, he develops nostalgia for the cultural achievements it
has produced in conjunction with (or counterbalanced by) the local religious traditions of Tao-
ism and Buddhism, and disdain for globalizing modernity’s material avarice – that already had
emerged, poorly disguised as spiritual newness, in both colonial and communist ideologies.12
Both plot and style of the three volumes take different roads, in accordance with the major
historical changes that happened during these three epochs. Peach Blossom Beauty (2004) shows
utopian agency as scattered among several groups of male revolutionaries around the turn of the
twentieth century (roughly from 1898 to the 1930s), whose anti-monarchist struggles unfail-
ingly end in violence, crime and debauchery. Besides being abducted by bandits on her way to
her wedding ceremony, and later raped in their lair called Huajiashe, and after having returned
from studying in Japan to establish welfare projects in her village, Lu Xiumi gives birth to two
sons. Her younger son, Tan Gongda, becomes the male focalizer of the trilogy’s second volume,
Landscapes Moving into Dreams. It is set during the mid-1950s and early 1960s, and Huajiashe is by
now a “self-sufficient rural socialist utopia.”13 The periodically cultivated and abandoned island was
transformed into a model commune during the 1950s. It is now ruled by a well-intentioned yet
despotic autocrat who believes that only a system of collectively internalized surveillance can sta-
bilize the community’s newly achieved spirit of altruism. Huajiashe shelters the city of Meicheng’s
ex-county magistrate Tan Gongda after his demotion upon the tragic failure of an ambitious
hydroelectric power project. From this exile he goes to jail for having received his platonic lover
Yao Peipei’s correspondence on her flight route, after her having committed the “crime” of kill-
ing the person who savagely raped her, without reporting her to the authorities.Yao Peipei is the
daughter of an executed counter-revolutionary and a suicidal mother, and thus stigmatized as a bad
element. Embodying the paradigmatic figure of the outsider, she comes from the cosmopolitan
city of Shanghai.14 Fatherless Tan, an honest but rather naïve dreamer, fantasizes about the splendid
future awaiting the new socialist community. He uses his political power to launch ambitious mod-
ernizing projects in the countryside and transplants Yao into his own professional world. Exposing
the contradictions of Maoist politics of exclusion, their attachment is shown to be guided less by
eros than by philia, an ethical principle Zhang Yinde calls compassionate egalitarianism.15 Yet,
Tan’s idealism has no chance to survive in an environment of intrigue and corruption.

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In Landscapes,Yao Peipei as a second, female focalizer establishes a dual perspective, to be con-

tinued in the last volume. In End of Spring, a society of greedy materialists indulges in corybantic
luxury consumption, where everybody including lawyers solves their ever-aggravating problems
by means of corruption through personal connections. This “hedonistic and thuggish society
ruled by the rich and powerful”16 has its judiciary institutions, which hide the ubiquitous, ram-
pant fraudulence behind a glossy façade. Pang Jiayu, a lawyer and the wife of Tan Gongda’s son
Tan Duanwu, resorts to this same principle after buying an apartment that is instantly occupied
by a middle-class squatter. Pang chases the woman out with the help of a gang of hooligans led
by her former fiancé, a policeman. Crime, environmental degradation, the wholesale destruction
of the countryside, and an appalling lack of moral integrity in individuals, or sincerity in human
relations, are the key themes in this sinister, smog-plagued finale of the trilogy.17 In various
respects, it is a circular movement that leads back to the beginning: Huajiashe once again has
become a brothel and gambling den, this time run by a local tycoon, and, in a dream that seem-
ingly repeats the whole life of her husband’s grandmother Lu Xiumi in fast forward movement,
cancer-stricken Pang finds herself returning into the skin and bones of this ancestor.
However, a sentimental utopia of love, mistrusted as “love foolishness,” no less than the peda-
gogical cruelty of the Confucian elite in The Dream of the Red Chamber, outlives the political
utopianism implemented in Huajiashe and the various other locations. It shifts the contempo-
rary lovers’ quest for happiness into a realm of secular transcendence. Of the three love constel-
lations, Lu Xiumi occupies an exceptional position, as she – uncertain about the revolutionary
who claimed to be in love with her, while being her mother’s lover and the political ally cum
intimate enemy of her father – remains unafflicted with the romantic myth of domesticated
eros. The two sexual encounters leading to her pregnancies remain mysterious, with the second
one allowing for a modest degree of temporary shared happiness. Both, however, do not suggest
strong attachments. Before her demise, she encounters a few comparatively peaceful years that
allow her to live in seclusion, before she calmly leaves the world of the living. The final scene
has a magic vessel lead her to her father’s post-mortem peach blossom spring abode, where she
finds him playing chess with some unidentified partner (1: 323). In Landscapes,Yao Peipei’s senti-
mental ghost comes to meet Tan Gongda in his last hours, and tells him a fairytale lullaby of the
perfect socialist society’s arrival, so as to soothe his world weariness after 20 years of prison (2:
375 f.). Mortally ill Pang, having restituted her former name Li Xiurong, writes a long love letter
to her husband before committing suicide in a Chengdu hospital in End of Spring (3: 363–369).
Upon this, the idle ex-poet and bystander Tan Duanwu miraculously rekindles the creative spirit
of his adolescence, and completes a poem he had begun to write in the wake of the first sexual
encounter with Li /Pang. Mingling the soft piano sounds of Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” from the
Suite Bergamasque with Monet’s garden in Giverny. Connecting this synesthetic spectacle with an
autumnal night scene at the site of the Puji village temple where they had spent their romantic
night, the poet recalls the soul of his late wife in a kind of shamanistic ritual. Refashioning her
as a dreaming water lily (the flower’s Chinese name is sleeping lotus) he has nothing to fear
from the clichés surrounding the topic since Zhou Dunyi’s (1017–1073) essay on “Waterlily
Love” and the impressionists’ infatuation with this flower. In a cosmic realm beyond (or before)
human history, the vision of a hidden flower blossoming under the moonlight reunites the
couple through the eternal breath of the universe (3: 374–376). Hence, Lu Xiumi’s grandson, by
framing transcendental love in a transcultural imaginary, reconnects his ancestors’ peach blossom
spring dreamspace with his own inner world without producing a hackneyed, stillborn copy of
the same.
Transcultural imagination saturates all three volumes of the trilogy, but takes an especially
puzzling literary detour in Landscapes Moving into Dreams. It connects the Dream of the Red

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 Andrea M. Riemenschnitter

Chamber protagonists’ flight towards death and transcendence with a collective rulership model
of fully internalized, total control imposed on Huajiashe residents by its big-brother-like despot,
whose literary inspiration stems from one tale in The Thousand and One Nights. Before leaving
Huajiashe to end up in jail, Tan has a long conversation with his hunchback warden, who at last
discloses his long-hidden identity as the village patriarch Guo Congnian. In the course of this
exchange it is revealed that Guo’s infatuation with the Nights puts him in the position of the
murderous King Shahryar and Yao Peipei in the one of a doomed virgin bride. However, when
her ghost later returns to talk to dying Tan Gongda she rises to occupy the position of story-
teller Queen Sheherezade. Tan is reduced to become a mere background actor in Guo’s game,
functioning as an externalisation of Guo’s ear.The amazing combination of such a non-modern,
non-western storybook as the Nights and the escapist fiction of the Dream not only add two vast
imaginary realms to the grim 1950s reality, making the journey of its agents more confusing,
more tragic, and ultimately more meaningful. In a fundamental sense, the co-presence of these
three realms – the unaccountable real, the enchanted garden, and the haunted palace – offers
a fresh perspective on the trans-/cultural values steering (provincial) politics in China’s Mao-
ist era. In the conversation, Guo claims that across all of its stories, the Nights basically teaches
humankind one and the same lesson: if life is a palace of whose thirteen treasure rooms only
twelve can safely be opened, then the thirteenth door must absolutely remain shut. However, no
human being has ever learned this lesson to overcome his or her curiosity, muses Guo. And this
curiosity, he predicts, will become the nemesis of Huajiashe, too. When asking why the crema-
tory chimney has been placed so prominently on a hill, Tan Gongda does not receive an answer.
A Buddhist take on the world as illusion would mark the chimney as an obvious signifier of
human mortality. More directly, this scenario harks back to the first chapter of the novel, when
Tan admires the countryside of his district, but misses the sublime sight of industrial plants with
their chimneys. The question Tan does not ask, but desperately wants to be answered, is freely
elaborated on by Guo.Yao Peipei’s letters were all read by the authorities, and her last ones were
withheld from him when she was about to be arrested. What could lay hidden behind Guo’s
thirteenth, never-to-be-opened door will only be disclosed in the final part of the trilogy. From
the Lu landlord’s private garden in Peach Blossom Beauty originated the desire to turn the vil-
lage of Puji into a heterotopian Peach Blossom Spring. Though the original plans of the early
reformers have failed, in Landscapes the region receives a pretty new dress with the arrival of
purple milk vetch flowers, planted in vast fields. By the time Tan Gongda’s grandson Liangruo
grows up in the district town in End of Spring, the new era is symbolized in a businessman’s
superficial literati garden shrouded in yellow smog. A toxic garbage dump nearby is described
like a hellish look-alike of mythical Greensickness Peak from Dream of the Red Chamber. This
industrial wasteland is the disturbing result of modernity’s quest for a worldly paradise.
On a structural level, the complementarity of Chinese Dream and Arabian Nights is mirrored
in Landscapes’ love story, where Yao Peipei’s experience of violation and ensuing flight on a cir-
cular route runs parallel to Tan Gongda’s demotion and Huajiashe exile. Her journey begins and
ends at the Lu family’s ancestral village of Puji. Tan’s gradual acquaintance with what he at first
sight believes to be a perfect society gives way to the awareness of its totalitarian character based
on a collective surveillance apparatus. Through her letters, his gradual awakening is connected
with Yao Peipei’s tragic journey of liberation. Embodying a modern version of the Dream’s
heroine Lin Daiyu, she tells Tan Gongda about her encounters and whereabouts during her
year-long flight from the police. Because the perpetrator of her rape was a powerful function-
ary, she is shot and disposed like a stray dog by the police officers, without legal proceedings or
proper burial. In one of the prognosticative dreams that pervade the trilogy, Peipei witnesses the
details of her execution, and discloses them in a letter to Tan Gongda.The precarious situation of

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women continues in End of Spring. Pang Jiayu’s violation happens after her doctors tell her that
her cancer cannot be healed. When she visits the nurse whom she had driven out of her apart-
ment earlier on, eager to ask her for medical advice, this former squatter happily avails herself
of this unique opportunity to retaliate for the humiliation. Pang leaves the hospital stupefied, in
which state she is raped by a young rapscallion. In her last letter to her husband she recalls and
describes the scene as if it happened to someone else.
There are very few women in the trilogy who do not become victims of some kind of vio-
lence. Moreover, the classical heterotopia, landscapes and gardens, are subjected to exploitation
for quick material profit in a similar manner as female bodies in the last part of the trilogy. No
matter which kind of modern utopianism prevails, it does not lead to less violence, or more
equality. Even during the Maoist years, residual hope is surprisingly invested in religious experts
whose traditional spiritual practice appears more promising of harmonizing the world, because
it acts upon small groups or individuals rather than macro-social formations.18 The major car-
riers of hope are those unheroic individuals who refuse to forsake their dreams, though. Lu
Xiumi and a nun to whose care she is left in Huajiashe are both sexually abused by the bandits,
yet Xiumi later instigates social improvement despite, or precisely because of the fact that she
renounces the utopian grand narrative of historical progress. Rather, she shoulders the pedes-
trian chores of nurturing the community, including its nonhuman members as represented by
the flowers in her garden. One of her maids is the only woman throughout the narrative who
is given a chance to say no to sexual abuse of her body. In an aporetic situation, when every-
body suffers severe hunger due to a drought, she is promised food for the whole household in
exchange for her erotic services, which she refuses promptly. To her surprise, she is rewarded
with the requested rice as a humanitarian gift. No hint is given as to what was the motivation of
the repudiated “lover” to change his mind and help. Seen from the point of view of Taoist ideas
about the balance between yin and yang forces, once the integrity of the female body is recog-
nized, its owner can mobilize positive cosmic energies. Indeed, Puji village experiences a period
of peaceful flourishing while being informally administered by Xiumi and her maid. The latter
even learns to read and write publicly acclaimed poetry. Xiumi concludes her life as a detached
sage and embarks on an inner Peach Blossom Spring journey during her demise. Dorothy Ko
argues that this ritual practice was traditionally considered a domain of men only;19 yet, in the
trilogy women are accorded the role of the enlightened part of humankind, and their bodies
closer to the purity of the plant world than men’s, just like in the earlier narrative of the Dream.
Hence, the author’s depiction of the female body as a potential sacred space whose negative,
destructive power does not predominantly result from women’s improper political ambitions (as
was the superstitious belief throughout Chinese history), but rather from its relentless abuse and
degradation by men, makes perfect sense. This setting from the first part of the trilogy needs to
be kept in mind when looking at the major rape scene in Landscapes.
Yao Peipei’s violation is meticulously planned. From the first moment Province Secretary-
General Jin Yu has spotted her onwards (2: 47), he sets up his vicious trap to catch her, and then
patiently pulls the strings. He arranges for her best friend to be raped by another lecherous local
functionary, so that much later he can pay her for leading Yao Peipei into the prearranged love
nest, a garden villa.When she falls asleep after having ingested a heavy dose of narcotics added to
her cup of osmanthus tea, he violates the virginity of the girl (2: 275–278). In-between, Peipei
witnessed her family background being surveyed by two party deputies; she received order to
join the party and was promised a career position in the provincial capital (both of which she
refused), and she was shocked to find luxury wedding gifts delivered to her foster family by Jin
Yu. When she wakes up lying naked on a traditional sandalwood bed in the villa, Jin Yu declares
his love, smoking. Then he announces his next sexual assault.

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After Peipei’s second violation, Jin Yu falls asleep. Rather than running away immediately, she
decides to strike back. With the sharp edge of a broken teacup she hits him in the face, hurting
both eyes in one stroke. Struggling to escape his stranglehold in an ensuing chase, she hits him
on the head with a heavy stone (2: 280–281).The first counterstrike is executed in full awareness
of the transgression, but her second strike happens in defense, and kills Jin Yu by accident. This
fact is never considered in the process of her prosecution and execution. Everyone involved in
her case, including herself and Tan Gongda, considers her a criminal with no rights. The scandal
does not end here. Yao’s refusal to acquiesce to Jin Yu’s scheme is equal in spirit to the maid’s
saying no to the rice trader’s proposed “deal” in Peach Blossom Beauty. However, her fate is a
violent reversal of the maid’s good fortune. Her body is abused in the old style, if by now in the
guise of the revolution, and her heroic response, in revolutionary spirit, is criminalized by the
very revolutionary regime that was founded on the promise to provide special protection and
empowerment for the weakest social segments.20 The jargon of the revolution is thus abused as
pretext for reproducing the pre-modern gender bias. Judging by the far less brutal treatment Lu
Xiumi receives from the bandits, the new power holders evidently care even less about women’s
rights than a gang of rude Huajiashe outlaws in the final years of the Qing dynasty. At the turn
of the twenty-first century, in End of Spring, rape is depicted as if it were just one among many
unpleasant social facts – a symptom of decay to which the new society seems to have succumbed
quietly. Despite socialism’s promises the utopia of love, writ large in revolutionary literature,
remains a precarious domain of maladaptive dreamers. Tan Duanwu and his wife Pang Jiayu
give up their dreams after entering adulthood, and return to their youthful ideals only in the
face of Pang’s death. One attempt to ideologically refashion sexual abuse as women’s liberation
is exposed as devious, though. When asked whether she, like men, enjoys getting involved with
many different lovers, a prostitute simply calls her client a lecher (3: 306). In-between the vanish-
ing of dreamers and the abortion of moral standards, her irritation references a narrowing space
for post-utopian social renegotiations.
Landscapes, as the other two novels individually and the trilogy as a whole, was received
enthusiastically by the literary world. Wang Zhongshen highlighted the novel’s fusion of Chi-
nese and Western culture, and stressed the unusual infusion of (Sino-)Western utopian and
dystopian topoi with Islamic culture.21 Mo Yan eulogized Ge Fei’s successful rewriting of the
Dream of the Red Chamber narrative (Ibid., 32). Chen Xiaoming commented that the novel
excavates a different kind of utopian thought related to those historical possibilities, which were
suppressed throughout the actual 1950s (Ibid., 32 f.). Liu Xiaofeng read the novel as an alarm
signal about the consequences of humankind’s excessive ambitions with respect to changing
reality. Regulating floods used to be the most challenging humanitarian mission for China’s
rulers, he explained, but Tan Gongda’s gigantic dam project destroys livelihoods, people and his
own political career. Moreover, it undermines his modernizing vision and ruins the region’s
landscape (Ibid., 36). Zhang Qinghua recognized the novel’s in-depth reflection on four differ-
ent planes, namely the spiritual quest of intellectuals, the revolution, the dynamics of the human
unconscious, and (religio-)philosophical ideas about existence and nothingness.22 Ge Fei himself
pointed out that he had long harbored the desire to write a novel on present times, and was
most eager to write the third part of the trilogy. He also elaborated on the symbol of milk vetch
in Landscapes. These flowers were first planted in his father’s youth, and since then became a
regional landmark, he recalled. Pretty to look at in spring, and useful as food and medicine, they
saved the population during the severe famine years of 1959–61.23 Together, the three novels
make a strong point in showing such sustainable innovations to be precious exceptions.The two
successor novels, Invisibility Cloak and Waiting for the Spring Breeze, confirm the persistence of
individual Peach Blossom Spring utopias into our days.When comparing Mr.Wu You’s doomed

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utopianism – a signifier of Ge Fei’s early experimental period – with the five volumes of post-
millenarian utopia fiction, we could say that disillusioned melancholia has given way to compas-
sionate nostalgia. This is not a minor change. It references a return of the author’s post-utopian
hopes to the most ancient ideas about a simple life, whilst the great majority’s agency appears
less and less conducive to preserving the beauty of China’s landscapes and gardens, let alone to
creating a better world.

Acknowledgments
This chapter was conceived and written during my senior fellowship at the International
Research Center for Cultural Studies, University of Art and Design Linz, Vienna, in 2016.
I thank the Center for offering a very inspiring intellectual environment, generous funding and
excellent services for research.

Notes
1 Laifong Leung, Contemporary Chinese Fiction Writers: Biography, Bibliography, and Critical Assessment (Lon-
don: Routledge, 2016), 93.
2 For a full list until 2015, see: Ibid., 96.
3 Lu Xun, Diary of a Madman (Kuangren riji), first published in New Youth (Xin Qingnian) on 15 May,
1918.
4 “Ge Fei – Zeroing in on Inspiration,“ China Daily (December 18, 2002).
5 As Cosgrove points out, Arcadia in traditional Western, and once again in colonial cultural contexts, is
not an innocent place: “Not only is death in Arcadia, as everywhere, but violence and war echo con-
stantly through the Arcadian glades. . . . In Virgil . . . Arcadia is not an imaginative or desired place of stasis
or of achieved harmony between humans and the natural world; it is a moment within a complex pro-
cess of human evolution whose driving forces are sexual love and violent death.” The topos of Arcadia
arguably entered the Chinese utopian landscape by means of world literary flows. See Denis E. Cosgrove,
Geography and Vision : Seeing, Imagining and Representing the World (London: I.B.Tauris, 2008), 81.
6 On the debate about Peach Blossom Spring’s location vis-à-vis religious paradise narratives see Susan
E. Nelson, “On Through to the Beyond: The Peach Blossom Spring as Paradise,” Archives of Asian Art
(1986), vol. 39, 23–47. For a study of utopian world literature see: Fokkema Douwe Wessel, Perfect
Worlds: Utopian Fiction in China and the West (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2011).
7 Emily T. Yeh and Christopher R. Coggins, Mapping Shangrila: Contested Landscapes in the Sino-Tibetan
Borderlands (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2014); Dan Smyer Yü, Mindscaping the Landscape of
Tibet: Place, Memorability, Ecoaesthetics (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015).
8 See, for instance, 1: 50 (here, and in the following, volume and page numbers of the trilogy are given):
“Xiumi had not foreseen that Zhang Jiyuan would reply, shaking his head: ‘You’re taking me for little
sister Lin!’ ”; 2: 14: “Peipei looked at the county magistrate’s absentminded face, which had the same
expression as Dream of the Red Chamber protagonist Jia Baoyu’s after he had been struck by a fit of
insanity”; 3: 40: “’Just like Lin Daiyu and Shi Xiangyun in Dream of the Red Chamber?’, he jokingly
asked Lüzhu. In this moment Lüzhu raised her tearstained face, and looking up to him with a quick
glance chuckled: ‘Just a pity that Miaoyu is not here to invite us for tea.’ ” I use the 2012 Shanghai
wenyi edition: Ge Fei, Peach Blossom Beauty (Ren Mian Tao Hua), vol. 1, Jiangnan Trilogy (Shanghai:
Shanghai wenyi, 2012); Ge Fei, Landscapes Moving into Dreams (Shan He Ru Meng), vol. 2, Jiangnan
Trilogy (Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi, 2012); Ge Fei, End of Spring in Jiangnan (Chun Jin Jiangnan), vol.
3, Jiangnan Trilogy (Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi, 2012).
9 The encoding of Peach Blossom Spring as an inner utopia accessible to whoever is ready to leave the
mundane realm of social integration florishes in Song dynasty poetry already, as is discussed in Zhiyi
Yang, Dialectics of Spontaneity:The Aesthetics and Ethics of Su Shi (1037–1101) in Poetry (Leiden: Brill, 2015),
145–163; for a contemporary study on individual utopian imaginations see Clint Jones and Cameron Ellis,
The Individual and Utopia: A Multidisciplinary Study of Humanity and Perfection (London: Routledge, 2016).
10 “Introductory Notes,” in Zaifu Liu, ed., Reflections on the Dream of the Red Chamber (Amherst: Cambria
Press, 2008).

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11 On the notion of homotopia see: Anupama Mohan, Utopia and the Village in South Asian Literatures (Bas-
ingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 8 f.
12 On the global spread of nostalgia in the wake of the capitalist dismantling of local traditions, including
religions, and the emergence of ecocritical forms of “green nostalgia“ see Alastair Bonnett, The Geog-
raphy of Nostalgia: Global and Local Perspectives on Modernity and Loss (London: Routledge, 2015).
13 Jeffrey C. Kinkley, Visions of Dystopia in China’s New Historical Novels (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2015), 107.
14 Haiyan Lee discusses the literary legacy of the female stranger in early modern and revolutionary fic-
tion, see: Haiyan Lee, The Stranger and the Chinese Moral Imagination (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
2014) ch.s 1 and 3.
15 “Le chef de district [Tan Gongda] use de son pouvoir pour . . . intégrer [Yao Peipei] à la communauté
par l’ignorance délibérée de sa différence, sans doute sous l’impulsion de l’égalitarisme compassionnel,
qu’illustrent déjà les œuvres caritatives de sa mère. . . “ www.cairn.info/revue-rue-descartes-2011-2-
page-69.htm. Accessed December 25, 2016.
16 Jeffrey C. Kinkley, Visions of Dystopia, 106.
17 Paola Iovene, Tales of Futures Past: Anticipation and the Ends of Literature in Contemporary China (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 2014), 107–134.
18 After Lu Xiumi returns from Japan, she stays in her room and rarely ever speaks. Worried about her
mental state, her mother asks a Taoist for help. After a long, cheerful conversation with Xiumi, he leaves,
declaring to the mother: “This Great Qing Empire is about to fall.“ (1: 187 f.) In Landscapes, a Taoist
warns Tan Gongda to be extra careful about his wedding arrangements, which he ignores. Soon after, he
is tricked into marrying a cunning peasant woman (2: 211 f.). End of Spring elaborates on the intimate
friendship between Tan Liangruo and his parrot, which is a gift his mother acquired from a Tibetan
monk. Ruoruo’s childhood ends with a bang when the parrot is chasen away (3: 231).
19 Dorothy Ko,“Bodies in Utopia and Utopian Bodies in Imperial China,” in Jörn Rüsen, Michael Fehr and
Thomas W. Rieger, eds., Thinking Utopia: Steps Into Other Worlds (New York: Berghahn, 2006), 89–103.
20 Wang correctly observes that in the old days Yao would have been expected to commit suicide upon
having been shamed by her rapist. Wang Fangfang, “Sacred Love. Captivity. Escape: A short analysis of
Yao Peipei’s Dreamscape in Landscapes Moving into Dreams,” Journal of Zhengzhou Univ. of Aeronautics
(August 2016), vol. 35, no. 4, 29–31.
21 Wang Zhongshen, “Conference on Ge Fei’s Landscapes Moving into Dreams,” Bohai Univ. Academic Journal
(2007), no. 4, 31–37, 31.
2 2 Zhang Qinghua, “Landscapes Moving into Dreams and Ge Fei’s Recent Literary Writings,” Debates on
Literature and Art (Wenyi Zhengming) (2008), vol. 4, 121–127, 123.
23 Heli Roushi, “Records of an Interview with Ge Fei, Discussing his New Work Landscapes Moving into
Dreams),” Douban Readings (January 25, 2007).

Further readings
Bonnett, Alastair. The Geography of Nostalgia: Global and Local Perspectives on Modernity and Loss. London:
Routledge, 2015.
Fokkema, Douwe Wessel. Perfect Worlds: Utopian Fiction in China and the West. Amsterdam: Amsterdam Uni-
versity Press, 2011.
Huters, Theodore. Bringing the World Home: Appropriating the West in Late Qing and Early Republican China.
Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005.
Iovene, Paola. Tales of Futures Past: Anticipation and the Ends of Literature in Contemporary China. Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 2014.
Jones, Clint and Cameron Ellis. The Individual and Utopia: A Multidisciplinary Study of Humanity and Perfection.
London: Routledge, 2016.
Kinkley, Jeffrey C. Visions of Dystopia in China’s New Historical Novels. New York: Columbia University
Press, 2015.
Wang, David Der-wei. Fin-de-Siecle Splendor: Repressed Modernities of Late Qing Fiction, 1849–1911. Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1997.
Wang, Jing. High Culture Fever: Politics, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Deng’s China. Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 1996.
Wang Zhongshen. “Symposium Discussions on Ge Fei’s Landscapes Moving into Dreams.” Bohai University
Academic Journal 4 (2007): 31–37.

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 45
BI FEIYU’S FICTION
Portraits of the disadvantaged
Xiuyin Peng

Life and career

Bi Feiyu (1964–) is one of China’s most prominent present-day writers. Born in Xing-
hua, Jiangsu Province, he grew up in the countryside and lived a carefree life in his childhood.
His mother is a respected teacher, beautiful, outgoing, and having multiple talents. She played
a positive role in his upbringing and future development. Influenced by his mother, Bi Feiyu is
enthusiastic about sports and keeps this interest till now. His favorite writer is Lu Xun. Bi Feiyu
once said, “Undoubtedly, among all Chinese modern writers, it is Lu Xun who influences me
most.”1 Lu Xun and his writings are so powerful that Bi was fascinated by them and read a lot in
his childhood and teenage years. He began writing at an early age, around fourteen or fifteen. In
1987, he graduated from Yangzhou Normal College with a major in Chinese and got a teaching
position in Nanjing in the same year. He worked as a journalist for Nanjing Daily in 1992 and
for Rainflower (Yuhua) Magazine in 1998. Now he is the resident professor of a studio named
after him at Nanjing University.
Bi Feiyu’s fictional works are known for his subtle portrayal of the “female psyche” as he is
widely accepted as the best contemporary male narrator of women’s stories.2 This fame mainly
comes from his two novels, The Moon Opera (Qingyi) and Three Sisters (Yumi,Yuxiu,Yuyang). The
former was published in 2000 and translated into English in 2007.The latter was published in 2001
and the English version came out in 2010. The two novels portray a gallery of women’s lives and
struggles in present-day Chinese society. In the two novels, women both in the city and the coun-
tryside cherish their ambitions and work hard to realize their dreams despite their disadvantaged
positions. Because of this, some scholars have labeled his novels as feminist works, but Bi Feiyu
vigorously denies his feminist affiliation, saying that he is just a writer who writes in his own way,
whether his themes are concerned with men or women.What is true, however, is his strong interest
in the daily lives of marginalized people, including the poor, weak, disabled, and above all, women
in male-dominated society. In this sense, he may be viewed as a chronicler of the disadvantaged.

Literary achievements
Bi Feiyu is a verbal artist who paints human portraits with words. Since he started his writing
career in the 1980s, he has published four novels, eighteen novellas and forty-one short stories.3

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 Xiuyin Peng

Compared with some prominent contemporary writers, he may not be considered very produc-
tive, but his works are unique in perspective, subject matter and writing techniques, especially
in depicting the lives of disadvantaged groups and their inner world. He admits that most of his
novels are realistic, but with a different notion of realism. In his opinion, realism in literature
must be concerned with showing human care and sympathy.4 He puts into practice what he
believes by creating literary works that care for and arouse sympathy for the disadvantaged peo-
ple. In 1991, he published his first short story “The Solitary Island” (Gudao) which was favorably
reviewed. In 1996, he published another short story “The Lactating Woman” (Buruqi de nvren)
which won the First Lu Xun Literature Prize in 1997. It is a story about a little boy who does
not know the taste of breast milk and has no idea of maternal love, because soon after he is born,
his parents leave him behind with his old grandparents so as to work in a faraway place and only
spend a few days with him each year.The novella of The Moon Opera (Qingyi, 2000) won a prize
from the Chinese Novel Association in 2001 and was placed on the longlist for the 2008 Inde-
pendent Foreign Fiction Prize. It is a woman’s story, a moving portrait of an ill-fated Peking
opera singer’s struggle to pursue her beloved career in extremely unfavorable circumstances.The
novella Yumi (2001) won the Chinese Novel Association Prize in 2002 and later garnered the
Third Lu Xun Literature Prize, the top accolade for writers in China. In 2007, the same novel
won the People’s Literature Prize and in 2011 won the Fourth Man Asian Literary Prize. His
novel The Plain (Pingyuan, 2005) won the French World Newspaper Literary Prize in 2009.5 It
is a story about a group of young men and women who suffer both physical and psychological
traumas in the tumultuous years of the 1970s.The novel Massage (Tuina, 2008) won the People’s
Literature Prize in 2008 and the Eighth Mao Dun Literature Prize in 2011, the highest literary
award in China. It is a group portrait of blind massagers’ life and work. On August 21, 2017, the
French government conferred on Bi Feiyu the French Knights of Literature and Art.
Bi Feiyu’s works have been translated into over 20 languages. Half of them are in French
translations. In 2004, he was named the Most Popular Chinese Writer among French Readers
at Paris Book Fair. So far, six short stories, one prose and three novels have been translated
into English.6 Among them, the notable ones include The Moon Opera (Qingyi), Three Sisters
(Yumi,Yuxiu,Yuyang) and Massage (Tuina), all translated by the well-known Chinese-English
translator Howard Goldblatt and his wife. While many Chinese writers seek competent trans-
lators to translate their works, the English translation of Bi Feiyu’s literary works was initiated
by American publishers (Ibid.). At the invitation of a publishing company, Howard Goldblatt
accepted the commission of translation. As a verbal artist, Bi Feiyu’s use of language is elegant,
subtle, and profound. There is something universal in his novels, which arouses sympathy and
empathy from readers regardless of their cultural backgrounds.7 The insights into life uncov-
ered by his novels make him a thinker as well as a writer. Showing no interest in fame, wealth
or social status, he has abandoned opportunities in those areas and is wholly preoccupied
with one thing, his writing.8 Two of his literary works, Three Sisters and Massage, stand out
to represent the achievement of his literary creations. The former portrays the lives of three
women in the historical framework of recent changes in China, while the latter delves into
the lives of blind massagers in a massage center. Whereas the former reflects on how historical
events affect the lives of women in a transitional period within a historical framework, the
latter goes beyond the historical framework to contemplate on the fate of a minority group
of people to be found in all cultures. As a special group of people, the blind usually do not get
adequate attention in society. The popularity of the novel has made a significant contribution
to the change of that situation. Since the novel was published, it has been adapted into film
and modern drama. More and more people begin to care for the blind, the disabled, and the
disadvantaged.9

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 Bi Feiyu’s fiction

Three Sisters: individual portraits for three women

Three Sisters paints the portraits of three women in a society undergoing a transition from
patriarchy to modernity. The story happens between 1971 and 1982, during and shortly after
the Cultural Revolution, a special and important historical period in China. As a responsible
contemporary writer, Bi Feiyu presents the historical reality in a different way by narrating the
interlocking stories of three sisters: the eldest sister Yumi, the third sister Yuxiu and the seventh
and youngest sister Yuyang. The three sisters have different personalities and fates, but they are
also closely related, just like three common and different corns (the literal meaning of the Chi-
nese word for “Yumi”) on the same stem, growing up in different historical periods with dif-
ferent personalities and encountering different fates.Yumi and Yuxiu’s stories take place in 1971,
a crucial year during the Cultural Revolution. Yuyang’s story takes place in a college in 1982,
six years after the ending of the Cultural Revolution.10 The new time and space constitute the
background for Yuyang’s life and fate.

Yumi: portrait of a mature woman

Yumi’s story was published as a novella in April 2001. It won immediate acclaim from readers,
critics, and writers. It became so popular that when people met, some of them might greet each
other with this remark: “ Have you read Yumi lately?”11 Shortly after its publication, it won The
Third Lu Xun Literature Prize for novellas. Yumi or corn is a common crop in China, but Bi
Feiyu gives a special meaning to it. Under his pen, “yumi” is not just a name for corn, but refers
to a fictional woman living in the period of the Cultural Revolution. She is a representative of
her age.
Yumi grows up in a big and powerful family in Wang Family Village in the north part of
Jiangsu Province. Her father Wang Lianfang is a Party secretary, the most powerful person in the
village. He abuses his power by seducing women in the village and coerces his wife into silence
about his affairs.When the wife gives birth to the eighth child, the only son, she becomes totally
lazy and slack. Yumi takes her mother’s place to care for the baby and do all the housework.
At home, Yumi controls the life of her siblings with a firm hand, and has her way with all of
them except Yuxiu, who always gets more love and attention from their father. But it is Yumi
who wins the village’s praise and respect for her capabilities and diligence. She enjoys a sense of
superiority when getting together with other girls. Family background, social environment, and
her inborn temperament have turned her into a strong-minded, independent and determined
young woman who will try every means to realize her dream.
In her teenage years, Yumi’s personality is already distinct. At the age of fourteen, she gets
to know her father’s sex scandals. But she never talks about it openly. Instead, she purposefully
goes to those women’s home and plays with their children in an act of silent protest. When her
mother finally gives birth to a son, she intentionally carries the baby to those women’s home
and stands in front of their doors for a long time, proudly showing the male child as a symbol
of her family’s victory. At the same time, she does not speak to her father. When her father loses
his job and power after being caught in bed with an army man’s spouse, a crime punishable by
imprisonment then, she becomes the backbone of the family, taking into her hands the affairs
of the whole family.
In the following days, a series of misfortunes occur to the family. But Yumi handles all of
them with tact and wisdom. She matures quickly and plays the role of a parent for her sib-
lings. Soon after her father’s sex scandal, her two younger sisters,Yuxiu and Yuye are criminally
assaulted by several men who seek revenge on their father. She takes them back home from the

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spot and helps them recover from the trauma. Days later, her boyfriend Peng Guoliang breaks
up with her, but she does not allow herself to cry for long. Instead, she calmly assesses the family
situation and quickly decides to sacrifice her happiness to protect her family by marrying a man
with power, who is older than her father.Yumi does not indulge in feeling sorry for herself, for
she knows that is the only way to save her family. She moves with the man to town and soon gets
a post in a state-owned unit. Through marriage and its accompanying power, she successfully
protects her family and even regains prestige and respect for her family in Wang Family Village.
Some scholars12 argue that Yumi is a victim to power. Her marriage ruins her happiness and
her life is a tragedy. But the cruel reality is that her family’s problems can be resolved only by
power. With the protection by a man of power, her family can avoid being bullied and continue
their normal life. Besides, the fact that she has a notorious father and her two sisters are raped
makes it almost impossible for her to marry a decent young man, not to mention a young man
with power. Therefore,Yumi’s decision to marry a man with power is not simply a self-sacrifice;
it is a rational move endowed with a sense of nobility. She is a big sister and the backbone of
the family. Her personality and responsibility determine that she has to sacrifice her love and
happiness to regain a respectable life for her family.
Yumi’s story seems to impart a message for women: Marriage is a sort of gambling and
women can never depend on men to gain happiness. They must rely on themselves to live a
happy life. Yumi plans her marriage and lives in the way she desires. As a big sister, she helps
Yuxiu get a job in town, brings good material stuff to her family, holds a celebration for Yuy-
ang’s success in college entrance examination and gives her enough money to cover her college
expenses. She is thus a responsible and successful sister. She feels proud and happy for what she
has done. Yumi’s story is realistically presented and has a sense of universality. The same story
happens in all societies in various forms. What makes Bi Feiyu’s novella different is that by nar-
rating Yumi’s struggle and success in life, it reveals a different dimension of women’s strength and
independence, which has often been interpreted correctly or wrongly as containing insights into
women’s emancipation and even feminism.

Yuxiu: portrait of a half-mature woman

Yuxiu’s story paints the portrait of a beautiful but tragically sad woman. As her father’s favorite
child and the most beautiful daughter in the family, she learns to make use of her beauty and acts
coquettishly to gain favor and benefits. However, fate plays a joke on her. Soon after her father
loses job and power, she is criminally assaulted by several men at the age of seventeen. After the
rape, Yuxiu loses her pride and courage to face the villagers. She comes to Yumi’s new home
for help. To stay in Yumi’s home for long, she succeeds in leaving a good impression on Yumi’s
husband and stepdaughter. But due to her strong personality, she continues the rivalry with Yumi
and makes use of her beauty for personal gains. Because of her beauty, an accountant wants her
to become her son’s girlfriend, but her past history ruins the opportunity.Then, Guo Zuo,Yumi’s
adult stepson, a handsome and educated young man comes back home.Yuxiu falls in love with
him, though she knows it is foolish and dangerous. But as a spoiled child with strong personality,
she has sex with Guo Zuo and gets pregnant, only to find that the man whom she loves leaves
her and never returns. We may contribute Yuxiu’s poor fate to the fact that she does not come
across good and reliable men. But the novella seems to imply that she should be responsible for
her miserable fate. The author imparts this idea through a contrast with her eldest sister. Yumi
never encounters good men in her life. Her first boyfriend Peng Guoliang deserts her when she
needs him most. The second old man, Guo Jiaxing does not treat her kindly at first, but Yumi
finds ways to please him in bed and then gives birth to a child. Later on, she successfully gains

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status in the new family. When Yuxiu finds her pregnant, she attempts to commit suicide twice,
but gives up in the end, while Yumi immediately sends Yuxiu’s newborn baby away without
any hesitation. Through the contrast, we may conclude that unlike Yumi, Yuxiu is irresolute,
irresponsible, and immature. She does not have a clear aim in her life. Her irresponsibility lands
her into a sad fate.

Yuyang: portrait of an immature woman

Yuyang’s story presents the portrait of a naïve woman. She is the youngest and plain daughter
in the family. But she becomes the first and the only child in the village to go to college. Naïve
and innocent, she is docile and obedient. But she also desires to be noticed and appreciated. At
school, she is instructed by the head teacher to take part in the long-distance race at which she
is not at all good, but she perseveres to the finishing line in the hope of winning recognition.
When Wei Xiangdong, a scoundrel notorious for his hard fist during the Cultural Revolution
and now working in the security section of the college, selects her to be a member of the School
Guard because of her honesty, she proudly and excitedly accepts the task.This post gives her the
privilege to monitor any one in her class, including her head teacher and another School Guard
member Pang Fenghua. She does her job dutifully and reports everything to Wei Xiangdong
who is in charge of the School Guard. She reports the defects of her roommate Zhao Shanshan
and student poet Chu Tian, directly leading to Chu’s madness. She also reports the love affair
between the head teacher and Pang Fenghua, ruining the head teacher’s career. In writing these
secret reports,Yuyang’s only motive is to do her job well and gain trust and recognition from the
school authority. She is so innocent that she does not even realize that she is hurting others. She
is so naïve that she even tolerates Wei Xiangdong’s molestation and swallows her humiliating
experience in the scoundrel’s hands.
The reader may wonder why she believes in others so easily and even obeys them. Bi Feiyu
suggests that both family and social background contribute to Yuyang’s character and her bitter
fate. She is brought up by her grandparents and does not receive any instruction about growing
up from her parents and siblings. She is quiet, living in her own world. But at heart, she needs
friendship, appreciation, and consolation from others. Unfortunately, her emotional needs make
her vulnerable to manipulation and deception by immoral and indecent people, and her inex-
perience only leads to the opposite of what she desires. The story ends with her being totally
alienated from her classmates. Just as her name suggests, Yuyang is only a baby corn, green and
immature. Her bitter experience is the cost she has to pay for achieving maturity.

Three sisters: three ways of growing up

In my view, the stories of the three sisters represent three different ways of growing up. The
eldest sister Yumi is mature like a ripened corn, ready for any storm or inclement weather. She
can control her life very well and indeed, her life ends pretty well. The third sister Yuxiu is in a
half mature state. Her beauty both helps her and ruins her. Her half-mature mental state makes
her vulnerable to assaults by ruffians and deception by a perfidious man. The youngest sister
Yuyang is immature and in need of others’ protection. Like a flower growing in a greenhouse,
she has no experience or ability to weather the social storm and has to adjust to life’s challenges
the hard way.
The three sisters also represent three different types of women. Yumi represents the type
who is wise, self-reliant, decisive, and independent. She is able to meet the challenges of life and
pursue her ideal in life as she dreams. Yuxiu is clever and beautiful, but is indecisive without

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definite aims. She likes to please others and depend on others for making a good living. If she
does not meet a very kind man, her life will be in shambles.Yuyang is naïve but honest. She does
not have a clear idea about the world and herself. People can deceive and make use of her easily.
She thinks she will fare well in life so long as she remains good and kind, but she is constantly
frustrated by realities. She is disappointed with the world as well as herself.

Massage: a group portrait of the blind

The novel Massage is Bi Feiyu’s best writing up to date. It vividly presents a series of individual
portraits of a group of blind persons in a massage center.This story comes from the author’s close
relationship with the blind. For a period of time, in order to relieve the neck pain, he went to
the massage center every day and made friends with blind massagers. They all know Bi Feiyu as
he once taught in Nanjing Normal University of Special Education. Many of his students are
the blind massagers’ teachers. So, they call him teachers’ teacher. Owing to this relationship, it is
easy for them to like him and regard him as their best friend. Besides, Bi Feiyu is a friendly, kind-
hearted, helpful and considerate person. Whenever they encounter some problems or troubles,
they would like to air their grievance with him. Bi Feiyu finds out that the blind is not as weak
and miserable as common people think.13 They have their own way of enjoyment. Some of them
are also optimistic and outgoing. Bi Feiyu once said he could even play joke with them about
their blindness. At the same time, he knows and understands their pain and hard life, as he himself
is a person sensitive to pains. At the request of the blind friends who want to read stories about
their own life, he made up his mind to write on their behalf. As a very considerate and sensitive
writer, Bi Feiyu did not put the real stories he heard from the blind massagers into his story but
respected their desire for privacy. Nevertheless, he made good use of his friendship with them
and his knowledge of their lives in his imaginative creation. A combination of his experience,
imagination and talents resulted in the creation of the novel, Massage. According to one critic,
only twenty percent is taken from real life, while eighty percent of the story is imagined.14
Massage is narrated from a point of view which shifts between the first-person and the third-
person.Thus, the narrator is always present in the story.15 As a good and true friend of a group of
blind massagers, Bi Feiyu enters their heart and mind, thinking and imagining in their positions.
He observes their life with loving care and portrays each character with deep sympathy and
understanding. Of all the massagers, some are born to be blind, some become blind because of
the accidents either in childhood or adulthood, and others are becoming blind gradually because
of diseases. Therefore, their pains and understanding of life are different. There are two obvious
themes in the story: respect and love.

Respect comes first

A major theme of Massage addresses the topic of respect for people, including the disabled. If you
regard the disabled as another kind of people, different from ordinary people, it is the biggest insult
and harm to them.16 Among all the blind massagers in the novel, the topic of respect is repeated
again and again. A distinct case is Wang Daifu, who was born to be blind, a man of total blindness.
His brother does not want him to be present at the latter’s wedding for his brother thinks it is a
disgrace for others to know that he has a blind brother. But this does not prevent him from asking
his blind brother for a red packet with congratulatory money. As a dignified man, Wang Daifu is
hurt at heart. He initially wants to send five thousand yuan as cash gift, but to show his dignity
and protest, he mails two hundred thousand yuan instead, which makes up the bulk of his savings
squeezed out of his frugal daily life. For him, money is much less important than dignity.

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Du Hong is another blind massager the narrator sympathetically portrayed. Beautiful and tal-
ented, she is an accomplished pianist, but fate does not treat her kindly, for she is also born blind.
At one public performance, her teacher insists that she play a difficult and unfamiliar music. She
is so nervous that the whole performance is a failure. But the audience gives her a loud applause.
The hostess enthuses over her performance, praising it as perfect. But when the hostess describes
her as a poor blind person whose piano playing is to repay society, she feels badly hurt. What is
the relationship between her performance and society? She never owes anything to the society.
She hates others for describing her as “poor and blind”. She doesn’t owe anyone. She does not
need normal people’s sympathy, nor does she want her blindness to be a topic for normal people
in public. In order to protect her dignity, she quits her favorite piano. Her story shows that what
sustains people in their hard life is not money or even sympathy; it is dignity and respect that
help those disabled people endure hardships and sufferings. Then she becomes a massager, but
an accident makes her right thumb injured. Other massagers voluntarily donate money to help
her because they think she is so unfortunate that she can no longer do massage work. This time
she is not hurt because she knows her colleagues’ help is sincere. She feels warm and moved but
she refuses the donation. As a person with dignity, she is unwilling to be regarded as a poor girl
and live on other’s sympathy. So, she quits the Massage Center without notifying her colleagues
and leaves behind the donated money. She does not know where she should go, but she is proud
and wants to keep her dignity. Her story attests to a truism: “Dignity is something that makes
people feel noble and proud.”17
Xiao Ma is a third example who protects his dignity in his own way. Different from those
born blind persons, he became blind in a car accident in his childhood. His mother died in the
accident but he survived with the loss of eyesight, which may explain why he looks like a nor-
mal man. Besides, he is very handsome and has bright and clear eyes, but with no eyesight. It is
free of charge for the blind to take the public transportation in China. But one day a bus driver
wrongly thinks that Xiao Ma pretends to be blind so as to save the fare. Ever since this incident,
he never takes bus again. No one is willing to tell others in public that he is blind. Dignity is far
more important than inconvenience. The disabled cherish their dignity and appreciate others’
respect. But how do normal people, even family members treat them?
When Xu Tailai leaves home to look for a job, his parents tell him that they do not wish to
see him return home for his wedding.The reason is simple.They do not want to lose face. Since
he is blind, his wife is probably another blind person. Two blind peoples’ wedding ceremony
is not an event to be celebrated because it may bring shame to the family in the village. When
Wang Daifu and his blind wife Xiao Kong stay in his parents’ home for their so-called honey-
moon days, his sister-in-law intentionally uses the word “blind” in her daily language. The cook
of the massage center, Jin Dajie takes advantage of the massagers’ blindness by giving more meat
to people she likes and much less meat to those to whom she is not close. The receptionists at
the massage center are normal persons with eyesight. They also take advantage of the massagers’
blindness to make money. If some massagers give them red packets with money, they will make
a point of directing good customers to them. Otherwise, it will be the opposite situation. With
a sharp observation, the narrator exposes the callousness of those people with normal sight who
go so low as to profit themselves by taking advantages of the blind and hurting their dignity
and respect.

Love is a necessity for the blind

Another important theme in Massage is the love between blind massagers. Life without love is
miserable. Love is a major emotional sustenance for the disabled. Wang Daifu and Xiao Kong

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is a couple that finds in love their emotional and spiritual support. Even though Xiao Kong’s
parents are against her relationship with Wang Daifu, she makes her own decision to come back
together with her lover to Nanjing,Wang Daifu’s hometown.They love each other and stay with
each other, through thick and thin.When they come back to work, they have to live in different
dormitories and can’t sleep in the same bed. Desires, especially sexual desires, torture the young
couple. As a consequence, they begin to quarrel, and then start a cold war without speaking to
each other, but when conflicts are solved, they become even closer, just like common couples.
Sex is an important part in the blind person’s life, as important as food. With deep insight into
the intimate life of the blind, the author manages to convince the reader that the blind is just
like normal people.
The second story focuses on Xiao Ma’s crush on Xiao Kong. His love arises from good
smelling of shampoo from Xiao Kong’s hair. He is passionate about her but she is already Wang
Daifu’s girlfriend. He has to find a way out to vent his emotion. Another massager, Zhang
Yiguang leads him to a prostitute named Xiao Man. At the beginning, Xia Ma regards her as
Xiao Kong and makes love with her in a crazy way. Every time he goes there, he just selects Xiao
Man. Their relationship is also complex and moving. Xiao Ma is blind in his childhood and is
physically defected. Xiao Man becomes a prostitute after she is hurt by her former boyfriend
and is psychologically defected. After intimate physical contacts, they gradually fall in love with
each other. Their love is natural and pure, without ulterior motives.
The third story is about the relationship between Du Hong and Xiao Ma. Du Hong falls in
love with Xiao Ma and subtly expresses her emotion towards him. But at that time Xiao Kong
occupies his heart and Xiao Man satisfies his body. There is no room for another woman, even
though he knows Du Hong is very beautiful.
The fourth love story is between Du Hong and Sha Fuming, one of the owners of Sha
Zongqi Massage Center. Through many customers’ mouth, Sha Fuming gets to know that Du
Hong is amazingly beautiful, as beautiful as a fairy.What is beauty? He asks himself this question
again and again. Gradually he is attracted and tortured by the question. He wants to touch the
beauty and feel the beauty. He has already fallen in love with her. Sha Fuming is an ambitious
man. Ever since childhood, his dream is to find a wife with eyesight. But with the appearance of
Du Hong, he gives up his childhood dream. For his beloved girl, he even thinks about opening
a massage center independently and imagines Du Hong playing the piano in the center.Though
Du Hong needs love, she is proud and has her dignity. She does not want others to make use of
her beauty. In her mind, this kind of love is superficial. She declines it even though he is one of
the owners of the center.
The fifth love story is between Tai Lai and Jin Yan. Jin Yan first overheard Tai Lai’s early love
story from a distant source. She is moved by Tai Lai’s passion for his former girlfriend. She wants
to comfort him and love him. So, she travels all the way from Dalian to Shanghai and then to
Nanjing. Other massagers can’t accept Tai Lai’s accent and think it strange. But Jin Yan loves his
accent and thinks highly of it. How important it is for him to be praised! He is respected and
gains more self-confidence. Sometimes love is to appreciate each other.

Responsibility as a virtue
Like normal people, most blind massagers are responsible persons. Wang Daifu is a typical case.
When he and Xiao Kong confirm the love relationship, he determines to work hard and set up
a massage center for his girlfriend so that she needn’t massage for customers. He loves her and
wants to take good care of her. Though not successful, he keeps the aim in his heart and works
hard for it. This is a man’s responsibility towards his beloved woman. As a son, he also behaves

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responsibly even though his parents do not give much love and care to him. When a landlord
hires some thugs to go to Wang Daifu’s parents’ home to collect a debt owed by his brother,
Wang is summoned home to deal with the situation. He does not have much money himself and
it is no easy for him to earn money. Moreover, he is reluctant to pay his brother’s debt, because
the latter is a wastrel and paying the debt is like throwing money into water. To help his parents
out, he cuts himself on the chest in front of the hired thugs, using his blood as a token to pay the
debt. His action frightens them away. Without money, he uses his blood and life to protect his
parents who are old and weak. While one able-bodied son gets his parents into trouble, another
disabled son protects them at the risk of his own life. What a great irony!
Du Hong and Ji Tingting’s story presents a case of responsibility between friends. Ji Tingting
introduces Du Hong to the Massage Center and they become close friends. Later on, Du Hong
gets closer to Gao Wei, a receptionist, a normal person with eyesight. Gao Wei’s additional job
is to take Du Hong from the dormitory to the Massage Center in the tricycle. Transportation
is important to the blind. Tingting does not feel angry at all. She knows an eye-sighted friend
is more helpful. One day, Tingting decides to leave the Massage Center to get married. Feel-
ing sorry for her upcoming departure, Du Hong wants to accompany her for the last few days.
Besides, she has a secret love story to share with Tingting. Unfortunately, while Du Hong is
waiting for Tingting, her thumb is injured badly by the door’s sudden close.Tingting feels so sad
and sorry as she thinks she should take the responsibility for Du Hong’s injury, for if she does not
decide to leave, Du Hong would not have had to wait for her and the accident could have been
avoided. She insists on staying at Du Hong’s hospital bedside day and night to look after her. Du
Hong certainly knows her heart. But Du Hong does not want to obstruct her marriage and tries
to drive Tingting away. Realizing the subtle relationship between them, their colleague Jin Yan
works out a good idea and successfully sends Tingting on the way home. Their responsibility
towards friends and colleagues is extremely moving.
Xiao Ma’s story is also a good case of responsibility. He loves Xiao Kong, but as a responsible
man, he knows he can’t, for she is already Wang Daifu’s girlfriend.When he has no way to release
his passion, he goes to the prostitute Xiao Man for relaxation. Later on, when Du Hong falls
in love with him, he declines to accept her love though he knows Du Hong is as beautiful as a
fairy. The story shows that though Xiao Ma may have his faults, he is a man of sincerity who is
loyal to his heart and responsible for his love.

The complex world of the blind

Like other communities, Sha Zongqi Massage Center is a small world with complicated rela-
tionships in several ways. The first complexity involves the relationship among normal people:
receptionists Gao Wei and Du Li, and the cook of the center, Jin Dajie. The conflict arises
because Gao Wei feels unfairly treated compared with Du Li, who has a lower education but
receives less criticism from the boss. One day she accidently finds out there is much more meat
in Du Li’s lunch box than in hers. Obviously, Jin Dajie deliberately makes a difference. People
in the center fall into two camps, each standing behind one of the owners. Jin Dajie and Du Li
belong to Zhang Zongqi’s camp because Jin Dajie is Zhang’s relative. Gao Wei belongs to the
other camp, which supports the other boss Sha Fuming because she is Du Hong’s close friend
and knows Sha loves Du Hong. Affiliations with different camps give rise to discord, which
sometimes leads to crisis.
The second complexity concerns the relationship between the blind and the normal people.
The cook Jin Dajie takes advantage of the massagers’ blindness to give more meat to her favorite
Du Li. Knowing Du Hong is Sha Fuming’s love, Gao Wei makes friends with Du Hong and

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voluntarily transports her between the dormitory and the Massage Center. Moreover, she assigns
good customers to Du Hong.
The third complexity covers the relationship between the born blind and post-natal blind.
Zhang Yiguang becomes blind at the age of thirty-five in an explosion. He has a wife and two
kids. His world and value are different from those born blind. He still thinks and behaves as a
normal man. As a consequence, he can neither get along well with the blind people, nor can
he maintain good relations with normal people around him. He belongs to neither of the two
groups. He is an outsider feeling lonely and isolated.
With a sharp eye, the author not only presents the various conflicts among the people in the
massage center but also delves into their causes.The conflict between Gao Wei and Du Li is easy
for us to understand. They are normal people, so it is natural for them to behave as they usually
do. These normal people come to work among the disabled and take advantage of the massag-
ers’ disability. When the blind work together with common people, the latter exert an influ-
ence on them. Furthermore, the blind massagers are also common people, who are endowed
with ordinary people’s weaknesses and shortcomings.They vary in personality, education, family
background, and life experience. So various conflicts arise. Whether a conflict involves normal
persons or disabled persons, the author always does a good job of vividly presenting it and
revealing its cause.
The author also cautions the reader to guard against the notion of depicting the blind as
spotless persons. On the contrary, he convincingly shows the blind to be just like normal human
beings who have their advantages and disadvantages, likes and dislikes.They like beautiful things,
tend to be easily influenced by others’ opinions, and have natural desire for intimate relations.
When Wang’s mother comments that Xiao Kong is becoming more and more beautiful and her
face looks rosy, she eagerly hopes that her lover, Wang Daifu can have the eyesight to notice her
change and appreciate her good looking. At home, the couple enjoys lovemaking twice every
day. But when they come to the massage center, they are required to live in single sex dormito-
ries and cannot have intimate relations. Xiao Kong is tortured by the natural desire and becomes
angry easily. Xiao Ma loves Xiao Kong because others say Xiao Kong has an attractive and sexy
body. Later he is attracted by the prostitute Xiao Man because he enjoys making love with her.
Intimate physical touch leads to emotional change. The author depicts Sha Fuming’s case to
show the blind person’s idea and pursuit of beauty. Fuming falls in love with Du Hong simply
because customers all say she is a great beauty. He wants to know what beauty is and hopes to
touch and possess it and satisfy his curiosity and vanity. Even though he is refused, he still keeps
his love for her in his heart. Du Hong likes Xiao Ma because through customers’ mouth she
gets to know he is very handsome. She contemplates on the good prospect of her life with him,
even though she clearly knows that the life with Xia Ma will be very dull since he is too quiet
and dislikes talking. Just like normal people, she cherishes the fond dream that a beauty should
marry a handsome young man.
The author presents a different story in Zhang Yiguang’s case. He is a normal man for 35 years
and feels immensely sorry for himself after an explosion blinded him. As a result, he needs more
psychological assistance and emotional consolation than the born blind. He frequently goes
to different prostitutes and imagines him to be an ancient emperor by calling those prostitutes
concubines. His relation with them is defined by pure sex and no personal emotion is involved.
Sex is a good way for him to release, relax and find comfort. In daily life, he indulges in dirty
talk. The author shows the character to be no different from those vulgar people among healthy
people.
The two owners of the Massage Center, Sha Fuming and Zhang Zongqi are smart business-
men. Before they become bosses, they vow to be good ones by signing contracts with massagers

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and treating them well. But when they open their own Massage Center, in order to get more
profits they do not mention contract at all. The food for massagers is simple and often of low
quality for the purposes of saving more money for themselves. When conflicts arise, they only
care about their own profits and resort to various tricks for their own gains. From another per-
spective, the author shows how the blind is not any different from the normal people.
The world of the blind is always viewed by normal people as a mysterious space, incompre-
hensive and impenetrable. Bi Feiyu’s Massage furnishes the reader of normal human faculty with
a profound glimpse into this mysterious world from both external and internal perspectives. By
showing the blind as similar to normal people with common desires, aspirations, physical and
emotional problems, the author nevertheless makes us aware that the blind certainly need sym-
pathy, consolation and financial support, but what they need most is fair treatment, equal respect
and genuine acceptance of them as people by the mainstream society. The novel confirms from
the perspective of a special group of people Abraham Maslow’s theory of the hierarchy of
human needs: when the basic needs of self-preservations are met, a human being will seek a
higher level of needs including respect, love, and sense of achievements.18 Respect makes one’s
life valuable and meaningful; love makes life livable and beautiful; sense of achievements makes
people responsible and virtuous. In the history of world literature, not many writers are inter-
ested in or willing to inquire into the world of the blind. Bi Feiyu’s novel offers a unique way
to explore this much-neglected subject matter. His artistic achievement has successfully aroused
the interest of people across cultures in the life of the blind, thereby carving a niche for him in
the pantheon of world literature.

Notes
1 Bi Feiyu and Zhang Li, Teeth Is the Second Criterion for Testing Truth (Yachi shi jianyan zhenli de dier
biaozhun) (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2015), 203.
2 Liu Bilan, “Massage: Bi Feiyu’s Redemption,” (Tuina: Bi Feiyu de jiushu yu beijiushu), Anhui Literature
(Anhui wenxue) (2010), no. 6, 128–129.
3 “A Catalogue of Bi Feiyu’s Works,” (Bi Feiyu zuopin mulu), Journal of School of Chinese Language and
Culture Nanjing Normal University (Nanjing shifan daxue wenxueyuan xuebao) (2009), no. 4, 49–51.
4 Bi Feiyu, “The Writing Road Aiming at China – An Interview with Bi Feiyu,” (Tongxiang Zhongguo
de xiezuo daolu – Bi Feiyu fangtanlu), interview by Zhang Jun, Novel Commentary (Xiaoshuo pinglun)
(2006), no. 2, 43–47.
5 Bi Feiyu and Zhang Li, Teeth Is the Second Criterion for Testing Truth, 355.
6 Zhao Kun, “Worldly Fireworks and Existing Abyss – Overseas Spread and Acceptance of Bi Feiyu’s
novels” (Fanxiangtu shehui shisude yanhuo yu cunzaide shenyuan – xifang yujingxiade Bi Feiyu
xiaoshuo haiwai chuanbo yu jieshou), Contemporary Writers Review (Dangdai zuojia pinglun) (2006),
no. 3, 191–199.
7 Tang Da, “Chinese Narrative, Language Recognition and Realism: Summary of Seminar on Bi Feiyu’s
Works and Its Translation and Publicity” (Zhongguo xushi, yuyan bianshidu yu xianshi zhuyi: Bi Feiyu
zuopin jiqi fanyi chuanbo yantaohui zongshu), Journal of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (Guang-
dong waiyu waimao daxue xuebao) (2016), no. 3, 103–108.
8 Oliver Chou, “Author Bi Feiyu Leaves It All Down to Chance,” South China Morning Post (May 17,
2014).
9 Bi Feiyu and Zhang Li, Teeth Is the Second Criterion for Testing Truth, 358.
10 “Preface to Three Sisters,” in Three Sisters (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2015), 6.
11 Ibid., 1.
12 Liu Xuan, “Grieving Trio in Triangular Prism – An Analysis of Three Sisters’ Tragedy” (Sanlengjing
zhong de beitong sanchongzou – Yumi xilie sanjiemei de beiju tanxi), Masterpieces Review (Mingzuo
xinshang) (2014), no. 9, 10–12 and Chang Qie, “Gender and Power – Commentary on Yumi and
Yuxiu” (Xingbie yu quanli – ping Bi Feiyu Yumi he Yuxiu), Literature and Art Studies (Wenyi yanjiu)
(2014), no. 6, 37–42.

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13 Bi Feiyu, “Everyone Lives in His Blind Spot” (Women meigeren dou huozai ziji de mangquli), inter-
view by Zhang Ying, Southern Weekly (Nanfang zhoumo), May 7, 2009.
14 Liu Bilan, “Massage: Bi Feiyu’s Redemption,” Anhui Literature (Anhui wenxue) (2010), no. 6, 128–129.
15 Bi Feiyu, “The Desire to Intervene will Accompany My Whole Life – An Literary Interview with Bi
Feiyu” (Jieru de yuanwang hui bansui wode yisheng – yu zuojia Bi Feiyu de wenxue fangtan), inter-
view by Shen Xingpei, Literature and Art Forum (Wenyi zhengming) (2014), no. 2, 44–52.
16 Bi Feiyu, “Providing a Free World without Fear to the Blind” (Gei mangren mianyu kongju de ziyou
shijie), interview by Yang Fan, The First (Jingbao), October 13, 2008.
17 Complete Works of Marx and Engels (Makesi Engesi quanji) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1982), vol. 40, 6.
18 See Abraham Maslow, Motivation and Personality (New York: Harper and Row, 1970), Chapter 4.

Further readings
Bi, Feiyu. “The Lactating Woman” (Buruqi de nvren). Translated by Eric Abrahamsen. Chinese Arts and Let-
ters (Zhonghua renwen) 1 (2014): 15–22.
———. The Moon Opera (Qingyi). Translated by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia L. Lin. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt, 2009.
———. Shanghai Triad (Shanghai wangshi). Shanghai: Shanghai jinxiu wenzhang chubanshe, 2009.
Bi, Feiyu and Zhang Li. Teeth Is the Second Criterion for Testing Truth (Yachi shi jianyan zhenli de dier biaoz-
hun). Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2015.
Li, Jingze. “Bi Feiyu’s Voice” (Bi Feiyu de shengyin). Translated by Jesse Field. Chinese Arts and Letters
(Zhonghua renwen) 1 (2014): 49–53.
Shi, Zhanjun. “Restrained but Passionate Narrative: A Study of Bi Feiyu.” Translated by Dennis Mair. Chi-
nese Arts and Letters (Zhonghua renwen) 1 (2014): 54–69.
Wang, Binbin. “Observations on Rhetorical Art in Bi Feiyu’s Fiction” (Bi Feiyu xiaoshuo xiuci yishu pian-
lun). Translated by Dennis Mair. Chinese Arts and Letters (Zhonghua renwen) 1 (2014): 70–81.
Wang, Chunlin.“The Daily Narrations from the Mind – The Understanding on Bi Feiyu’s Style of Novels.”
Journal of Tianjin Normal University (Tianjin shifan daxue xuebao) 2 (2009): 51–54.
Yu, Ling. “Beyond the Mainstream Writing – Commenting on Bi Feiyu’s Novel” (Chaoliuwai de xiezuo –
Bi Feiyu Xiaoshuolun). Review of the Novel (Xiaoshuo pinglun) 2 (2002): 53–58.
Zhang, Xiaoyan. “On the Two Types of Female Characters in Bi Feiyu’s Writing.” Qilu Journal (Qilu xue-
kan) 2 (2012): 150–152.

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 SECTION XIV

Literature of Taiwan, Hong Kong,

and new media
 46
POSTWAR TAIWAN
LITERATURE
An overview

Christopher Lupke

The development of literature in postwar Taiwan has been an extremely fertile phenomenon.
The reasons include the exodus of a great many people from mainland China at the end of
the Civil War (1945–1949) between the Nationalist (Kuomintang) and the Communist forces,
the limited autonomy that writers were afforded in Taiwan in the postwar period as well
as the stability of the island, especially after 1947, in contrast to the mainland, and the intellectual
foundation that native Taiwanese intellectuals established during the Japanese colonial period.
Literature from Taiwan is a complex subject that involves many genres, different stages, and peo-
ple from a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences. In the 1950s, there were two general
trends: a period in fiction writing when most writers were still fixated on mainland China, often
with strong ideological content; and the emergence of a group of poets who began to forge a
new path as early as 1954.The late 1950s and the early 1960s saw the rise of literary modernism
as the dominant aesthetic, largely in reaction to the historical romanticism of the 1950s. The
“Nativist” or xiangtu writers were contemporaries of the Modernists, but perhaps because they
came into dominance slightly later, they are often viewed as part of a subsequent movement in
reaction to the Modernists. From around 1960 to the late 1980s,Taiwan literature was filled with
exquisitely wrought minor masterpieces, in both fiction and poetry.The period of the 1990s and
into the present times has seen profound variety and highly sophisticated work, often termed
postmodern. No single essay can cover all the outstanding literary works in postwar Taiwan.This
essay centers on some of the most prominent authors who flourished from the 1950s through
the 1970s.
The end of the War of Resistance in 1945 and “return” of Taiwan to what at least was a
Chinese government (the KMT), the bloodshed of the February 28th Massacre in 1947, and the
formal relocation of the Nationalist KMT government in Taiwan in 1949 collectively constitute
a major turning point for Taiwan politically, socially, and, of course, culturally. Postwar literature
from Taiwan did not arise from a vacuum. Taiwan was part of the Qing dynasty until 1895
when, as part of the Qing government’s defeat and the signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki,
Taiwan was ceded to Japan. Japan’s colonization of Taiwan lasted fifty years. When the colonial
education system instituted Japanese as the medium,Taiwanese literature eventually was written
almost solely in the language of the colonizer. Some of the most important Taiwanese authors
of the Japanese colonial period were Lai He (1894–1943), Wu Zhuoliu (1900–1976),Yang Kui
(1905–1985), and Lü Heruo (1914–1951). The oldest of these authors, considered the “father”

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of modern Taiwanese literature, Lai He was educated in the traditional Confucian fashion and
did write in Chinese, and in vernacular Taiwanese later in his career. Wu Zhuoliu’s Orphan of
Asia, originally written in Japanese and later translated into Chinese, epitomized the ambiguity
and fractious identity of Taiwanese intellectuals who were neither at home in Taiwan, the colony
of their birth, nor in mainland China, the land of their distant heritage.Yang Kui, who wrote in
Japanese into his mid-1940s, worked to perfect his Chinese skills so he could continue a liter-
ary career after the war, often rewriting stories he first penned in Japanese and then rendered
into Chinese later. Lü Heruo also wrote in Japanese and died a tragic death in the early 1950s,
most likely at the hands of the KMT secret police. He was active in the Communist Party and
worked for the Guangming Daily in Taiwan until the KMT during the White Terror moved to
crush leftist activities. Almost all prominent Taiwanese intellectuals from the Japanese colonial
period were leftists, most serving prison sentences under the Japanese and the KMT. The ban-
ning of Japanese in the early postwar period was ostensibly done to rekindle national identity,
but it conveniently silenced the intellectuals schooled in Japanese.This meant the literary terrain
was dominated by writers who had fled mainland China.
The massacre of leftist intellectuals associated with the February 28th Incident of 1947
and the subsequent White Terror left deep scars on the intellectual community, casting a long
shadow on postwar intellectual developments. Literature still managed to survive and even
thrive, but since the KMT regime from 1947 to 1987 was authoritarian in all but name, despite
rapid economic growth, intellectuals cleaved to the highly aesthetic as opposed to the politi-
cally engaged. Those who defied this unwritten rule, such as Ye Shitao (1925–2008) and Yang
Kui in the 1950s and Chen Yingzhen (1937–2016) in the 1960s, were incarcerated. 1987 was
arguably the most important watershed moment politically speaking in Taiwan since 1947, as
it ushered in a new age of freewheeling politics, unbridled media coverage, and strained sub-
ethnic rivalry as well as anxiety over the political destiny of Taiwan. Despite the bad beginning
to the KMT-dominated Republic of China on Taiwan, the White Terror, authoritarianism, and
the deleterious effects of rapid capitalization, the postwar period in Taiwan has been an era
of creativity and diversity. The 1950s, for example, were a time of profound fecundity in the
realm of modern poetry written in free verse. The reader can refer to the essay in this volume
on Ji Xian (1913–2013) and Yu Guangzhong (1928–2017) for a discussion of two of the most
important poets of the era.

Modernist poetry in 1950s Taiwan

Poetry is sometimes viewed as a haven from authoritarian rule, and for that reason the rise
of Modernist poetry in Taiwan in the mid-1950s benefited from its own marginality. Ji Xian
established himself as a Modernist poet in mainland China before the War, so his activities in
Taiwan a decade later were a continuation of his efforts to import the conceptual framework of
Western-styled free verse into Taiwan from European literature via mainland China. Younger
poets in Taiwan such as Luo Fu (also written Lo Fu) (1934–2018) and Zheng Chouyu (Cheng
Ch’ou-yü) (b. 1933) were born in mainland China too, but came of age in Taiwan. Older than
most of the other poets, Ji Xian was a natural leader of Modernist poetry in Taiwan and had
grown frustrated with the overt politicization of poetry in the Chiang Kai-shek era. His demand
for the “horizontal transplantation” (hengde yizhi) of European literary technique and thematic
orientation represented a radical repositioning of poetry from the political engagement of the
early Cold War period to something foremost concerned with aesthetics.1 This poetic reorien-
tation preceded a similar move in fiction from Taiwan by about half a decade. Ji Xian and the
other Modernist poets of the mid-1950s moved fast to expand their cohort which had at least

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a dozen poets by 1956 who would go on to become some of the most distinctive exponents of
verse in postwar Taiwan.
Both Zheng Chouyu and Luo Fu hailed from military backgrounds, but in both cases there
was no celebration of war or romanticizing of military culture. The two differed in the way
they dealt with war, but neither reveled in it. Zheng and Luo shared general characteristics
of Modernist poetry, such as a love of language, of turns of phrase and of internal rhymes and
rhythms in their respective works. They both were instrumental in solidifying the dominance
of free verse in modern Chinese, dispelling more rigid forms their forebears had employed,
whether those were legacies of traditional Chinese prosody or appropriations of structures from
European poetry. The poetry of both Zheng Chouyu and Luo Fu is replete with rich, evocative
imagery and undefined references that fueled their allure among poetry aficionados. And both
engaged in a dialectic of universality and particularity: on the one hand, their poetry bespoke
the specific circumstances of the war-torn age in which they grew up, the bitterness of exile
and diaspora, the feeling of rootlessness that life in Taiwan, and ultimately North America, had
instilled. On the other hand, the themes of loneliness and isolation that pervade their works were
classic afflictions of Modernism seen in the verse of antecedent luminaries as far flung as Charles
Baudelaire, T. S. Eliot, and W. H. Auden.
The two highlight the exquisite aesthetic quality of Taiwan poetry in the postwar period, but
are also quite different from each other. Zheng Chouyu’s poetry is at its best in its most lyrical
form: short, polished, luminous works of gorgeous linguistic craftsmanship – memorable, beguil-
ing, and inimitable. His poetry is beloved by Chinese speakers throughout the world, not just
in Taiwan, for its seductive appeal, like a fine piece of jewelry or ornament. The poetry is not
overwrought, but Zheng forges together vivid natural images that may typically not go together
but somehow succeed while simultaneously being attentive to their internal musical resonances.
The effect is that his phrases and lines indelibly etch themselves on the mind. Because of this,
his poetry has been criticized for its disconnection from social reality and its celebration of art
for art’s sake. Although true, the escapism that seems to saturate his oeuvre could be regarded as
a refuge from the vagaries of military conflict and political oppression that had vexed Chinese
and Taiwanese society for much of the twentieth century. Thus, it is difficult to say that Zheng’s
work is entirely apolitical even if somewhat fantastical. The turns of phrase and classic lines
of such poems as “Mistake” (Cuowu), “Skylight” (Tianchuang), and “In dreamland” (Mengtu
shang) are said to be “seared on the lips” of legions of Chinese readers.2 The romantic attributes
of Zheng’s poetry – the wandering, the longing, the luscious references to clouds, earth, trees,
mountains, and streams, conjure images of traditional Chinese ink painting and elicit compari-
sons by such scholars as Julia Lin both to the “classic” traditions of ci (lyric) poetry as well as to
modern authors such as Xu Zhimo (1897–1931).3
Luo Fu’s work, on the other hand, while also carefully wrought and foremost committed to
high aesthetics, is more contemplative and reflective than Zheng’s.4 Luo, too, produced many
short poems, but in the final analysis he will be remembered for two epic poems, one written
early in his career and one written late. The former, Death of the Stone Cell (Shishi zhi siwang),
published in 1965 as the product of five years of continuous work, is a poem cycle whose germi-
nation can be found in the death-defying experience of the poet during the Quemoy bombing
of 1958.The first-hand experience of the pummeling of Quemoy, in fact the cascading effect of
war from the late 1930s to the time of the poem’s writing, engendered in him feelings of aliena-
tion, tenuousness, and human folly. Luo Fu’s poetry is imbued with a sense of drama and trauma.
Unlike Zheng, he confronts war head-on and lays bare the abject nature of humanity on the
surface imagery of his writing. In the latter part of his career, Luo Fu spent a decade composing
another epic poem, Driftwood (Piaomu). Driftwood, perhaps sadly, is a negative affirmation of

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the fears that Luo had articulated 30 years previously. If the early poetry expressed trauma and
trepidation, the later poetry was a recognition of the tragic misanthropy that courses through the
human species. Driftwood is almost 200 pages long, and it is a compositional tour de force: well
thought-out in its architectonics, consistent in tone, but constructed in movements. Ultimately,
the poem is an epic admission of life’s transience, isolation, and sorrow.5 Yet, the poem is so
gingerly articulated, with every phrase, line, stanza, and section coalescing in neat and balanced
form, that it also reflects the beauty of the flawed lives we lead. The paradoxical nature of Luo
Fu’s poetry, as Au Chung-to has noted, rests in the poet’s ability to “find hope in hopelessness,”
“life in death,” and “brightness in darkness.” These binary opposites epitomize the variegated
beauty of Luo’s epic masterpieces.6

The establishment of literary institutions and the political novel

After their retreat to Taiwan in 1949, the KMT government set up institutions such as journals
devoted to literature, journals with literary sections, literary awards and associations, and presses
that published novels and collections of prose and poetry. Early on, there was a sentiment that
political ideology and cultural policy should go hand-in-hand. In the early days of the Cold
War, public intellectuals associated with the government recognized that the battle between
mainland China and Taiwan was being waged ideologically.The architect of the culture industry
in Taiwan was Zhang Daofan (1897–1968), a political figure in the KMT who was also an art-
ist and supporter of literary endeavors. Zhang established the journal Literary Creation (Wenyi
Chuangzuo), the dominant early literary organ. Prominent works published in this decade
included several of Peng Ge’s (b. 1926) novels, such as Setting moon (Luoyue), Shooting Star
(Liuxing), and others; Pan Renmu’s (1919–2005) two novels Cousin Lianyi (Lianyi Biaomei)
and The Story of Ma Lan (Ma Lan de gushi); Meng Yao’s (1919–2000) numerous novels, such as
Before daybreak (Liming Qian);Wang Lan’s (1922–2003) two novels The blue and the black (Lan yu
Hei) and Long night (Chang Ye); and Jiang Gui’s (1908–1980) Whirlwind (Xuanfeng), an outlier
of sorts, considered the most important work in the view of critics such as C.T. Hsia.7 Ironically,
though, Jiang Gui’s work, while it distanced itself from the hardline ideology of most 1950s
authors, did not typify the era.
The most representative, and best-selling, major work of fiction was Wang Lan’s The Blue and
the Black. This popular novel was adapted to the big screen and made into a television drama
three times. It has captured the imagination of at least two generations of mainlanders displaced
to Taiwan, personifying both their experience in China and their political views. Its popular-
ity demonstrates that it cannot be discounted, and its tendentiousness and verbosity confirm
that this novel is representative of the era. There are two main themes that run the course of
the novel: the protagonist Zhang Xingya’s love triangle with two women, Tang Qi and Zheng
Meizhuang; and the rewriting of the War of Resistance and the Civil War.The novel resuscitates
the conventional formula of the predicament of a young male hero torn between two women
of different temperaments, at least as old as The Dream of the Red Chamber and persisting in works
such as Su Manshu’s (1884–1918) The Lone Swan (Duanhong lingyan ji) first serialized in 1912.8
But Wang Lan’s closest frame of reference was Mao Dun (1896–1981). Wang Lan borrows the
allegorical relationship between politics and love that Mao Dun often employed. Mao Dun
enjoyed exploring the interplay of personal and public lives in the triangular relationships in
which his characters sometimes found themselves.9 The crucial difference between Mao Dun
and Wang Lan is that Wang’s male protagonists may need to search to find their means of politi-
cal expression, but there is no question as to their allegiance. His heroes are firmly on the side of
the KMT. Wang Lan’s novel is a mirror image of the political stance of Leftist writing in China.

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Opening in Tianjin in the 1930s, The Blue and the Black features the patriotic student Xingya, an
orphan who has grown up with his aunt and uncle, increasingly indignant toward the encroach-
ing Japanese. The first two hundred pages of the novel shift between the teenager’s passionate
commitment to the Resistance and his timorous affection for Tang Qi, who like Xingya is being
raised as an orphan in a relative’s home. Although attracted to each other out of mutual empa-
thy, the similarity ends there. Xingya is bookish and cerebral, lacking the wherewithal to woo
Tang Qi. Tang Qi must contend with the forces of patriarchal values. More outspoken than her
cousins, all of whom are secure in the family,Tang Qi is an outcast from the beginning, given her
independent streak and preference to help broader society over devotion to her adoptive parents.
The author nurtures a tone of irony with Tang Qi, portrayed as more decisive and independ-
ent than Xingya. When Tang Qi leaves home to become a nurse, disowned by her family after
being raped, Xingya cannot muster the courage to defend her, submitting to his uncle’s prohibi-
tion against associating with her. As Xingya grows out of his teen years, the Japanese invasion
penetrates deeper into China. He joins the Resistance in Chongqing, urging Tang Qi to travel
to the interior with him, but at the eleventh-hour Tang Qi sends him a letter saying she cannot
go. We learn later that a friend of Xingya’s secretly begged her not to go. This is a major turning
point in his life, for henceforth he is engaged in armed combat both with the Japanese and the
Communist Eighth Route Army. Although set in the 1940s, the representation of two encoun-
ters in this section of the novel, the one with the Japanese soldiers, meant to sympathize with
them and the other to demonize the Red Army soldiers, exemplifies the Cold War political doc-
trine when the Japanese were seen as part of the Pax Americana umbrella and the Communists
in China as part of a global threat. The way these two scenes are rendered illustrates the ideo-
logical move from war-period fiction to postwar fiction. The irony of sympathetically depicting
the Japanese soldier Xingya has just killed, especially two hundred pages building toward the
confrontation, situates the narrative in the Cold War era.The Japanese military figure, heretofore
demonized, has been humanized in Wang Lan’s account, whereas the Chinese compatriot fight-
ing for the Communists is likened to an animal.
The relationship between Xingya and Zheng Meizhuang, the woman he meets in the war-
time capital, is more difficult to define than his relationship with Tang Qi. Zheng Meizhuang is
closer to pure sensuality than to the symbolic resistance to tradition that Tang Qi signifies. As the
daughter of a powerful warlord, Meizhuang’s charm is puzzling. Xingya reveals a more ephem-
eral side of his character when his feelings toward her change from mild interest to love. When
we contrast the clarity of vision with which Xingya unmasks the Communists masquerading as
Japanese soldiers with the ambivalence he exhibits in his personal life, we are led to question the
authority of his anticommunist message: if the personal struggle reveals that the protagonist is
fallible and malleable, why wouldn’t the same person be subject to the potential of psychologi-
cal manipulation on a political level? This is further underscored by the fact that his impression
of Tang Qi as promiscuous was actually an illusion, for she had been working undercover as a
counterspy for the Chinese Resistance.
From Tang Qi’s point of view, however, this predicament reinforces the national allegory. As
a misfit in her youth, Tang Qi has redirected her energies from an attempt to ingratiate herself
into traditional familial ideals that are withheld from her to more achievable national ones.
While Xingya is cowed by the social convention of filiality, where relationships to individuals
within the family take precedence over those outside, Tang Qi’s moral compass is set against a
family entrenched in the past. Tang Qi’s inevitable break of familial ties results in her becoming
an orphan a second time over and then an adopted child of the nation.
This May Fourth-styled political and social critique, wherein the plight of the maligned female
is superimposed onto that of the fledgling state, raises the cumbersome issue of nationhood.The

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“truth” of Tang Qi’s moral beneficence is disclosed at the end. Xingya ends up in Taiwan and
comes to understand that while Meizhuang is a decent person the two are not compatible.
Tang Qi’s motivation to devote herself to the plight of others prevents her from reuniting with
Xingya. But Xingya can at last achieve some resolution by understanding her true nature. That
multiple narratives, private and public, contest for dominance over the text is an intriguing echo
of Wang Lan’s attempt to consciously create a narrative of the (Chinese) nation (in Taiwan)
while inadvertently undermining the resoluteness of this ideological theme with the conflicted
portrayal of gender relationships.Wang Lan’s treatment of the issue of national destiny in concert
with KMT policy is one of the most influential literary examples of the 1950s. Stylistically, The
Blue and the Black is an example of what E. M. Forster termed a “loose baggy monster.” There
is no economy; there is no stunning use of language. Characterization is conventional; the dia-
logue perfunctory. In order to dislodge the vice-like grip that the historical romances had on
Taiwan, it would require a powerful intellectual to strip them of their pretense. T. A. Hsia (Xia
Ji’an) (1916–1965) is the person who ultimately freed the Taiwan literary scene of that vice grip.

Moving beyond the political novel

Wang Lan’s contemporary Peng Ge wrote in the same vein as Wang Lan. Peng Ge, who would
rise to become one of the most powerful figures in the propaganda wing of the KMT, was not
a bad writer. Several of his short stories are minor gems relating his life growing up in northern
China. But one of his major novels, Setting Moon, was made famous, or perhaps infamous, by the
immanent critique to which T. A. Hsia subjected it. As a scholar well-schooled in the New Criti-
cal precedence of the text over historical context, biography, and political ideology, T. A. Hsia
was nominally in line with the politics of the KMT in Taiwan in the 1950s. In the late 1950s,
he dedicated himself to training undergraduates in New Critical principles and to his journal
Literary Review (Wenxue zazhi), which served as a platform for more tightly woven, intellectually
searching, and stylistically ambitious works than those of historical romance.
T. A. Hsia’s publications in Literary Review either decried the inferior state of literary affairs or
envisioned what better literature could be. One of his best-known works is “A Critique of Set-
ting Moon and Discussion of Modern Fiction,” Hsia’s most thoroughgoing exposition of what he
considers “serious” literature. He used Peng Ge’s novel as a vehicle for advocating a literary ideal.
Hsia’s critique of Setting Moon is an eclectic combination of images of what fiction could be and
of the intricate transformations that Peng Ge’s story must undergo to become great literature,
an excursion through the thought processes of an influential critic as he discusses what to focus
more readily upon and develop, and what to excise from the text.
Setting Moon is similar to The Blue and the Black in that it is set in mainland China during
the War of Resistance and Civil War and ends in Taiwan. The protagonist Yu Xinmei is a Peking
Opera star who sings and acts in a theater company in Tianjin, becomes a double agent against
the Japanese, and ultimately flees to Taiwan. Hsia’s suggestion in his critique that Setting Moon
“could be better” allows him the freedom to revise, suggest alternative structures, and contem-
plate how better to convey the author’s theme.
Hsia centers his critique on principal frames of narration, such as the photo album that initi-
ates the retelling of the protagonist’s last twenty-five years. The album is a useful but neglected
device. The individual photographs are not incorporated into the recollection of events. They
are not used as the touch points that could lend cohesion. Once the story is underway, this
framing device is discarded.10 Like Wang Lan, Peng Ge laments the sorrows of national loss. But
Hsia argues that narrative should be submerged in the intricacies of human interrelationships,
the granules of geographical details, and the consistency of symbols. The author should adhere

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to technique, because in a well-written novel the expression of national loss would be more
powerful. Peng Ge’s novel merely emboldens the habit of “lazy reading.” One of Hsia’s empha-
ses is thorough characterization. This emphasis betrays Hsia’s indebtedness to twentieth century
Anglo-American novel theorists such as Henry James, E. M. Forster and Percy Lubbock. Hsia
also does not necessarily discount the political dimension. Ultimately, he feels that with fidel-
ity to the craft of realistic fiction the issue of adhering to national ideals will take care of itself.

The emergence of modernism

Hsia’s series of essays fostered a new generation of writers who would supplant the establish-
ment writers. Hsia was also the literary mentor to one of the most creative and productive
coteries in the modern era: The Modernist group of writers who were students at National
Taiwan University. A dozen of the best writers of the next generation emerged from this cul-
tural incubator. Bai Xianyong (b. 1937), Wang Wenxing (b. 1939), and Chen Ruoxi (b. 1938)
stood above the rest in the realm of fiction. All three of these writers prized careful writing, read
widely in Western literature, and gradually produced the sort of meticulously crafted narratives
that Hsia acclaimed. Together with the xiangtu or “Nativist” authors, such as Chen Yingzhen,
Huang Chunming (b. 1935), and Wang Zhenhe (1940–1990), these six authors became the most
lauded and accomplished fiction writers of their generation.
Bai Xianyong, the subject of another essay in this volume, wrote story after story probing the
interior psychology of women. His stories are masterful examples of attention to precise word
selection, clever organization that accounts for all aspects of narrative deployment, the need to
create lively characters who are unique, the choice of symbols that fit the narrative and operated
on the level of conveying the story and on a deeper level of philosophical or ethical significance.
Like his predecessors, Bai frequently wrote of the generation of émigrés who were now residing
in Taiwan, but placed his emphasis on the present, rather than upon the nostalgic remembrance
of life on the mainland. The memory of mainland China was a psychological burden. Many of
Bai’s best works were collected in the volume of stories linked by theme entitled Taipei people
(Taibei ren). Bai also was one of the first authors in Chinese to directly broach the subject of
homosexuality and same-sex relationships. He did so with great sensitivity and sympathy for the
subjects of his writing.11
Often mentioned in the same breath as Bai Xianyong, his contemporary, classmate, and col-
laborator in the founding of the journal Modern Literature(Xiandai wenxue), Wang Wenxing,
could not be more different in style. Wang Wenxing is a dedicated craftsman of fiction as well,
but his style is far more acerbic, and his use of language more radical.Wang is best known for his
novels Family catastrophe (Jiabian) and Backed against the Sea (Beihai de ren).12 A bildungsroman,
Family Catastrophe is structured like no other work of fiction, comprising two interlaced narra-
tive lines: one historical, returning to the early years of the protagonist Fan Ye and following him
through to early adulthood; the other unfolding in the narrative present that follows Fan Ye as
he scours the island of Taiwan for his estranged father. The syntax of the novel becomes more
tortuous as the narrative develops. Wang is noted for mixing classical grammatical patterns with
vernacular ones, adopting English syntax, for paring characters in neologistic compounds, and
in some cases for creating his own private, or idiosyncratic, language.
Each of these two intertwined narrative modes in Family Catastrophe possesses its own tone.
The lettered sections describe Fan Ye in the narrative present. The narrative present is the point
at which the reader finds Fan Ye during his quest for the father. Though it begins with the
father escaping the house, it quickly shifts to Fan Ye and then follows him on his quest for the
father. In this narrative thread, it is Fan Ye’s strong desire to restore the family order to what it

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supposedly used to be before his father fled. Fan Ye’s entreaty at the beginning of each of these
sections, written in the literary language customarily used in the newspaper, is a reminder of
what constituted that order: filial trust in the father’s ability to resolve all the family’s problems.
The tone that this particular narrative develops is contested by the action as retold in the num-
bered sequence intermingled between the lettered sections. In the numbered sequence, we learn
of the gradual metamorphosis of the family from a social unit providing economic security and
spiritual comfort to a hothouse of familial conflict. This structure creates a two-toned narrative,
one in which each of the narratives, read almost in conjunction, perpetually strives to displace
the other. This double inscription is the source of moral ambivalence that destabilizes the text.
The development of the novel along two contesting threads results in an indeterminate text.
The aged father’s enfeebled behavior humiliates Fan Ye. He becomes livid when his father gets
up in the middle of the night and urinates loudly into a chamber pot for all the neighbors to
hear. This abhorrence peaks with Fan Ye’s nightmare that he has stabbed his father in a fight.
This indignation precipitates the father’s flight from the family. And although he demonstrates
sincerity in scouring the island in search of his father, Fan Ye finally resigns himself to a peaceful
life alone with his mother, thereby completing a symbolic Oedipal replacement.
Filiality in the novel is regarded not positively nor as the foundational kernel of Confucian
values that both provides the ideological basis for perpetuating the species and maintains cultural
continuity. It actually is represented as a means of economic necessity and a ritualized com-
modity relation divorced from the coherent attempt to generate cultural meaning. The critique
of filiality offers a justification for Wang Wenxing’s inimitable style. Wang endeavors to resist
the process of reification that creates and smothers his characters. This process of reification, in
which the products as well as the activities of human beings are whittled down into fungible
goods, is the antithesis of Wang Wenxing’s novel itself. In composing a unique work of liter-
ary art, Family Catastrophe stands in stark resistance to the predictable, assembly-line historical
romances discussed above. As a feat of great narrative ingenuity, Family Catastrophe reaches an
artistic sublime as a unique object defying exchange value.13
Like her classmates, Chen Ruoxi began in the early 1960s constructing well-honed short
stories very much according to the New Critical model laid out by T. A. Hsia. By the late 1960s,
however, she diverged from the others in a very dramatic way. Roused by the political foment
of the era, she and her husband set off for Mainland China, unfortunately arriving there right
at the advent of the Cultural Revolution. Although a profoundly painful experience, Chen was
able to utilize the events they faced to assemble a fascinating group of stories about China at
the time. No other writer from Taiwan accomplished that. The result was the collection The
Execution of Mayor Yin and Other Stories (Yin xianzhang). In the eponymous piece, Chen Ruoxi’s
creation of Mayor Yin, a local Communist official who, it turns out, had a background as a
commander for the KMT, is persecuted for his suspect class background and possible counter-
revolutionary status. Part of the power of this story resides in its understatement, for Mayor Yin
bears his persecution stoically and laconically. As a riveting character portrait, Mayor Yin is an
exemplar of the fusion of the personal and political, a subject that few have mastered better than
Chen Ruoxi. The hallmark of Chen’s talent is to display the horror of peer violence during the
Cultural Revolution, not by discussing it directly but by dramatizing it in silent moments and
intimation. Her story “Chairman Mao Is a Rotten Egg” (Jingjing de shengri), uses humor, irony,
and hyperbole to fully communicate the absurdity of the times. In this story, the first-person
narrator’s son has allegedly called Chairman Mao a rotten egg in a spate of frivolous horseplay
with a classmate. That it was not the narrator’s son who uttered this taboo allows for the further
depiction of how peers are compelled to deflect blame onto each other, creating a social milieu
of mutual suspicion and distrust.

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Chen’s subsequent fiction has mostly focused on social issues of various sorts, including sex-
ual repression, divorce, the stresses of overseas life, and tangential references to human rights. Her
story “The Tunnel” (Didao), for example, is a tragic, if lyrical, portrayal of a middle-aged couple
whose efforts to conceal their relationship ends in their deaths. “The Crossroads” (Lukou), is a
story that confronts the issue of generational conflict, bicultural identity, and the stress that liv-
ing in the diaspora places on personal relationships. Chen Ruoxi almost always commingles the
political or the social with renderings of individual characters.

Nativist literature as an alternative to the modernist

The relationship between the Modernists and the Nativists or xiangtu wenxue in Taiwan is fraught
with complications and ironies. The Nativists did not actually rise up as a reaction to the Mod-
ernists. In fact, the three major Nativist authors, Chen Yingzhen, Huang Chunming, and Wang
Zhenhe, were contemporaries of the Modernists. In some cases, the Nativist authors published
short fiction in Modern Literature. Moreover, it is usually overlooked that in style the Nativists
learned the same lessons that the Modernists did, employing an equal amount of rigor to the
craft of fiction. Where they differ from the Modernists is in their life experiences: all three are
native Hoklo Taiwanese; all three come from humble origins; all three bore witness to the viru-
lent effects of the White Terror. Adhering to the same principles of authenticity in writing that
Hsia advocated, these writers simply endeavored to remain true to their own experiences. This
necessitated an examination of life in rural Taiwan.The Nativists tend to be considered together
as a group, but there are crucial differences among them. Chen Yingzhen, for example, was an
inveterate Marxist and stalwart advocate of reunification with mainland China. His work went
through various stages, but the critique of capitalism and the commodity fetish was a constant.
Chen’s Yingzhen’s early short story, “My Kid Brother Kangxiong” (Wo de didi Kangxiong),
related in first person by the older sister of a young man who has committed suicide after hav-
ing an affair, has garnered much critical attention and established Chen’s reputation as a serious
author. Chen’s “The Country Village Teacher” (Xiangcun de Jiaoshi) contains oblique references
to the February 28th Incident. Chen Yingzhen credits Lu Xun, surreptitiously introduced to
him by a high school teacher, as the source of his literary inspiration.We can see in Chen’s work
at least three features common in the work of Lu Xun: a subtle, laconic structure that forces the
reader to contemplate the significant silences and lacunae in his works; the political engagement
and high seriousness of social commentary; and Lu Xun’s near misanthropic fascination with the
callousness that people of all sorts – not just those of the ruling or landed class – exhibit toward
each other. Chen Yingzhen in part adopted the political stance of the later Lu Xun as well, in
his steadfast embrasure of historical materialism and Marxist cultural critique. Since Chen held
consistently to the Marxist stance for the balance of his career in an unwavering fashion, his
intellectual career became synonymous with Marxism, even though early on one could see
other influences, such as Christianity. The reader may refer to the essay in this volume that dis-
cusses his work in greater detail.14
Huang Chunming’s foremost concern was never political ideology, and he arguably was the
most naturally talented storyteller of the three major Nativist authors. His numerous short sto-
ries are each in their own way intricately woven, almost always bespeaking profound sympathy
and tenderness for his protagonists. The early 1960s was a period of experimentation for Huang
Chunming and development of his voice. Most of the works of this period are unremarkable,
simplistic character studies. It should be noted that unlike all the major Modernist and Nativist
authors, Huang Chunming not only came from a home of total impoverishment, there was no
culture of education in his family. He had a rough youth, the eldest child in a large family that

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lost their mother at an early age. Huang often tells the story, with great jocularity, of how he
was thrown out of most of the second-tier colleges on the island until he finally graduated from
Pingdong Teacher’s Institute, the southernmost school of its kind. Still, Huang displays the innate
qualities of a storyteller.
Huang is best known for his short stories, and it would be impossible to single out a magnum
opus. One of his best is “A Flower in the Rainy Night” (Kan hai de rizi), which gives voice to
a destitute woman sold from her biological family to one that subjected her to servitude before
sending her off into a life of prostitution. The intricacy of the narrative trajectory, which shifts
back and forth between the present and the protagonist Baimei’s past multiple times, is never-
theless disposed with inimitable effortlessness. Huang guides the reader from one plot detail to
another without calling attention to the labor he must have invested into crafting this intricate
narrative. The way the story is arranged is only one interesting aspect of it. Equally intriguing
is the reserve of the authorial voice, the unwillingness of Huang to pass judgment on his pro-
tagonist, and the indeterminacy of its moral message. On the one hand, Baimei is a victim of
feudal attitudes which tolerate the fact that women are exploited in rural Chinese, or in this case
Taiwanese, society, a pervasive theme in modern Chinese literature. On the other, in her effort
to assert agency over her predicament, Baimei chooses to become pregnant and raise the child
on her own, with a small amount of help from her biological family. When Huang ends the
story with Baimei nurturing her young son, the reader is left wondering if patriarchal society
is uniformly malevolent or if it retains redeeming features. This ambivalence enables Huang to
reinforce the notion that Baimei is a complicated figure who refuses to allow her exploitation
to control her.15
Another intriguing dimension to Huang’s work is the fact that he is fascinated with relation-
ships that reach beyond the nuclear family. Several of his stories, such as the lyrical “ Fish” (Yu)
and the endearing “The Story of Grandpa Qingfan” (Qingfangong de gushi), highlight inter-
generational relationships such as those between grandfather and grandson. Again, the reader
does not know how to read the “traditional” relationship informed by the Confucian notion of
filiality, because these traditional relationships can be a two-edged sword.They can be oppressive,
which is the case in “Fish.” But they can be palliative, as in “Grandpa Qingfan.”There is a hint in
Huang’s work that traditional relationships are much like nature itself, that the more people live
in their traditional, extended family villages in the countryside, the closer they are to nature.This
notion surfaces in “Grandpa Qingfan,” a story that laments both the devastating effects of nature
due to typhoons and floods and the toxic side of modernity, engendering pollution, gridlock,
and the social anxiety of urban life.16
Huang Chunming applies his ambiguity to all sorts of themes and characters. His story
“Young Widow” (Xiao guafu), for example, is narrated as a political and social critique.The story
is about the establishment of a brothel that will serve American GIs on R & R from the Vietnam
War. But Huang’s characteristic sympathy shines through, and the story morphs into a touch-
ing depiction of the soldiers’ posttraumatic stress syndrome. Each decade from the 1960s to the
present has seen new and artful works by Huang. His story “Set Free” (Fangsheng), for example,
addresses the issue of highly pollutant power plants in Taiwan and the frustration of the local
citizens in dealing with powerful public entities with little success. Huang uses the commingling
of the narrative present with flashbacks to several different moments in the past to reveal the
significance of the story. This includes not just the sociopolitical issue of the power plant, but
also the complicated, tense relationship between the father A’wei and son Wentong as well as the
lovely depiction of nature as embodied in the egret. In fact, the egret functions as a symbol on
three levels: as the victim of the voraciousness of human’s consumption of energy; as a foil that
helps disclose the softer side of A’wei; and as a symbol of freedom for Wentong.

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Huang is foremost a storyteller, but his empathy for his brethren means he cannot resist
depicting characters in difficult, near-tragic circumstances with great compassion. He possesses
some complicated political views, but they are not brandished in his work. Huang’s allegiance
to his ethnic background and his local milieu is held in tension with his devotion to aspects
of traditional Chinese culture. Part of the attraction of Huang’s work is his willingness to leave
these seemingly irreconcilable elements unresolved.
Despite similar settings in rural Taiwan, the tone of most of Wang Zhenhe’s fiction was
dramatically different from that of Chen Yingzhen’s high seriousness and Huang Chunming’s
affectionate depictions of rural folk. The hilarity of Wang Zhenhe’s work was second to none
among his generation. From his very first published story “Ghost, North Wind, Man” (Gui,
beifeng, ren), Wang was drawn to bizarre, somewhat perverted subject matter. “Ghost” depicts
the incestuous fantasies of the protagonist Qin Guifu lusting after his sister while simultaneously
displaying Wang’s nascent facility with interior monologue or style indirect libre. His breakout
work “An Oxcart for Dowry” (Jiazhuang yi niuche) is another anatomy of bizarre and taboo
behavior. In this work, poverty has stripped the three main characters of any sense of decorum.
Wanfa, an impoverished oxcart puller who, because he’s gone deaf, can no longer hear himself
pass gas, blithely tolerates his wife’s flamboyant sexual exploits with a neighbor. “Oxcart” could
be seen as a droll commentary on the over-the-top hagiography of the peasantry found in much
mainland Chinese fiction of the revolutionary period as well as some of the overly sentimental
representations of the rural underclass by Taiwanese writers. The story desublimates the con-
ventional and received notion of the noble peasantry, a dominant trend in left-wing Chinese
fiction. Wang gets some of his merciless tendencies from his acknowledged inspiration, Eileen
Chang (1920–1995). It may seem that Eileen Chang and Wang would make strange bedfellows,
but Wang was an avowed fan of his predecessor’s work, as were many other writers in Taiwan,
although mostly of the Modernist camp, such as Bai Xianyong or at least of mainlander subeth-
nicity, such as Zhu Xining (1927–1998). Chang, treated in a separate chapter in this volume, had
a way of extending her derision of exploitative practices of feudal Chinese society well beyond
the perpetrators themselves and right onto many of those who were subject to exploitation.
Wang does this too, although he can seldom suppress the urge to cast his depictions in highly
comical ways. Even Wang’s more seriously socially engaged works, such as “Xiao Lin Comes to
Taipei” (Xiaolin lai Taibei), which strips away the ideological pretense of economic moderniza-
tion in Taiwan in the 1960s and early 1970s, is framed in terms of near slapstick comedy, with
names that serve as humorous homophones.
Wang Zhenhe’s satire reached its apex with the 1984 novel Rose, Rose, I Love You (Meigui,
meigui, wo ai ni). A novel that revolves around the decidedly un-funny topic of prostitution for
US soldiers during the Vietnam War, Wang nevertheless succeeds in fusing together disparate
elements, stylistically and thematically, that make this novel an extraordinary literary achieve-
ment. While delivering a satirical critique of Taiwan’s complicity in the Vietnam War incursion
by the US, the novel is a tour de force of double entendre in both Mandarin and Hoklo, sending
native-speaking readers into paroxysms of laughter. The main character Dong Siwen, a native
of the east coast town of Hualian, is depicted as a hollow, buffoonish character who sets out to
pimp the women from his locality to American GIs. The novel appears to lack a well-rounded
plot, as it simply concludes by dissolving into something reminiscent of burlesque. But the true
effect of the work, the blistering critique filtered through unrelenting wordplay and farcical
humor, reinforces a sense of community between the readership and the novel. Only those
who can understand the linguistic sophistication of the text, deftly shifting from Mandarin
narrative to Taiwanese dialogue, and laced with suggestive utterances that invoke both these lan-
guages as well as English, can grasp the humor. Thus, the novel becomes an elaborate, extended,

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inside joke, with only those conversant in all three languages able to enjoy the multivalent and
multifarious carnival. One can never be sure of the exact intent of Wang Zhenhe, because one
cannot discern his own moral stance. Wang never surrenders to facile moralization or one-
dimensional didacticism. Rather, his literary accomplishment rests in the way he penetrates the
reader’s moral sensibility and renders them completely unable to pin Wang’s work down to a
single message. Within the raucous humor that his works provide, there is an unsettling under-
tone that leaves the reader puzzled, in doubt, and fraught with lingering perplexity. There is a
very serious and profound aspect to Wang Zhenhe’s fiction, a complex and subversive mood that
epitomizes the greatness of this overlooked exponent of nativism in Taiwan.17

Complicating the notion of Taiwanese nativism

Less well known outside Taiwan is the fact that the xiangtu Nativists are not the only group of
native Taiwanese writers on the island. Another camp of writers that has been writing just as long,
if not longer, as the xiangtu writers has persisted since the 1950s. Some of these writers, such as Ye
Shitao, generally considered to have been the doyen of this group, were educated under the Japa-
nese, like their predecessors.To clarify the distinction between these writers and the xiangtu writers,
many scholars refer to them as bentu writers, a term that has frequently been translated as “local-
ist.” The Localists unanimously consider themselves to be fundamentally distinct from mainland
Chinese, a cultural and social view that constitutes the foundation of their political stance, which
asserts independence from the PRC. Aside from Ye Shitao, other prominent Localists are or were
Zheng Qingwen (1932–2017) and Li Qiao (b. 1934). Zheng is well known for his voluminous
short stories. Li Qiao has written many short stories too, has a very diverse literary oeuvre, but is
best known for his monumental “big river” or epic novel Wintry Night: a Trilogy (Hanye Sanbuqu).
Li Qiao’s epic trilogy is over a thousand pages long and sits shoulder to shoulder with works
of similar magnitude written by other Taiwanese authors such as Ye Shitao, Zhong Zhaozheng
(b. 1925), Dongfang Bai (b. 1938), and Wu Zhuoliu. Li Qiao’s Wintry Night, one of the best of
this epic genre, relates the origins of modern Taiwan’s society through the depiction of one
extended family in a work of historical fiction. It presents the ways in which the traditional
structure of the family and individual identity within it remained the basic building blocks
for the Hakka minority in Taiwan as it faced challenges in establishing itself on the frontier.
Key concepts such as ming or fate, filiality, and customs such as uxorilocal marriage, shape the
thoughts and fears of characters in the novel and foster a sense of cultural identity as they con-
dition the choices and responses of characters to the conflicts and challenges they encounter.
What appears as transparent to the characters within the story is actually a complex network of
collectively held principles for social behavior whose understanding and allegiance is inculcated
from birth through ritual practice, reference in conversation, and observation in action. While
these practices refer to specific sets of prescribed and proscribed behavior in accord with par-
ticular issues such as marriage, they serve the added function of inculcating social customs into
the characters that are constitutive principles of cultural identity. These constitutive values also
assist in structuring the trajectory of the narrative, and therefore participate in the composition
of the literary work in a formal way. Insofar as they even come to “embody” the character of the
protagonists Dengmei and Ahan, they enjoy a significant role in characterization as well. Their
prevalence in the novel raises questions concerning cultural identity on Taiwan.
The first book of this expansive trilogy focuses on the Peng’s, a Hakka family that risks
the dangers of natural disaster, disease, poverty, starvation and attacks from indigenous people
to claim land in the frontier foothill areas of northeast Taiwan. The family settles in a remote
community known as Fanzai Wood. The father – Peng Aqiang – is the paragon of the Chinese

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peasant in many ways – determined, charismatic, and traditional in attitude, the consummate
patriarch. For Aqiang, the unassailable ethical principles of life include respect for one’s ancestors
and adherence to filial conduct, a feeling that there is a certain fixity to human events, and a rev-
erence for the land. As the Peng family encounters the primeval hinterland of Taiwan, cultivating
it into arable, productive soil is the central challenge of the novel. Characters in the novel whose
family origins do not conform to the established ideals of Confucianism, a large household with
an intact lineage, are, by virtue of their incomplete family profiles, both socially and economi-
cally reduced in station. Thus, the unfortunate Dengmei, who as a toddler was thrown into a
pigsty in hopes she would die, becomes the rough equivalent of a child-bride, one betrothed at
a very young age to a son, brought into the male family as a domestic servant until such time as
the consummation of a nuptial bond is appropriate in terms of age.
In Dengmei’s case, “fate” intervenes, because her intended, Fourth Son Renxiu dies a
wretched death, probably from an appendicitis attack. The local shaman, upon examining him,
declares his illness fatal, stating he has been “hooked by heaven.” As all things are ultimately pre-
ordained in such circumstances, his death is reluctantly accepted by the family, and Dengmei is
shunned at first as an inauspicious element that may have had a supernatural influence on this
ill turn of events. Dengmei, though she is saddened by Renxiu’s death, is now, ironically, freed
to develop another kind of relationship with another character: Huang Ahan. Both Dengmei
and Ahan are marginal to the family itself but central to the narrative. Ahan, himself orphaned,
secretly identifies with the misfortune of Dengmei, and nurses an affection for her. He also
at times has serious conflicts with the family, not being a member of it. But he strikes a deal
whereby he can marry Dengmei in exchange for services for the family. While some in it, such
as the first son, constantly torment Ahan with the fact that he is illegitimate and does not belong,
others value his services and skills. Wintry Night is a sprawling work that spans many decades
in the manner of a 19th century European novel. Although Li Qiao doesn’t exactly display the
narrative sophistication of some of the short story writers from Taiwan, his narrative is compel-
ling and rings true as a novel of social realism. It personifies the historical experiences of Hakka
Taiwanese in their struggle to consolidate themselves on Taiwan. The novel provides a fictional
genealogy for one constituency in modern Taiwan. At the same time, the fact that it specifies the
experiences of one ethnic group permits it in effect to illustrate the fact that Taiwanese society
defies easy classification. Though not a large population, the people of Taiwan are best under-
stood in their diversity. The fiction of the mid-twentieth century expresses the experiences of a
wide variety of people who inhabit the island, and these experiences cannot be encapsulated by
one writer, one set of experiences, or one work of literature.

Notes
1 Alain Leroux, “Poetry Movements in Taiwan from the 1950s to the Late 1970s: Breaks and Continui-
ties,” China Perspectives (November–December 2006), vol. 68, 58.
2 Christopher Lupke, “Zheng Chouyu and the Search for Voice in Contemporary Chinese Lyric Poetry,”
in Christopher Lupke, ed., New Perspectives on Contemporary Chinese Poetry (New York: Palgrave Mac-
millan, 2008), 30.
3 Julia Lin, “Cheng Ch’ou-yü: The Keeper of the Old,” in Julia Lin, ed., Contemporary Chinese Poetry
(Athens, OH and London: Ohio University Press, 1985), 1–11.
4 Christopher Lupke, “Zheng Chouyu and the Search for Voice in Contemporary Chinese Lyric Poetry,”
29–46.
5 John Balcom, “To the Heart of Exile: The Poetic Odyssey of Luo Fu,” in Christopher Lupke, ed., New
Perspectives on Contemporary Chinese Poetry, 65–84.
6 Au Chong-to, Modernist Aesthetics in Taiwanese Poetry since the 1950s (Leiden and Boston: Brill Press,
2008), esp. 47–51.

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 Christopher Lupke

7 C. T. Hsia, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction: Third Edition (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana
University Press, 1999), 555–562 and 564–573.
8 Leo Lee, The Romantic Generation of Chinese Writers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard East Asia Series, 1973), 43.
9 Marston Anderson, The Limits of Realism: Chinese Fiction in the Revolutionary Period (Berkeley, Los Ange-
les and Oxford: University of California Press, 1990), 132–138.
10 Christopher Lupke, “Xia Ji’an’s (T. A. Hsia) Critical Bridge to Modernism in Taiwan,” The Journal of
Modern Literature in Chinese (July 2000), vol. 4, no. 1, 35–63.
11 Steven L. Riep, “Bai Xianyong,” in Thomas Moran and Ye Dianna Xu, eds., Dictionary of Literary Biogra-
phy: Chinese Fiction Writers, 1950–2000 (Detroit: Gale Cencage Learning, 201), 3, 3–17.
1 2 Sung-sheng Yvonne Chang, Modernism and the Native Resistance: Contemporary Chinese Fiction from Tai-
wan (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 1993), 38–52.
13 Christopher Lupke, “Wang Wenxing and the ‘Loss’ of China,” Boundary 2 (1998), vol. 25, no. 3, 97–128.
14 Christopher Lupke, “Chen Yingzhen,” in Thomas Moran and Ye Dianna Xu, eds., Dictionary of Liter-
ary Biography: Chinese Fiction Writers, 1950–2000 (Detroit: Gale Cencage Learning, 2013), 37–46. Also
see Sung-sheng Yvonne Chang, Modernism and the Native Resistance: Contemporary Chinese Fiction from
Taiwan, 136–153.
1 5 Sung-sheng Yvonne Chang, Modernism and the Native Resistance: Contemporary Chinese Fiction from Tai-
wan, 143–159; also see Ming-yan Lai, Nativism and Modernity: Cultural Contestations Under Global Capi-
talism (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2008), 129–140; and June Yip, Envisioning Taiwan: Fiction, Cinema, and
the Nation in the Cultural Imaginary (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2004), 138–164.
16 Christopher Lupke, “Huang Chunming,” in Thomas Moran and Ye Dianna Xu, eds., Dictionary of Liter-
ary Biography: Chinese Fiction Writers, 1950–2000, 100–110.
1 7 Sung-sheng Yvonne Chang, Modernism and the Native Resistance: Contemporary Chinese Fiction from Tai-
wan, 70–83 and Ming-yan Lai, Nativism and Modernity: Cultural Contestations Under Global Capitalism,
67–78. Also see Jeffrey Kinkley, “Mandarin Kitsch and Taiwanese Kitsch in the Fiction of Wang Chen-
ho,” Modern Chinese Literature (1992), vol. 6, no. 1–2, 85–114.

Further readings
Ch’en Ying-chen (Chen Yingzhen). Exiles at Home: Stories by Ch’en Ying-chen. Translated by Lucien
Miller. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan, 2002.
Chen Ruoxi. The Execution of Mayor Yin. Translateed by Nancy Ying and Howard Goldblatt, Edited by
Howard Goldblatt. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.
Huang Chunming. The Taste of Apples.Translated by Howard Goldblatt. New York and Chichester: Colum-
bia University Press, 2001.
Li Qiao. Wintry Night. Translated by Tao Tao Liu and John Balcom. New York and Chichester: Columbia
University Press, 2001.
Lo Fu (Luo Fu). Stone Cell. Translated by John Balcom. Boston: Zephyr Press, 2016.
———. Driftwood. Translated by John Balcom. Boston: Zephyr Press, 2006.
Pai Hsien-yung (Bai Xianyong). Wandering in the Garden, Waking from a Dream: Tales of Taipei Characters.
Translated by Bai Xianyong and Patia Yasin, Edited by George Kao. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1982.
Wang, Chen-ho (Wang Zhenhe). Rose, Rose, I Love You. Translated by Howard Goldblatt. New York and
Chichester: Columbia University Press, 2000.
Wang Wen-hsing (Wang Wenxing). Family Catastrophe. Translated by Susan Wan Dolling. Honolulu: Uni-
versity of Hawai‘i Press, 1995.
Wu Zhuoliu. Orphan of Asia. Translated by Ioannis Mentzas. New York and Chichester: Columbia Univer-
sity Press, 2008.
Yeh, Michelle and N. G. D. Malmqvist, eds. Frontier Taiwan: An Anthology of Modern Chinese Poetry. New York:
Columbia University Press.

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 47
MASTERPIECES OF TAIWAN
FICTION
Chen Yingzhen and Bai Xianyong

Pei-yin Lin

Taiwan has been a significant and relatively dynamic production site of Chinese-language litera-
ture since 1949, a year often considered the end of modernity as far as modern Chinese literature
is concerned. Although writers in the newly founded People’s Republic of China did not pro-
duce many innovative creative works until the late 1970s, authors in Taiwan (also those in Hong
Kong) were fairly experimental as early as the mid-1950s when some émigré writers began to
introduce modernist aesthetics to Taiwan and published works that are subversive not only to
the high-handed Nationalist rule but also to the growing complacency of Taiwan’s middle-class.
Overall, literature from Taiwan has exhibited thematic and stylistic diversity throughout the
second half of the 20th century. The multiplicity in themes and styles has increased particularly
since the 1980s, in contrast to the 1950s, the 1960s, and the 1970s, dominated by its mainstream
writing – anti-Communist literature, modernist literature, and nativist literature, respectively.
The two novelists – Chen Yingzhen and Bai Xianyong – selected for this essay are both
associated with Taiwan’s modernist literature. In Europe and North America, modernist litera-
ture can be traced back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with important precursors of
modernism including Fyodor Dostoevsky, Charles Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Walt Whitman.
Although some early practitioners of modernism harbored a utopian spirit, this idealism ended
after the outbreak of World War I and was replaced by writers’ rejection of absolute truths such
as the governmental or religious doctrines. Despite its decade-long span of development, most
modernist writers were keen to experiment with new literary forms so as to fully express the
novel sensibilities of their time. Taiwan’s modernist literature can also be seen in the same vein
as subversive efforts in search of new literary expressions. However, its trajectory differed from
its Western counterparts in at least two aspects. First, modernism in post-1949 Taiwan was a
highly compressed alternative practice in the context of the Kuomintang’s (KMT) advocacy for
a homogenous anti-Communist literature. Second, while much of Taiwan’s modernist practice
was inspired by Western literature and thought (existentialism for instance), some of the major
followers also gained their creative nourishment from Chinese literature (as in the case of Bai
Xianyong) or managed to reconcile the seemingly incompatible modernism and nativism (as in
the writings of Chen Yingzhen).

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Situating the two writers in the context of Taiwan’s modernist fiction

Young émigré as well as Taiwan-born writers were attracted to this West-originated literary
mode as a way to express their sense of suffocation experienced during the KMT’s early post-
war authoritarian rule. This is hardly surprising, as the KMT quickly promulgated the martial
law control in 1949, followed by the White Terror hunts for political dissidents throughout the
1950s and 1960s. For the young émigré writers, they were not old enough to claim the literary
legacy left by the May Fourth authors. As for the young native Taiwanese writers, they were una-
ble to find inspirations from the colonial Taiwanese literature due to the KMT’s overall cultural
policy of de-Japanifying and re-Sinifying Taiwan. In this cultural vacuum, the U.S. continued
its political and economic support for Taiwan under the global Cold War context. The overall
pro-American ambience of Taiwan further facilitated the dissemination of American culture
and Western-originated modernism island-wide. And several key figures of modernist literature
went to America for further studies, as the common saying of the time had indicated: “Come to
study at National Taiwan University, and then head off to the United States.”
Under the circumstances, young poets began their modernist practice as early as mid-1950s
and young novelists soon caught up with the systematic translation and introduction of Western
literature and thoughts, such as the works by Kafka and the literary notions of Sartre and Camus,
in significant modernist periodicals such as Literary Review (Wenxue zazhi), Modern Literature
(Xiandai wenxue), and Writers’ Gathering (Bihui). The first one was founded in 1956 by T. A.
Hsia, a professor at the National Taiwan University (NTU) at that time, with an aim to pursue
a “plain, sober, and rational” literature. Not long after Hsia left for the United States in 1959,
Literary Review became suspended in August 1960. Luckily, Hsia’s NTU pupils, including Bai
Xianyong, Wang Wenxing, Chen Ruoxi, Ouyang Zi and others, established Modern Literature
with a similar goal of carving out a space of literary freedom. Those young university students
were particularly interested in translating and introducing modernist works such as those by
Thomas Mann, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, and Virginia Woolf. Many of them (including
all the four mentioned above) were eager to experiment with modernist techniques and later
became established modernist writers. In addition to Literary Review and Modern Literature, Writ-
ers’ Gathering, though less known, was worth noting for its advocacy of modernism in not just
literature but also in music and the arts. Chen Yingzhen, one of the two authors this essay will
discuss, for instance, published a few early works in Writers’ Gathering.
Chen Yingzhen and Bai Xianyong, along with Wang Wenxing, Qideng Sheng, Ouyang
Zi, are some of the representative Taiwanese novelists commonly associated with modernism.
Among them, Wang Wenxing and Qideng Sheng are more radical in terms of their stylistic
innovations and linguistic experiments, whereas Ouyang Zi is particularly adroit in capturing
complicated human psychology. Relatively speaking, Chen’s and Bai’s works contain a stronger
historical sense, even though their focus remains on individual lives under certain socio-histori-
cal circumstances. Although Chen and Bai came from rather different backgrounds – Chen as a
Taiwan-born writer from a Christian family and Bai as a KMT general’s son in a Muslim family
with an unsettling childhood who arrived in Taiwan in 1949 for university education – they did
share a few similarities.1 They were born in the same year (1937) and had the same college major
(English). Starting their literary career in the 1960s in Taiwan, they tackled the exilic mentality
and Taiwan’s interethnic relationship in their writing. Chen’s “A Race of Generals” (Jiangjunzu)
and Bai’s Taipei People (Taibei ren), a collection of fourteen short stories, offer salient examples.
In addition, Chen’s earlier works and most of Bai’s writings are both associated with Modern
Literature. However, they are set apart from each other in at least two ways. First, Bai is more
or less an unswervingly modernist writer, whereas Chen Yingzhen underwent various stages of

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development and became one of the leading promoters of socially engaged nativist literature
in the 1970s. Second, they charted their protagonists’ unsettled anxiety in rather different ways.
Writing about the Chinese diaspora, Bai Xianyong is renowned for his portrait of the main-
landers’ life in his New Yorker (Niuyueke) series and for Taipei People. More specifically, the former
touches upon the second-generation mainlanders’ rootlessness in the United States, whereas the
latter paints a vivid picture of the first-generation mainlanders’ nostalgia for their past in China.
Not surprisingly, the protagonists in Bai’s New Yorker stories are often overseas Chinese students
who eventually commit suicide out of their sense of alienation in the foreign land. Their disil-
lusionment is discernable even from the titles of Bai’s novellas, such as “Death in Chicago”
(Zhijiage zhi si) and “Fallen Immortal” (Zhexian ji). In comparison, the scope of Taipei People is
much broader, and the collection of stories is endowed with a more profound sense of histori-
cal vicissitude. Rather than seeking death, most of the protagonists in Taipei People cannot stop
reminiscing about their youth or glorious lives in the mainland and live in spiritual paralysis.
While Bai Xianyong continued to write about the diaspora of mainlanders, Chen was gradu-
ally forming his socialist ideas, even though he started with modernist writing. In his early
modernist stage, he wrote about death too. However, the death of Chen’s protagonists – mainly
Taiwanese educated youths along with some underprivileged loners, such as the mainlander vet-
eran soldier in “A Race of Generals” – is often connected with their distress caused by Taiwan’s
stifling political environment and intolerable social atmosphere. Unable to materialize their
dream (either social reform or a requited love), Chen’s protagonists therefore easily suffer from
nihilism and end their lives by suicide or with schizophrenia. Nevertheless, Chen’s pale mod-
ernist stage did not last long, as he started – around the mid-1960s – to examine intellectuals’
paranoia and deem the modernist works generally artificial and linguistically overstated when he
started to publish in the realist-oriented Literature Quarterly (Wenxue jikan), a magazine founded
in 1966 and headed by Wei Tiancong as the editor-in-chief.

Chen Yingzhen: from modernism to nativism

Born in Japan-ruled Taiwan in 1937 with the original name Chen Yongshan,2 Chen worked
as an English teacher and later at a foreign company after graduating from college. His earlier
works often deal with themes related to self-redemption as well as beliefs about good and evil
in Christianity. Yet later on, Chen shied away from Christianity and embraced socialism. In
1959, Chen published his debut work “The Noodle Stall” (Miantan) while still a college student
majoring in English. It focuses on the hard work of a poverty-stricken family that has to push
their noodle stall around to avoid the police’s curbing of street vendors and make a humble
living. The humanist concerns for people, particularly blue-collar ones, remain fairly consistent
throughout Chen’s writing career. In 1968, while planning to travel to Iowa to attend a writers’
camp, Chen was apprehended by the Kuomintang government for reading leftist works (such
as those by Lu Xun) and promulgating communism. After being released from prison in 1975,
Chen continued to write and underwent a new phase of political writing. He was a pioneering
advocate for nativist literature in Taiwan’s ferocious Nativist Literary Debates of 1977–1978,
although his left-leaning ideology differed greatly from that of other supporters of nativist lit-
erature such as the Taiwan-centric critic Ye Shitao. Chen was detained by the Kuomintang in
1979 for being suspected of participating in a rebellion.
From the mid-/late 1970s through the 1980s, Chen published several works tackling the
transnational companies’ economic and cultural exploitation of Taiwan. His “Washington Build-
ing” series were the representative works. The artistic merits of those stories are sometimes
compromised due to the high intellectualism of the series. Around the same period, Chen also

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revisited Taiwan’s White Terror period in his series of political stories, such as “Mountain Path”
(Shanlu, 1983) and “Zhao Nandong” (Zhao Nandong, 1987). In 1988, he was elected chairman
of the Alliance for the Reunification of China. Also in the 1980s, Chen established the journal
Human World (Renjian) in 1985 to advocate for humanitarian concerns for the underprivileged
Taiwanese people. He stopped writing for more than a decade. Only in 1999 did he publish
“Return to Hometown” (Guixiang), which, together with two other stories written at the turn
of the twenty-first century, was published under the title Zhongxiao Park in 2001. Also in 1999,
the pro-unification Chen Yingzhen became involved in a debate with the Taiwan-centric critic
Chen Fangming regarding Taiwan’s literary historiography. In June 2006, Chen Yingzhen settled
in Beijing but suffered from a stroke three months later. He passed away there on November 22,
2016. Overall, Chen remained consistent in his pursuit of unification and China-leaning nation-
alism in his criticism of colonialism and imperialism.

Literary achievements and masterpieces

Chen’s earlier works – those written between approximately 1959 and 1965 – are usually auto-
biographic and melancholic. In Chen’s works from those years, the protagonists are often pale,
lonely, and bohemian intellectuals. Examples include the sensitive teenage character Kangxiong,
who dies prematurely due to social hypocrisy in “My Kid Brother Kangxiong” (Wode didi
Kangxiong), and the bearded teacher Wu Jinxiang in “The Village Schoolteacher” (Xiangcun de
jiaoshi, 1960). The former dreams of establishing orphanages and hospitals for the poor, while
the latter wishes to nurture his students into socially responsible persons through education.
However, Kangxiong kills himself due to his amorous relationship with a motherly figure – his
landlord’s wife – and Wu Jinxiang simply gives up his ideal after realizing the difficulty of trying
to reform the “senile, lazy, yet haughty” China.
Overall, the burden of existence as well as the unbridgeable gap between one’s ambition and
reality are recurrent themes in Chen’s earlier works. For instance, “Family” (Jia) depicts how the
young protagonist is trapped between his dream of honoring his family by passing the university
entrance exam and his nihilism toward such superficial success. “Hometown” (Guxiang) tells
of a young man who is reluctant to return home, as the journey simply reminds him of how
his frustrated older brother has become a worthless person. In the 1964 short story “A Race of
Generals,” Chen once again focuses on the lower-class people.The work, which depicts the love
between a poor Taiwanese teenage girl and a mainlander, is a powerful celebration of the dignity
of social underdogs. It employs stream of consciousness and symbolism to express the inner feel-
ings of two homeless and downtrodden entertainers in a manner characteristic of Chen’s early
modernist style.
The year 1966 witnessed Chen’s stylistic change and period of self-examination. From this
year onwards, the sentimentalism in Chen’s earlier works was gradually replaced by irony and
profound concerns with Taiwan’s socio-economic dependence on the “first world.” During the
years 1967–1982, he published a few stories in Literature Quarterly. Chen’s significant works from
this stage include “Tang Qian’s Comedy” (Tang Qian de xiju, 1967), “My First Case” (Diyijian
chaishi, 1967), and “Night Fright” (Yexing huoche, 1978). “Tang Qian’s Comedy” is a carica-
ture criticizing the shallowness of trend-following (male) intellectuals, whereas “My First Case”
reflects Chen’s contemplation of the meaning of individual life. In the former, the female pro-
tagonist Tang Qian continues to switch her identity as she has romances with six different men,
including a teacher, a poet, an existentialist believer, a logical positivist, an engineer, and a man
with a doctorate in physics. Starting as an anti-communist patriotic student, Tang Qian then
becomes a writer and eventually leaves Taiwan for America and marries the physicist there.

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Despite the love theme, “Tang Qian’s Comedy” can be seen as a prelude to Chen’s criticism of
Taiwan’s cultural dependency on the West, especially the United States.
“My First Case” is another work that can be read as Chen’s diagnosis of Taiwan’s social prob-
lems. Through the young police officer’s investigation of a suicide case, Chen hints that one’s
suicide is associated with social corruption and that promoting traditional ethical values could
be an antidote. Chen’s “Night Fright,” a work concerned with Taiwan’s economic dependency
on America, demonstrates his trenchant social commentary. In the story, a native Taiwanese
white-collar worker named Zhan Yihong resigns from his job in protest against his American
boss’s disrespectful attitude toward the Chinese people. He resolves to return to Taiwan’s coun-
tryside with his lover Liu Xiaoling, a second-generation mainlander woman. In addition to the
potential reconciliation of ethnic tensions, the story resonates with Chen’s emphasis on one’s
native values and rejection of the world system. Nevertheless, the ambiguous ending, in which
Zhan invites Liu to return to his hometown in southern Taiwan – a symbol of (anti-Western)
nativism – somewhat discounts the validity of this subversive gesture.
“Mountain Path,” a highly lyrical elegy, ushers in a series of political writings by Chen from
1983 to 1994. It not only commemorates those youths who had died during Taiwan’s White Ter-
ror era but also grieves over Taiwan’s moral degeneration over the past few decades. Inspired by
the two political activists Li Guokun and Huang Zhenbo, the female protagonist Cai Qianhui
pretends to be Li’s wife, devoting herself to serving Li’s family.The story opens with Cai becom-
ing ill after learning of Huang’s release on parole. Although Chen Yingzhen does not reveal why
the news affects Cai so badly, the readers later realize, through a letter Cai writes for Huang but
never sends, that Cai was actually Huang’s fiancée. She decides to help out Li’s poor family to
compensate for her brother’s betrayal of Li and Huang, which cost Li his life and led to Huang’s
imprisonment. Huang’s temporary release reminds Cai of her materialistic indulgence and the
oblivion of her youthful socialist ideals. In a way, Cai falls ill because of her sense of guilt for
not sustaining the socialist dream, symbolized by the story’s title – the small and meandering
mountain path – as well as the long trolley pathway that Cai often dreams of. Two aspects of
the story are worth noticing. One is that Chen’s characterization of Cai as a selfless (socialist)
devotee glosses over her personal need for love, illustrating that collective political belief is more
important than individual happiness. The other is that although Li Guokun’s younger brother
Guomu knows of Cai’s secret (her letter for Huang), Guomu does not utter the truth about
why Cai has lost her will to live. With Cai Qianhui’s “unexplainable” death, Guomu becomes
the only surviving witness of the traumatic history of Taiwan’s White Terror era. His silence,
together with Cai’s unsent letter and the limited information on Li Guokun’s tombstone, sug-
gests the impossibility of acquiring a reliable historical testimony.
Another work with a similar theme is the novella Zhao Nandong. The story primarily focuses
on the lives of a bunch of underground political dissidents, but it also contrasts the old genera-
tion’s idealism with the young generation’s hedonism. Although this reconfirms Chen Yingz-
hen’s consistent critique of capitalism, this dualistic view risks oversimplifying Taiwan’s postwar
history at the cost of Chen’s own “stiff ideology,” as Lü Zhenghui has pointed out.3 Neverthe-
less, Chen Yingzhen confesses that “literature is for prompting ideologies. I do not feel ashamed
about this. The only thing that matters is whether you can write well.”4
In addition to his socialist inclinations, Chen is known for the historical sensibility in his
creative writing. His 2001 book Zhongxiao Park illustrates this well. Set in the 1990s, the first
story “Return to Hometown” re-accounts the civil war between 1946 and 1947 through two
mainlander veteran soldiers. “Night Fog” (Yewu) depicts KMT secret agent Li Qinghao’s recol-
lections of his past around the late 1970s, when he extorts confessions by torturing the political
dissidents involved in the 1979 Formosa Incident, in which more than one hundred dangwai

635
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(literally, outside the KMT Party) leaders were arrested for inciting the crowd to riot. With the
shift in political power, those who were persecuted are seen as fighters for democracy. Li con-
tinues to be trapped in his sense of guilt for his past behavior, implying the violence embedded
in history and in the name of patriotism.
The last story, “Zhongxiao Park” (Zhongxiao gongyuan), contrasts the memories of two elderly
men – Lin Biao, a Taiwanese conscripted as a volunteer solider for Japan during the colonial era,
and Ma Zhengtao, an educated pro-Japan mainlander opportunist who was responsible for kill-
ing Chinese prisoners in Japan-ruled Manchuria. Compared to another Taiwanese character (of
Hakka background) who genuinely believes in the Japanese spirit, strives to fight for Japan as a
volunteer soldier, and even adopts the Japanese name Umemura, Lin Biao’s joining the Japanese
army highlights the helplessness of the colonized. Umemura’s experience, in which a Japanese
soldier scornfully calls him “slave of the Qing and a bastard” after he sexually assaults Umemura,
makes Lin realize that Taiwanese people “after all are not true Japanese,” no matter how hard
they fight for Japan in the Southeast Asian frontline.5 The character Ma Zhengtao particularly
warrants attention, as his identities undergo several changes – from a military policeman for the
Japanese empire, to an employee of a KMT intelligence agency, to an informant for the Chinese
Communist Party, and finally to a witness of Taiwan’s alternation of ruling party at the turn of
the twenty-first century. Ma keeps shifting the object of his loyalty in order to survive the fast-
changing political climate. As a result, he suffers nightmares in postwar Taiwan from his wartime
prosecution of fellow Chinese countrymen for the Japanese colonizers as well as from his role as
a KMT secret agent. Unwilling to accept Taiwan’s party alternation in 2000 and unable to settle
down in Taiwan (as Ma remains a single loner in the story), Ma commits suicide.
Chen reveals the tangled and multilayered colonial history of Taiwan through this sad ending.
At an interview, Chen stated that he is Chinese and had reached this conclusion after profound
self-examination and mulling over Taiwan’s collective history. He continued that in “Zhongxiao
Park,” what he wished to address was the “complicated relationship between the colonizer and
the colonized – a question referred to using the fashionable term “postcolonial” by the native
Taiwanese.”6 He then specified his understanding of Taiwan’s postcolonial condition – “the
colonizer discriminates against you [the colonized] but ironically the gap between the colonizer
and the colonized simultaneously makes you [the colonized] yearn to become the same per-
son as the colonizer even more” (Ibid.). Taking Chen’s authorial intention into consideration,
“Zhongxiao Park” becomes a text dealing with Taiwan’s identity issue as an aftermath of its
colonial past. Given that Chen identified himself as Chinese instead of Taiwanese, his inclusion
of the mainlander character Ma Zhengtao not only serves as a textual comparison with the
experience of Lin Biao but also can be interpreted as Chen’s self-writing (of his unwillingness
to identity with Taiwan under the Democratic Progressive Party’s rule).7
The title of the story entails not only “loyalty” (zhong) but also “filial piety” (xiao). In the
text, Lin Biao’s son Lin Xinmu ends up homeless after his business becomes unsuccessful. Lin
attempts to find his son, but his efforts are in vain. In comparison, Ma Zhengtao has been a filial
son for Li Hansheng, an influential fence sitter who has been looking after Ma and arranges for
him to go to Taiwan after 1945, even though they are not biological father and son. Lin Biao
has no choice but to be loyal to the Japanese as their colonial subject. Unfortunately, his son is
unable to fulfill his filial duty to him. Quite differently, Ma Zhengtao turns out to be a filial son
for Li Hansheng, yet his loyalty is heavily discounted, as he appears to be much like a political
chameleon. Ma’s filial respect for Li ridicules the poor connection between Lin Biao and his
son. It also mocks Ma’s inability to be loyal to Taiwan. The discrepancy between loyalty and
filial piety, as exemplified in the cases of Ma and Lin, effectively demonstrates that both laudable
virtues are not one’s inherent qualities but are often a result of complicated position-takings.

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The greatest irony perhaps lies in the fact that being loyal to one’s country, regardless of
whether it is voluntary, does not pay off. In the end of the story, Lin Biao, together with his fel-
low soldiers, plans to seek compensation from the Japanese government. However, the freshly
elected Taiwanese Party, which he supports, urges him to give up the idea for the sake of Taiwan-
Japan harmony. Suffering from double political exploitation, first from the Japanese colonizers
and then from the new ruling party, Lin Biao eventually shouts out the classical postcolo-
nial question of “who am I?” Through Ma Zhengtao and Lin Biao, Chen paints two similarly
gloomy types of postcolonial experiences in Taiwan. The former represents that of the diasporic
mainlanders’ group, whereas the latter showcases that of the native Taiwanese social underdogs. If
“Zhongxiao Park” is Chen’s response to Taiwan’s postcoloniality, then his answer – which differs
drastically from the one harbored by the majority of Taiwanese cultural nationalists – appears
rather untimely. However, in light of his consistent China-leaning socialist inclinations, Chen’s
way to end the story with Ma’s suicide and Lin’s disillusionment is hardly surprising.

Bai Xianyong

Life and career

Born in Guangxi as the eighth child of the Nationalist general Bai Chongxi, Bai Xianyong
moved around during his childhood and settled in Taiwan with his family in 1952. After gradu-
ating from National Taiwan University as an English major in 1957, he published his debut work
“The Last Night of Jin Daban” in 1958. In 1960, Bai founded Modern literature, promoting inte-
gration of old and new as well as Chinese and foreign literature and arts. Bai left Taiwan in 1963
to study literary theory and creative writing at the University of Iowa in America, and published
the short story “Death in Chicago” in 1964. Rich in the application of symbols, it narrates an
account of alienation encountered not only by the protagonist Wu Hanhun (a pun of “without
a Chinese soul”) but also the diasporic Chinese in general. Bai finished “Fallen Immortal” in
1965 while in Iowa, and published it in book form in 1967. Like “Death in Chicago,” “Fallen
Immortal” again tells of the loneliness and disillusionment of overseas Chinese, which lead to
suicide. Although death is a common theme in modernist literature, Bai’s use of death is associ-
ated with his concern for the Chinese diaspora, especially since many of the deaths take place
in a foreign land. To contextualize Bai’s writing within the emergence of modernism in Taiwan,
Bai’s use of death can also be taken as an indirect critique of the suffocating Taiwanese society
under the Nationalist government’s high-handed rule.
Upon graduating with a MA degree in 1965, Bai assumed a post at the University of Cali-
fornia, Santa Barbara, where he taught Chinese literature until his retirement in 1994. In parallel
with his long teaching career, Bai continued to publish creative works. Important works from
this period include Taipei People and Crystal Boys (Niezi, 1983). After retirement, he devoted
himself to promoting kunqu (Kun Opera) art and collecting materials to write a biography on
his father. His adaptation of the Ming Dynasty play The Peony Pavilion was well acclaimed, and
the two-volume My Father and the Republican China (Fuqin yu minguo) was published in 2012.

Literary achievements and masterpieces

Bai’s Taipei People is concerned with individual lives against great historical upheavals.The work,
hailed as being equivalent to James Joyce’s Dubliners, details the exilic mentality of émigrés
from different social strata who came to Taiwan from Mainland China after 1949. Due to Bai’s
concern for this ethnic group, the historical reality revealed by Taipei People is inevitably quite

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specific and subjective. It also sits well with the KMT’s transitional state of mind, and with the
ultimate political goal of “fighting back to the mainland, restoring the lost land” (fangong dalu
shoufu shitu). In total, fourteen stories are collected in this volume: “The Eternal Snow Beauty,”
“A Touch of Green,” “New Year’s Eve,” “The Last Night of Taipan Chin,” “A Sea of Blood-Red
Azaleas,” “Old to Bygone Days,” “The Dirge of Liang Fu,” “Lonely Flower of Love,” “Glory’s
by Blossom Bridge,” “Autumn Reveries,” “A Sky Full of Bright, Twinkling Stars,” “Wander-
ing in the Garden, Waking from a Dream,” “Winter Night,” and “State Funeral.” The work as
a whole has yielded considerable positive reviews since its publication, mostly because of Bai’s
adroit employment of modernist techniques as well as the works’ embedded profound historical
sentiments. Stylistically, Taipei People is full of juxtapositions between the past and the present
as well as parody of destinies and historical changes. Bai also makes use of symbols to highlight
his characters’ personalities and inner desires, offering a humanistic response to the otherwise
“heavy” and war-marred history of modern China.
A striking irony of the book is that all of the “Taipei people” are spiritually paralyzed in Taipei
and indulge themselves in nostalgia for their past lives in China. This indicates a noticeable eth-
nic imbalance in the work. Native Taiwanese characters do not merely appear sporadically. They
are mostly lower-class people, which is seen as Bai’s “very limited acknowledgement of native-
ness.”8 Salient cases include the portrayal of the Taiwanese woman named Happy in “A Sea of
Blood-Red Azaleas” and the characterization of the Taiwanese washerwoman Spring Maid in
“Glory’s by Blossom Bridge.” “A Sea of Blood-Red Azaleas” is a story of an unrequited love
between the veteran solider and male servant Wang Xiong and Little Beauty, for whose parents
Wang works. The story touches upon the class difference between Wang and Little Beauty, end-
ing with Wang’s suicide. However, before Wang kills himself, he rapes Happy, a Taiwanese maid
who often teases Wang with vulgar Taiwanese expressions. Happy is portrayed in a grotesque
manner, with comments such as “a big-breasted woman especially fond of wearing skin-tight
clothes,” “small eyes,” and exaggerated makeup.9 Spring Maid, in “Glory’s by Blossom Bridge,” is
depicted in a similarly grotesque way. For instance, she has a pair of large breasts that would be
“bouncing off your face,” and when she scrubs clothes, her “big melons [breasts] would be going
up and down like a pair of mallet-heads.” When she seduces the mainlander gentleman Mr. Lu
from Guilin, China, she is described as a “trollop,” “damn piece,” and sexually thirsty “lioness”
(Ibid., 284–85). Later in the story, Spring Maid is referred to as “that Taiwanese wench” and is
described as a “cruel and vicious female” who bites half of Mr. Lu’s ear off (Ibid., 286–89). In
fact, before coming to Taiwan, Mr. Lu has already had a lover (Miss Lo), who has a pair of “bright
and innocent” eyes and whose grace is like “the flowing waters of the river.”10 This positive
portrait of mainlander women is particularly conspicuous in the characterization of Yin Xueyan,
the female protagonist in “The Eternal Snow Beauty.”Yin emigrated from Shanghai and never
seems to age. She has snow-white skin, a slender figure, and a pair of exquisite eyes. This does
not even account for her charm. Her alluring charisma is actually unmatched in the common
world. The stark contrast between the Taiwanese women (such as Happy and Spring Maid) and
the mainlander and émigré women (such as Miss Lo and Yin Xueyan) suggests a profound nos-
talgia for China, in which Taiwanese characters – women, in particular – automatically become
the “lesser” Other to accentuate their mainlander counterparts’ melancholic sentiments for their
past in China. This rather imbalanced view – in which the characters’ Chinese past is glorified
and their Taipei present is depreciated, or “the contrast between the present and the past” in
Ouyang Zi’s terms11 – is one of the most important themes running through all fourteen sto-
ries. Bai’s portrait of local Taiwanese people is prejudicial, but one should not hastily interpret it
purely as evidence of Bai’s sense of superiority as an émigré, because Bai’s delineation in “Glory’s
by Blossom Bridge” of people who do not come from the picturesque Guilin as people who

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“grimace, speak incoherent dialects, and are probably of the Miao ethnic background” is not
without depreciation. In this regard, Taipei People can be seen as a collection of stories for Bai
himself, for his fond memories of Guilin.
An interesting characteristic of Bai’s modernist practice is his reconciliation between Chi-
nese and Western literary techniques. Although Taipei People is full of modernist techniques,
it is equally rich in its intertexuality with classical Chinese literature and art. As an expert on
kunqu, one of the oldest forms of Chinese opera, Bai composed the story “Wandering in the
Garden, Waking from a Dream” along the plotline of the eponymous kunqu piece from the
famous play The Peony Pavilion (Mudan ting) by Tang Xianzu (1550–1616), one of the most
prominent dramatists of the Ming dynasty. “The Peony Pavilion” tells about the heroine Du
Liniang falling in love with a handsome young scholar named Liu Mengmei in a dream while
falling asleep in her family garden. She later dies but eventually comes back to life after her
ghost and Liu have a romantic encounter on Liu’s way to take his civil service examination.
The kunqu piece is divided into two parts: “Wandering in the Garden” and “Waking from a
Dream.”
In the first part, the meaningful lines Bai extracted are sung by Madame Xu, one of the
female protagonists of the story. As for the second part, in which Du is sexually involved with
Liu, Bai did not follow the original lines. Instead, he employed a modernist technique (stream
of consciousness), relying on his female protagonist – the former kunqu star Madame Qian’s sex-
related allusions and recollections of her affair with her ex-lover to convey the similarly explicit
passion embedded in the original play. In doing so, Madame Qian turns into Du Liniang, under-
going an analogous amorous experience as Du at Madame Dou’s lavish banquet in Taipei. The
theme of “Wandering in the Garden,Waking from a Dream” – the lamentation of the inconstant
affairs of the world – is revealed through Madame Xu’s singing of the kunqu aria “Zaoluopao”
(literally “black gauze robe”). This aria is also mentioned in chapter 23 of Hongloumeng (Dream
of the Red Chamber), when Lin Daiyu hears a girl singing “Zaoluopao,”12 showing that Bai
sought inspiration for his modernist works from classical Chinese literature.13
Given Bai’s own diaspora background in Taiwan, his effort to inscribe his work into Chinese
literary tradition is seen as “a means to resolve textually his political and cultural marginality.”14
In fact, Bai acknowledged that he prefers to adopt the perspective of a marginal man. He stated:
“I found ‘being a marginal man’ is most intriguing. I am not good at writing middle-class life
of ‘classical’ spouses – maybe I am not good at writing ‘the majority.’ ”15 Bai’s “marginal” posi-
tion taking, or his interest in portraying marginalized characters, is also found in his 1976 work
entitled Lonely Seventeen. In an eponymous story, Bai depicts a teenage protagonist’s distressed
life under his father’s authority as well as his sense of unworthiness for being unable to meet his
father’s expectations. The story also features the protagonist’s burgeoning same-sex desire, pav-
ing a foundation for Bai’s Crystal Boys, which is about the marginalized status of Taiwan’s gay
community during the 1970s.
The main protagonist and also the narrator in Crystal Boys, Aqing (Li Qing), is expelled from
his senior high school due to his sexual relations with the middle-aged male school janitor sur-
named Zhou. Shunned by his family for his homosexuality, Aqing drifts into New Park, a dark
haven for gay cruising in Taipei, and earns his living through hustling. The park is described as a
kingdom that only has nights: “As soon as the sun comes up, our kingdom goes into hiding, for
it is an unlawful nation; we have no government and no constitution . . . we are a fickle, unruly
people [guozu, literally meaning nation].”16 The narrator further comments that in the park/
kingdom, there are “no distinctions of social rank, eminence, age, or strength. What we share in
common are bodies filled with aching, irrepressible desire and hearts filled with insane loneli-
ness” (Ibid.).

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The desire-driven kingdom in which Aqing and his gay friends live challenges several exist-
ing values and conventional social norms, such as the father-son relationship. Familial relations
in this novel are portrayed as a destructive force, but they continue to shape the lives of the
abandoned gay boys in New Park. An alternative family model is established with Chief Yang
(an older gay man hanging out in New Park), who provides surrogate love and protection for
Aqing and the other young gay males in the park. In addition to the rule of the father at home,
Bai’s writing deconstructs other patriarchal forms, including schools and bias toward homosexu-
als, which jeopardize individual freedom and ostracize people who are deemed “unethical.” As
many of the fathers of the gay young men in Crystal Boys are associated with the Nationalist
government, Bai’s critique of these authoritative structures can be seen as a challenge to the
Nationalist government’s rule at large. In this regard, the novel makes a suitable case for an
allegorical reading, in which the illegitimate space of New Park in Taipei becomes a metaphor
for Taiwan’s diplomatic isolation on the international stage as an “illegitimate representative of
China” since the 1970s,17 the decade in which Bai began to compose Crystal Boys.
This interpretation resonates well with the increasingly burgeoning call for a more socially
engaged literature, which culminated in the 1977–1978 Nativist Literary Debate, because Crys-
tal Boys contains more Taiwanese elements than Taipei People. The “localized” features of Crystal
Boys include the use of the Hoklo language and the depiction of local space and a local festival.
As many of the gay characters in the novel are endowed with feminine qualities, critics have
offered a gendered reading by arguing that feminine sexuality, seen in characters such as Aqing,
leads the readers to a more Taiwanese world vis-à-vis the relatively paternal rule of the KMT
government.18
Although Bai appeared more Taiwan leaning in Crystal Boys, he did not fully overthrow
his ethnic preference. In Crystal Boys, the dominant group remains those émigrés from China.
Examples include the well-healed gay bar owner Papa Fu and the senior New Park member
Chief Yang who acts as a leader and pimp for the bunch of young gay men. In comparison, the
Taiwanese men are often primitive (such as the aborigine Axiong), unattractive (such as Afeng’s
lachrymosity and “ill-starred look”), or in need of support (such as Little Jade’s father search-
ing). There is an interesting love affair between the Taiwanese boy Afeng and Dragon Prince,
the second generation of a high-ranked Mainlander official. Despite the suggested cross-ethnic
harmony, the relationship is challenging. Dragon Prince’s homophobic family does not accept
Afeng, and only Dragon Prince is privileged enough to be mobile, self-exiling himself in New
York as a disowned son.
In 2007, Bai published New Yorker, a collection of six short stories. The first two stories,
“Fallen Immortal” and “The Grievance of the Fallen Immortal” (Zhexian yuan), written in 1965
and 1969 respectively, touch upon overseas Chinese students. The middle two stories, “Noc-
turne” (1979) and “Bone Ashes” (1986), describe the differences in the characters’ lives before
and after the Cultural Revolution. The last two stories, “Danny Boy” and “Tea for Two,” were
composed after the millennium. The former tells about the loneliness of the homosexual pro-
tagonist Yunge, and how he finds the meaning of life by looking after the dying AIDS-affected
Danny Boy before he himself dies of AIDS. The latter depicts the protagonist Luo re-visiting
New York to recollect his unforgettable happy memories with his lover Andi and several close
homosexual friends at the bar Tea for Two in Chelsea of Manhattan. With the passing away of
some of Luo’s confidants, Luo cherishes the great old times he shared with them even more.
The six pieces together show Bai’s thematic preferences: Chinese people’s disillusionment in
America, individual lives against historical change, and the sentiments of homosexual men.They
indicate his interest in speaking for oppressed and marginalized people and calling for humanity
and tolerance. Compared with Crystal Boys, the gay narrative in New Yorker is quite updated due

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to Bai including contemporary issues such as AIDS in it. Another difference is that the sense
of rootlessness seen in the works, such as “Death in Chicago,” is no longer found in New Yorker.
In this collection of stories, even though it witnesses the continued tragedies of AIDS-affected
people, New York simultaneously serves as a locale where individual happiness can potentially
be fulfilled and rekindled.
In Bai’s latest publication, My Father and the Republican China, he seemed to return to his
interest in modern Chinese history. This two-volume biography of Bai’s father Bai Chongxi
contains long passages on Bai Chongxi’s experience during the Second Sino-Japanese War, but
Bai’s focus is heavily placed on his father. This individual-centered approach to history is not
much different from that of Taipei People, a work published more than four decades prior to My
Father and the Republican China. In this regard, Bai remains a thematically consistent author, and it
is this sense of history that makes Bai’s writing fairly comparable to Chen’s, despite the diversity
in the two writers’ cultural dispositions and ideological sensibilities. Nevertheless, the differences
between the two authors – Chen’s distinct socialist beliefs and profound engagement with Tai-
wan’s colonial and authoritarian past, and Bai’s enduring concern over the Republican history
as well as the Chinese émigrés and gay men in Taiwan and America – should not be overlooked.

Notes
1 However, Chen Yingzhen later did not believe in Christianity and was increasingly drawn to socialism.
Similarly, although Bai Xianyong was from a Muslim family, his father did not conform to the doctrines
closely, and Bai once studied at Catholic school and, as he grew older, became increasingly interested
in Buddhism.
2 Chen Yingzhen is used as a pen name for fictional writing, whereas Xu Nancun is used for writing
commentaries or essays. Many works published under the name Xu Nancun are actually criticisms of
the “novelist” Chen Yingzhen.
3 Lü Zhenghui, “From Small Towns in Mountainous Villages to Washington Building,” in A Collection of
Chen Yingzhen’s Works,Vol. 15 A Thinker of Literature (Chen Yingzhen zuopinji 15: Wenxue de sikaozhe)
(Taipei: Renjian, 1988), 224.
4 See Chen Yingzhen’s interview conducted by Gu Cangwu and Gu Jian, “Zuoyi rensheng: Wenxue yu
zongjiao – Chen Yingzhen xiansheng fangtanlu,” (A Leftist Life: Literature and Religion – An Inter-
view with Mr. Chen Yingzhen) Literary Century (Wenxue shiji) (April 2004), 4–14.
5 Chen Yingzhen, Zhongxiao Park (Zhongxiao gongyuan) (Taipei: Hongfan, 2001), 149.
6 Hao Yuxiang, “The Eternal Sisyphus – An Interview with Chen Yingzhen,” Unitas (July 2001), vol. 201,
30.
7 In the story, the party is called the Taiwanese Party (Taiwandang).
8 Liu Liangya, “Postmodernism and Postcolonialism: On Taiwanese Fiction Since the Lifting of Martial
Law” (Houxiandai yu houzhimin: Lun jieyan yilai de Taiwan xiaoshuo), in Essays on the History of Tai-
wanese Fiction (Taiwan xiaoshuo shilun) (Taipei: Maitian, 2007), 359.
9 Bai Xianyong, Taipei People (Taipei ren), George Kao, ed., Bai Xianyong and Patia Yasin, trans. (Hong
Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2000), 161.
10 Ibid., 292–293.
11 According to Ouyang Zi, there are three main themes in Taipei People: the contrast between the present
and the past (jinxi zhi bi), the debate between the soul and the body (lingrou zhi zheng), and the mystery
between life and death (shengsi zhi mi). See Ouyang Zi, “The Fictional World of Bai Xianyong – A The-
matic Analysis on Taipei People),” in Swallows in Front of Wang and Xie Mansions (Wang Xie tangqian de
yanzi) (Taipei: Tianxia, 2008), 8–33.
12 Bai Xianyong specifically mentioned this in his essay “The Influence of Dream of the Red Chamber on
“Wandering in the Garden, Waking from a Dream,” Self-Selected Collection of Bai Xianyong (Bai Xian-
yong zixuan ji) (Guangzhou: Huacheng, 2009), 276–278.
13 In addition to “The Peony Pavilion” and “Dream of the Red Chamber,” Bai’s “Wandering in the Gar-
den, Waking from a Dream” also contains allusions to Cao Zhi’s “The Goddess of Lo River” and Li
Shangyin’s “Brocade Zither.”

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14 Christopher Lupke, “The Taiwan Modernists,” in Joshua Mostow, ed., The Columbia Companion to Mod-
ern East Asian Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 483.
15 See Cai Kejian’s interview of Bai Xianyong titled “I Think Homosexuality Is Innate!,” in Bai Xianyong,
Even Trees Wither (Shu you ruci) (Guilin: Guangxi shifan daxue chubanshe, 2011), 396–426, esp. 425.
16 Bai Xianyong, Crystal Boys (San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press, 1995), 1.
17 Taiwan lost its seat to China in 1971. Japan and the United States ceased their diplomatic ties with
Taiwan in 1972 and late 1978, respectively.
18 Chu Wei-cheng, “Father China, Mother (Queer) Taiwan? Comrade Pai Hsien-yung’s Family Romance
and National Imaginary,” Chung-wai Literary Monthly (July 2001), vol. 30, no. 2, 106–123.

Further readings
Bai, Xianyong. Crystal Boys. San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press, 1995.
———. Taipei People: Chinese-English Bilingual Edition. Edited by George Kao and translated by Patia Yasin.
Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2000.
Chang,Yvonne Sung-sheng. Modernism and the Nativist Resistance: Contemporary Chinese Fiction from Taiwan.
Durham: Duke University Press, 1993.
Lau, Joseph S. M. “How Much Truth Can a Blade of Grass Carry?: Ch’en Ying-chen and the Emergence
of Native Taiwan Writers.” Journal of Asian Studies 32.4 (August 1973): 623–638.
Lupke, Christopher. “(En)gendering the Nation in Pai Hsien-yung’s Wandering in the Garden Waking from a
Dream.” Modern Chinese Literature 6.1/2 (1992): 157–178.
Martin, Fran. “Nationalism, Reproduction, Homosexuality: Political Critiques of Crystal Boys.” In Martin,
ed., Situating Sexualities: Queer Representations in Taiwanese Fiction, Film and Public Culture. Hong Kong:
University of Hong Kong Press, 2003, 47–72.
McFadden, Susan. “Tradition and Talent: Western Influence in the Works of Pai Hsien-yung.” Tamkang
Review 9.3 (1979): 315–344.
Miller, Lucien. “A Break in the Chain: The Short Stories of Ch’en Ying-chen.” In Jeannette L. Faurot, ed.,
Chinese Fiction from Taiwan: Critical Perspectives. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980, 86–109.
Ou-yang, Tzu. “The Fictional World of Pai Hsien-yung.” In Jeannette L. Faurot, ed., Chinese Fiction from
Taiwan: Critical Perspectives. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980, 166–178.
Yang Xiaobin. “Telling (Hi)story: Illusory Truth or True Illusion.” Tamkan Review 21.2 (1990): 127–147.

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 48
MASTERPIECES OF TAIWAN
POETRY
Ji Xian and Yu Guangzhong

Pei-yin Lin

In the mid-20th century, literary modernism in Taiwan underwent substantial development,

making Taiwan’s literature a significant constituent of modern Chinese literature. Similar to
the efforts Hu Shi made as early as January 1917 with his modern Chinese poems and a list of
“Eight Points for Departing from Traditional Literature” (bashi) in New Youth (Xin qingnian), Tai-
wan’s modern poetry has, from the very beginning, been at the forefront of literary experiments
and cultural trends. The poetry movements in Taiwan, especially from the 1950s to the late
1970s, witnessed the birth of modern poetry on the island and its “rebellion” against the influ-
ence of classical poetry. Despite their stylistic diversity, authors of Taiwan’s modern poetry were
keen to experiment with innovative literary forms to represent the new post-war social reality.
Although Taiwan was under the Nationalist Party’s authoritarian rule during those decades,
politics has not played a dominant role in Taiwan as is the case in post-1949 Mainland China.
Despite the repressive social atmosphere, Taiwan has enjoyed a more cosmopolitan culture, and
its poets were able to carve out a relatively free space of their own. Many poets are well-educated
and fluent in two (or more) languages.

The advent of Taiwan’s post-war modern poetry

As far as Taiwan’s post-war modern poetry is concerned, most discussion centers primarily
on three poetry societies – the “Modernist School” (xiandai pai) which claimed “horizontal
transplantation,” “Blue Star” (Lanxing), which defended the lyrical tradition, and “Epoch Mak-
ing” (Chuangshiji), which was (in)famous for its extremely poetic (or obscure) use of modern
Chinese.These pioneering modernist voices inherited various prior cultural inspirations as their
points of departure. For instance, the leading modernist poet Ji Xian (aka Lu Yu, 1913–2013)
was associated with Dai Wangshu (1905–1950), one of modern China’s innovative modernist-
symbolist poets.1 Dai became aware of the Symbolist heritage via the English Symbolist Ernest
Dowson (1867–1900) and drew on other French poets such as Paul Verlaine, Baudelaire, and
Francis Jammes.2 Hence, modern poetry in Taiwan at the commencement was part of world-
wide modernist trends.
In the early development of Taiwan’s modern poetry, a significant phenomenon is the found-
ing of the journal Modern Poetry Quarterly (Xiandai shi jikan) headed by Ji Xian in 1953. The
journal quickly attracted a group of like-minded writers. In January 1956, together with eight

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other poets, including Zheng Chouyu and Lin Hengtai, Ji Xian declared the establishment of
the poetry society “Modernist School.” One month later, in Issue 13 of Modern Poetry, Ji Xian
proposed “Six Doctrines of the Modernist School” (Xiandaipai liuda xintiao), in which he speci-
fied that the group is “a modernist group that promotes and includes all the spirits and features
of newly emerged poetry schools since Baudelaire,” and that they believe New Poetry is “a hori-
zontal transplantation instead of vertical inheritance.” He further explained that just like modern
art, of which Cezanne was the originator, the departure point of the world’s new poetry was
Baudelaire and his symbolism. All poetry schools thereafter were not immune from the impact
of symbolism. They, however, abandoned its “sickly, fin-de-siècle tendency,” aiming to promote
its “healthy, progressive, and uplifting aspects.”3 As for the second point, Ji Xian commented that
nowadays, the new poetry in China and Japan “ought to be an constituent part of world litera-
ture” because “literature and art have no national boundaries” (Ibid.).
In addition to claiming the literary lineage of Baudelaire, the group aimed to “explore the
new continent of poetry,” “emphasize intellectuality,” “pursue purity of poetry,” and “is anti-
communist and advocates freedom and democracy.” Apart from the patriotic stance of the last
point, the rest of the doctrines are concerned primarily with poetry’s structural aspects and thus
resonate well with the Western Symbolists’ experiments with more liberated poetic forms to
challenge the rigid conventions governing both technique and theme in traditional poetry. This
pursuit of the “Modernist School” is not entirely new, since similar concerns over the form of
poetry were, for example, raised by Hu Shi in his propositions for New Poetry as well as by mod-
ernist poets from Taiwan’s colonial period such as Yang Chichang, who not only established the
poetry society “Le Moulin” in 1933 to promote surrealism but also introduced various avant-
garde movements in art and literature, such as futurism, Dadaism, and the Germany-originated
Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity), into Taiwan. The association of Taiwan’s post-war modern
poetry with the broader art/literary context of the 20th century is once again confirmed.
Although Taiwan’s modern poetry benefitted from the France-originated surrealists, its
advent in post-war Taiwan had a rather different context from its European counterpart. In the
West, surrealism emerged as intellectuals’ critical reflection upon civilization after the end of
World War I.Themes such as spiritual freedom and individual liberation were emphasized. Con-
servative middle-class values and their accompanying literary valorizations were abandoned, so
was logical reasoning. As an avant-garde movement, surrealism was not limited to the aesthetic
revolution, but a socially engaged practice in which art and literature were seen as a means for
social reform and for pursuing freedom and equality in non-literary avenues. Hence, it is no sur-
prise that surrealist poets such as Aragon and Breton joined the Communist Party in 1927, even
though some fundamental incompatibility between surrealism and Communism, such as how
both parties viewed the relationship between individuals and society, led Aragon to withdraw
from surrealism in 1932 and Breton to quit the Communist Party in 1935.
In comparison, surrealism in Taiwan was not taken as a potential vehicle for social reform. Its
adoption was chiefly due to the fact that literature in the early post-war Taiwan had not enjoyed
the same degree of freedom and autonomy as it had in the West.This was particularly so because
the dominant literary discourse in the 1950s and 1960s Taiwan was the officially promoted
anti-Communist literature. In fact, the Kuomintang’s (KMT’s) anti-Communist ideology and
its suppression of Taiwan’s new literature from the Japanese colonial period further made poets
in post-war Taiwan become out of touch with both the literary traditions of pre-1949 China
and pre-1945 Taiwan. In other words, modern poetry in Taiwan was born within the margin
of KMT’s limiting cultural policy. Hence, rather than hastily censuring modernism as an escap-
ist and overly individualistic practice, the very avant-garde characteristic of post-war Taiwan’s

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modern poetry lies in its attempt to carve out alternative artistic space and literary possibility
outside the official line.

Going global or national? – Taiwan’s modern poetry’s

search for identity
Although the modernists’ aesthetic experiments can possibly be seen as efforts to establish a
critical literary discourse, Ji Xian’s view of New Poetry as a horizontal transplantation elicited
much criticism, especially as it correlates to the refusal of Chinese traditions. Qin Zihao, an
important founder of the literary salon “Blue Star,” published an article titled “Where is New
Poetry Going?” objecting to Ji Xian’s strong West-inclining notions of poetry. According to
Qin, poetry should “be rooted in human life and nourish and illuminate mankind,” “be a prod-
uct of blood and flesh through the author’s thoughts and feelings,” “must have a philosophical
background and pursue universal truth,” and “style is not an imitation of Western literature
but a personal, unique creation.”4 Yu Guangzhong, another poet from the Blue Star group, also
questioned Ji Xian’s imitation of Western models, criticizing Ji’s “horizontal transplantation”
as a hasty act without careful consideration.5 Although the Blue Star poets did not attempt to
restore a Chinese tradition, they were in general uncomfortable about breaking with the past as
drastically as did Ji Xian.
While the debate is often seen as one between individual poets in the Modernist School and
Blue Star group respectively, several poets published in more than one journal, and there were
other views on New Poetry. The poetry society Epoch-Making, founded by three naval offic-
ers, Ya Xian, Luo Fu, and Zhang Mo, in 1954, for instance, was initially fairly in line with the
KMT’s official discourse. In 1956, however, the group proposed, in the article “On Establishing
a New Model for National Poetry” (Jianli xin minzu shixing zhi chuyi), that new poetry must be
“an artistic expression through images” and “contains a Chinese flavor and an Eastern taste.”6
When the publication of Modern Poetry was discontinued in 1959 due to funding difficul-
ties, Taiwan’s modern poetry movement began to center on the Epoch-Making Poetry Society.
Interestingly, by this stage, the Epoch poets had withdrawn their early pursuit of a national
poetry and shifted toward Western avant-gardism through their translations of Western modern-
ist works, including those by T. S. Eliot and Charles Baudelaire, and surrealist pieces by Andre
Breton, Louis Aragon, and so on, as if it had almost “continued” the guidelines proposed by
Modernist School. Indeed, the differences between those poetry groups sometimes became
quite minimal. In 1959, when Su Xuelin accused the works by the symbolist poet Li Jinfa of
being too obscure, both Ji Xian and Qin Zihao sided with Li, calling for an ideal reader who
could contribute to the interpretation of New Poetry. And although Ji Xian’s “horizontal trans-
plantation” was much criticized, Lin Hengtai, a founding member of the Modernist School and
later a leading poet of the Bamboo Hat poetry society (Lishishe), supported Ji Xian’s literary
notions during the debate about modern poetry. Lin regarded Ji Xian’s “horizontal transplanta-
tion” as “inheriting ‘tradition’ passively and breaking the ‘new’ ground actively.”7 This once again
showed that poets at that time did interact relatively closely even though they might belong to
different literary groups.
By the 1960s, New Poetry reached its low point. Ji Xian disbanded the Modernist School
in 1962, and later proposed “the great botanic gardenism” (da zhiwuyuan zhuyi) to call for the
co-existence of different schools of modernist poetry writing.8 In 1963, Qin Zihao of Blue Star
group passed away, and the society suspended publication of its journal from 1965 to 1971. In
1964, Modern Poetry Quarterly was discontinued. Epoch-making Poetry Journal only published one

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issue per year between 1961 and 1963 and was later criticized for its elitist and surrealist tenden-
cies by Lin Hengtai and Bai Qiu of the newly founded Bamboo Hat poetry society in 1964.The
latter society consisted almost entirely of native Taiwanese writers, and several important figures
were educated in Japanese. They called for a more Taiwan-focused nativist tendency, ushering
in a new realist-oriented aesthetic of Taiwan literature. The efforts made by the Bamboo Hat
poetry society can be seen as a prelude to the larger debate between modernists and nativists in
the 1970s, a decade in which the formers’ embrace of Western currents was seen by the latter as
evidence of writers’ cultural enslavement.

The uniqueness of Taiwan’s modern poetry and its key figures

As Taiwan’s modern poetry was jointly shaped by various literary styles and cultural traditions,
the question of whether something specifically Taiwanese defines Taiwan’s modern poetry has
yet to be answered. This question can be tackled in several ways. Contextually, Taiwan’s mod-
ern poetry is closely associated with the end of Japanese colonialism and the beginning of the
KMT’s rule, a political reality of the larger global Cold War situation. This specific context
enabled writers in Taiwan to select their desired cultural and linguistic preferences.The Japanese
influence, seen in the works of Bamboo Hat group, for example, opened up an alternative for
Taiwanese poets on top of the two obvious choices – either Western or Chinese modernism.
This brings us to acknowledge the multilingual nature of Taiwan’s modern poetry, even though
most works are written in Chinese,9 as well as the diverse backgrounds of its leading poets.
Although the achievements of Taiwan’s Japanese-language poets such as Lin Hengtai, or Yang
Chichang during the colonial era should not be overlooked, émigré writers born in China who
arrived in Taiwan with the Nationalist Party around the middle of the 20th century remained
the key players of Taiwan’s early post-war modern poetry. Both Ji Xian and Yu Guangzhong,
the subjects of this chapter, are representative émigré writers who greatly influenced Taiwan’s
post-war literary, and especially poetic, establishment. Since many of the major writers were not
born in Taiwan, the overall contents of Taiwan’s modern poetry did not necessarily deal with the
island’s reality or cultural/historical particularity. Quite the opposite: many poems showcase the
authors’ imitation of Western literature or their experiences in China or elsewhere. The tension
between modernists and Taiwan-centric nativists seemed inevitable.
Generally speaking, the years since the mid-1950s and throughout the 1960s saw the
emergence of several new poets who later became quite established and influential. Among
them, Ji Xian, Yu Guangzhong, Ya Xian, and Lo Fu are worth mentioning. They all share the
same background – they were all born in China. While most of them began writing in China,
Ya Xian did not start until his arrival in Taiwan in the 1950s. Ji Xian stands out with his
use of seemingly unrelated but in fact specifically chosen images and his sense of humor. Yu
Guangzhong is a writer who manages to synthesize Western sources and the legacy of classical
Chinese literature and who stresses the rhythmical as well as imagistic beauty of his poetry.
Ya Xian’s early poems touch upon the loss of military personnel. His “Colonel” (Shangxiao),
for example, depicts a colonel who “experienced the largest battle and bid farewell to one of
his legs in 1943” and for whom eternity becomes “cough medicine, shaving knife, and last
month’s rent.” His later poems display a more profound engagement with social reality. Lo Fu
is known for his stylistic experimentalism. His poetry collection The Death in a Stone Chamber
(Shishi zhi siwang, 1965) adequately demonstrates his ability to convert complex images into
pure poetic language, although some may find his works loose in structure and obscure in
language.

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Ji Xian – a lone wolf and his horizontal transplantation

Ji Xian was both a writer and theorist of poetry. Born in 1913 in Hebei Province and educated at
the Suzhou Fine Arts School, Ji started his creative writing at the age of 16. In 1934, he began to
submit works to local newspapers and journals and gradually established himself as a young poet
under the pseudonym Luyishi. He left for Japan in 1936, experimenting with surrealist style for
his poetry while in Tokyo. In October of that year, together with Bian Zhilin, Dai Wangshu, and
Feng Zhi, he founded the monthly periodical New Poetry (Xinshi). Ji Xian was a major contribu-
tor to the journal, although he also published in the left-leaning journal Contemporary Literature
(Jindai wenyi). Although Li Jinfa and Dai Wangshu were two leading modernist poets at that time,
Ji Xian attracted some attention, too. In 1945, he published two poetry collections – Summer
(Xiatian) and Works Written before Thirty Years Old (Sanshi qianji), which are valuable references to
his early notions of poetry. He served as a Japanese translator during the second Sino-Japanese
War and started to publish under the name “Ji Xian” from August 1945 onward.
During his active writing period in China (1929–1947), Ji Xian already had successfully
coined his self-image as a young and vigorous poet through his works. In the two 1942 works,
“Dog Howling at the Moon” (Feiyue de quan) and “The Star-Plucking Youth” (Zhaixing de
shaonian), Ji Xian compared himself to the moon-howling dog and the star-plucking youth,
depicting the ambition of materializing one’s dream with innovative images. “Dog Howling at
the Moon” was composed as a surrealist poem.10 It is eponymous to Joan Miró’s 1926 painting.
Compared to Miró’s spare painting with seemingly unrelated images of the moon, the dog, and
the ladder, Ji Xian’s poem include comparatively more unified images confirming the meaning
of individual existence. In the poem, the ladder in Miró’s painting becomes a long train running
through the wildness. The individual, in the form of the dog, is willing to compete with the
collective (the songs of the naked women in the poem) as well as confront time (symbolized by
the moon) and the external world (represented by the field), even though his existence remains
limited versus eternal. In this way, Ji Xian ingeniously transformed Miró’s painting into a reitera-
tion of the modernist spirit.11
Other two poems written in 1943, “Seven and Six” (Qi yu liu) and “The Fish on a Stroll”
(Sanbu de yu), also helped earn Ji Xian’s fame. In the former, he wrote “walking stick 7 plus pipe
6 equals to me, which is 13. A poet. A genius. A genius among the genii. The most unfortunate
number! Umm, a tragedy.” In “The Fish on a Stroll,” he used the fish image to symbolize himself
as a pursuer of freedom, even though he was unsure “where the unbelievably big boat is sailing
to?,” which can be interpreted as his sense of uncertainty for the times in which he was living.
The poem ends with, “the fragrance belongs to faraway and tomorrow.The fish on a stroll sings.”
Ji Xian explained that he, like other patriotic ordinary people living in the occupied areas, hoped
for China’s triumph. This piece not only expressed Ji Xian’s national sentiments, but also earned
him the nickname of “fish poet” (yu shiren).12
Ji Xian moved to Taiwan in November 1948, working as a high school teacher until his
retirement in 1974. While in Taiwan, he published several collections of poetry, including Col-
lected Poems by Ji Xian, Volumes 1 and 2 between 1951 and 1952, and Betel Nut Trees 1 to 5 in
1967, 1969, and 1974, respectively. He relocated to the United States in 1976 and continued to
write into his 80s. He published the works he wrote there between 1974 and 1984 under the
title Evening Scenes (Wanjing), a two-part collection of 80 poems. In the 1990s, he remained an
active writer, publishing nostalgic poems such as “In Memory of Yangzhou” (Huai Yangzhou),
theology poems such as “The Birth of Universe” (Yuzhou dansheng), essays, poetry criticisms, and
the three-volume The Memoir of Ji Xian (Ji Xian huiyilu) in 2001. He passed away in California in

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2013, having enjoyed a writing career of more than seven decades. His poems are mostly sensual
and lyrical, which was somewhat different from his emphasis of “intellectuality.” Being aware
of the discrepancy between his theory and creative writing, he explained, “I have always been
paying equal attention to creation and theory. But I would never compose poems according to
theory. . . . If my poem contradicts with my theory, I would not care about theory as long as the
poem can stand on its own.” In fact, he considered himself a “lyrical poet in nature.”13
In the history of Taiwan’s modern poetry, Ji Xian is a poet with strong individuality as well
as an influential theorist and critic of modern poetry. Several of his poems help shape his image
as an individualist. For instance, in his famous “Solitary Wolf ” (Lang zhi dubu, 1964), Ji com-
pares himself as a lonely wolf whose “shrill and long howls . . . shake Heaven and Earth as if in
malaria.” This establishes Ji Xian’s self-image as a proud and aloof artist, who does not uncriti-
cally follow the current fashion. This position is not much different from his insistence on the
Modernist School’s six doctrines against the wave of criticism.
“Demise of Poetry” (Shi de miewang, 2002), in which the poet claims: “poetic mood has been
completely run over by the 20th century civilization,” because the “vision of heart” of people
has disappeared and its science-oriented development “cannot move people.” It ends with a
twist on Li Bai’s well-known “Drinking Alone Under the Moon” (Yuexia duzhuo). In the origi-
nal poem, Li invites the moon to join him for drinks.Yet the last stanza of Ji’s poem states: “even
I ‘raise my glass’ with my hand, I feel the ‘moon’ above my head is nothing more than a satellite.
What makes it [the moon] worth ‘inviting’?” At the age of 93, Ji Xian published “The Wolf ’s
Long Howl” (Lang zhi changhao, 2005), reiterating a similar heroic spirit in which he personifies
himself as a wolf that “leads a solitary life relying on his two thin and long legs” versus the masses
who have “short and chubby [legs]” and cannot compare with him.
Several of Ji Xian’s notions of modern poetry attracted diverse receptions. His declaration of
“horizontal transplantation” is arguably the most controversial. In Qin Zihao’s aforementioned
response, Qin stated that Chinese poetry must have its own voice, instead of being just a tail
following its Western counterpart. Regarding this, Ji Xian appeared more open-minded. In his
“On the Transplanted Flower” (Lun yizhi zhi hua), he stated: “New poetry has yielded brilliant
results nowadays, and has become truly ‘Chinese’ new poetry” even though the “seedlings came
from the West.”14Of course, it would not be accurate to label Ji Xian as an advocate of total
transplantation.To be more exact, his views were only closer to using Western modernist forms
to reinvigorate Chinese poetry tradition. Qin, on the other hand, was not opposed to learning
from the West. He was simply more anxious about whether China’s new poetry, after taking the
West as a model for nearly 40 years, had completed its self-creation and developed its unique
features (Ibid., 140).
Ji Xian’s emphasis on intellectuality as a way to redress the pitfalls of Romanticist works also
attracted criticism. Qin Zihao pointed out that an ideal poem ought to be “the mixed product of
intellectuality and lyricism.”15 He continued that lyricism is “the common feature of poetry.” If
a poet simply exerts purely rational thinking, then the work would be “philosophy, not poetry”
(Ibid., 141). In response, Ji Xian maintained that the essence of poetry is not “poetic feelings”
(shiqing) that a prose can express, but “poetic thoughts” (shixiang) that prose cannot express.16
Reviewing the debate retrospectively, perhaps Lin Hengtai’s view can best illustrate the argu-
ments between Ji Xian and Qin Zihao. Lin maintained that the debate between intellectuality
and lyricism may just be a disagreement on the percentages.Thus, he proposed that “ ‘lyrical’ ele-
ments should be kept under 40% and this would make ‘a poem that focuses on intellectuality.’ ”17
In addition to his transplantation view and emphasis on intellectuality, Ji Xian also sug-
gested that poetry should be separate from songs (Ibid., 49). He elaborated that “modern poetry
denies the musicality of poetry” and “replaces the mechanical rhymes with natural tempos,” and

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hence, even if it is not easily sung, it contains “the musicality of the words” that can be reached
“through recitation” (123). Moreover, Ji Xian proclaimed: “poetry can never become popular-
ized. The popularized form is song, not poetry” (42–43). Qin Zihao seemed to agree with Ji
Xian. Qin stated: “A poem’s inner tempo is more charming than external (artificial) rhythms.”18
Regardless of whether it is possible to absolutely differentiate between a poem’s musicality and
its words’ musicality, Ji Xian considered poetry a comparatively highbrow artistic form in which
the work’s overall (inner) pace is much more valuable than its suitability for being sung.
Because Ji Xian’s views on poetry are often strong and sometimes flawed or radical, his
contemporaries did not easily concur with them. But his contribution to the reinvigoration of
Taiwan’s modern poetry is undisputed. His continued efforts in establishing his poetic views,
irrespective of criticism, match well with his self-image as a “solitary wolf.” For a writer whose
creativity spans nearly eight decades, his works are rich and diverse in subject and style. A large
number of his poems are self-descriptive, such as “Dog Howling at the Moon,” “The Star-
plucking Youth,” and “Solitary Wolf.” He is also known for his theology and nostalgic poems,
although he has also written many poems about love and friendship. As a Christian, Ji Xian
acknowledged the power of God in creating the world and in endowing people with creativ-
ity. In “I Write Poems, He Creates Trees” (Wo xieshi ta zaoshu), he states, “Trees are poems, and
poems are trees. Alas, the merciful God, please turn me into a tree.”19 Other poems such as
“Thank God” (Ganxie shangdi) (Ibid., 44–45) and “Thank You, My Lord” (Ganxie zhu),20 reiter-
ate his gratitude to God. At the same time, Xi Jian called for ecological awareness in “Stars Are
Not Permanent” (Hengxing wuchang);21 expressed his concern for human beings if they do not
learn to help, love, trust, and respect each other in “One Day” (Youyitian);22 and remained hope-
ful for future generations’ inventiveness in “Dreams” (Mengxiang) (Ibid, 147–148). Those poems
may read as religious, instructive, or idealistic, but they are highly indicative of Ji Xian’s view of
the universe and human civilization in general.
His nostalgic poems encompass his sentiments for both China and Taiwan. Concerning
China, in “The November Homesickness” (Shiyiyue de huaixiangbing), he writes: “There is no
blue sky in the world that can be bluer, deeper, more pleasantly blue, and more beautifully deep
than that covering the ancient city [Yangzhou] in which I grew up.”23 In “Dreaming of Mt.
Zhongnan” (Meng Zhongnanshan), he depicts himself as a “stranger” (yixiangren) who yearns to
embrace the small villages at the foot of Mt. Zhongnan.24 While living in the United States, Ji
Xian wrote about Taipei. In “A Poem of Returning” (Guilai yin), Taipei is the poet’s “second
hometown,” the city “that has treated him best and is the most beautiful place.”25 Other poems
such as “To Yangming Mountain” (Zhi Yangmingshan) and “Remembering Nangang” (Yi Nan-
gang) also touch upon his recollections of his time in Taipei. In “Five-stanzas of Homesickness”
(Xiangchou wujie, 1996), Ji Xian revisited his experience of leaving Beijing for Wuhan, settling
down in Yangzhou, and moving to Taiwan after the end of the Second World War until his
“exilic” life in America. He concluded that even though his late life is “not too sad,” he regret-
ted “not being able to see China’s unification” (bujian jiuzhou tong), commenting that he would
not mind visiting China if “literary freedom” (wenyi ziyou) becomes respected.26 Interestingly,
he named his poetry collections from his Taiwan period “Betel Nut Trees,” considering himself
the same as these trees that look like “a lonely creature just like him.”27

Yu Guangzhong – a multisourced modernist inspired

by Chinese classics
Born in Nanjing in 1928,Yu Guangzhong is a well-recognized writer, critic, and translator. He
studied at the private Jinling University sponsored by American churches and then studied for

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one semester in Amoy University before moving to Hong Kong in 1949 and then to Taiwan in
1950 with his parents. Upon arriving in Taiwan, he entered the National Taiwan University as
an English major. He graduated in 1952, and in the same year he published his debut collection
of poems titled Elegy of a Boatman (Zhouzi de beige) while at the same time receiving training to
become an editor/translator. In 1954, he founded the Blue Star Poetry Society along with Qin
Zihao and Zhong Dingwen. In 1957, while teaching English at the National Taiwan Normal
University, he published his Chinese translation of Irving Stone’s 1934 work Lust for Life, a biog-
raphy about the troubled life of Vincent van Gogh, thus marking the beginning of his career as
a translator.
In 1958,Yu won a scholarship and went to the U.S. to study for a master of fine arts degree
at Iowa State University. In 1963, he published his first collection of prose, The Left-handed Muse
(Zuoshou de miusi), which includes essays on various writers and artists, as well as Yu’s reflections
on modern paintings, his travels, and literary essays (xiaopinwen). In 1964, he taught classical Chi-
nese literature in the U.S. at the invitation of the State Council of the United States. He returned
to Taiwan in 1966 to teach at the National Taiwan Normal University before going back to the
U.S. to teach at Stanford in 1969. After returning to Taiwan in 1972 for a few years, he taught at
the Chinese University Hong Kong from August 1974 to 1985, before returning to Taiwan to
teach at the National Sun Yat-sen University. After Taiwan lifted a 38-year-old ban against travel
to China in 1987, Yu made frequent trips to the mainland. Despite his anti-Communist views
during Taiwan’s virulent 1977/1978 nativist literary debate,Yu’s love for Chinese traditional cul-
ture remained.28 He died on December 14, 2017 in Kaohsiung, a port city in Southern Taiwan.
Yu is a prolific and versatile writer with several renowned works such as the poetry collection
The Blue Wings (Lanse de chibang), which displays a romanticist style and classical tonal and rhym-
ing patterns.Yu claimed that he “writes poems with his right hand and essays with his left hand.”
Indeed, despite his fame as a poet,Yu holds unique insights for prose, claiming that “prose is the
identity card for all writers, while poems are the admission ticket for all forms of arts.” With his
innovative interpretation of poems and distinctive views on prose-writing,Yu has been praised as
a “linguistic magician” who mixes elements from ancient Chinese poetry like The Book of Songs
without compromising his poems’ modernistic charm.
His poetic writing started as early as 1948, approximately a decade before his essay writing.
He has written more than one thousand poems and experimented with different styles. His
development of styles roughly goes through six stages: the gelü (metric) poetry stage (1950–
1957) influenced by Western Romanticist literature but particularly by Republican China’s
Crescent Moon School,29 the Westernization stage (1958–1960), following his studies in the
United States, the classical stage (1961–1964) in which he opposed total Westernization and
gradually returned to the tradition of classical Chinese literature for inspiration, a modern China
stage (1964–1969), ballad (minyao) stage (1970–1973), and the cultural/historical exploration
stage (since 1974). Elegy of a Boatman offers a salient example of Yu’s first phase, whereas Hal-
loween (Wanshengjie) epitomizes his second phase.
Before Yu stepped into his classical stage, he published his long poem “Sirius” (Tianlangxing)
in Modern Literature in 1961. The poem, which laments the decay of Chinese culture and yearns
for its revitalization with the injection of modernist spirit, represents Yu’s desire to reconcile
classical Chinese culture and modern culture. In the first poem, “Myths of Dinghu” (Dinghu de
shenhua), for instance, Yu used allusions from classical Chinese literature (such as the image of
the roc (Dapeng) from Zhuangzi and that of the unicorn from The Spring and Autumn Annals) to
mourn the loss of Chinese culture’s past glory. However, he concludes this poem with the line
“under the Sirius, [I] dream that the ashes of heroes are ignited again from underground.” The
reignition of hope on the ashes recalls the rebirth of the phoenix from a fire, thereby signifying

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Yu’s belief in the renaissance of Chinese culture even though critics such as Chen Fangming
read the poem as a declaration of Yu’s shying away from modernism.30
Associations of the Lotus (Lian de lianxiang, 1964), a traditionally flavored collection of Yu’s third
phase, includes poems that resonate with classical Chinese poetry and Mainland China’s poetry
of the 1920s and 1930s. However, the collection is also inspired by British romanticist poetry
and American modern poetry (such as the poems of E. E. Cummings).31 In the fourth stage,Yu
addressed sex and war in In Time of Cold War (Zai lengzhan de niandai, 1969). Several poems in this
collection contemplate on the history of modern China. In “Whatever That Has Wings” (Fan
youchi de), the sentence “Li Bai’s face is stuffed with slogans” can be taken as Yu’s protest against
the damage brought by the Red Guards, whereas in “The Night of Lunar Eclipse” (Yueshiye),Yu
used the image of the dark night of a lunar eclipse to refer to the poverty-stricken condition of
the Chinese people during the Cultural Revolution. In “River of Forgetfulness” (Wangchuan),
the sentences “the Crown belongs to the Queen of England, the lost land belongs to the Dao-
guang Emperor. [Hong Kong] is neither a foreign country nor a native land” touch upon the
diaspora of Hong Kong dwellers. It concludes with a profound nostalgia for China: “although
the ravage continues, [China] that suffers from syphilis is still my mother.” “Percussion Music”
(Qiaodayue), a poem about China’s internal and external troubles and Yu’s Chinese sentiments, is
also a representative of this phase.
During the fifth stage, the ballad stage, Yu in Balsam Pear Made of White Jade (Baiyu kugua,
1974) promoted the combination of poetry and songs. At this time, Yu was adroit in inventing
his own literary style.Thematically, several poems in the collection, such as “Weaning” (Duannai)
and the eponymous “Balsam Pear Made of White Jade,” express Yu’s sentiments for China, which
are represented as a child’s yearning for his mother. In “The Night Watchman” (Shouyeren), he
reconfirms his role as a writer whose pen is his “last weapon,” saying he is unwilling to “disarm”
even though he is “trapped in the center of the lightless ink-blackness.” In the ballad-like poem
titled “Rock Rock Ballad” (Yaoyao minyao), he used Bob Dylan’s reiterative sentences. Moreover,
Yu used reiterative locution, rhyming words, and inversions to enhance the rhythm of his poems.
The way he ended poems is more refined, too. In “The Collector” (Shoucangjia), which ends
with “looking at that which scurries away in embers, a cockroach,” bathos is utilized to create an
anti-sublime effect. The collection has numerous instances of good use of images. “The belated
bell sounds, strike set an afternoon” in “Maiden Voyage” (Chunühang) is one such example. It is
impossible for the bells to “strike set” (qiaoxie) the time. The image, therefore, becomes particu-
larly innovative.
Yu moved to Hong Kong to teach at the Chinese University in 1974, which marks the begin-
ning of his sixth stage. During his sojourn in Hong Kong (1974–1985), he published A Tug-
of-War with Eternity (Yu yongheng bahe, 1981), Bodhisattva across the Water (Geshui guanyin, 1983),
and Ode to Bauhinia (Zijing fu, 1986). These collections cover a wide range of topics, exhibiting
Yu’s exploration of Chinese history and culture as well as his burgeoning sense of belonging for
Hong Kong. Among many subjects Yu has tackled in his poetry, his nostalgic poems are widely
recognized. C. T. Hsia has commented that the China for which Yu feels nostalgic is “neither
Taiwan nor the communist-ruled mainland. It is the China permeated with ‘the fragrances of
chrysanthemums and orchids.’ ”32 Yu used several images to express his intense feelings for his
hometown in China. For example, in the oft-quoted “Nostalgia in Four Rhymes” (Xiangchou
siyun, 1974), he used four vivid images, the Yangtze River, red begonia, white snowflake, and the
fragrant winter-sweet flower, to express his nostalgia for China.
The employment of rich images, a longtime characteristic of Yu’s poetry, continued while he
lived in Hong Kong. During his 11-year stay, in which he felt “the most settled and free,”33 this
special feature is evident. However, rather than using the natural landscape as the main images,

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Yu turned to Chinese history and culture for inspiration. In “Death in River Xiang: Monologue
in the Boat before Du Fu’s Tomb” (Xiangshi – Du Fu moqian zhouzhong dubai),Yu tried to cap-
ture Du Fu’s feelings prior to his death. It opens with a lamentation about Du Fu’s wandering
life: “Entrusting my unsettled old years to a lonely boat, entrusting the lonely boat to the River
Xiang, and entrusting the River Xiang to the misty rain season.” It ends with Yu’s association
with Qu Yuan, another legendary poet in early China, who lived a frustrated life and died before
fulfilling his potential. In “About to Drink Wine” (Jiangjinjiu),Yu again connected Qu Yuan and
Du Fu.34 And in “Reasons for Being Unable to Bear to Switch on the Light” (Buren kaideng de
yuangu), by relating himself to Du Fu, who lived about one thousand years earlier,Yu connected
his poetic mood with that of his admirable predecessor and maps out the spiritual closeness
between them, which is beyond the temporal distance.
Besides Du Fu,Yu wrote about Li Bai and Su Shi several times in his poems. “Teasing Li Bai”
(Xi Li Bai)35 starts with “The Yellow River comes from the West,” a sentence quoted from Li Bai,
and “the [Yangzi] River flows eastward,” a phrase from Su Shi’s “Poem of Red Cliffs” (Nian nu
jiao). The first stanza gives full credit to Li’s portrayal of the Yellow River, urging him to divide
the tianxia (All under heaven) from the Su brother (Su Shi). This not only tweaks Li’s and Su’s
original lines with Yu’s sense of humor, but it also shows Yu’s literary judgment. Compared with
Ji Xian’s “horizontal transplantation,” Yu strove to construct a “vertical (lyrical) inheritance” all
the way from Qu Yuan to the great poets of the Tang and Song Dynasties.
The images of those master poets differ according to Yu’s sentiments. While feeling unsettled
when he initially moved to Hong Kong,Yu employed Su Shi’s experience of being banished to
the far-off land of Hubei as objective correlative for his feelings for China, Taiwan, and Hong
Kong. Writing in Hong Kong, Yu wondered why he feels rather unfamiliar with the Chinese
continent that is so nearby, but particularly close to the island [Taiwan] that is far away.36 Inter-
estingly,Yu was later criticized for his pro-China stance by Li Ao. In 1997, he defended himself,
stating that “if one loves China, it does not mean that person is against Taiwan.”37
As Yu gradually settled into his life in Hong Kong, the territory’s image changes accordingly.
It is no longer a vantage point from which Yu reflected upon his diasporic experience, but a
place that he started to miss. In “Looking at the Mountains for Ten Years” (Shinian kanshan) and
“Unaffectionate Old Years” (Laolai wuqing),38 Yu wrote that “Looking back. . . [I] realize that it
[Hong Kong] is my lost dreamland,” and “can I really leave the mountain and water [of Hong
Kong] behind without looking back one day?” In “Bidding Farewell to Hong Kong” (Bie Xiang-
gang), the poet stated that “separation is a fast knife,” but it cannot “severe the silk thread between
[Hong Kong and myself].”39
While Yu wrote about his changed perception of Hong Kong, his poems composed in the
1970s and 1980s contain frequent self-reflections and increasingly profound socio-historical
concerns for China and Hong Kong. In “Ode to the Chrysanthemums” (Ju song, 1978), written
at the age of 50, Yu expressed his wish to be as reputable as the fragrant chrysanthemums after
the frost. The poem again is rich in the use of a time-honored Chinese image – the chrysanthe-
mums.40 Yu commented that the poem’s form is partly from the antique style (gufeng) of classical
Chinese poetry and partly from the blank verse (wuyun ti) of classical Western poetry.Ye Jiaying
added that the poem, which is the poet’s self-portrait, demonstrates the Southern Song poet
Xin Qiji’s impact on Yu, particularly the combination of natural scenes and emotions and the
ingenious use of allusions.41
Since the 1970s, Yu wrote a few poems criticizing the Cultural Revolution that are more
reality-engaged than his earlier China-related poems, which are filled with his “imagined” cul-
tural nostalgia. “Sea Sacrifice” (Haiji),42 which depicts the deaths of more than one hundred
Canton people who attempted to flee to Hong Kong by swimming, is one such poem. Likewise,

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Yu wrote about his anxiety over the future of Hong Kong. “Bauhinia” (Zijing) uses the fallen red
flowers to hint at Hong Kong’s political handover,43 whereas “The Year of Rat” (Shunian) depicts
the emigration wave through the line, “the clever rats, one by one, have almost all gone.”44 He
also wrote a few poems about the June 4th Incident. “National Elegy” (Guoshang),45 composed
on June 14, 1989, is a long piece expressing his sympathy for those students who were repressed
during that event. The poem contains richly colored images. The color “white” highlights the
students’ innocence, the color “black” refers to the government’s violent suppression, and the
color “red” signifies the historical scar.
By and large, Yu’s poetry started with something concrete and turned increasingly abstract.
It then underwent Westernization before its return to reconcile Chinese lyrical tradition and
modernism, and finally it added ballad elements and turned to reflect on Chinese history and
culture. This trajectory earned Yu the nickname “prodigal son” (huitou de langzi).46 His synthesis
of poetry and songs, particularly during his ballad stage in the early 1970s, together with his
“return” to Chinese literary legacy for inspiration contrasts with Ji Xian, even though both were
zealous about exploring new poetic forms and deeply concerned with literary freedom. For Yu,
writing poetry is a search of freedom. He set off on his journey with rather rigid metric poetry,
but later abandoned the existing metric rules to search for his poetic freedom.Yet the freedom
he has been pursuing is not unrestrained, prose-like freedom in composition, but freedom gov-
erned by one’s own metric regulations, termed “rules” (ju) by Yu himself.

Notes
1 Ji Xian claimed that after reading Dai’s Selected Poems of Dai Wangshu (Wangshu cao), he stopped writing
gelü (metric) poetry and began to compose ziyoushi (free verse) around the spring of 1934. In addition
to Dai Wangshu, Ji also acknowledged the influence of Shi Zhecun and Du Heng. See “Ji Xian on
Creative Writing – Poetry Will Not Die), United Daily News supplementary electronic newspaper no.
4415 (September 20, 2013).
2 Julia Lin identified Verlaine as Dai’s “poetic guide,” suggesting that some of Dai’s lines “recall Baude-
laire.” However, Gregory Lee argued that Dai was more influenced by the later neo-Symbolist poets.
See Lin’s, Modern Chinese Poetry: An Introduction (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1973), 166;
Lee’s “Western Influences in the Poetry of Dai Wangshu,” Modern Chinese Literature (Spring/Fall 1987),
vol. 3, no. 1/2, 7–30.
3 Ji Xian, “Clarifications of Modernist School’s Doctrines,” Modern Poetry (Xiandai shi) (February 1956),
vol. 13, 4.
4 Qin Zihao,“Where Is New Poetry Going?” in Qin Zihao, On Modern Poetry (Lun xiandai shi) (Taizhong:
Cengwen, 1982), 126–138, here 130–138.
5 See Yu Guangzhong’s, “The 17th Birth,” in Modern Literature (Xiandai wenxue) (March 1972), vol. 46,
11–27 for details.
6 Xiang Ming, “Review and Reflection of the Poetry from the 1950s,” Blue Star (Lanxing) (1988), vol. 45,
96.
7 Lin Hengtai, “The Tradition of Modern Poetry,” Modern Poetry (December 1957), vol. 20, 34.
8 Ji believed his promotion of modernism in post-war Taiwan was “an absolutely correct path” even
though he at that time was perhaps too radical. He further added that Taiwan’s poetry arena would not
have enjoyed such high development without his efforts. See Zhang Kun, “From ‘Horizontal Trans-
plantation’ to ‘Great Botanic Gardenism’ – Interviewing the Old Poet Ji Xian of the West Peninsula of
America,” Epoch-Making Poetry Journal (Chuangshiji shikan) (March 2000), vol. 122, 11–22.
9 However, the Japanese works written by Taiwanese writers should also be included to paint a fuller
picture of Taiwan’s modern poetry.
10 Shang Qin, “Reading Ji Xian’s Poetry,” Modern Poetry Quarterly (Xiandaishi jikan) (July 1993), vol. 20, 30.
11 Regarding how Ji Xian responded to surrealism, see Xi Mi’s “From Modern to Contemporary: A Dis-
cussion Starting from Miró’s Dog Howling at the Moon,” Chung-Wai Literary Monthly (August 1994),
vol. 23, no. 3, 6–13.
12 Ji Xian, Ji Xian’s Recollections, vol. 2 (Ji Xian huiyilu di’er bu) (Taipei: Lianhe wenxue, 2001), 125.

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13 Ji Xian, Song of the Peninsula (Bandao zhige) (Taipei: Xiandaishi jikanshe, 1993), 3.
14 Ji Xian, “On the Transplanted Flower,” Ji Xian on Modern Poetry (Ji Xian lun xiandaishi) (Taipei: Landeng,
1970), 164–172.
15 Ibid., 140.
16 Ji Xian, Ji Xian on Modern Poetry, 67.
17 Lin Hengtai, In Search of the Original Point of Modern Poetry (Zhaoxun xiandaishi de yuandian), 23.
18 Ji Xian, “On the Transplanted Flower,” 6, 20.
19 Ji Xian, The Tenth Collection of Poetry (Dishi shiji), 171–172.
20 Ji Xian, Collected Poems of the Universe (Yuzhou shichao) (Taipei: Shulin, 2001), 27–28.
21
22 Ji Xian, Song of the Peninsula, 100–103.
23 Ji Xian, Betel Nut Trees, vol. 1 (Binlangshu jiaji), 122.
24 Ji Xian, Betel Nut Trees, vol. 3 (Binlangshu bingji), 116.
25 Ji Xian, Evening Scene (Wanjing), 160.
26 Ji Xian, Collected Poems of the Universe 27, 17–19.
27 Ji Xian, Betel Nut Trees, vol. 1 (Binlangshu jiaji), 69–71.
28 During the debate,Yu published an article entitled “Here Comes the Wolf ” (Lang laile), accusing several
native Taiwanese writers of supporting proletarian values. Considered by some critics a Nationalist
government’s collaborator,Yu’s legacy in Taiwan is mixed.
29 Yu specifically acknowledged Zang Kejia’s early poetry collection Brand (Laoyin). See Yu’s “Flying
before Me,” Wenhui Daily (Wenhui bao) (August 10, 1997).
30 Chen Fangming, “A Prodigal Son – On the Change of Yu Guangzhong’s Notions of Poetry,” in Huang
Weiliang, ed., The Phoenix Bathed in Fire: Collection of Essays on Yu Guangzhong (Huoyu de fenghuang:
Yu Guangzhong zuopin pinglunji) (Taipei: Chunwenxue, 1979), 396.
31 Zhang Jian once referred to Yu as “E. E. Cummings in China.” See his “Focusing on the Poetry Col-
lection Associations of Lotus,” in The Phoenix Bathed in Fire: Collection of Essays on Yu Guangzhong, 46.
32 C. T. Hsia, “Yu Guangzhong: The Extension of National Longing and Nostalgia,” People’s Literature
(Rende wenxue) (Taipei: Chunwenxue, 1977), 153–161.
33 Yu Guangzhong, Preface, “Looking Back to the Obscure Building – Arriving at the Peninsula in Spring-
time,” Arriving at the Peninsula in Springtime (Chunlai bandao) (Hong Kong: Xiangjiang chubanshe, 1985), ii.
34 Yu Guangzhong, Bodhisattva across the Water (Geshui guanyin) (Taipei: Hongfan, 1983), 109–110.
35 In Yu’s Bodhisattva across the Water, he wrote “Teasing Li Bai,” “Searching for Li Bai,” and “Remembering
Li Bai” (Nian Li Bai). See 51–53, 54–58, and 59–61.
36 Yu Guangzhong, “Typhoon Night,” in A Tug-of-War with Eternity (Yu yongheng bahe) (Taipei: Hongfan,
1979), 5.
37 Yu Guangzhong, “Separation Because of Politics, Unification Because of Culture – On Hong Kong’s
Literary Scope,” The Energetic and Diverse Hong Kong Literature: Proceedings of the 1999 International Con-
ference on Hong Kong Literature, vol. 2 (Huopo fenfan de Xianggang wenxue: yijiujiujiu nian xianggang wenxue
guoji tantaohui lunwenji xiace), 916–919.
38 Yu Guangzhong, “Looking at Mountains for Ten Years” and “Unaffectionate Late Years,” in Ode to
Bauhinia (Zijing fu) (Taipei: Hongfan, 1986), 188–190 and 191–193.
39 Ibid., 194–195.
40 Apart from the chrysanthemums,Yu also used “pine trees” to compare his clear, recluse-like mental state.
41 Ye Jiaying, Lecture Notes on Poetry (Shuoshi jianggao) (Beijing: Zhonghua chubanshe, 2008), 180.
42 Yu Guangzhong, “Sea Sacrifice,” Collected Poems of Yu Guangzhong, vol. 3, A Tug-of-War with Eternity (Yu
Guangzhong shige xuanji jisanji yu yongheng bahe) (Jilin: Shidai wenyi chubanshe, 1997), 101–107.
43 Yu Guangzhong, “Bauhinia,” Ode to Bauhinia, 155.
44 Yu Guangzhong, “Year of the Rat,” Ode to Bauhinia, 154–155.
45 Yu Guangzhong, “National Elegy,” United Daily News Supplement (June 29, 1989).
46 See Chan Fangming’s essay in fn. 30 for details.

Further readings
Au, Chung-to. Modernist Aesthetics in Taiwanese Poetry since the 1950s. Leiden: Brill, 2008.
Hsia, C. T. “Obsession with China (II): Three Taiwan Writers.” In Hsia, ed., A History of Modern Chinese Fic-
tion. 3rd Edition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 363–386.

654
 Masterpieces of Taiwan poetry

Huang, Weiliang. “Poetry, Politics, and the Reception of Yu Guangzhong’s ‘Nostalgia.’ ” In Chin-Chuan
Cheng, I-Chun Wang and Steven Totosy de Zepetnek, eds., Cultural Discourse in Taiwan. Kaohsiung:
Center for the Humanities and Social Sciences, National Sun Yat-sen University, 2009, 78–86.
Leung, K. C. “An Interview with Yu Kwang-chung.” World Literature Today 65.3 (1991): 441–446.
Lin, Julia C. “Chi Hsien: An Exuberant Rhapsodist.” In Lin, ed., Essays on Contemporary Chinese Poetry.
Athens: Ohio University Press, 1985, 12–26.
———. “Yu Kuang-chung: From Dream to Reality.” In Lin ed., Essays on Contemporary Chinese Poetry.
Athens: Ohio University Press, 1985, 150–187.
Yeh, Michelle. “Modern Poetry in Taiwan: Continuities and Innovations.” In S. Harrell and Chun-chieh
Huang, eds. Cultural Exchange in Postwar Taiwan. Boulder: Westview, 1994, 227–245.
Yeh, Michelle and N. G. D. Malmqvist, eds. Frontier Taiwan: An Anthology of Modern Chinese Poetry. New York:
Columbia University Press, 2000.

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 49
HONG KONG LITERATURE
An overview
Paul B. Foster

Twentieth-century Hong Kong lay at the crossroads of Chinese and non-Chinese culture and
politics, informed by more than a hundred years of British colonialism with its attendant values
and traditions, and simultaneously standing as a locus of traditional Chinese culture during this
tumultuous century of Chinese revolution. It might be asked if there are features of “Hong
Kong literature” that distinguish it from Chinese literature on the whole and help inform our
understanding of Hong Kong throughout the twentieth century to provide insight into Hong
Kong’s, and thus China’s, future in the twenty-first century. A search on Hong Kong writers and
literary researchers indicates a clear sense of Hong Kong individuality and uniqueness vis-à-vis
its own cultural and social traditions.
There are at least four phases of Hong Kong literature in the twentieth century. The first
phase covers literary works produced in Hong Kong during China’s “first enlightenment” of the
May Fourth 1919 era in the early Republic of China, during which Western philosophical, cul-
tural, and literary ideologies flooded into China prior to World War II and the Chinese civil war.
Second, after establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, literature in the relatively
free Hong Kong contrasts with that of the rather rigid communist Mainland and nationalist
Taiwan, both of which had limits on expression. This phase lasted up until the end of the Great
Proletarian Cultural Revolution (ca., 1966–1976). Third, as mainland China began opening up
to the outside world under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s,“Hong Kong culture,”
including popular literature, music, and film, was imported wholescale back to the Mainland.
Finally, a fourth phase of Hong Kong literature is evident in Hong Kong’s preparation to return
to mainland Chinese sovereignty in 1997.
Generationally speaking, the earliest Hong Kong writers of the twentieth century published
works in the 1920s under the influence of the same new trends and thought ushered in by the
new vernacular modern Chinese literature of the May Fourth Movement. Around the time
of the communist revolution in the 1940s, “writers coming south” (nanlai zuojia) emigrated
from the Mainland to Hong Kong. A second wave of immigration was driven by politics dur-
ing the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. These writers brought their own lan-
guage (Mandarin and other dialects) and experiences to the Cantonese and English speaking
colony. Both these groups of immigrants eventually became Hong Kongers, joining native born
Hong Kong writers. Writers born in the 1950s and 1960s in Hong Kong produced works that
became a “new chapter” of Hong Kong literature in the 1980s and 1990s”1 Hong Kong writers

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experienced the multiple influences of colonialism, traditional Chinese culture, commercialism,

and ideas of modernity, which differentiated their literature from both the Mainland and Tai-
wan during the Cold War. Although Hong Kong may be seen as a locus of traditional Chinese
culture due to its relative insulation from political upheaval in the Mainland and freedom from
Nationalist censorship in Taiwan, it was the intense commercialization in the British colony
that lent a uniqueness to Hong Kong literature and set the stage for Hong Kong’s influence on
Chinese popular culture in the late twentieth century as China opened up to the world.

Genres and writers of Hong Kong literature

Hong Kong writers have made contributions to all genres of modern literature, both high
and low, from poetry to fiction. The many genres of literature are represented in Hong Kong
by a plethora of “schools” or “sects” (pai), which follow the trends of world literature. Literary
historians identify these schools as the Realism School (xieshi pai or xianshi zhuyi pai) and the
Romanticist/Idealist School (langman pai or lixiang pai) of the 1930s and 1940s. The Mod-
ern (ist) School (xiandai pai), the New School of Martial Arts Fiction (xin wuxia xiaoshuo pai),
the New Romance Fiction School (xin yanqing xiaoshuo pai), and the Science Fiction School
(kehuan xiaoshuo pai) came up in the 1950s. The 1970s and 1980s added the Urban Fantasy/
Romance School (dushi qiqing pai), the Detective School (zhenpo tuili pai), as well as the Magical
School (mohuan pai), which included magical realism from West and traditional Chinese fiction.2
The lineage of Hong Kong writers is complicated, but on the first level can be differenti-
ated as either “native writers” born in Hong Kong or “immigrant writers,” who came from
the Mainland (and occasionally from Taiwan and Southeast Asia). For example, the Modernist
School in the 1950s can be represented by both the native writer Lu Lun and the immigrant
writer Liu Yichang. In the early 1960s a group of young Hong Kong born authors, including Ye
Si and Xi Xi, constitute the “new life era” (xin sheng pai).”3 Ye Si’s portrayal of Chinese character,
including Hong Kong character,4 and Xi Xi’s “urban scenic flows” are particularly characteristic
of this era.5 Tao Ran is representative of the “new immigrant” (xin yimin) writers who came to
Hong Kong fleeing the Cultural Revolution in the 1970s. He began his writing career in Hong
Kong, facilitated in part by the fact that Hong Kong had many newspapers and magazines with
literary columns that could provide the opportunity for writers to support themselves.6 One
characteristic of the literary scene is that Hong Kong accepted these immigrants, and like earlier
transplants they “had completely melted into Hong Kong and become authentic Hong Kong
writers by the mid to late 1980s”.7 Jin Yong, one of the grandmasters of the New School of
Martial Arts Fiction, came to Hong Kong in 1948 and started writing martial arts fiction in the
mid-1950s. He is an outstanding example of the immigrant writer carving out success in Hong
Kong’s commercial literary market and “becoming” a Hong Konger.

Representative works of Hong Kong fiction

The works of Lu Lun, a founder of Hong Kong’s Nativist School, are highlighted by the short
story collections Amei’s Strange Encounter and Lottery, both of which “represent and sympa-
thize with the hardships of common folk on the lower rungs of society” who were scratch-
ing out a living.8 The stream of consciousness novels Tête-bêche and Drunkard by immigrant
writer Liu Yichang place him firmly in the trend of western Modernist literature of the twen-
tieth century. Drunkard critiques the worship of money and mass consumer literature, ironi-
cally through a protagonist who aspires to “high” literature but writes pornography and martial
arts fiction.9 Liu delves into the character’s internal universe using psychological monologue,

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stream of consciousness, intertwining of time and space, as well as imagery and symbolism.10 Liu
Yichang also founded Hong Kong Literature Monthly in 1986 and served as its general editor,11
and his works inspired Wang Kar-wai’s movies In the Mood for Love (2000) and 2046 (2004),
respectively.12
The new immigrant writer Tao Ran didn’t begin writing until after coming to Hong Kong
from mainland China during the Cultural Revolution. He wrote more than twenty novels in
twenty-five years, and addressed topics of “low” commercial culture in contrast to works of the
Modern School of literature.13 Literary historian Yuan Liangjun notes:

Quite a few of Tao Ran’s works write of the performing world and are worth particu-
lar attention. Hong Kong has been disdained by people as a “cultural desert,” but this
“desert” has quite developed performing arts such as music, film, television, pop songs,
etc., with a number of great “heavenly kings,” a few great directors, a few great film
stars, with whom Hong Kongers are very familiar. . . . Hong Kong has many works
that depict the world of performing arts, and Tao Ran’s value is in his particular angle
and dynamics.14

The term “cultural desert” is indicative of the tension between cultural aspirations for artistic
high culture in contrast to the reality of low popular culture. Such tension may inform the
immigrant writer Liu Yichang’s lamentation that “a serious literary worker” in other countries
“could immediately rely on remuneration to achieve a stable life as long as he/she could write a
passable work, but in Hong Kong this is absolutely not the case.”15 In Hong Kong, the works of
many writers critique its crass commercialism, but they also profit in the struggle. The authors
of pop genres may profit the most.The science fiction genre is represented by the prolific writer
Ni Kuang, who also wrote martial arts fiction and works for the screen. Martial arts fiction in
Hong Kong is represented by the two grand masters, Jin Yong and Liang Yusheng. Jin Yong is
arguably the most visible representative of the relationship between literature, popular culture,
and commercialism in Hong Kong, having profited greatly from it, but he is far from alone in
this respect.
The marriage of pop and commercial culture is perhaps the single most important literary
trend of Hong Kong in the twentieth century. In fact, New School Martial Arts Fiction may be
regarded as a showcase of this aspect of Hong Kong literature. Both Jin Yong and Liang Yush-
eng started their martial art writing by serializing their works in 1950s newspapers. The pin-
nacle of this pop-commercial union is found in Jin Yong’s twelve epic novels written from the
1950s through the early 1970s. These stories had, and continue to have, an immense impact on
Hong Kong and Chinese popular culture. Reading audiences devoured his novels, and televi-
sion and film audiences were glued to their multiple adaptations. As a result, Hong Kong read-
ers developed a “cultural vernacular” based on Jin Yong’s works: a deeply ingrained knowledge
and virtually effortless recognition of Jin Yong’s characters, his stories, and the actors, actresses
(and directors) who brought them into movie theaters and people’s homes. In addition to three
revisions of his collected works over three decades, voracious popular demand was met by the
entertainment and film industries, which mutually created and capitalized on a synergy of these
forces. Extending beyond Hong Kong’s borders, the dynamic energy of martial arts fiction and
its adaptation and spin-offs became a major pop culture trend in China and Southeast Asia in
the 1980s and 1990s.
Chinese literature, particularly the “high” culture art of poetry, had been a source of cul-
tural pride for centuries. The status of the vernacular language and the novel was elevated
early in twentieth century when new vernacular May Fourth realist fiction was promoted into

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prominence in the Chinese literary canon. Jin Yong’s martial arts fiction of the mid-twentieth
century represents a further step in validating vernacular popular literature, but this time facing
criticism from adherents of May Fourth new literature values who looked down upon pop fic-
tion as a “low” culture form.This discourse is complicated by the relative outsider status of Hong
Kong in Chinese culture of the twentieth century, which John Christopher Hamm terms the
“indefinite exile” of Hong Kong residents “from the Chinese homeland,” whereby the works of
New School Martial Arts Fiction authors were “a vehicle for exploring the authors’ and read-
ers’ relationship to this near-yet-suddenly-distant home.”16 Hong Kong residents’ longing for
the Chinese homeland is compounded by the mainland Chinese longing for Chinese culture
after the disastrous damage of the Cultural Revolution. This can be measured by the degree of
cultural fever after opening in the 1980s and 1990s. Hong Kong pop commercial culture was
ready to inform China in the post-Mao decades ending the twentieth century. The timing was
right and Jin Yong’s fiction was coincidentally poised to respond to this longing (and commer-
cial demand) when China finally opened up.

Jin Yong and his works

Jin Yong was born Zha Liangyong (a.k.a., Louis Cha) in 1924 to a prosperous family in Haining
County, Zhejiang province, not far south of Shanghai, China. He went to Hong Kong in 1948
to work at the newspaper Dagong bao, where he wrote on international issues involving China.
In 1952 he started work at The New Evening Post (Xin wanbao) as the editor of a supplement
and wrote movie critiques and some movie scripts. Here he began writing martial arts fiction in
1955 and subsequently began to work at the Great Wall Film Company as scriptwriter in 1957.17
Jin Yong wrote fourteen stories, twelve of which were major works. A brief textual history of
Jin Yong’s works is highly relevant to the understanding of Jin Yong’s place in Hong Kong and
Chinese literature of the twentieth century.

Jin Yong’s 12 Major Novels, Title Translations, Serialization Dates,

and Abbreviations18
Book and Sword, Gratitude and Revenge [Shujian enchou lu; ser. 1955–56] (Book and Sword)
The Sword Stained with Royal Blood [Bixue jian; ser. 1956] (Royal Blood)
The Eagle-Shooting Heroes [Shediao yingxiong zhuan; ser. 1957–59] (Heroes)
The Giant Eagle and Its Companion [Shendiao xialü; ser. 1959–61] (Companion)
Flying Fox on Snowy Mountain [Xueshan feihu; ser. 1959] (Flying Fox)
The Young Flying Fox [Feihu waizhuan; ser. 1960–61] (Young Fox)
The Heaven Sword and the Dragon Sabre [Yitian tulong ji; ser. 1961–63] (Dragon Sabre)
A Deadly Secret [Liancheng jue; ser. 1963] (Deadly)
The Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils [Tianlong babu; ser. 1963–66] (Semi-Devils)
Ode to Gallantry [Xiake xing; ser. 1966–67] (Gallantry)
The Smiling, Proud Wanderer [Xiao ao jianghu; ser. 1967–69] (Wanderer)
The Deer and the Cauldron [Lu ding ji; ser. 1969–72] (Cauldron)

Jin Yong’s first novel, Book and Sword, was serialized in The New Evening Post starting in 1955. In
1956 he wrote Royal Blood, and in 1957 he began Heroes, both of which were published seri-
ally in Xianggang shangbao (Hong Kong commercial daily). Besides writing fiction, Jin Yong was
also a journalist and editor. After publishing his first three novels in someone else’s newspaper,
he started the newspaper Mingbao in 1959, where he serially published a sequel to Heroes called

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Companion and many of his later novels.19 Jin Yong’s martial arts fiction was important to the
success of his newspaper, and his newspaper, novels, and the films and television spin-offs made
him very wealthy.
In addition to their original serialization in newspapers or martial arts magazines, there have
been three collected editions and numerous printings of Jin Yong zuopin ji (The collected works
of Jin Yong). The collected editions contain revisions from one to the next and are typically
referred to as the “old edition” (jiu ban), “new edition” (xin ban), and the “new revised edition”
(xin xiu ban).20 Jin Yong simplifies his writing career, saying he wrote for fifteen years, from 1955
to 1970, and then spent ten years from 1970 to 1980 revising all his works for publication.21 The
new edition of his collected works contains thirty-six volumes.22 The first official (not pirated)
individual work of Jin Yong’s fiction published in mainland China was the simplified character
edition of Heroes, serialized in Guangzhou’s Wulin (Martial forest) magazine in 1980, at the very
beginning of China’s latest opening to the outside world.23 An official simplified-character edi-
tion of The Collected Works of Jin Yong was finally published in mainland China in 1994.24
Most of Jin Yong’s stories are quite long, ranging from two to five volumes at approximately
four hundred pages per volume. The novels are also geographically expansive, encompassing
large swaths of China. For example, the locations in Heroes extend from the Gobi Desert in
Inner Mongolia in the north to Xiangyang in Hubei province, central China. The geography
depicted in Semi-Devils ranges from Beijing to Manchuria in the north all the way down to
Yunnan Province in China’s southern reaches. Protagonists in Semi-Devils also travel to the state
of Xi Xia (1032–1227), which occupied part of today’s Inner Mongolia and Gansu Province.
Frontal matter in the novels often includes maps of the geographical areas traversed throughout
the stories. One map in volume four of Heroes compares four great world empires, showing
Genghis Khan’s Mongol empire as occupying the greatest territory.
Jin Yong depicts some grandiose scenes of combat between huge armies, such as his descrip-
tion of the Mongol battles in Heroes. A banquet may be attended by several hundred or thousand
martial heroes, an example of which is the retirement party held for Liu Zhengfeng in Wanderer
that hosts five hundred guests in attendance.25 Later in Wanderer, a couple thousand martial art-
ists meet on Songshan to consolidate the five separate mountain sword sects into a single “Five
Mountains Sword Sect.”26 Jin Yong weaves elements of history and legend, good versus evil,
romance, revenge and retribution, obligation and loyalty to martial brethren, struggle for domi-
nance – to be “Number One” – of the martial world, as well as defense of the empire against
internal and external existential threats. These general themes inform the character and martial
development of his protagonists. Jin Yong also weaves in aspects of Chinese aesthetics, medical,
philosophical, and religious practice, Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist philosophy, as well as
other orthodox and unorthodox strands of popular culture. There is a whole array of interper-
sonal relationships with attendant tensions and conflicts between master and pupil, sworn broth-
ers, lovers, husband and wife, parent and child, and brethren within martial sects.
There are a number of narrative threads commonly found in Jin Yong’s works. One is the
romantic or love relationship.Yang Guo’s relationship with Xiaolongnü in Companion is perhaps
the foremost example of this.The narrative of Book and Sword is also advanced via the love inter-
est between two principle characters, but it is overshadowed by another prominent narrative
thread that turns on ethnicity or nationality, represented by the struggle of the “Heaven and
Earth Society,” a Han secret organization, to overthrow the Manchu Qing Dynasty. A third nar-
rative thread in many of Jin Yong’s works is the battle between good and evil, often complicated
by the conflation of good and evil in specific characters, or challenged and critiqued by main
characters, such as protagonist Linghu Chong in Wanderer, who makes friendships across this
divide. A fourth narrative thread is the search for, or struggle over, a martial book of secrets, the

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practice of which would elevate the practitioner to “Number One” in the martial world. A fifth
common thread is the theme of revenge, such as Qiao Feng’s quest to uncover the villain who
killed his parents and martial master in Semi-Devils.

The impact of Jin Yong’s works

Hong Kong popular culture owes a significant debt to martial arts fiction writers whose novels
were repeatedly adapted for television and film and garnered large audiences. The kungfu prac-
ticed in the novels is often fantastical, if not representative of “magical realism.” However, real
kungfu is connected to the novels through wuxia martial arts ideology, which includes concepts
of martial chivalry, values, ethics, and morality. While Jin Yong is familiar to Chinese and Asian
audiences, he and his works are still not accessible in the West because of linguistic and cultural
translation issues. Wang Xiaojue notes:

Since the 1980s, the era of the “second Chinese Enlightenment,” Eileen Chang and
Jin Yong, writers housed oppositely in Hong Kong’s newspapers, right and left, joined
forces to sweep the cultural ruins of the Cultural Revolution and conquered a reader-
ship larger than their former editors could have dared to anticipate. And in recent years,
in the Sinophone world, their writings have circulated across conventional borders –
national, political, and cultural – and become a shared source to initiate people into
the world of Chinese culture.27

Jin Yong’s martial arts novels are the best example of the legacy of the New School of Martial
Arts Fiction. He attracted readers to his newspapers with his martial arts fiction, became exceed-
ingly rich, and is arguably the best selling/most read Chinese novelist of all-time, and perhaps
had a readership greater than that of any other writer in world history. Given the long history of
pirating Jin Yong’s works, statistics are not clear, but a 1996 article estimates 100 million copies
of The Collected Works of Jin Yong were sold, including pirated versions.28 Another report claims
more than 500,000 sets of Jin Yong’s collected works were sold by Beijing’s Sanlian Bookstore
in the Mainland between 1994 and 1996.29
The opening up of China in the 1980s lead to Jin Yong’s fiction being widely read in the
Mainland, and this commercial success caused much debate in Chinese literary circles regard-
ing the value of his works and their status in the Chinese literary canon. Jin Yong emphasized
Chineseness in form and language, which is one explanation for the mix of classical and
colloquial language in his novels. He stressed that his martial arts fiction was entertainment
for the masses and not concerned with “serving society,” contrary to the primary trend of
leading writers in the twentieth century, such as Lu Xun, who advocated such an idealized
role for literature during the May Fourth Movement. Modern Chinese literature embraced
Western literary and ideological trends, and treated martial arts fiction as “low” culture not
worthy of the times.30 Jin Yong on the contrary asserted: “Modern Chinese fiction that is
considered New Literature is really quite divorced from the Chinese literary tradition. It
can hardly be called Chinese fiction. Ba Jin, Mao Dun, Lu Xun – they all wrote foreign fic-
tion in Chinese.”31 The question of whether his works were worthy of being called “real”
literature was hotly debated and “settled” as Jin Yong was accepted into the canon of modern
Chinese literature, ranked fourth behind Lu Xun in the 1990s.32 Jin Yong’s novels resonated
in pop culture for decades and continue to resonate. His compelling stories, characters, and
fantastical kungfu techniques and values were imbedded into the consciousness of Chinese
audiences worldwide.

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 Paul B. Foster

Jin Yong’s semi-allegorical masterpiece: The Smiling, Proud Wanderer

The primary theme of Wanderer is the dynamic of greater struggle between “Good Sects” and
“Evil Sects,” or simply Good and Evil, for dominance of the martial world, and the parallel,
independent struggle within the Good and Evil sects for domination. Written at the height
of the Cultural Revolution, Wanderer contains themes and characters that critique Chairman
Mao’s disastrous political program. Jin Yong notes that his daily newspaper political commentary
influenced the content in the serial installments of Wanderer that he wrote each night.33 Wanderer
may be read as a partial allegory attacking the incoherence of the bipolar Good/Evil ideological
structure of Mao political movement and Chinese politics in general.
The novel’s title directly refers to a musical piece called “Xiao ao jianghu,” a composition
for zither and flute by two friends from opposite sides of the Good/Evil divide. This is a com-
position of incredible beauty and difficulty, which can be performed only by artists of both great
musical and kungfu skill. Jin Yong’s English translation for the title is “The Smiling, Proud Wan-
derer,” but in the context of the plot a more literal translation is “laughing haughtily at the jianghu
[rules/morality].” The “Good” Hengshan Sword Sect elder Liu Zhengfeng has befriended Qu
Yang, an “Evil” Sun Moon Cult elder over their mutual interest in music.This represents a chal-
lenge to the bias of Upright/Good (zheng) versus Evil (xie), a serious breach of morality. When
Liu attempts to retire from the martial world to maintain and protect their musical friendship,
his family and followers are publicly massacred by his Songshan Sword Sect ally. Liu’s wish to
retire, to “wash his hands” from obligations of the martial world (jianghu) pits individual desire
of righteous friendship (yiqi) against collective norm of loyalty to one’s martial brethren which
stipulates a clear line between Good and Evil. The cost of prioritizing righteous friendship
over collective sectarian loyalty for Liu Zhengfeng is extreme. The novel’s protagonist, Linghu
Chong, witnesses Liu and Qu’s deaths and his worldview is shaken.
Linghu Chong is the swashbuckling, amiable, and clever head disciple of the Huashan Sword
Sect who finds himself adrift in the martial world as his ideological precepts are continuously
challenged. Linghu Chong encounters situations where he hesitates, directly challenging the
Good/Evil dogma held by his master and other Good sect leaders. He chooses righteous friend-
ship over filial loyalty to his master/father figure. To wit, his master orders him to kill the vile
Tian Boguang, but he hedges because Tian had shown him respect and mercy by repeatedly
sparing his life. While fighting Tian for the umpteenth time, Linghu Chong receives instruction
from Feng Qingyang, a reclusive Huashan Sect swordsman, and his newly obtained sword skill in
due course saves his entire martial family. But instead of praise, he is suspected of surreptitiously
obtaining the Sword Manual to Ward-off Evil (Bixie jianpu; hereafter Sword Manual) because he
has promised Feng not to reveal the true origin of his new skills. He feels unjustly accused of
disloyalty and starts to experience an awakening of political consciousness.
The martial value of “secret” knowledge in written texts is immense. Competitive pursuit
to obtain the Sword Manual is used to frame the struggle within the Good sects throughout
the story. The novel begins with the master of the “Good” Qingcheng Sect seeking to steal
the Sword Manual in order to avenge his ancestor’s defeat at the hands of the security company
founder. In the process, this Good sect slaughters the Lin family and members of the Fuzhou
Fuwei Security Company, whose progenitor had established indisputable dominance in the
martial world using the Sword Manual. Although the actual secrets of the text were not passed
down to his descendants, the security company operated unchallenged for three generations
due to a reputation so strong that nobody dared attack their protected caravans. Linghu Chong
rescues Lin Pingzhi, scion of the security company, who is then adopted into his Huashan Sword
Sect after his parents die.

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The narrative gradually reveals that other Good sect leaders also scheme in secret to acquire
the text, while hiding their motivation from their minions. Huashan Sect leader (Linghu
Chong’s master), Yue Buqun, has his sights set on acquiring the Sword Manual. Simultaneously,
the Songshan Sect attempts to unify the Five Mountains Sword Alliance and schemes against
the Huashan Sect and leaders of the other three allied sword sects.Yue Buqun is surreptitiously
attacked and directly undermined by his ostensible Songshan Sect ally. Humiliations inflicted
upon him fortify his secret ambition to obtain the Sword Manual and exact revenge, but he must
compete with the stronger Songshan leader for the text.
Linghu Chong is drawn into the battle among the Good sects first by saving Lin Pingzhi
from the Qingcheng Sect, and secondly witnessing the injustice of the Songshan Sect killing
Liu Zhengfeng and Qu Yang for their musical alliance. Moreover, Linghu Chong’s failure to kill
Tian Boguang has put him in the middle, between Good and Evil, a severe transgression of the
dictum that demands Good annihilate Evil. His master Yue Buqun, the “[Confucian] Gentle-
man Sword,” is the most fervent proponent of conquering Evil and unfairly punishes him with
a year’s exile “facing the wall” high on Huashan to meditate on his “misdeeds.” Here Linghu
Chong secretly learns Dugu jiu jian (the nine swords of Dugu) from Feng Qingyang, which
complicates his struggle to regain his master’s good graces. Although Linghu Chong again saves
Lin Pingzhi while helping find the Sword Manual,Yue Buqun now steals it, and ultimately exiles
Linghu Chong from the Huashan Sect to cover up his own treachery.
Eventually, Lin Pingzhi secretly recovers his family’s Sword Manual from Yue Buqun’s posses-
sion, then pursues vengeance against the Qingcheng Sect for the slaughter of his family. But Lin
must marry Yue Buqun’s daughter in order to protect himself from Yue Buqun, who suspects Lin
of knowing the truth. Concurrently, Songshan Sect leader Zuo Lengchan, secretly attempts to
acquire the Sword Manual to facilitate uniting of the sects and kills all the allies who stands in his
way. His well-crafted treachery is unknowingly foiled by Linghu Chong on numerous occasions.
Having been both physically and mentally ostracized, his outsider clarity slowly dawns on
Linghu Chong, and he is horrified to discover the leaders of both Good and Evil sects will stop
at no extremes in their quest for power. On the Evil side, Linghu Chong unwittingly rescues
Ren Woxing, former leader of the Sun Moon Cult, from imprisonment and thereby unleashes
a Sun Moon Cult power struggle with current leader, Dongfang Bubai. Ren Woxing practices
essence-draining technique (xixing dafa),34 which he uses to literally suck the qi out of his
enemies. His Sun Moon Cult protégé/nemesis, Dongfang Bubai, practices The Sunflower Clas-
sic (Kuihua baodian), and thereby gains unparalleled kungfu skill at the price of self-castration.35
The allure of the Sword Manual lies in the belief that it will facilitate the leaders/practition-
ers domination of the martial world, a belief shared by both Good and Evil sects. The leaders
inexorably lust for domination and explicitly embrace blood-soaked martial practices in pursuit
of their quest. Both The Sunflower Classic and the Sword Manual turn out to have the same prov-
enance, the former having been written by a court eunuch and the latter secretly copied from
part of it. Both require castration to successfully practice the all-powerful kungfu. Dongfang
Bubai, Yue Buqun, and Lin Pingzhi all secretly castrate themselves to learn this kungfu, which
exponentially increases their martial skills. While the corpses pile up these three antagonists all
travel the road to insanity.
Similarly, Ren Woxing’s “evil” essence draining technique also eventually causes insanity.
With Linghu Chong’s help, Ren Woxing overthrows Dongfang Bubai and reinstates himself
as leader of the Sun Moon Cult. But instead of returning to his previous brotherly leadership
style, he mimics the idolization rituals that Dongfang Bubai had practiced, and places himself
on a pedestal high above his former martial brothers, generating a climate of fear and apprehen-
sion. All three of these sacred kungfu texts may be read as allusions to communist classics. The

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 Paul B. Foster

Sunflower Classic and Sword Manual both clearly allude to Mao’s “little red book,” the knowledge
and interpretation of which yield ultimate kungfu power and supremacy in the martial world.
Ultimately, Jin Yong’s story demonstrates that the Good and Evil leaders are ethically the same,
relying on secret kungfu texts to obtain power, making them both cruel and increasingly insane.
Lusting for power, they willingly go to the greatest extremes (castration and annihilation) to
enhance their martial prowess and to consolidate and expand their hegemony.
As a critique of the Cultural Revolution, Jin Yong’s authorial consciousness is aligned with
that of the protagonist Linghu Chong. That is to say, Linghu Chong is like an avatar for Jin
Yong’s critical consciousness throughout much of the novel, revealing injustice, hypocrisy, and
treachery. He has a privileged, albeit not always reliable, view of the developing martial struggles,
and he himself suffers the strict bifurcation of Good and Evil. Like Lu Xun’s Madman seeing the
bright moon clearly for the first time in thirty years, Linghu Chong’s martial society is observed
from an increasingly clear/reliable but increasingly depressing point of view as his master and
martial brethren unfairly ostracize him. As author and political critic, Jin Yong constructs his
own “elite subject position” critiquing mainland power struggle, literally writing social critique
by day and martial arts fiction by night. The martial and political worlds are corrupt. Would-be
champions of Good morality, such as Yue Buqun, are exposed as “hypocrites” or “false gentle-
men,” the direct opposite of their professed ideological ideal of uprightness. “Good” leaders
scheme for their own interests, and subvert the very moral code they tout in their struggle for
domination, confirming throughout 1600 pages the lesson that Feng Qingyang taught Linghu
Chong early in the novel: “The most fearsome [kungfu] moves in the world lies not in martial
ability, but in conspiracy, treachery and traps.”36
Linghu Chong’s increasing ambivalence separates him from the others, though he desperately
wants his master’s approval and his martial sister’s love. He willfully denies his master’s schem-
ing hypocrisy until the very end of the novel. As a reluctant and manipulated participant in the
power struggle, he distances himself from his sect, which ironically brings him recognition for
his moral character from Shaolin and Wudang sects, who perceive a swing in the balance of the
Good/Evil struggle. Linghu Chong unwillingly becomes leader of the Hengshan Sect of nuns,
and by the final pages of the novel he and the Sun Moon Cult’s Ren Yingying establish peace
in the martial world, bringing together “Good” and “Evil” in their marriage. The restoration of
harmony is symbolized as they play the title song, “Xiao ao jianghu,” and thus “bridge the divide
between sects and dispelling years of [the cycle of] revenge as envisioned by the elders Liu and
Qu [who wrote it] was finally achieved.”37
Despite its martial trappings (beatings, stabbings, dismemberment, creative and multifaceted
killing mechanisms), Jin Yong’s martial world resembles the Confucian moral model of the
world, with similar familial social hierarchy, dictum of unquestioning filial loyalty and obedience
to one’s superiors, prioritization of the pursuit of learning, and such. As a semblance of political
allegory, Wanderer critiques the Cultural Revolution in theme and character, and consciously
situates author Jin Yong in the privileged place of both social critic and artistic creator. Jin Yong
explains in the 1980 “Afterword” to the novel that his critique in Wanderer transcends the Cul-
tural Revolution to comment on Chinese political life throughout the ages:

Allegorical novels don’t have much meaning, political situations can change quickly,
and only the portrayal of human nature is of long lasting value. The all out struggle
for power is a fundamental situation of political life in China and abroad. The past few
thousand years it was like this, and I’m afraid that the next few thousand years will
be the same. In my conception, these characters Ren Woxing, Dongfang Bubai, Yue

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Buqun, and Zuo Lengchan are not experts of the martial world, but rather political
characters.38

Jin Yong as critic and author in Hong Kong is alienated by the political ideology and mass strug-
gle in the Mainland, and thus uses his novel (not just his newspaper) to critique the deplorable
situation.
Ironically, despite their superficial oppositional stances, the Good and Evil sects operate by
the similar hierarchical rules, among which are the demand of obedience to authority, pursuit
of sacred martial tomes, and a “black and white” view of right and wrong based on political/
sectarian identity. The Good and Evil sects contend for ultimate control of the martial world
and the leaders of each sect scheme and struggle among themselves for supremacy, even intent
on conquering Shaolin and Wudang leadership. Linghu Chong’s righteous trajectory of martial
and political development from minor to major player casts the political struggles into the fore-
ground by introducing relativity into rigid martial ideology.

Hong Kong martial arts fiction and twentieth

century popular culture
Linghu Chong’s martial world is engaged in a life or death struggle between Good and Evil, in
which personal existence is subordinated to social or political norms, and the potential conse-
quences of prioritizing righteous friendship over loyalty to one’s master and sect is the wholesale
slaughter of both biological and martial families. Herein lies central the tension for Wanderer,
the dilemma of grey, blurred boundaries. Private, individual experience contradicts social, politi-
cal, and martial norms. There is no way to withdraw from the world despite alienation arising
from one’s personal experience.Withdrawal or retirement challenges the Good/Evil dichotomy,
and such challenge cannot be tolerated. Members who bend or break the rules of morality are
either corralled back into line or ostracized (killed). Although the “smiling, proud wanderer”
of Jin Yong’s novel eventually achieves martial victory and survives, Linghu Chong’s life is most
tragically turned upside down. His sect/martial family is virtually destroyed, his beloved master
ignominiously exposed and killed, his martial mother commits suicide in the shame of her hus-
band’s treachery, and his younger martial sister is killed by the martial brother whom she chose
over him, thus breaking his heart.
On the metanarrative level Linghu Chong and Wanderer’s trajectory, like that of Jin Yong’s
other novels (and their characters), does not stop when he retires as the novel finishes serializa-
tion. Instead, Wanderer continues to construct and inform the contemporary pop culture metan-
arrative. For example, Wanderer was made into a movie trilogy in the late 1980s and early 1990s
called Swordsman, Swordsman II, and The East is Red. The English titles stray far from the original
Chinese, and so does the content, but principle themes and characters are recognizable despite
deviations from the original. Television series adaptations of Wanderer were made in 1984, 1985,
1996, two in 2000, 2001, and 2013. Fortunately, these are more faithful to the original novel than
the film adaptations because multiple episodes allow a level of detailed adaptation more appro-
priate to a long novel.39 There have also been radio drama adaptations (1981 and 1998), a musi-
cal stage adaptation (2007), a manga adaptation (serialized 2002–2004), and numerous gaming
adaptations (1993, 2000, 2001, 2001, and online in 2013).The pop cultural performative deriva-
tives touch on many lives, including the stars, directors, and other cast and crew, in addition to
the readers, literary critics, professors, and students who discuss the novel in both popular and
academic forums.When put into the context of similar levels of film, television, and other media

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 Paul B. Foster

adaptations for Jin Yong’s other eleven major novels, this decades long commercial, popular, and
academic engagement with the novel Wanderer is a representative demonstration of what can be
termed the “kungfu industrial complex.”40 Although they are works of fantasy and fiction, Jin
Yong’s martial arts novels represent a popular and elite cultural cornucopia, embracing themes
from all aspects of traditional Chinese culture, philosophy, history, literature and art. Readers
and viewers may thus find the novels resonate in their contemporary lives. The characters and
concepts don’t seem to ever retire from the discourse, but remain active as cultural touchstones
long after the characters’ [and Jin Yong’s] ostensible “retirement.” The multiple reenactments
of Jin Yong’s works over the decades after their publication, from revision to television adapta-
tion, from academic to popular discourse, from film adaptation to film homage, make it evident
that Jin Yong’s Hong Kong martial arts fiction has become one of the crucial forms of popular
culture in China in the twentieth century. Readers and audiences of all stripes will enjoy “con-
sumption of Jin Yong” as the kungfu industrial complex continues to expand and construct
cultural knowledge for the indefinite future.

Notes
1 Yuan Liangjun, A History of Schools of Hong Kong Fiction (Xianggang xiaoshuo liupai shi) (Fuzhou:
Fujian renmin chubanshe, 2008), 2.
2 Ibid., 5.
3 Ibid., 2.
4 He Hui, History of Contemporary Hong Kong Fiction (Xianggang dangdai xiaoshuo shi) (Guangdong:
Guangdong jingji chubanshe, 2006), 168.
5 Stephen C. K. Chan, “The Cultural Imaginary of a City: Reading Hong Kong Through Xi Xi,” in
Pang-Yuan Chi and David Der-wei Wang, eds., Chinese Literature in the Second Half of a Modern Century:
A Critical Survey (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), 188.
6 Yuan Liangjun, A History of Schools, 3–4.
7 Ibid., 4.
8 Ibid., 6.
9 John Christopher Hamm notes that this reflects the tension between “high” and “low” literature, the
protagonist of Drunkard writing low trash, while the author aspires to high literature. “Canonizing the
Popular: The Case of Jin Yong,” in Carlos Rojas and Eileen Cheng-yin Chow, eds., Rethinking Chinese
Popular Culture: Cannibalizations of the Canon (New York: Routledge, 2009), 77–78.
10 Yuan Liangjun, A History of Schools, 3–4.
11 “Liu Yichang,” Encyclopedia of Contemporary Chinese Culture, <http://contemporary_chinese_culture.
academic.ru/468/Liu_Yichang>. Accessed March 13, 2017.
12 Stephen Teo, “Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love: Like a Ritual in Transfigured Time,” senses of
cinema, issue 13, April 2001, <http://sensesofcinema.com/2001/wong-kar-wai/mood/>. Accessed
March 3, 2017.
13 Yuan Liangjun, A History of Schools, 51.
14 My translation. Ibid., 52.
15 He Hui, History of Contemporary, 88.
16 John Christopher Hamm, Paper Swordsman: Jin Yong and the Modern Chinese Martial Arts Novel (Hono-
lulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005), 33.
17 Leng Xia, Biography of Jin Yong (Jin Yong zhuan) (Taibei:Yuanjing chuban shiye gongsi, 1995), 541–542.
18 The English translations are taken from the copyright plates in the Chinese language Yuanliu Publishing
edition of Jin Yong’s collected works. Abbreviations follow John Christopher Hamm, Paper Swordsman,
311–313.
19 John Christopher Hamm, Paper Swordsman, 311–312.
20 There are slight variations on this, such as the “old edition,” “xiuding ban” (revised edition), and “new
revised edition,” from the “Jin Yong jianghu” website, www.jyjh.cn/jinyong/. Chen Mo has a slightly
different nomenclature, referring to them as the “old edition,” liuxing ban” (popular edition), and the
“new revised edition.” Jin Yong banben [Jin Yong editions], vol. 13, Chen Mo Critiques Jin Yong Series
(Chen Mo ping Jin Yong xilie), (Beijing: Haitun chubanshe, 2014), 231.

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21 Jin Yong, “Afterword,” (Houji), The Duke of the Mount Deer (Lu ding ji), vol. 5, The Collected Works of Jin
Yong (Jin Yong zuopin ji), vol. 36, 2nd edition (Taibei:Yuanliu chuban gongsi, 1992), 2120–2121.
22 Although most sources cite 1980, Leng Xia’s chronology shows Taiwan’s Yuanjing Publishing House
first formally published it in 1979. Leng Xia, Biography of Jin Yong, 544.
23 The Eagle-Shooting Heroes was published serially in Guangzhou’s Martial forest (Wulin) magazine. Leng
Xia, Jin Yong zhuan, 544.
24 Leng Xia, Biography of Jin Yong, 547.
25 Jin Yong, The Smiling, Proud Wanderer [Xiaoao jianghu], vol. 1, 2nd ed., The Collected Works of Jin Yong (Jin
Yong zuopin ji) (Taibei:Yuanliu, 1992), 232.
26 Jin Yong, Wanderer, vol. 4, 1303.
27 Wang, Xiaojue, Modernity with a Cold War Face: Reimagining the Nation in Chinese Literature across the 1949
Divide (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 274.
28 Simon Elegant,“The Storyteller:What Makes Louis Cha’s martial arts novels so wildly popular in Asia?”
Far East Economic Review (5 September 1996), 38.
29 Yu Huiming, “A Look Back at Twenty Years of Martial Arts Fiction,” [Wuxia xiaoshuo ershi nian hui-
mou], January 21, 2002, <www.people.com.cn/GB/paper39/5269/551667.html>. Accessed May 12,
2016.
30 See for example, Perry Link’s discussion of disparagement of popular fiction in Mandarin Ducks and But-
terflies: Popular Fiction in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Cities (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1981), 16–17.
31 “Against the Authors of ‘Foreign Books in Chinese Language’: An Interview with China’s Most Popu-
lar Writer of Adventure Novels,” in Modern Chinese Writers Self Portrayals, trans. Marty Backstrom, ed.
Helmut Martin. (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1992), 173.
32 Jin Yong was ranked fourth among the total of nine writers great masters of twentieth-century litera-
ture, joinging an illustrious list which shows Lu Xun ranking number one, followed by Shen Congwen,
Ba Jin, Jin Yong, Lao She,Yu Dafu, Wang Meng, Zhang Ailing, Jia Pingwa. Chen Pingyuan, “Literature
High and Low: ‘Popular Fiction’ in Twentieth-century China,” in Michel Hockx, ed., The Literary Field
of Twentieth Century China, trans. Michel Hockx (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999), 132–133,
footnote 2.
33 Jin Yong, “Afterword” (Houji), The Smiling, Proud Wanderer (Xiao ao jianghu), vol. 4, The Collected Works
of Jin Yong (Jin Yong zuopin ji), 2nd ed., vol. 31 (Taibei:Yuanliu chubanshe, 1992), 1682.
34 Translation for this technique drawn from Petrus Liu, Stateless Subjects: Chinese Martial Arts Literature &
Postcolonial History (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011), 178.
35 Cutting oneself off from heredity is a direct transgression of traditional Chinese Confucian morality
encompassed by the expression “Of the three unfilial actions, not having progeny is the greatest.”
36 Jin Yong, Wanderer, vol. 1, 396.
37 Ibid., 1674–1675.
38 Jin Yong, “Afterword” (Houji), Wanderer, vol. 4, 1682.
39 See “The Smiling, Proud Wanderer Television Series (Xiao ao jianghu dianshiju),” <https://zh.

wikipedia.org/wiki/笑傲江湖 #.E9.9B.BB.E8.A6.96.E5.8A.87>. Accessed March 6, 2017.
40 Hamm cites Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of cultural economy, noting that “The cultural field is consti-
tuted not merely by the artists and writers who produce cultural works, but also by the brokers – the
publishers, critics, gallery owners, etc. – who produce and negotiate the works’ value.” “Canonizing the
Popular,” 80.

Further readings
Chan, Stephen C. K. “The Cultural Imaginary of a City: Reading Hong Kong Through Xi Xi.” In Pang-
Yuan Chi and David Der-wei Wang, eds., Chinese Literature in the Second Half of a Modern Century:
A Critical Survey. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000, 180–192.
Chen Pingyuan. “Literature High and Low: ‘Popular Fiction’ in Twentieth-century China.” The Liter-
ary Field of Twentieth Century China. Translated and edited by Michel Hockx. Honolulu: University of
Hawaii Press, 1999, 132–133.
Hamm, John Christopher. “Canonizing the Popular: The Case of Jin Yong.” In Carlos Rojas and Eileen
Cheng-yin Chow, eds., Rethinking Chinese Popular Culture: Cannibalizations of the Canon. New York:
Routledge, 2009, 75–87.

667
 Paul B. Foster

———. Paper Swordsman: Jin Yong and the Modern Chinese Martial Arts Novel. Honolulu: University of
Hawai’i Press, 2005.
He Hui. History of Contemporary Hong Kong Fiction (Xianggang dangdai xiaoshuo shi). Guangdong: Guang-
dong jingji chubanshe, 2006.
Liu, Petrus. Stateless Subjects: Chinese Martial Arts Literature & Postcolonial History. Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 2011.
Wang, Xiaojue. Modernity with a Cold War Face: Reimagining the Nation in Chinese Literature across the 1949
Divide. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.
Ye Hongsheng. Discussing Swords – a Record of Artistic Discussion on Martial Arts Fiction (Lun jian: wuxia xia-
oshuo tan yi lu). Shanghai: Xuelin chubanshe, 1997.
Yuan Liangjun. A History of Schools of Hong Kong Fiction (Xianggang xiaoshuo liupai shi). Fuzhou: Fujian
renmin chubanshe, 2008.

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 50
CHINESE INTERNET
LITERATURE
Digital literary genres and new
writing subjects

Guozhong Duan

Introduction
Recent statistics show that there are over five hundred and sixty million netizens in China,
among whom around two hundred million are involved in Internet literature either as readers
or writers.1 It is an undeniable fact that Internet literature is becoming increasingly influential
in both Chinese daily readings and literary criticism. Amazed by the massive number of Chinese
engaged in serious network writings, J. Hillis Miller, the world-renowned literary critic who has
been to China for fifteen times, states that “it sounds as if China may be ahead of the United
States in preserving literary creativity through the use of the Internet.”2 It is difficult to ascer-
tain to what extent Miller’s statement is true, but it is certain that the Internet is facilitating the
revival of Chinese interest in both literary writings and readings after the low ebb of literature
in the early 1990s brought about by the pervasive influence of commercialization.
Chinese Internet Literature refers to the original Chinese-language literary writings pro-
duced by Chinese online writers for publication in commercial or private Internet cyberspaces,
which are read, appreciated and responded to by online readers via internet. The study of Chi-
nese Internet literature in this essay focuses on a series of internet related issues including online
communities of writers and readers, social and technological conditions of writing practices,
institutional and anti-institutional forces influencing and shaping writing subjectivity, and last
but not least, digitally generated genres and aesthetics of the online writings.
In terms of the writing subjects, the numerous on-line writers in China may be roughly
grouped into three generations, who are responsible for producing the largest number of online
literary writings in the history of Chinese literature. The first generation usually refers to the
overseas Chinese writers, most of whom are students pursing education in the West. They natu-
rally became the first group of Chinese exposed to the Internet in the early 1990s. The second
generation arose with the introduction of the Internet into China in 1994 and its wide spread
since 1998, the year which saw the online publication of Pizi Cai’s The First Intimate Contact
(Diyici qinmi jiechu). As a consequence of its big success and influence, the notion of “Internet
literature” appeared. The year 2002 marked the appearance of the third generation of online
writers, who started an upsurge in individual writings, because of the popular use of blogs and
other personal virtual spaces.

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Professional literary websites and individual cyberspaces have accelerated the development
of Chinese Internet literature.There are many well-known commercial websites and forums for
online publication of literary works, including two early digital magazines – China News Digest
(Huaxia wenzhai) and New Threads of Thought (Xin yusi), ACT (alt.chinese.text), Under the Ban-
yan Tree Net (Rongshuxia) (www.rongshuxia.com), Reading with Beauty Net (Hongxiu tianxiang)
(www.hongxiu.com), Starting Points Chinese Net (Qidian zhongwenwang) (www.qidian.com),
and Skyline Forum (Tianya luntan) (http://bbs.tianya.cn), etc., to name just a few. Some talented
and “lucky” online writers, such as Xing Yusen, Anni Baobei, Murong Xuecun, Li Xunhuan,
Guo Jingming, Han Han, Tangjia Sanshao, Wochi Xihongshi, etc., all started as grass-roots writ-
ers who published their creative works online and later established their fame and position as
professional writers living off their writings. Behind these recognized writers, millions of writers
are noticed and appreciated only by a small circle of readers. To these writers, online writing is
more a personal enjoyment and self-appreciation than a commercial effort.
What makes individual writings truly wide-spread in China is the wide use of personal
online spaces – Boke, Weibo, QQ space, as well as Wechat. Boke is still used widely by online
writers after its initial introduction in 2002. Its lasting popularity depends on its capacity of pub-
lishing long essays and chapters, its easy access for the reader, as well as the convenient interac-
tion between the writer and the reader. Well-known intellectuals – Kong Qingdong, Xiao Ying,
Ma Weidu, Zhu Dake, and Chen Xiaoming, to name a few, have been using Boke to transmit
their thoughts and make their voices heard. Common people craving for literary creations find
a space in which their writings could actually be read and appreciated. Boke provides a virtual
public space in which an individual can be truly in charge, regardless of his or her social status
and educational or familial background. Institutional influences are reduced to the minimum
in the Chinese cyberspace, in spite of the regulations and rules for social, moral and political
concerns. Literary creations, as long as they are not blatantly subversive to the dominating ide-
ology, are allowed to be posted in the spaces, to be read, appreciated, or criticized. Weibo, QQ
space, and Wechat spaces are commonly used by Chinese netizens to record and share individual
experiences, and it is true that most of the writings in these spaces cannot be counted as liter-
ary creations. But there are still tens of thousands of serious literary writers. For instance, Wang
Xuebi, a middle school teacher, established a Wechat official account – The Romance in a Village
(Cunzhuang lide fenghua xueyue) and has been publishing nothing but poems, essays, and fic-
tions created by himself.
Internet literature has been a field of literary study for decades in both China and the West,
but in spite of the fact that they share the same name, they are not exactly the same as com-
monly observed. Obvious differences are observable between them in terms of assumptions of
the nature, aesthetic value, writing subjects, as well as reading subject of Internet literature. The
application of computer and Internet technologies, such as hypertext3 and cybertext,4 etc., in
literary creations have attracted more academic interest in the West than in China. To have an
adequate understanding of Chinese Internet literature, it is necessary to compare it briefly with
its Western counterpart whose studies have focused on the aesthetic value produced by the “new
media encounter”5 in hypertext, as well as the innovations of writing and reading experiences
brought about by the Internet and computers. Basically, Western network writing and reading,
including its criticism, are more technology-oriented, and the aesthetic value of Internet litera-
ture is discussed through the differences between printed works and electronical ones.
The first recognized hypertext novel in the West is believed to be Michael Joyce’s Afternoon,
a Story, which was written in 1987 and published in digital disks. It is a story about Peter, who
witnesses a car accident, which does or does not injure his newly divorced wife and his son,
depending on the choice of the reader as to which button of hyperlink to press at the bottom

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of each page. Its successors, such as S. Moulthrop’s Victory Garden, Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork
Girl, etc., all make use of the hyperlink and multimedia technologies to produce experimental
reading experiences. Besides hypertext novel, there are also interactive fiction, locative narratives,
installation pieces, generative art, code work, and flash poem, etc.6
Western scholars take the technology-based aesthetics as the goal of their studies. Accord-
ing to Jorgen Schafer and Peter Gendolla, the authors of Beyond the Screen: Transformations of
Literary Structures, Interfaces and Genres (2010), their work is intended to answer questions that
their predecessors fail to tackle: “questions of the technical ‘support,’ translations, and automa-
tions addressed in a narrative, or poetical manner or through staging them.”7 Their work is the
fourth of a series of four books focusing on Internet literature. The previous three works, The
Aesthetics of Net Literature (2007), Literary Art in Digital Performance (2009), and Reading Moving
Letters (2010), all mainly explore the expansion, extension, or transformation of human aesthetic
experiences by means of computing technology and the Internet.
In contrast with its Western counterpart, Chinese Internet literature has put less empha-
sis on the technological dimension. In his comment on the differences between the Chinese
and the Western Internet literature, Ouyang Youquan states that “considering the current situ-
ation of Internet literature in the West, it is not hard to see that the Western Internet literature
attaches great importance to technological innovations and creating techniques. It is different
from the Chinese Internet literature, which gives priority to human mind, emotion, and com-
munication.”8 It is arguable that the Chinese Internet literature doesn’t prioritize technology,
but focuses on the previously repressed writing or expressing impulses, previously restricted
involvement in public affairs, as well as the transformative changes the Internet is certainly true
in Chinese online literary creations.
Of course, the Western technology-centered assumptions about Internet literature are not
absent in China, but that aspect of online literature has been refuted as belonging to “science”
rather than literature. Some critics doubt the existence of Internet literature because they believe
that literature expresses human mind and network is nothing more than a carrier, which does
not make an independent category of literature.9 In spite of the disputes, Ouyang Youquan
maintains that the Chinese Internet literature has obtained its indubitable existence. Chinese
scholars have been discussing the importance of the democratization, decentralization, and het-
erogeneity of the cyberspace in providing necessary conditions for grass-roots literary creations.
Therefore, the significance of science and technology in Chinese Internet literature has been
regarded as insignificant and critical attention is drawn to issues of ethics, culture, politics, etc.,
in the online works.

Genres and works

Various genres of literary writings – fictions, poems, dramas, biographies, etc., both traditional
and experimental, are available in the Chinese Internet literature, but the most influential genre
is fictions and poems.The following is a brief survey of the main schools of Internet fictions and
poems and their representative works.

1.  Historical and time-travel fictions

History and its parodies are the most welcomed online writings in the Chinese Internet litera-
ture. Grand narratives of traditional historical writings guided by dominant ideologies are chal-
lenged by online historical writings that endeavor to deconstruct History into small histories and
to represent individual lives and emotions, rather than political and economic issues. In online

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historical writings, there are two main genres: the time-travel fiction (Chuanyue xiaoshuo), in
which the modern goes back to antiquity and the dead comes alive, or the protagonists may go
back and forth in time and space; and the alternate historical fiction (jiakong lishi xiaoshuo),
in which the author creates imaginary times and spaces. Temporality is reduced to a line in
spatiality and historical causation is changeable and disposable by the will of human beings. At
the same time, history is reinterpreted and represented from the modern angles and the present
is observed from the perspective of the past, resulting in a rich intertextuality between history
and literature.
As a genre of fiction, time-travel fictions became popular after 2000, and its representative
work – Jinzi’s A Dream Back to Qing Dynasty (Menghui daqing), initiated explosive writings of
time-travel. The year 2007 is recognized as “the year of time-travel fiction”10 in which time-
travel fictions expanded and sought way out of the cyber forums into printed books and movie
or TV drama adaptations.
A Dream Back to Qing Dynasty has a typical structure of time-travel fiction in which a
modern character accidentally travels back to ancient times and gets in romantic or politi-
cal involvements with historic figures. Qiang Wei, a modern girl, finds herself back in Qing
Dynasty and falls into complex romantic relationships with several princesses while witnessing
the struggle for the throne among the princesses. Ming and Qing Dynasty, due to the rich
existing historical documents of the anecdotes of the royal family and popular interests among
Chinese scholars and readers in the unsolved mysteries in the dynasties, become the favorite
ages to which the online writers’ protagonists return. Watchful in Every Step (Bubu jingxin) by
Tonghua and Unparalleled in the World (Dubu tianxia) by Li Xin, which, together with A Dream
Back to Qing Dynasty, are regarded as the three masterpieces of time-travel fiction. Ruo Xi in
Startling by Each Step travels back to Kangxi’s time in Qing Dynasty and becomes part of the
cruel lives of the royal family with her knowledge of the history of the Dynasty and the fate of
the main characters. She is trapped between her passion and reason in making critical decisions
on her own role in the development of the history. Bu You Ran in Rule the World, a modern
photographer, travels back to history while exploring an ancient tomb and attaches her soul
to the supreme beauty in Nurhaci’s times – Dongge, who is born with the cursed capacity of
bringing both life and death to the world. While demystifying the life of Dongge, the author
represents the lives of both a modern and an ancient female character in the Chinese history.
Ayue’s New Song Dynasty (Xin song), a popular online historical fiction, presents a panoramic
picture of Song Dynasty through its precise description of the politics, economy, culture, quo-
tidian life, and handicraft that is seen through the eyes of the modern characters. Most online
writers excel in depicting the extraordinary polyphonic psychology and the mixed identity
of the double composed of the modern and the ancient. In Xiaoyue Tingfeng’s Beauty in the
Dynasty End (Qinggong qingkong jingkong), the heroine Luo Jingru is a MBA graduate from
the Great Britain, and after travelling to the Qing Dynasty, she makes use of her knowledge
of finance and business to be an outstanding business woman, playing her role in the dramatic
historical events in Kangxi’s times. The author depicts a seemingly absurd mixture of the
Western ideas and the ancient Chinese thoughts with conflicting Confucian doctrines and
individual passions.
Other wide-read historical fictions include Zhuang Zhuang’s The Legend of Qingluo (Man-
man qingluo), Hui Xiongmao’s Stealing Ming Dynasty (Qie ming), Wugude Chongzi’s Return-
ing to Ming Dynasty (Hui ming), Woshi Gaoyang’s Reviving the Ming Dynasty (Xing ming),
Reborn Back to the Ming Dynasty to be a Prince (Huidao Mingchao dang wangye), Back to the Song
Dynasty: A Story of Reincarnation (Bubu shenglian), among many others.

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2.  Fantasy fiction (Xuanhuan xiaoshuo)

Fantasy Fiction (Xuanhuan fictions) is an epithet that “mainly designates the narratives built
under a world of Otherness which resembles Western Fantasy – fire-spitting dragons, treasure-
hoarding dwarves, blonde fairies, long-bearded elderly wizards wearing pointed hats, Gothic-
style castles occupied by pale, red-eyed vampires – in every way except for the identity of the
protagonists.”11 Their representation of the wild imaginations is not restricted by principles of
rationality or humanity, nor by time and space. Chinese fantasy fictions are built on the basis of
the writers’ contemplation and imagination influenced by the Daoist and Buddhist doctrines,
thoughts from the Book of Changes, folklore, supernatural phenomenon, and mysticism. Tangjia
Sanshuo’s The Douluo Continent (Douluo dalu) depicts the protagonist Tangsan’s experiences in
a new world, Douluo Dalu, which is totally different from the world the reader lives in. Tiancan
Tudou’s The Legend of an Inner Energy Practitioner (Doupo cangqiong) is about the protagonist
Xiaoyan’s extraordinary process of achieving greatness in cultivating his qi after painful suffer-
ings because of his earlier failures. Similar works are Coiling Dragon (Pan Long), The God of Wine
(Jiushen), and The Lord of Death with a Kind Heart (Shanliang de sishen), etc.
The writings of immortal swordsman (xianxia xiaoshuo) describes the process of becoming
immortals through cultivating inner energy and practicing Daoist or mystic rituals. Representa-
tive works include The Legend of Shushan Swordsman (Shushan jianxia zhuan), The Reversal of Stars
(Xingchen bian), The Termination of Gods (Zhu xian), The Blaze of Glory (Cun mang), The Way of
the Dragon (Shenglong dao), all of which are a combination of Chinese martial arts fictions and
magic and fantasy writings, reflecting both the spirit of the traditional Chinese swordsman and
the desire for the otherworldly utopia in which the protagonists transcend the mortal world.
The magical process of achieving immortality in the writings of immortal swordsman stands
in contrast to that in another subgenre that depicts the attainment of immortality by com-
moners. From Everyman to Immortal (Fanren xiuxian zhuan) by Wangyu tells the story of a poor
boy from the countryside who finally stands side by side with the greatest gods and immortals
through his painful endeavors. The magic power that helps swordsmen succeed is absent and
what counts for Wangyu is the strategies and calculations that are identical to those in real lives.
So it is a mixture of a career story and a magic story, which estranges the everyday life while
familiarizing the fantasy worlds to the reader.

3.  Urban fiction (Dushi xiaoshuo)

The drastic urbanization that China has been undergoing in the last decades has aroused enor-
mous psychological and spiritual changes in today’s Chinese, especially among young people.
Recording their lives and emotions in the fast-changing society is a favorite theme among the
online writers. This type of writings always depicts the social reality on the one hand, and holds
a sarcastic attitude towards the reality on the other. Rebirth into Chinese Officialdom (Chongsheng
zhi guandao) by Lushi Canjun narrates the protagonist Tangyi’s unbelievable success in official-
dom because of his mysterious but strong familial background. The Northern Wolf Clan (Beifang
langzu) by Jindu Lang represents the lives of three migrant workers in Beijing and records the
collective memories of tens of thousands of Chinese young people who go to metropolises like
Beijing and Shanghai in search of their dreams.
In addition to the writings on historical figures, immortals, or men of great achievements,
common people are also favorite targets for online writers to depict. While writings of the
extraordinary heroes satiate the reader’s imagination and desire for success, writings of the

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common folk arouse the reader’s sympathy. Come across You, Next Time (Yujianni xiaci) by Mo
Xiaoye is about the subtlety and vulnerability of romantic relationships in the dynamic living
circumstances in the urbanized Chinese lives, focusing on the changes of gender relationship in
today’s China. The King of the World (Tian wang) and The Ring of Luck: an Urban Legend (Xieqi
linran), among others, are also most welcomed online urban fictions.

4.  Extra-sensory fictions (Lingyi xiaoshuo) and

grave robbers fictions (Daomu xiaoshuo)
“Lingyi” (extra-sensory) in Chinese refers to phenomena that science and reason fail to explain.
People tend to attribute mysteries to ghosts and other supernatural powers. Lingyi fictions are
similar to horror fictions, in both of which the reading pleasure is derived from both curiosity
and shock. One branch of Internet horror fictions writes on the supernatural capacities of par-
ticular human beings, while another branch narrates fascinating anecdotes of ghosts and super-
natural beings. Most literary nets have a section for extra-sensory fictions, such as Lotus Seedpods
Ghosts’ Words (Lianpeng Gui hua) in Skyline Forum (Tianya luntan), Ghosts’ Stories (Guihua) in
SMTH (Shuimu Tsinghua) net, etc.
Since a big number of online writers are currently college students, campus horror fictions
are abundant. Tina is regarded as the top writer of campus horror fictions with her The Road of
a Sad Ghost (Yuangui lu) which has aroused huge interests in campus fictions and gave rise to
thousands of similar works. Zhang Youwen’s Horror Teaching Building (Kongbu jiaoxue lou) tells a
scary story of a building on campus from which only the dead can get in or out.
Grave Robbers fictions are based on the legends of people engaged in stealing treasures
from graves. Grave is the bordering space between life and death, this world and that world, and
Grave Robbers are those that encounter the dead face to face, so this type of fictions fascinates
online readers greatly. Ghost Blows Light (Gui chui deng) by Tianxia Bachang initiated the wave
of similar writings through its vivid representation of the most complicated rituals that the rob-
bers are supposed to observe in carrying out their job, and its description of the striking scenes
of the encounters between the dead and the living is also fascinating. Notes of Grave Robbing
(Daomu biji) by Nanpai Sanshu is another outstanding work that narrates the fascinating process
of unearthing treasures from an old grave dated back to the Warring States Period.

5.  Science fiction, war fiction, and martial arts fictions

Chinese online science fictions are not as popular as historical and fantasy writings, but the
amazement at the development of science and technology, human curiosity of the unknown
cosmos, as well as the influence from the Western science fiction have accelerated the produc-
tion and consumption of the Chinese online science fictions. The Storm of Star Wars (Xingzhan
fengbao) by Kulou Jingling, The Legend of a Soldier (Xiaobing chuanqi) by Xuanyu, Devouring the
Starry Sky (Tunshi xingkong) by Wochi Xihongshi have a huge number of fans. One characteris-
tic of these science fiction is that, in addition to the element of science, there is still the element
of fantasy and imagination derived from the Chinese tradition of cosmology and philosophy.
Therefore, Science-fantasy fiction is a more proper name for most of the works.
Some war fictions (Junshi xiaoshuo) intend to represent historical facts in a realistic way;
some retell the military events with a tone of black humor, and others produce wars and battles
using their own imaginations. Most of the crucial wars in the history of China are represented
by numerous online writers. For instance, Anti-Japanese War in 1938 (Kangri zhi 1938) by Jin-
gling zhi Ge, Returning to the Anti-Japanese Battle Field (Chongfan kangri zhanchang) by Jingtiao

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Geda, Rebirth in 1942 (Chongsheng 1942) by Busi Junhun, and numerous other fictions are
produced to represent and interpret the Sino-Japan War (1931–1945).
Online Chinese Martial Arts fictions (Wuxia xiaoshuo) are shadowed by the great works of
Jin Yong, Gu Long, and Liang Yusheng, which are still the most popular among today’s readers.
The historical breadth and philosophical depth, as well as the grand plots produced by Jin Yong
are unparalleled up to now. But there have been serious online attempts to rival those martial
arts fiction masters. For instance, Sun Xiao’s The Romance of Heroes (Yingxiong zhi), Jin Xunzhe’s
Armed Escort in Tang Dynasty (Datang xingbiao), and Feng Ge’s Kunlun, etc.

6.  Internet poetry

Chinese Internet poetry has not achieved the same impact as fictions among online readers,
but it demonstrates more radical experimentation, greater variety, and more aggressive attitudes
towards traditional styles and values. Shi Yang is regarded as the first Chinese online poet who
established the first online poetry periodical Olive Tree (Ganlan shu), around which a community
of online poets arose in the 1990s. Three similar online periodicals – Boundary (Jie xian), Poetic
Life (Shi shenghuo), and Poetic World (Shi jianghu), and many poetry websites appeared around
2000. The production of poetry was accelerated by the Internet and because of the absence of a
ruling power in the cyberspace, it resulted in an unprecedented situation of multivoicedness in
terms of themes and styles.
A distinctive feature of the Chinese Internet poetry is that the poets shift their primary inter-
est from traditionally sublime objects to the formerly unaccepted vulgar issues. The writings of
the “lower body” and the School of Trash are taken as constituting the Chinese Low Poetry,
which is both the title of a critical work by Zhang Jiayan12 and a concept describing the essen-
tial features of the current Chinese Internet poetry. The so called “lower body” (Xia banshen)
writings focus on, but are not limited to, representations of sexual and erotic engagements. The
democracy of the cyberspace releases the long-repressed writing impulses of the body itself,
which has always been despised as vulgar and therefore unaccommodated with the pursuit
of the cultivation of the spirit. The online periodical Lower Body was established in 2007 and
saw a rapid development of the low poetry. Representative poets include Duo Yu, Zhu Jian, Li
Hongqi, Shen Haobo, Wei Fenghua, Kou Zhu, Chun Shu, Da Tui, Xidi Huangliang, Ji Le, Wang
Youwei, Li Dongze,Ta Ai, Lao De, and others. Shen Haobo’s Cotton Mill, for instance, depicts the
scene of a meeting between a prostitute and her customer in plain but rough language, and his
readers could sense the girl’s helplessness facing the cruel reality.Yin Lichuan’s Lover (Qing ren)
and Cheap (Lian jia), etc., are also good examples for the low poems which express profound
thoughts or strong emotions through depictions of sex and eroticism.
The School of Trash (Laji pai) was established by Pi Dan in 2003 and developed into a com-
munity that parallels the writings of the lower body. Its doctrine is similar to that of the latter
in valuing the vulgar over the sublime, trivial over grand, body over spirit, the useless over the
useful. Representative poets include Pi Dan, Xu Xiangchou, Guan Dangsheng, Yu Du, Xiao
Yueliang, and others.

Aesthetics of internet literature

In addition to the aesthetics of the encounter between technology and literature, a distinctive
feature of the online writings may be noticed as soon as one accesses an online writing. The
writers usually post their writings in separate paragraphs or short sections, which are followed by
an interval of time – one day or several hours – for the readers’ readings and responses. Online

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writing is more reader-oriented than printed works because the writer is addressing the reader
practically face to face, although in a virtual space, and the reader plays an important role in the
writer’s creation. The readers are actively engaged in predicting, criticizing, and more impor-
tantly, influencing the writer’s conceptions of plot and structure. For instance, Coiling Dragon
(Pan long) written by Wochi Xihongshi has three million words in total and has got online
responses of over nine million words by 2011. A heated discussion may occur between the
reader and the writer, enabling a close interaction bordering on a sort of collaboration between
the two parties, in which the writer guides his/her readers’ interpretations through dialogues,
while the readers make meta-fictional comments to assess and influence the writers’ conception
of his work.The interactive simultaneity of the writing and reading is surely hard to imagine for
traditional writing and reading practices.
The active interactions between the writer and the reader makes the process of writing a
dynamic collaboration between the two parties.The online texts are more “writerly” in terms of
Roland Barthes’ famous theory of reading than the printed works, or, they are even more “writ-
erly” than Barthes’s notion of “writerly text” since they are open not only in interpretations but
also to readers’ literal participation in writing. It may be argued that in Internet literature the
readers’ critiques constitute an indispensable part of the writing, forming a unique experience of
reading simultaneously the criticism and the main work. In some cases, one gets greater pleasure
reading the critiques than the fiction itself. The multiple voices following the writer’s latest post
provide various interpretations based on different individual angles, backgrounds of education,
social status, and values, etc. One single paragraph or a mini section gives rise to multiple voices
of interpretation. Hence, when the whole work is completed, the rich and dynamic interactions
between the writer and the reader, even between the readers themselves, form a unique creative
process that is truly dialogic and polyphonic.

The formation of new writing subjects

In addition to the online narrative and its aesthetics of simultaneous writing and reading, Chi-
nese Internet literature may be observed from the perspectives of the writer’s perception, psy-
chology, and subjectivity in the age of information and migration in today’s China. It’s arguably
these special perception, subjectivity, and psychology that qualify the Chinese Internet literature
as an independent literary category.

Novel Perception of time and space

Daniela Bertol and David Foell argue that “cyberspace completely alters traditional concepts
and experiences of space and time . . . In cyberspace you can be everywhere at any moment and
the same site can be experienced simultaneously by many different people worldwide,” and that
“in cyberspace there is no local time or date . . . This simultaneous communication makes the
relative measurement of time and space obsolete.”13 The age of the Internet intensifies human
perceptions of fragmentation, discontinuity, the loss of temporality, and the prevalence of spati-
ality, etc. As Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri argue, “just as modernization did in a previous
era, postmodernization or informatization today marks a new mode of becoming human.”14
The key difference between print-based literature and Internet literature arguably lies in the
different “modes of becoming human.” Information and communication technologies also pro-
duce “new human beings” by transforming human perceptions of the world. The influences of
informatization in human constructions are manifested in a multitude of aspects, a primary one
of which is that the cyberspace changes a netizen’s experience and perception of space and time.

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The importance of time and space, the Kantian “a priori forms of intuition,”15 in one’s per-
ception of the world is indubitable. But now, questionable is the idea that space and time are
historically and culturally contextualized and they are “shaped by the way in which we live,
move and have our experiential being.”16 It may be argued that the postmodern concepts of
space and time are more vividly and persuasively observable in the cyberspace. The continuity
of time in historical development has been broken and every element of history is presented
simultaneously in the way of synchronic collage. Once hooked to the Internet, one’s perception
is spatialized and the real time is either replaced by a virtual one or demolished by the simultane-
ity of the objects in the virtual world. In addition, the space one perceives is even more tangibly
different from the postmodernist space that Frederic Jameson describes, and it is turned into
a fragmented one with a multitude of unrelated spaces. The space one experiences in today’s
cyberspace is more an ensemble of segments which are randomly torn away and put together
from originally unified entities of spaces and times by editors of websites or virtually by anyone
who knows how to move the mouse.
In my opinion, it is these new perceptions and conceptions of time and space that have con-
tributed to the prolific production of time-travel fiction and fantasy fiction,and similar genres.
Online perceptions of spatiality and simultaneity may be common to both the Western and
Chinese writers, but the latter puts more emphasis on the dialogic encounters between juxta-
posed cultural and philosophical elements, rather than the technological aesthetics of spatializa-
tion and juxtaposition. Chen Dong’s fantasy fiction God Graves (Shen mu), for instance, sets the
protagonist in a magic world in which gods and demons, genuine qi (zhenqi) and aggressive qi
(douqi), the Eastern divine dragon and the Western titanic dragon, Chinese Daoist priests and
Western sorceresses encounter and fight. The fiction has a spatialized structure in which a vari-
ety of spaces, Eastern and Western, real and virtual, are juxtaposed and merged, and the spatiality
is arguably derived from the author’s spatialized perception of the world.

The power in cyberspace

German philosopher Jurgen Habermas is commonly cited in discussions of the Internet as a
possible space in which the role of power may be transformed and new subjectivities may be
possible. David Kurt Herold believes that “(Habermas’s) writings on the concept of the ‘public
sphere’ provide an intriguing starting point for the study of the Internet, as in his view ‘the pub-
lic sphere represents a space in which questions can be raised and negotiated publicly, freed from
the constraints of tradition and power’.”17 The analogy of the Internet with a “public sphere”
has aroused conflicting views among critics, because, although the Internet is characterized
by “decentralization” and “democratization,” it is still closely bound with both tradition and
power. It is certainly true that power still prevails in cyberspace, but it is equally true that the
surveillance of power in the virtual space is considerably weakened, thereby endowing the Inter-
net with some characteristics of a “public sphere” in which “ ‘the individual both loses herself
and creates her individuality’ to adapt their own subjectivity and their relationships with other
citizens to the needs of the collective.”18 The virtual space makes possible a new relationship
between netizens based on the needs of the collective, rather than the hegemony and power in
the real world society.
As far as the Chinese Internet literature is concerned, the subjectivities and identities of
the writers established in a comparatively free and democratized cyberspace have enabled the
creation of works that are involved in themes and thoughts prohibited or censored by the sur-
veillance of power and ideology in the real world. This explains the explosion of supernatural,
violent, exotic, rebellious or even “immoral” writings in net literature.

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It is wrong to suggest that traditional literature is incapable of expressing repressed desires,

but due to the strong ideological censorship and the dominant position of Confucianist ethics
in China, traditional Chinese writers are required to comply with certain rules for their publi-
cations. Having said this, I do not mean to say that ideological censorship is absent in Chinese
Internet literature. I only mean to say that censorship has been reduced to a significant degree
when compared with the print-based traditional literature. The reduced role of power is attrib-
utable to the following facts: most network writers don’t expect their work to be published, and
writing is mere a personal hobby with which they make sense of their lives; network writers are
anonymous on line and their true social identities are rarely known to others; Internet literature
readers are mostly less-institutionalized netizens who have a lot commonality with the writers;
the authoritative monitoring mechanism has not been fully established in the field of Internet
literature, etc.
Ironic parodies of classical masterpieces and demystifications or even vulgarization of heroic
and divine figures in some Internet works are the direct results of the weakened online super-
vision. Canonical historical writings are frequently parodied subversively by online writers. Jin
Hezai’s The Story of Wukong (Wukong zhuan) is a rewriting of Journey to the West (Xiyou ji) in
which the journey of the legendary Chinese monk Xuanzang and his three disciples in search
of sacred Buddhist Scriptures is rewritten into a journey saturated with existentialist absurdity,
a meditation over the fate and choices of human beings, a reconsideration of Buddhism and
the nature of religion. The heroic historical figures in Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo
yanyi) are ideal targets for parodies in Internet literature. Among them, Zhuge Liang, the most
intelligent strategist and politician in Chinese classics, and Liu Bei, the honored emperor of Shu
State, are rewritten into hypercritical opportunists and demystified commoners. These parodies
of the previously respected figures in today’s Chinese Internet writings suggest both the greater
freedom in writing enabled by the easy access of the democratized public sphere and the decon-
structive potential in the virtual world, challenging and transforming the previous hierarchical
social structure and system.

The split psychology

Scholars are aware of the role the Internet may play in the formation of human subjectivities.19
There is also a form of schizophrenia in the age of the Internet, in which one’s subjectivity is
no longer unified and stable, but varying and metamorphous corresponding to his or her being
“on line” or “off line.”20
Researchers have noticed the split between “offline” and “online” subjectivity. David Kurt
Herold argues that “many people do not project their offline subjectivity onto their online
actions, and instead attempt to hide their offline subjectivity behind online forms of anonymity –
especially in China.”21 Whether it is especially so in China is another topic, but the schizo-
phrenia which netizens experience is a commonly acknowledged fact. Herold also argues that
it is necessary to separate one’s online subjectivity from his offline subjectivity to arrive at a
more profound picture of the online world: “. . . understanding online China involves listening
to the voices of Chinese netizens online and (often) without attempting to track individual
Internet users down offline to verify their online statements,” and “online China itself consti-
tutes an independent space for entertainment, political, social, etc.”(Ibid., 9). But the “online
China” is hardly an independent space and the virtual subjects in the space are actually part
“online” and part “offline,” and their subjectivities are a schizophrenic rather than a unified
one. As a result, the screen of a computer becomes a “contact zone” or a “bordering space” in
which one’s subjectivity is in the state of liminality or diaspora. One’s subjectivity in the border

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between the real and the virtual world is an arena where various voices are present simulta-
neously, thus it is safe to argue that the Chinese online writers’ subjectivity is schizophrenic,
dialogic, or heterogeneous, adding a new form of polyphonic subjectivity to the Bakhtinian
observation of human selfhood.
Extraordinary Double by Shou Xianwu, for instance, blatantly describes such a polyphonic
being by creating a protagonist who gets an androgynous body and split mind after an accidental
time travel.The author attempts to represent the struggle and balance between the male and the
female, the negative and the positive, yin and yang, etc., revealing his concerns with the issue of
sexual identity and his reflections upon the Chinese cosmological tradition. It may be argued
that such a writing is possible only to a writer with a schizophrenic and polyphonic subjectivity.

Anxiety of identity
A large portion of the Chinese Internet literature is written by university students, workers, or
even farmers and rural migrant workers, who usually do not have a strong economic or high
social status.22 Their identities are usually obscure in a world which undergoes tremendous
transformation on a daily base. Strong sense of anxiety is common, especially among rural
migrant workers, who leave their hometown in the countryside to make a living, bringing about
a dilemma in which the workers are entangled with multiple coexistent forces.The urbanization
of rural Chinese marks a compressed process of modernization in China, fulfilling the mission
of modernization within several decades.The very new existential situation of the young people
endows them with new subjectivities and the virtual space provides a utopia where their strong
desires for autonomous subjectivities are fulfilled, and this effort is carried out dominantly in the
way of verbal expression. Numerous obscure individuals are writing in their blogs and spaces,
frustrated by the reality and desirous to establish a verbal world to accommodate their ideal
existence.
Fan Yusu, currently a domestic helper in Beijing from a rural village, established a community
of migrant-worker online writers, and her I am Fan Yusu (Woshi Fan Yusu) gained great popular-
ity after its online publication. In her writings, she expresses strong anxieties derived from her
real identity as a migrant worker and her desire for a poetic self that is not bound by concrete
conditions. Yu Xiuhua is another obscure woman suffering from illness, poverty, and unhappy
marriage. Her poems spread widely online. Her I Crossed Half of China to Sleep with You (Chuan-
guo dabange zhongguo qu shuini) made her well-known overnight throughout China. The
poem expresses self-conscious concern with female desires, nature, society, as well as humanity,
which are rooted in the sharp contrast between her real situation and her dreamt existence.
Established traditional writers may not experience so intensely the changes that the Internet
has brought about to the “human becoming.” Mo Yan and Jia Pingwa, for example, confessed
their reluctance to engage in cyberspace. On October 30, 2013, upon his being entitled the
Honorary President of Internet literature University in China, the Nobel Prize winner Mo
Yan said to the correspondents that “when the Internet started to grow, I told myself not to
use computers; when Internet literature emerged, I warned myself to stay away from it. I was
unable to imagine then that I could be the Honorary President of Internet literature Univer-
sity.”23 He also mentioned that he sticks to writing with pen instead of tapping the keyboard.
Traditional writers are wary of the Internet because of the danger of losing their independent
ways of thinking and perceiving. But by refusing to engage the network a writer may deprive
himself of the intimate experience of the virtual world. This also helps to explain the criticism
on Internet literature by some elitist writers and critics as “network trash” or “the bane of the
mind.” Of course, it is dangerous to argue for the sharp contrast between the traditional and the

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online writing subjects, but they do differ from each other in terms of the extent to which they
are exposed to and constructed by the Internet.
Chinese Internet literature has obtained independent existence from its print-based coun-
terpart in terms of the aesthetic values produced by the interactivity and openness of Internet
literature enabled by computing technology. A more important factor is the unique subjectivity
of the writers who are created and expressed only in the Internet virtual world. Cyberspace
produces different perceptions, subjectivities, and identities, as well as unprecedented psycholo-
gies in the writers immersed in the virtual world. At the same time, writing anonymously on
the net provides the writer with a virtual space in which he psychoanalyzes himself, parodies
the previous authorities, or exercises his imagination as fully as possible. The Internet is much
more than a carrier of literary works, but a strong power formulating and establishing people’s
soul and their perception of the world. And the ontology of Chinese Internet literature consists
as much in the Internet-based perception of the world, the subjectivities, and psychology of the
network writers as in the Internet’s function as a carrier of literary works.

Notes
1 See Ouyang Ting and Ouyang Youquan, “A Reflection on the Institutional Genealogy of Internet Lit-
erature” (Wangluo wenxuede tizhi puxi xue fansi) Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art (Wenyi lilun
yanjiu) (2014), no. 1, 91.
2 J. Hillis Miller, forward to Sinologism by Ming Dong Gu (New York: Routledge, 2013), xix.
3 See George Landow, Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization (Baltimore:
The Johns IIopkins University Press, 2006).
4 See Espen Aarseth, Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1997).
5 Alan Liu, “Imagining the New Media Encounter,” in Raymond G. Siemans and Susan Schreibman,
eds., A Companion to Digital Literary Studies (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing., 2007), 25.
6 Guo Qingzhu, “The Origin, Development, and Basic Genres of Western Internet Literature” (Xifang
wangluo wenxue de qiyuan, fazhan yu jiben leixing), Academic Exchange (Xueshu Jiaoliu) (2013), no.1,
177–180.
7 Jorgen Schafer and Peter Gendolla, Beyond the Screen: Transformations of Literary Structures, Interfaces and
Genres (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2010), 11.
8 Ouyang Youquan, An Introduction to Internet literature (Wangluo wenxue gailun) (Beijing: Beijing Uni-
versity Press, 2008), 22.
9 Ouyang Youquan, “The Ontology and Signification of Internet literature” (Wangluo wenxue de benti
zhuiwen yu yiyi tiren), Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art (Wenyi lilun yanjiu) (2007), no. 1.
10 “Time-Travel Fiction,” (Chuanyue xiaoshuo), http://baike.baidu.com/view/1160237.htm. Accessed
April 20, 2017.
11 Chao, Shih-Chen. “Desire and Fantasy On-line: A Sociological and Psychoanalytical Approach to the
Prosumption of Chinese Internet Fiction,” (Ph.D diss., The University of Manchester, 2012).
12 Zhang, Jiayan, The Chinese Low Poetry (Zhongguo dishige) (Beijing: Renmin Ribao Chubanshe, 2008).
13 Daniela Bertol and David Foell, Designing Digital Space (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 1997), 60.
14 Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, “Postmodernization, or the Informatization of Production,” in
Simon During, ed., The Cultural Studies Reader 3rd edition (London and New York: Routledge, 2007),
193.
15 Justus Hartnack, Kant’s Theory of Knowledge: An Introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason (Indianapolis:
Hackett Publishing, 1967), 31.
16 Chun-chieh Huang and Erik Zurcher, “Cultural Notions of Time and Space in China,” in Chun-
chieh Huang and Erik Zurcher, eds., Time and Space in Chinese Culture (Leiden: Brill, 1995), “Cultural
Notions,” 4.
17 David Kurt Herold and Peter Marolt, “Introduction: Noise, Spectacle, Politics: Carnival in Chinese
Cyberspace,” in Online Society in China (London and New York: Routledge, 2011), 10.
18 Ibid.
19 Sherry Turkle, “Cyberspace and Identity,” Contemporary Sociology (1999), vol. 28, no. 6, 643.

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20 I am not arguing that only online writers may have the dis-unified subjectivity, or that non-network
subjects are unified and stable. Bakhtin’s theory of polyphony, for instance, is based on the coexistence
of multi-voices in the writer’s dis-unified mind. I am discussing the “schizophrenia” rooted in the
switch between the concrete and the virtual space, which could be one among many types of schizo-
phrenia that human beings may experience.
21 David Kurt Herold and Peter Marolt, “Introduction,” 8.
22 “The Current Situation of Internet literature” (Wangluo wenxue xianzhuang), http://news.xinhuanet.
com/book/2014-05/27/c_126551599_2.htm. Accessed May 24, 2017.
23 Zhang Jie, “Mo Yan as the President of the Network University, Sighing: I Don’t Use Computers at all,”
http://ent.sina.com.cn/s/m/2013-10-31/05404033832.shtml. Accessed April 21, 2017.

Further readings
Chen, Jing. “Refashioning Print Literature: Internet Literature in China.” Comparative Literature Studies 49.4
(2012): 537–546.
Hockx, Michel. Internet Literature in China. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015.
Jin, Feng. Romancing the Internet: Producing and Consuming Chinese Web Romance. Leiden: Brill, 2013.
Lu, Jie. “Chinese Historical Fan Fiction: Internet Writers and Internet Literature.” Pacific Coast Philology
51.2 (2016): 159–176.
Lugg, Alexander. “Chinese Online Fiction: Taste Publics, Entertainment, and Candle in the Tomb.” Chinese
Journal of Communication 4.2 (2011): 121–136.
Ouyang,Youquan, An Introduction to Internet literature (Wangluo wenxue gailun). Beijing: Beijing University
Press, 2008, 22.
Ouyang, Youquan and Yuan Xingjie. Annals of Network Literature in China (Zhongguo wangluo wenxue
biannian shi). Beijing: The Publishing House of the China Literary Federation, 2015.
Tang, Yingxin. Internet Literature and Its Criticism (Wangluo wenxue jiqi piping yanjiu). Beijing: Renmin
ribao chubanshe, 2016.
Yang, Guobin. The Power of the Internet in China: Citizen Activism Online. New York: Columbia University
Press, 2009.
Zhang, Jiayan. The Chinese Low Poetry (Zhongguo dishige). Beijing: Renmin ribao chubanshe, 2008.

681
 CONCLUSION
A review of Chinese literature since the 1980s

Chen Xiaoming
Tr. Guozhong Duan and Ming Dong Gu

Contemporary Chinese literature has been undergoing radical innovations since the ending of
the Cultural Revolution. Through critiques of and reflections upon the Cultural Revolution
undertaken by writers of “Scar Literature” in the New Period, contemporary Chinese Literature
has strengthened its capacity of responding to reality. A direct consequence of this, however,
was its incongruence with the dominant ideology. Critics such as Wang Ruoshui and Wang
Ruowang called for a return to humanism and introduced into Chinese discussions Marx’s early
work, 1844 Manuscripts of Philosophy and Economics, leading directly to a debate over the issue of
alienation. Zhou Yang, once a key leader of Chinese propaganda department, also made efforts
to study the problem of alienation. This seriously alarmed the high-ranking leaders in charge of
ideology. Li Zehou, a philosopher who employed the Kantian idea of “man being the subject” as
his philosophical foundation, also aroused dissatisfactions from orthodox Marxists with his own
interpretations of Marxism. Liu Zaifu, a leading Chinese critic, proposed a theory of the “liter-
ary subjectivity.” It radically challenged traditional literary theories and the younger generation
of scholars and students welcomed it with enthusiasm. In the mid-1980s, due to the spread of
Western modernist literature and philosophical thoughts in China, Chinese writers followed the
route of Western modernism in conducting their efforts for literary innovation. Conventional
literary theories and the realist paradigm formulated by the state ideology were seriously chal-
lenged. A deep paradigm shift was initiated by the1985 “New Wave” (the Modernist School
and the Root-searching School), and a trend of “turning inward” was formed. From 1949 to
1976, Chinese writers had been creating literary works in accordance with a unified paradigm
designated by the state ideology. In the new period, however, writers were writing according
to their own understandings of history, reality, and literary innovations. A movement called for
“returning to literature itself ” and for “pure literature” began to appear, showing explicit literary
efforts to emancipate literary creation from political constraints and ideological discipline.There
were discussions of the relationship between politics and literature, and questions were asked to
challenge the direct intervention of literary creations by politicized ideology in the early 1980s,
but now writers were engaged in efforts to win more thoroughgoing independence from politi-
cal control so as to return to literature itself.
Since the late 1980s, Chinese literature, with the Avant-Garde writers as pioneers, launched
its internal readjustments following the post-realism and its banner of “new realism.” Respond-
ing to the call of “returning to daily lives,” Chinese writers began to focus on ordinary people’s

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daily experiences and emotions, endowing the Chinese literature of this period with a greater
sense of humanity and human feelings. Of course, in the1990s, Chinese society became drasti-
cally marketized, and literature had no choice but to be part of the trend in representing the
changes in Chinese existence and values brought by the marketization, or to approach the
masses and integrate with the consuming society in order to be more competitive. Writers of
the so-called “Belated Generation” depicted the new life in the age of marketization. In the
1990s, Wang Shuo and Wang Xiaobo showed a new condition of literature: the writers could
stay away from institutions in both existence and value, and their works displayed a degree of
freedom enjoyed by Chinese writers in their mind and language. Their expressions were still
veiled by subtle rhetoric. For instance, Wang Shuo relied on witty irony and humor, strange sto-
ries, and self-aggrandizement of the marginalized to mock the institutionalized life. In spite of
that, the linguistic revolution they initiated was profound. When Wang Shuo’s writings became
deeply familiar with, or even popular to the people, the formal and serious ideological expres-
sions failed to function in large measure. Using his writings of sex as wrappings, Wang Xiaobo
represented his insistent pursuits of individual freedom in a relaxed fashion. His impact on the
youth at the social bottom was enormous. The freedom-desiring people in the 1990s breathed
fresh air in Wang’s works. Even the Rural Literature also witnessed a profound internal renova-
tion. Since the 1990s, Chinese Rural Literature, represented by Mo Yan, Jia Pingwa,Yan Lianke,
and Liu Zhenyun, returned to rural experiences and folk lives, or even traditional, fictional
forms on the one hand, and made freer use of literary techniques of European and American
modernism on the other hand, achieving a more internalized harmony of both. As a result, their
works of down-to-earth rural narratives contain rich characteristic features of Western modern-
ist literature.Their works can be studied not only in the domain of traditional Chinese literature
and the Chinese contemporary realities, but also in terms of the aesthetic system of Western
modernism. Overall, since the 1990s, Chinese literature has conducted deeper internal renova-
tions. Although, strictly speaking, there was no literary movement, or literary schools, and even
no literary communities, the inherent historical dynamics operated tenaciously in personalized
manners. The following sections will elaborate the major literary trends in several aspects.

I. Formal breakthrough: avant-garde novels and its postmodernity

The history of Chinese Avant-Garde is short and awkward, but no one is to deny the sig-
nificance of its exploration of literary forms in a short historical period by a group of writers.
Chinese literature, especially Chinese narrative literature, reached an odd height and complexity
in this period.
In the late 1980s, formalist strategies of the Avant-Garde representation emerged in China.
The weakening of the integrative power of ideology provided the direct condition in concrete
reality; the pressures for innovation since the beginning of 1980s came directly from aesthetic
premises, and the Modernist School and Root-searching School provided its conditions for
artistic experience. The “Modernist School” was influential in terms of intellectual thoughts in
the remarkable social and intellectual circumstances. The School of Root-Searching also dem-
onstrated its special status depending on its ideological basis, and their individual expressions and
methods of expression did not play the decisive role. In the late 1980s, the individual expres-
sions of Ma Yuan, Mo Yan, and Can Xue were, however, significant in the historical context of
weakening ideological control.
The year of 1987 was recognized as a temporal mark of the decline of the contemporary
Chinese literature. It is a year replete with regretful lamentations over the loss of literature. Nev-
ertheless, in terms of literature itself, this year was rich in historic significance, and a stronger

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possibility is that it stood for the beginning of another historic period of the contemporary lit-
erature. Literature started to free itself from direct ideological constraints and promised to obtain
its own aesthetic value as an independent existence. A striking phenomenon was that a younger
generation of writers emerged, in which one could see the influence from the Modernist
School and the Root-searching School, and of course from Ma Yuan’s narrative perspective.
In the early spring of 1987, People’s Literature (Renmin Wenxue) produced an unprecedented
dual format, which combined its first and second issues. At the end of 1987, Shou Huo (Harvest)
carried works of a group of Avant-Garde writers in its fifth and sixth issues. These works, com-
pared with those in the beginning of the year, were more mature and authentic in their rejec-
tion of rigid “postures”of modernist concepts, and their very personalized ways of perception
became part of their narrative styles. The young generation of the Avant-Garde, like Su Tong,Yu
Hua, Ge Fei, and Sun Ganlu followed their predecessors like Mo Yan, Ma Yuan, and Can Xue,
and conducted more radical explorations of linguistic forms. Due to the historical event in 1989,
modernism was criticized for political reasons. As a consequence, the Avant-Garde had to mod-
erate its aggressive attitude. In the early 1990s, the Avant-Garde writers were already conscious
of the ambiguous relationship between literature and reality. Turning their back on portraying
reality to narrate odd historical anecdotes, these writers not only maintained their sense of being
pioneers in language and narratives but also avoided running any political risks in real life. For
them, formalistic strategies in writing novels were their primary ways to escape from the reality,
and historical stories were necessary negotiations with the populace. Because there was no way
to express their thoughts, their artistic achievement would immediately lose strength once the
Avant-Garde writers reduced their use of formalistic strategies.
In the early 1990s, the Avant-Garde writers, except Bei Cun, who was still conducting a
series of formal experiments, had a stronger wish to return to story-telling and tried con-
ventional methods of writing novels. As a whole, in the 1990s, the Avant-Garde succeeded in
returning to stories and characters. However, in terms of story-telling and characterization, the
Avant-Garde writers found no more effective ways of representation than the formalist ones
that they used to employ. In spite of that,Yu Hua’s Shouting in the Rain (Zai xiyu zhong huhan)
shows a rare strength of experiencing the internal life. His To Live (Huo zhe) and Xu Sanguan
Sells Blood (Xusanguan maixueji) turned out to be the most insightful representations of human
existence in contemporary China. Sun Ganlu’s Breathing (Huxi), Bei Cun’s Baptizing River (Shixi
de he), Lü Xin’s Caressing (Fumo) and Ge Fei’s Enemies (Diren), The Margins (Bianyuan) (1993)
and The Banner of Desires (Yuwang de qizhi) (1996) all exhibited lasting influences from the
Avant-Garde in terms of language and forms.The Avant-Garde made its debut when ideological
control tended to be distant and weakened in the late 1980s.With its excessive linguistic expres-
sions and formalistic strategies, the Avant-Garde helped achieve a unique maturity in artistic
innovation desired by the contemporary Chinese literature for a long time. In my opinion, the
postmodernity of the Avant-Garde may be elaborated in the following ways.
Firstly, a narrative method of escaping from reality. The Avant-Garde novels evaded the
efforts to interpret and construct reality, and shifted from what to write to how to write, turning
fictional narration into a kind of methodological act. It rendered the artistic forms of fiction
flexible and diversified, and established a self-sufficient realm for literary language. Fictions no
longer dealt with reality, no longer recorded true history, but talked only about fiction itself.
Secondly, a return to lyric narrative style in language and sensation. The sudden retreat from
enthusiastic ideological pursuits to formalistic methodological acts did not suffocate desires
for expression. Splendid linguistic expressions, delicate rhetoric, and excessive use of words all
released strong desires for expression, resulting in a feeling of “post-tragic era.”

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 Conclusion

Thirdly, a doubt on original sources and finality of human existence. In the process of search-
ing for linguistic feelings and narrative forms, fictional narratives recoded the history and human
existence, allowing them to re-shape human life.There is usually an essential lack in the existing
conditions of the Avant-Garde fictions, resulting in a special interpretation of the historical lack.
Fourthly, a metaphysical reflection upon existence or “absence.” Ge Fei’s fictions have always
been constructing an essential emptiness. In his approach to the emptiness, his narrative opened
an existential space full of dubiety and hardship. A kind of “repetition of subtle differences”
recurred in his narratives and produced a distrust of the world in which human beings exist. It
also made questionable the certainty of history, memory, and existing facts.
Fifthly, a self-doubt created by super distant narratives. In the Avant-Garde fiction, there was a
unique tension between indifferent and peaceful attitudes held by the narrators and their exces-
sively rich use of words. The Avant-Garde writers no longer narrated from the perspective that
takes the self as the center, but, on the contrary, wrote in a manner in which the self was always
refuted and subverted.
Sixthly, a representation of radical themes of violence and escape. The linguistic sense and
narrative style of the Avant-Garde fiction could only be developed in the full in those unique
living circumstances. Therefore, violence, escape, and other radical themes become sources for
expressing forms.
Of course, these sprouts of postmodernism are undoubtedly endowed with Chinese char-
acteristics growing out of the native culture. Their significance exists in the more practical and
pacified attitude towards the real living conditions in the 1980s and 1990s. Its evasion of the
ultimate truth and absolute value gave rise to criticism, but the attitude was a result of their per-
ception produced by the diversified and fragmented reality in the transitional historical period.
They had to seek a way of living by balancing the compulsory historical phenomenon with the
lost historical truth. In a certain sense, their strategies of representation that rejected depth were
to search for a new adaptability on the one hand, and an initiative to return to literature itself
on the other hand.

II. The disintegration of the center: from neo-realism

to belated generation
In 1988, Shanghai Journal of Literary Criticism (Shanghai wenlun) opened a column of “Rewrit-
ing Literary History,” hosted by Wang Xiaoming and Chen Sihe, who put forward the idea
of “rewriting literary history.” Between 1988 and 1989, about sixteen essays re-interpreting
canonical writers and writings appeared in the nine issues of the column. The column received
continuous responses in the field of modern and contemporary literary history, and it deeply
influenced its historiography since the 1990s. This kind of intellectual discourses was recon-
structing the discipline, especially the literary history. It was a foundational project to reassess and
rebuild literary values, identifying radical changes in the contemporary intellectual discourses.
Evidently, the rewriting of history by writers was more acute and radical. In the late 1980s,
Wang Shuo expressed a powerful doubt and ridiculed contemporary values. His representative
works include his novellas: A Master Player (Wanzhu), Half Is Sea Water and Half Is Fire Flame
(Yiban shi haiyang, Yiban shi huoyan), Rubber Man (Xiangpi ren), Ferocious Animals (Dongwu
xiongmeng); and full-length novels: Playing for Heart-Beating Fun (Wande jiushi xintiao), Don’t
Treat Me as A Human (Qianwan buyao ba wo dang ren), I’m Your Dad (Wo shi ni Baba), and It
Looks Beautiful (Kanshangqu Henmei), etc. All of Wang’s protagonists demonstrate a capacity of
resisting the centralization of the subject by ideology. Skepticism is the basic personal feature

685
 Chen Xiaoming

Wang gave to his hero(ine)s. The sublime elements, such as faith and politics, are desanctified in
his works. Excellent dialogues representing features of Wang’s fictions are mostly metonymical
employment of political terms and classical proverbs, especially the ironically used discourses of
the Cultural Revolution. Wang grasped the latent and ambivalent doubts among people at that
time and challenged the manipulating power of the dominant ideology. People became relaxed
and bold when unshackled from the essentialist concepts they used to rely on and the primary
goal they used to pursue.
The Root-searching School pushed the collective imagination to its historical height, but
its goal was not fulfilled, and it had to put a hasty end to it with Mo Yan’s narration of the car-
nivalesque rituals of life in the field of sorghum. The Utopian impulse of the Root-searching
literature became even more illusory when the collective imagination was no longer demanded
by the age. The Neo-Realism started where the Root-searching ended. Those writers gave up
the Utopian impulses and refused to present collective imagination by returning to the realities
in life. In this sense, Neo-Realism was not only anti-Root-searching, but also deviated from the
track of the conventional (classical) realism. It was a compulsory choice of literary paradigm for
the Neo-Realism to reduce collective imagination and set its orientation to the realities of life.
After 1992, China underwent a huge wave of economic reform. A group of writers represent-
ing the realities emerged as a response to the new condition. They demonstrated vital force in
expressing personal perceptions, identifying changes of value and living style due to marketiza-
tion, and in creating new perceptual methods and narrative styles.
In the first half of the 1990s, the literary field in mainland China was eager to name a new
group of writers which appeared late. Various epithets like “the New Status,” “the New Phe-
nomenon,” “the Belated Generation,” “the New Generation,” “the Group born in the 60s,”
“Feminisms,” “the Neo-existentialism,” etc., were used to describe this group. Personally, I think
“the Belated Generation” seems to be more appropriate both historically and theoretically. “The
Belated Generation” mainly includes these writers: He Dun, Shu Ping, Zhang Min, Qiu Hua-
dong, Luo Wangzi, Diao Dou, Bi Feiyu, Lu Yang, Zhu Wen, Han Dong, Dong Xi, and Li Feng,
and others. Xiong Zhengliang and Guizi of older age were later added to the list. Of course, this
list is still open to completion.

III. A Utopia of words: poetry in the 1990s

After the mid-1980s, the young generation of poets was eager for even freer expressions of
thoughts and more personalized linguistic forms, challenging the veteran poet Bai Dao and his
generation. The group of people who grew up after the Cultural Revolution started to rise in
the late 1980s, representing a strikingly different culture. Without heavy historical memory and
intertextual entanglements with the nation and the ethnic identity, they portrayed more direct
perceptions and personal experiences, which endowed their expressions with a sense of the
era. The so-called Post-Misty Poetry (Hou-Menglong Shi) or the Third Generation of Poetry
started their primary learning in the intellectual environment of anti-tradition and celebration
of individuality. It evinced a radicalism and chaotic order brought about by the transition from
the weakening of the traditional faith to the yet-to-be established new faith. In the mid and late
1980s, an even younger generation of new Chinese poetry emerged. When the literary field
was still cheering “modernism,” a small group of poets began their transgressive work. They
treated poetry and current cultural system in a more radical way under their anti-Menglong
banners. Claiming themselves as “the Third Generation,” they destroyed the poets’ image as the
lyrical hero(ine)s of the age, deconstructing the Man, along with the self. They even desecrated
“poetry” itself at their will, which used to be esteemed as the verbal sacrifice to the divine, solely

686
 Conclusion

because of their belief of “To be alive, therefore I write” (Yu Jian). This generation represents a
very different cultural stance.The image of the historical subject positioned in the center of ide-
ology was being replaced by distorted self-images scribbled by a group of emerging “little guys.”
This group of poets paid their attention to these aspects: No No School (Feifei pai), Boorism
(Manghan zhuyi), Poets of the Ocean Group (Haishang shiqun), Them (Tamen), Han Chinese
Poetry (Hanshi), etc. Overall, the “Third Generation” of poets was a diverse group in a chaotic
time of poetic innovation. As a passionate revolution of poetry, its legacy was radical and ambiva-
lent and became marginalized in Chinese literary history, because of its short time span and
ambiguous status. For a long time to come, it is doomed to be a marginalized part of literary his-
tory. In the 1990s, this group of poets had lost its impact as a whole and started its communica-
tions in non-public manners. After the “Third Generation,” no influential movement or school
would be possible in the field of poetry in mainland China, and would not be acknowledged by
authoritative publications and communities.
In the1990s, China initiated its marketization, but the economic development failed to pro-
vide imaginative energy to poetry, or, it distanced poetry further from this ungraspable age. Not
surprisingly, historical unconscious and collective imagination both escaped from the contem-
porary poetry. They were radical expressions of the splits between spirit and material, imagina-
tion and reality, culture and politics in contemporary China. Thus, it is easy to understand that
the third generation of poets tended to express anti-social thoughts, and their distance from
reality was increased and non-negotiable.The young generation went against the age’s spirit and
self-consciously worked at the margins to differentiate itself from the generation of poets like
Bei Dao, who eventually adapted to the movements of dominant thoughts. The Chinese poetry
between the 1980s and 1990s was both lost and capable of self-reflection. In spite of all sorts
of events, conflicts, and struggles, it was overall rooted in language itself. Enthusiastic impulses
tended to be balanced by the search for tranquility in the heart, as well as refined skills and forms.
In whichever aspect, poets tended to become “a group of ghosts created by words” (Ouyang
Jianghe). Their poetry was devoid of its historical context almost self-consciously, so it was will-
ing to cover or heal with words the infinite anxiety and fill in the historical depth of conscious-
ness. It peacefully reflected (surely restlessly at the same time) and simultaneously created the
special spiritual milieu of the age. There is no way to understand the complexity and profundity
of contemporary Chinese culture without a full understanding of the Chinese poetry in this age
(by the third generation and overseas Chinese poets), of the transformations it underwent, the
conflicts and chaos it represented, and the spiritual value it embodied.
The group of poets of the 1990s mainly includes Ouyang Jianghe, Xi Chuan, Chen Dong-
dong,Yu Jian, Zhong Ming, Xue Di, Zhai Yongming, Zhang Shuguang, Xiao Kaiyu, Sun Wenbo,
Liao Yiwu, Jin Haishu, Lü De’an, Pang Pei, Yang Jian, Yang Zi, Han Dong, Ye Hui, Tang Dan-
hong, etc. Overseas poets after 1989 include Bei Dao, Duo Duo, Yang Lian, Zhang Zao, Yang
Xiaobin, Bei Ling, and Meng Lang, etc.
Ouyang Jianghe, Xi Chuan, Wang Jiaxin, Zhai Yongming, Chen Chao, Zhang Shuguang,
and others are recognized as representative poets of the1990s in mainland China. They were to
return to a spiritual domain in a new age, which was strikingly different from that of the 1990s,
and they were capable of locating an arbitrary starting point close to the historical coordinates
of 1989. On March 26, 1989, Haizi committed suicide on a railway track in Shanhaiguan, an
event regarded as a sacred sacrifice by the Third Generation. Haizi had been writing metaphysi-
cal poems that transcended reality. His belief in no-surrender to reality is the dialogue between
his soul and the deity in his poems.
Haizi’s vibrant creativity produced poems, fictions, dramas, and essays of nearly two million
words, among which are long poems But It Is Water,Water (Danshi shui, shui), and Earth (Tu di),

687
 Chen Xiaoming

poetic drama The Sun (Taiyang, unfinished), and the first serenata Messiah, etc. Haizi’s poems
have a sense of divine naturalness, which is not a sort of abstract thoughts, but a flow of emotions
from his description of the life in rural China. He devoted his poems to nature in the country:
villages, creeks, wheat fields, carriage, flowers, plants, mothers, wives, and ethical relations in rural
families, etc., which is always portrayed in transparent honesty. In experiencing nature, Haizi
approached the simple truth of existence, the natural manifestations of the divinity itself.
Mischievous attempts committed by the No No School poets disappeared in the 1990s,
replaced by sacred and serious contemplations. To obtain emptiness through deep contem-
plations became the best way of spiritual salvation at that time. Ouyang Jianghe was its first
practitioner, whose poems were increasingly delicate and sagacious in details. Every sentence of
his poems was witty with “mini-thoughts,” and the rhetoric power of his words and sentences
determined his poetic quality.
Ouyang Jianghe’s poetry usually blended both Western and Eastern experiences and repeat-
edly employed and deconstructed some Chinese words of symbolic value to produce pleasure of
thoughts. His poems demonstrated a kind of world-oriented experience. His poetry distinguishes
itself from traditional Chinese poems, which value techniques like fu (exposition), bi (compari-
son), and xing (inspiration). It also distinguished itself clearly from the early Misty poems. The
outstanding feature of his poems is the straightforwardness of his language: he focuses on par-
ticular sparkling thoughts in words with no excessively circumstantial and expository descrip-
tions. As he put it in his poem, “Go beyond changeable and unchangeable understandings. It is
lucky that no one denies/is totally immersed in sensual beauties.” Ouyang Jianghe’s poems are
devoted to creating a kind of “beauty of serendipity,” making successful use of risky words, and
it is the unexpected and miraculous thoughts that comforted his generation’s soul. In the 1980s,
Bei Dao’s poems challenged the extremes of thoughts; in the1990s, Ouyang Jianghe challenged
the limits of Chinese language. His writing was not to simply smash Chinese language, but to
arrive at a fabulous extremity of rhetoric possibility in the use of Chinese language.
The overseas Chinese literature should not be neglected, not only in discussing the historical
transformations of Chinese poetry in the 1990s but also in describing in a broad sense the inter-
action between Chinese representation and history. If there was a coherent and unified theme
in Bei Dao’s poems at that time, it was his thoughts concerning “alienation,” covering broadly
the alienation of history, of individuals and existence, of time, and of life, etc. Bei Dao was not
thinking metaphysically about alienation because for him it always motivated his prudent loneli-
ness and nostalgia, which endowed the philosophical meaning of alienation with rich concrete
relevance. It is for this reason that his poems are saturated with nostalgic loneliness although no
words like “loneliness” and “nostalgia” appear in them (Bei Dao has outgrown the roughness
and shallowness of such dictions). His loneliness occasionally emitted from the crevices of alien-
ation and spread unyieldingly. His writings grew increasingly purer as a kind of essential writing
that sought for a straightforward inquiry of essence. In this form of writing, Bei Dao could no
longer tolerate conformist concepts, collective/normalizing things, or history in favor of per-
sonal experiences. He seemed to be fighting alone against the enormous linguistic genealogy.
His late poems used abundant media of “sympathy,” which transformed his metaphysical aliena-
tion to rhetoric. He was not only dancing on the historical stage, but also strolling in the hallway
of the rhetoric surrealism. He was rescued from the mythic depth by the pleasure of rhetoric.
In the age of “blossoms of grammatical mistakes,” Bei Dao once again walked ahead of his time.
The poetry in the 1990s was still characterized by aesthetic idealism, which was attribut-
able to its attempts at constructing a Utopia with words. It might sound weird at the end of
the twentieth century, but it was exactly the historical contexts in which it was embedded that
made it a post-politics pursuit. The linguistic Utopia was linked to the reality metaphorically

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and it bestowed revolutionary significance to the rhetoric texts, vernaculars, idioms, slangs, and
vulgar words.
The poetry in the 1990s was undoubtedly rich in individuality, and it was even more so
when compared with the grand historical narratives of the1980s and other previous times.
However, it does not mean that the poems were random fragments of the disintegrated history
with no connections among them. They actually constituted new (spiritual) realities in a deli-
cately effective manner. The poetry in the 1990s emphasizes a return to the depth of the poetic
spirit and soul (Xi Chuan, Ouyang Jianghe, Cheng Guangwei, Chen Chao, and others). Even
poets espousing folk writings also regarded writings of divinity as the ultimate goal (Yu Jian).
Although soul and divinity were revealing the individual heart, the spirit of the poetry in the
1990s was not totally absent of universal value. They were in a special way connected to collec-
tive memories, approaching a sort of ambivalent historical totality. Poets endeavored to separate
by force poetry from the history/reality, and individuals from the infinite historical background,
but the consequence was to connect poetry with history in another way. Writing was a rhetori-
cal project for individuals to disintegrate history. The pleasure of words and the crafty wisdom
sufficed to construct a spiritual enclave for poetic writings, which could be turned into a psy-
chological autobiography of the Chinese intellectuals.

IV. Cultural and aesthetic orientations in feminine writings

Feminine writings in the “New Age” expressed feminine feelings from the beginning (as is the
case in the writings of Zhang Jie, Zhang Kangkang, and Tie Ning, et al.), but the grand histori-
cal narratives, with its pre-established meaning, changed the original intentions of the feminine
writings. As a result, the originally personalized records of feminine memories were put into his-
toricized contexts and their relationship with reality was reshaped. Furthermore, in times when
national pursuits were extraordinarily strong, there was no room for personal discourses, and of
course even less room for evidently feminine narratives. National pursuits have been persistent
in history, and were particularly strong in the New Age when China had barely recovered from
the hardships it underwent at the time.
Can Xue’s fictional works in the mid-1980s, such as Mountain Hut (Shanshang xiaowu) and
Yellow Soil Street (Huangni jie), etc., did represent rich psychological experiences with fragments
of stream of consciousness in language. Can Xue may be the only writer in contemporary Chi-
nese literature who consistently employed imaginary/psychological experience to reveal the
depth of humanity. The feminist consciousness of Can Xue did not come from the socialized
feminist movements, but from the revolution of literary discourses.
Wang Anyi did not intentionally express feminist consciousness, but her attention to the
dynamic social reality endowed her works with the breadth and depth of historical narratives.
Her works were grand feminine narratives, in which the feminine consciousness was latent in
history and visible only through crevices and margins of her writings. In the 1990s, her hori-
zon became broadened. In 1995, the second, third, and fourth issues of Bell Mountain Magazine
(Zhong Shan) published her Ever-Lasting Sorrow (Changhen ge), which narrates the story of a
woman’s routine life, rather than stunning grand events, in a small alley in Shanghai. In this kind
of personal history, the woman goes through her life, in a way that seems like a doomed journey.
Since the 1990s,Wang Anyi has published a series of novellas, such as Utopian Poems (Wutuobang
shipian), The Uncle’s Story (Shushu de gushi), A Japanese Singing Star (Gexing riben lai), Sin-
gaporeans (Xinjiapo ren), etc. In her poetic narratives, one can see her pursuit of artistic self-
innovation; on the other hand, she started reflections upon history, which showed her searching
for ways to understand reality. In the new century, she has published several full-length novels,

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such as A Woman Named Fuping (Fuping), The Age of Enlightenment (Qimeng shidai), Heavenly
Fragrance (Tianxiang), Incognito (Miming), etc., the first two showing her stronger concern with
reality, and the latter two demonstrating her efforts to return to tradition and literature itself.
Tie Ning’s feminine writings always contain the emotional echoes of the times and exhibit
the charisma of literature. In the mid and late1980s, she finished Haystack (Maiji duo) (1986)
and Cotton Stack (Mianhua duo) (1989), which, together with Green Grass Stack (Qingcao duo)
(1995), were called Three Stacks (San duo) by some critics. Tie Ning explored sexual instincts
to reveal the feminine self-consciousness. Women living in material scarcity still possessed indi-
vidual consciousness, in spite of strong historical pressures. The three novels undoubtedly rep-
resent Tie Ning’s feminist stance. Rose Gate (Meigui men) published in 1989 is surely her most
feminist work, which shows a combination of history and reality in feminine life. It focuses on
an old woman Si Yiwen and her young granddaughter Su Mei.Tragedies of traditional Chinese
women are concentrated on Si Yiwen, who is both a victim and agent of the patriarchal sys-
tem. Being an agent was more profound and pathetic. In 1992, Tie Ning published A Pregnant
Woman and A Cattle (Yunfu he niu), which was highly poetic like a Chinese ink-wash painting,
but allegorical at the same time. Her fictional narratives pre-dominantly depict the richness
and subtlety of the feminine consciousness in tactful ways. How Far Is Forever (Yongyuan you
duoyuan) narrates a young woman Bai Daxing’s life in the alley of Beijing. It addresses the
relationships between the girl and the old tradition of the city. Describing the simplicity and
richness of a young woman’s inner life, the nostalgic novel represents the lingering lifestyle of
the old Beijing.
The Chinese feminine writings were more fully demonstrated by the younger generation of
women writers, focusing on the experience of the times and people on the one hand, and the nar-
rative forms in literary representations on the other hand. For instance, works that valued narrative
forms, explored the self, or expressed the inner life, demonstrated literary radicalness due to their
style of modernist Avant-Gardism, rendering them feminist. Based on the Avant-Garde discourses,
feminine writings evidently developed more evidently gendered features in the 1990s.
Chen Ran has been regarded as the earliest representative for the feminine writings in the
1990s. Toast to the Past (Yu wangshi ganbei) and Nowhere to Say Good-bye (Wuchu gaobie) are
her early works that narrate the dilemmas of self-identity in a confessional manner from the
view of the first person, which is the basic narrative formula in her works.The novel Private Life
(Siren shenghuo) (1996) might be viewed as a quasi-autobiography by Chen Ran, in which she
expands the growing-up experiences of a youth and weakens the pressure of politics, making it a
story that tends more to represent female psychological transformation and physical awakening.
Among current women writers, Lin Bai may be the most straightforward and profound
writer in representing the feminine consciousness. She pushed to extremes women’s experi-
ences and exposed without reservation the feminine secret world. Feminine writings always
make use of personal experiences, and it is particularly true with Lin Bai. It is through repeated
interpretations and reflections of the self that she approached the universal feminine “self.”
One Person’s War (Yigeren de zhanzheng) (1994) is her masterpiece and undoubtedly the most
outstanding feminine work in the early1990s. Her feminine narratives are strongly character-
ized by gender identity, distinctive feminine feelings, and characteristic woman’s language. In
1995, she published Fatal Flight (Zhiming de feixiang), followed by Keeping Virgil for Empty Years
(Shouwang kongxin Suiyue), Speak, My Room (Shuoba fangjian), Blooming of Myriad Things
(Wanwu huakai), Records of Women’s Chatting (Funü xianliao lu), and most importantly Remarks
on Northward Journey (Beiqu laici) in 2013, which demonstrated Lin Bai’s efforts to come close
to reality. Her linking strong feminine discourses to women’s concrete experiences exhibits a
power of feminine discourse.

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Hong Ying is an overseas writer whose works started to draw attention from China in the
1990s. Initially a poet, she wrote novels with poetic features and emphasized metaphysical mean-
ings, endowing her works with a style of the Avant Garde experimental forms. The literary
work which made her fame overseas is A Starved Daughter (Ji’e de nü’er) can be viewed as an
autobiographical novel. It tells the coming-to-age experience of an illegitimate girl of the lower
classes. She struggles with poverty and hunger, enduring the confusion resulting from growing
up as an adolescent.
Yan Geling, another overseas writer, also quickly won fame in China. Her early work Femi-
nine Grassland (Cixing de caodi) was about the “educated youth.” Her exquisite narrative art
appears in her recent works such as The Ninth Widow (Dijiuge guafu) and Aunt Duohe (Xiaoyi
duohe), the latter of which is worth more attention. Through narrating the life of a Japanese girl
Duohe, left behind in China after the Sino-Japanese war, the novel expresses the writer’s reflec-
tions upon the war, the complexity of humanity, and her perseverance of resisting the fate.Yan
Geling was skillful in narrative rhythm. She pushed her protagonists to desperate situations, and
then continued with tense but unhurried narrations, which filled her novels with strong charm.
Criminal Lu Yanshi (Lufan Yanshi) (2011) tells the life story of Lu Yanshi, a Chinese intellectual,
covering a time span of more than half a century. Her cold and serene narrative describes the
cruelty of history and the softness of human heart. Its subtlety and profundity surpasses previ-
ous works of the same category. Yan Geling is surely one of the best Chinese writers in the
contemporary times.
In the 1990s, there emerged a group of younger women writers born after the1970s. With
Wei Hui and Mianmian as representatives, they once achieved an impressive impact. Wei Hui’s
Crazy like Wei Hui (Xiang Weihui namo fengkuang) was full of effects of dynamic sensual explo-
sion. The Sharp Twitter of a Butterfly (Hudie de jianjiao) was also a remarkably unique novel,
which tore life into pieces to obtain changed rhythm in the chaos and to experience the excru-
ciating pains. Those women writers, called the 1970s generation, emerged in the field of lit-
erature in the 1990s. As a group, they initially received shocked responses from the public, and
then they wrote in separate ways, which suggests that current literary writings are fundamentally
individual efforts. A group without central doctrines would not last long. Among them were Jin
Renshun, Dai Lai, Zhu Wenying, Zhou Jieru, Wei Wei, et al., the last three of whom continue
to write and remain influential.

V. Residing self-consciously on the margins

In 1997, Wang Xiaobo passed away unexpectedly at a young age. His death came as a big shock
to the Chinese literary circles, not because a writer died suddenly in silence but rather because
the Chinese literary world should have ignored the existence of such a great writer. At the end
of the 1990s, Chinese literature seemed to have been incapacitated for progress and Wang Xia-
obo’s death made people aware of a radical change. It clarified the potential conflicts between
the institution of literature and free creation embracing all kinds of controversies and ambigui-
ties. Wang Xiaobo’s formally published work Golden Age (Huangjin shidai) includes five short
works: Golden Age (Huangjin shidai), Independence at Thirty (Sanshi erli), Years Like Flowing Water
(Sishui liunian), Love in the Revolutionary Era (Geming shiqi de aiqing), and My Yin and Yang
Worlds (Wode yinyang liangjie). His most renowned novel is Golden Age, which narrates another
form of life of the “educated youth” – a life of repression and anti-repression. In the novel, pro-
tagonists Wang Er and Chen Qingyang fall in love in a natural and uneventful manner, simply
following their instinctual desires. It represents the real conditions of humanity through willful
behaviors of youths who radically free their bodies at a time, which is the age of gold in young

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lives. My Yin and Yang Worlds represents the process of subtle metamorphoses of inter-individual,
or inter-gender, relationships. What Wang Xiaobo explores is the range of freedom in repres-
sive circumstances, the ways of pursuing freedom, and their consequences. Silver Age is the most
experimental work in Wang’s fictional narratives. Its fantastic dream-like themes, magnetically
bewitching narration, and inherent tenacity work together to intertwine two story threads;
and the use of future tense creates a special effect of uncertainty. Both Bronze Age and Iron Age
include Hongfu Elopes at Night (Hongfu yeben), a story with an ancient theme, were much val-
ued by the author himself. In Wang Xiaobo’s writings, historical heroes are de-mystified, and
romance turned into comedy while history releases an endless outburst of pleasure through a
heavy dose of playfulness.What constitutes the impetus of literary narrative is nothing but unin-
terrupted humor and pleasure.
In the summer of 2007, Wang Shuo who remained silent for a number of years, reappeared
on the literary scene. Reported in Chinese media as “the return of a kingly writer,” he dazzled
the literary circles with My Thousand Year of Coldness (Qiansui han), a novel of extremely unu-
sual kind. Without a unified and coherent text, it is neither an account of the essence of Zen
Buddhism nor a stunning discovery of his writing. As a consequence, it turned out to be rather
inconsistent in style, having an affinity to the experimental operas and underground film
scripts composed by Zhang Yuan. At the same time, it reads like an extraordinary experiment
with generic style conducted by him. Despite its seeming chaotic disorder, it is filled with wit-
tiness and wisdom. Disorderly as it may look, it also seems full of mysticism, and therefore can
be regarded as an irrational mischief born out of the ingenious use of Zen legends. Whatever
judgment one may pass, this novel represents a bold literary act and a most defiant challenge
to accepted creative methods of literature. After 2007, Wang Shuo went on to publish Letters
to My Daughter (Zhi nü’er de xin) and Dialogues with Our Daughter (He women nü’er tanhua),
both of which display his distinctive style of composition. In his later writings, however, there
appeared a pure attitude toward literature. For over a dozen years, he lived nearly in seclusion,
only occasionally voicing his opinions. His position on social criticism, however, became even
sharper.
Evidently, Jiang Rong’s Wolf Totem (Lang tuteng), which appeared in 2004, forced its way into
the literary circles in an extraordinary manner. Grand in conception, heroic in sentiments, and
with a story replete with the naturalness against a vast expanse of space, it veritably commands
an impressive momentum.The significance of the novel lies in its descriptions of the prairie and
wolves, its reflections on the national character of the Chinese people, and its attempt to form
a national spirit for the Chinese in its confrontation with the world and future. It has aroused
several years of controversy, and for a long while, been placed at the top of China’s List of the
Most Popular Books. Moreover, it has become the most successful work among Chinese books
in the world market of publications.
In 2005, Cao Wenxuan, who has persisted on pursuing classical refined art, published a novel,
Heavenly Gourd (Tian piao), which, while retaining the tender beauty of the southern land, reveals
in a subtle manner the sinister aspects of human nature in its confrontation with fate. Cao has
been a writer of children’s literature. In fact, his writings mostly tell the stories of growing up to
adulthood, infused with a heavy ethos of rural villages in his writings such as Red Tiles (Hong
wa), Fine Rice (Ximi), and Bronze and Sunflower (Qingtong kuihua), et., which endow his works
with a romanticist sentiment against the background of Mother Nature. Later on, Cao pioneered
a new way of writing. In 2007, he published a series of novels with the title Books of the Great
King (Da wang shu). The first two books in the series, Yellow Glaze (Huang liuli) and Red Gauze
Lantern (Hong shadeng), represent a more powerful aesthetic tension in the frightening beauty.
Compared with his refined writings in the early period, they have broken new grounds to a

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considerable extent. In 2016, he was awarded “The Hans Christian Andersen Award” for Chil-
dren’s Literature, arousing a great deal of attention both at home and abroad.
In the 1980s, online literature arose, infinitely opening up the self-consciously existential
space of Chinese literature. Writers like Han Han, Guo Jingming, Zhang Yueran and others
are reconfiguring the literary domains for the younger generation of writers. They are freely
galloping on the internet and the book market, embarking on the journey amidst the democ-
ratization of media, and transcending the institutionalized ways of literary production and cir-
culation for modern literature. Now, the future of literature no longer relies on the possibility
of artistic innovation, but on the inestimable possibilities brought about by the revolution in
telecommunications.

VI. The transformation of rural narratives

The Rural narrative represents the most traditional and fundamental section of Chinese litera-
ture, and its renovations laid bare the essential changes the contemporary Chinese literature has
undergone.When Chinese writers got frustrated on the routes of modernism or postmodernism
from the 1990s to the new century, they turned to the rural scenes, the bottom of the society,
and the narratives of hardships to search for the ground for a new journey. Historical contin-
gency may perhaps be its destiny of being so. Rural narratives in the 1990s still maintained the
“rural material” of the new age as its basic feature, which is undoubtedly realistic. Nevertheless, a
big number of novels that narrate past history started to play a dominant role and helped rewrite
the history of rural China. Among these works, Chen Zhongshi’s White Deer Plain (Bailu yuan)
is without doubt a significant one.
In 1993, Chen Zhongshi surprised the Chinese literary world with his novel White Deer
Plain, which was awarded the fourth Mao Dun Prize for Literature after various twists and
turns. With a grand structure, White Deer Plain narrates a fifty-year history in the Weihe Plain,
focusing on the astonishing stories between two rival families struggling for power.The conflict
between the families becomes intensified by the historic conflicts during the new Democratic
Revolution. Critics are unanimous in regarding the novel as a national epic. For a long time, no
historical narrative could free itself from the direct control of ideology and maintain a grand
milieu. The novel re-presents the historic reality, but avoids simple reproduction of the current
ideology. This is the basic reason for the nice surprise generated by Chen Zhongshi’s works in
the early 1990s.
Appearing at the same time or slightly earlier than Chen Zhongshi’s novel is Jia Pingwa’s
Deserted Capital (Feidu), which was once an “event” in contemporary Chinese literature, exerted
more powerful influence, and aroused more heated discussions. In retrospection, we can see
more clearly the foresights of Deserted Capital: it was the first to revitalize Chinese traditional
culture or the image of Chinese traditional intellectuals. The male protagonist, Zhuang Zhi-
die, is both talented and un-restrained, both righteous and licentious, both worrying about
the national fate and indulging in a decadent life. He is a typical image of traditional Chinese
intellectuals. Such a figure emerged occasionally in contemporary Chinese literary history, but
usually it was repressed into the margins of writings. Jia Pingwa expressed his despair when
depicting the corrupted images of Chinese intellectuals. Later, he turned to “refined writing,”
which resonates with his latent theme: only the traditional spiritual and cultural values and
traditional aesthetics were able to rescue the contemporary culture from its degeneration. His
later works, such as Gaolao Village (Gaolao zhuang) and In Remembrance of Wolf (Huainian lang),
represent the loss of value and desolation of rural China. It is unfair to say that these novels were
not well written; the reason why they do not meet his readers’ expectations and fail to arouse

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sufficient attention is because they did not highlight the essential features of the era or achieve
a breakthrough in fictional consciousness.
Among the multitude of rural writers, Zhang Wei occupied a most distinct position and
showed the strongest sense of humanity. He established his fame in the mid-1980s with Ancient
Boat (Gu chuan), which was followed by Fables of September (Jiuyue yuyan) in 1992 and My For-
mer Love Bohui (Bohui) in 1995. The novel evinces a strong sense of subjective narration. In the
novel, “I” addresses “you” directly, and the narrator remains consistently the narrating subject.
The critique of modern civilization by means of spiritual escape constitutes the theme and style
of Zhang Wei’s novels since the 1990s. How Can One Miss Althaea Rose (Nengbuyi shukui) was
also a work with subjective narrative, which describes the failure of an absolute idealist through
a poetic sense of absurdity.
Han Shaogong, a representative writer of the Root-searching School, is undoubtedly the
most important writer of rural literature. His Dictionary of Maqiao (Maqiao cidian), which
aroused heated disputes after its publication in 1996. It reduces the fictional narrative to the most
elemental linguistic level and concisely depicts the simple life in rural China. His Suggestiveness
(Anshi) published in 2006 resembles Maqiao Cidian, and it displays a clear tendency of writing in
pure language. With this method, Han Shaogong hoped to access his inner life or to convey his
real perceptions through writing. He pursued a more liberal way of writing to express a freedom
of writing without sticking to a particular style.
The height of a literary epoch is embodied in the achievements of great writers and their
masterpieces. In my opinion, in the domain of rural literature in the twentieth-first century,
Mo Yan, Jia Pingwa, Yan Lianke, Liu Zhenyun are such representative writers. Liu Zhen-
yun’s rebellion against the rural narrative tradition is incomparable among writers of the
same genre, for he was the first writer who conducted surgical operation on Chinese rural
literature. A look at his Yellow Flowers under the Sky of Home Village (Guxiang tianxia huang-
hua) and Legends of the Home-place (Guxiang xiangchu liuchuan) will tell us that as early as
in mid-1990s, he had already become aware of the implications for rewriting Chinese rural
historical narratives, and by introducing irony into rural narrative, he radically changed the
style of rural literature. In 1988, Liu devoted six years of time to complete a four-volume
novel Home-place, Noodles and Blossoms (Guxiang mian huaduo) which pushes the rewriting
of home-place to an absurd extent. Obviously, this novel has constructed a super spatial-
temporal relationship between hometown and metropolis. In 2009, he published A Word Is
Worth Ten Thousand (Yiju ding yiwan ju), which has a theme concerning loneness, speaking,
conversation, friendship, family ethics, and experiences of roaming in the rural areas, etc. Its
focus is on a search for friendship and trust in the countryside. This is a work, which rewrites
Chinese home-place in a distinctive way. The unfolding of its narration is full of twists and
turns with one story to be quickly replaced by another story, as each story is implied to be
related to another. The work is not simply a conglomerate of rich rural experiences, but an
embodiment of the characteristic features of Chinese language. I therefore regard it as a work
naturally made by Chinese language.
Since Mo Yan won his fame with his series of novels including Red Sorghum (Hong gaoliang)
in the mid-1980s, his writings have always unfolded themselves with his personal characteristics.
In the late 1990s, his Big Breasts and Wide Hips (Fengru feitun) was published and its misleading
title does not cast a shadow over its power which penetrates the history of rural China. The
story of rural China in Mo Yan’s writings always demonstrates a sense of high spirit amidst its
painful bitterness, which is a pleasure of self-abuse. In narrating the history of rural China, this
novel abandons writing about simple historical justice; instead, it restores historical justice to
human justice.

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In 2001, Mo Yan published his novel, Sandalwood Death (Tanxiang xing), on which he had
spent five years. This novel about torture and punishment is an account of the conflict between
Chinese folks on one side and the government and German imperialists on the other side in
early modern China. It describes the profound sufferings of the folk society at that time and
exposes the hardships experienced by China in modern transformations under the oppression
of western imperialist powers. Its dramatic scene enbales Mo Yan’s mocking irony to be freely
expressed to the fullest degree. It is no longer the author‘s narrative eye that observes others but
every other narrator’s eye that observes each other, and through reflexive observations the novel
is filled with playful irony. As Mo Yan himself said, it “creates the narrative effects of smooth-
ness, ease, and hyperbolic grandeur.” In a way, Mo Yan‘s Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out
(Shengsi pilao) (2006) is another novel worth noting. With his characteristically untrammelled
narration, Mo Yan adopts a playfully satirical expression to provide an account of China’s half
century long history, in which Black Humor penetrates into the marrow and tragedy grows out
of rollicking actions. This work covers half a century of Chinese history from the years of land
reform in the countryside to the years of the Openness and Reform, integrating revolution
and change, history and violence, ideal and decadence into a vivid representation. The whole
story is narrated from the perspective of a landlord reincarnated as a series of animals including
a donkey, a cow, a pig, and a dog. This is a story of metamorphosis, in which the metaphysical
metamorphosis of Kafka is transformed into one of history, class, and Man in history. Using his
special narrative method, Mo Yan opens the gate of history to reveal its absurdity and tragedy. In
2009, Mo Yan published his novel Frogs (Wa), which is an introspection of the one-child policy
adopted by Chinese state for many years. By narrating the story of the narrator’s aunt who is
an obstetrcian, it examines the extreme pressures and catastrophic consequences cuased by the
state policy. The novel consists of a series of letters, narrative stories, and an opera, and displays
a freshly distinctive feature in organizational structure. In 2012, Mo Yan was awarded the Nobel
Prize for Literature, which is not simply a commendation of Mo Yan‘s literary achievements, but
also a recognition of the height to which modern Chinese literature has ascended.
Yan Lianke has been persistently writing the pains of rural China. The merging of history
and politics is one of the sources of the depth of his rural writings. His fictional narrative devel-
oped remarkably in the 1990s. Gradually, he approached the essential questions of life, inquir-
ing about the existential dilemmas that human beings have encountered under the pressures of
history. Flowing Years under the Sun (Riguang liunian) and Hard as Water (Jianying rushui) portray
the extremity of pains in rural lives. Lenin’s Kisses (Shou huo) published at the end of 2003
exhibits an explosion of Yan Lianke’s power of literary creation. Characterized by its most radical
description of the dilemmas of rural China, it narrates the extremely hard living conditions of a
village where most of its inhabitants are disabled folks. It is the first work that has ever conducted
such a unique investigation of the continuation, development, and transformation of the history
of revolution. In a sense, Lenin’s Kisses is doubtlessly a magic eulogy of the “post-Revolution.”
After that, his Popular Songs and Elegant Odes (Feng ya song) (2008) attempts again to delve into
the ostentatious superficiality of modern reality. The absurdity embedded in the novel is exag-
gerated beyond a reasonable limit at places, but it demonstrates the writer’s precious courage and
critical spirit, despite the fact that the job is truly beyond him.

Coda: new possibilities of Chinese literature

Chinese literature in the twentieth-first century faces strong challenges and profound trans-
formations. Nevertheless, it continues to face challenges of the new millennium via the time-
honored tradition. Since realistic rural narratives constitute the backbone of modern Chinese

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literature, its changes should anticipate the basic tendencies in present-day literature. The pro-
found mutations in the first few years of the new century are an indication of the trend in the
transformations of rural literature. First, the classical narrative of rural literature has come to an
end. For example, the narrative which views the native land as the spiritual home has lost its
significance or is gradually dying out. Second, rural literature has completely departed from the
socialist conception of “rural literature,” no longer having any ideological meaning. Third, rural
literature no longer has the desire to totalize history; it only narrates the historical ending of
rural China in a way full of nostalgic sentiments. Fourth, the rural literature of the new century
also narrates the ending of rural culture. Fifth, rural literature itself is undergoing aesthetic muta-
tions and exhibits the desire to deconstruct rural aesthetics. This means that it has become an
avant-gardist or postmodern narrative with intrinsic transformations.
While the avant-gardist nature of rural narrative has deconstructed its rural rusticity, it has
freed this genre from its local limitations, endowing Chinese literature with a more solid and
broad foundation to face the future. Binary oppositions such as those between tradition and
modernity, China and the world, rural and urban, East and West, modern and postmodern,
etc. – are no longer necessary for the unfolding of narratives. Instead, there have appeared freer
and more diversified manners of writing, enabling Chinese writers to create with distinctive
Chinese potency. This is an indication that there will be new possibilities for Chinese literature
in the new century; it is likely to be freer and more self-conscious, re-initiating its future in
broader perspectives.
In the profound transformation of rural narratives, we can see some vague sparks of post-
modernity, which serve gradually to dismantle obstacles that have remained impassible for a
long time. The immediate locality possesses a greater power, attains an aesthetic uniqueness, and
becomes a real unique “other” in contemporary world literature. As Mo Yan, Jia Pingwa, Yan
Lianke, Liu Zhenyun, and other writers of rural themes have initiated the literary movement,
the sparks of modernism or postmodernism, extinguished for a while, have rekindled visible
flames in their writings. It is seductively appealing; they have constituted a prophecy of what the
future of Chinese literature will be like in the darkness of the night when literature embarks on
its road once again.

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 CHINESE GLOSSARY
Selected names, terms, and work titles

A Cheng  阿城/阿城
A Night on the River Xiang  湘江一夜／湘江一夜
A Q zhengzhuan  阿Q正传/阿Q正傳
“A’mao guniang”  阿毛姑娘/阿毛姑娘
Ai Qing  艾青/艾青
“Ai shi buneng wangji de”  爱, 是不能忘记的/愛, 是不能忘記的
Ai Wu  艾芜／艾蕪
Aijiren  埃及人/埃及人
aimei ju  爱美剧/愛美劇
Alai  阿来/阿來
An Bo  安波/安波
Anhui wenxue  安徽文学/安徽文學
Anlian taohuayuan  暗恋桃花源／暗戀桃花源
Anni Baobei  安妮宝贝/安妮寶貝
Arishima Takeo  有岛武郎/有島武郎
Ba Jin  巴金/巴金
Bababa  爸爸爸/爸爸爸
Bai Hua  白桦/白樺
Bai Xianyong  白先勇/白先勇
baihua  白话／白話
“Baijin de nüti suxiang”  白金的女体塑像/白金的女體塑像
Bailu yuan  白鹿原/白鹿原
Baimao nü  白毛女/白毛女
Baiyu kugua  白玉苦瓜/白玉苦瓜
Bansheng yuan  半生缘/半生緣
Banzhuren  班主任/班主任
Baochun hua  报春花／報春花

697
 Chinese glossary

“Baodian”  薄奠/薄奠
Baofeng yuqian  暴风雨前/暴風雨前
Baoshi fuzi  包氏父子／包氏父子
Bashezhe  跋涉者/跋涉者
Bawang bieji  霸王别姬/霸王別姬
Bayue de xiangcun  八月的乡村／八月的鄉村
Bei ai yiwang de jiaoluo  被爱遗忘的角落/被愛遺忘的角落
Bei aiqing yiwang de jiaoluo  被爱情遗忘的角落/被愛情遺忘的角落
“Bei dangzuo xiaoqianpin de nanzi”  被当做消遣品的男子/被當做消遣品的男子
Bei Dao  北岛/北島
Bei dou  北斗/北斗
Bei yiwangle de shiqing  被遗忘了的事情/被遺忘了的事情
Beifang langzu  北方狼族/北方狼族
Beifang  北方/北方
Beijing ren  北京人/北京人
Beijing renyi  北京人艺／北京人藝
Beijing wenxue  北京文学/北京文學
“Beiying”  背影/背影
Benci lieche de zhongdian  本次列车的终点/本次列車的終點
Bense  本色/本色
Bian cheng  边城/邊城
Bian Zhilin  卞之琳/卞之琳
Bianzou bianchang  边走边唱/邊走邊唱
“Bie Xianggang”  别香港/別香港
“Bieli”  别离/別離
Bihui  笔汇/筆匯
“Bili shantou zhanwang”  笔立山头展望/筆立山頭展望
Bing Xin  冰心/冰心
Bixie jianpu  辟邪剑谱/闢邪劍譜
Bixue jian  碧血剑/碧血劍
Bodong  波动/波動
Bu laohu  布老虎/布老虎
Bu li  布礼/布禮
Bu Wancang  卜万苍/卜萬蒼
Bubu jingxin  步步惊心/步步驚心
Buguniao you jiaole  布谷鸟又叫了/布谷鳥又叫了
Buli  布礼/ 布禮
“Bumei”  不寐不寐
Buneng zou natiao lu  不能走那条路/不能走那條路
“Buren kaideng de yuangu”  不忍开灯的缘故/不忍開燈的緣故
“Buruqi de nüren”  哺乳期的女人/哺乳期的女人
Busi Junhun  不死军魂/不死軍魂
Butan aiqing  不谈爱情/不談愛情
Cai Chusheng  蔡楚生/蔡楚生
Cai Pi  曹丕/曹丕
Cai Qijiao  蔡其矫/蔡其矯
Cai Wenji  蔡文姬/蔡文姬
“Caishiji”  采石矶/採石磯

698
 Chinese glossary

Can Xue  残雪/殘雪

“Cangbaide zhongsheng”  苍白的钟声/蒼白的鐘聲
Cao Cao yu Yang Xiu  曹操与杨修／曹操與楊修
Cao Xueqin  曹雪芹/曹雪芹
Cao Yu  曹禺/曹禺
Chaguan  茶馆/茶館
Chang hen ge  长恨歌/長恨歌
“Changjian g sanri”  长江三日/長江三日
Changshi ji  尝试集/嘗試集
Che zhan  车站/車站
Chen Baichen  陈白尘/陳白塵
Chen Cun  陈村/陳村
Chen Gongmin  陈恭敏/陳恭敏
Chen Guokai  陈国开/陳國開
Chen Huangmei  陈荒煤/陳荒煤
Chen huansheng Jincheng  陈奂生进城/陳奐生進城
Chen Jiangong  陈建功/陳建功
Chen Jingrong  陈敬容／陳敬容
Chen Kaige  陈凯歌/陳凱歌
Chen Qitong  陈其通/陳其通
Chen Ruoxi  陈若曦/陳若曦
Chen Shixu  陈世旭/陳世旭
Chen Yaxian  陈亚先／陳亞先
Chen Yingzhen (Chen Yongshan)  陈映真/陳映真
Chen Yuanyuan  陈圆圆/陳圓圓
Chen Zhongshi  陈忠实/陳忠實
Chen’ai Luoding  尘埃落定/塵埃落定
Chenbao fukan  晨报副刊/晨報副刊
Chendong  辰东/辰東
Cheng Fangwu  成仿吾/成仿吾
Chenlun  沉沦/沈淪
Chenyi chunshan  陈毅出山／陳毅出山
Chenzhong de chibang  沉重的翅膀/沈重的翅膀
Chezhan  车站／車站
Chi cheng huang lü qing lan zi  赤橙黄绿青蓝紫/赤橙黃綠青藍紫
Chi Li  池莉/池莉
Chiang Kai-shek  蒋介石/蔣介石
Chidi zhi lian  赤地之恋/赤地之戀
“Chiguihua”  迟桂花/遲桂花
Chinese New Poetry Monthly  中国新诗月刊／中國新詩月刊
Chongfan kangri Zhanchang  重返抗日战场/重返抗日戰場
Chongfeng  重逢/重逢
Chongsheng 1942  重生1942/重生1942
Chongsheng zhi guandao  重生之官道/重生之官道
Chouchu de jijie  踌躇的季节/ 躊躇的季節
Chu kuang  楚狂/楚狂
Chuangzao jikan  创造季刊/創造季刊
Chuangzao she  创造社/創造社

699
 Chinese glossary

Chuangzao yuekan  创造月刊/創造月刊

chuanqi ju  传奇剧/傳奇劇
Chuanqi  传奇/傳奇
chuanyue xiaoshuo  穿越小说/穿越小說
Chuben  出奔/出奔
Chuci  楚辞/楚辭
“Chun can”  春蚕/春蠶
“Chun geng”  蓴羹/蓴羹
“Chun yang”  春阳/春陽
Chun zhi sheng  春之声/春之聲
Chun  春/春
Chunchao  春潮/春潮
“Chunfeng chenzui de wanshang”  春风沉醉的晚上/春風沉醉的晚上
Chunfeng chuidao Nuomin he  春风吹到诺敏河/春風吹到諾敏河
Chunguang zazhi  春光杂志／春光雜誌
Chunjin Jiangnan  春尽江南/春盡江南
Chunliu she  春柳社/春柳社
“Chunühang”  处女航/處女航
Chushenlun  出身论/出身論
“Cong Senlinli laide haizi”  从森林里来的孩子/從森林裏來的孩子
Cong Shen  丛深/叢深
Cong Weixi  丛维熙/叢維熙
Cong zheli kaishi  从这里开始/從這裡開始
Congjun xing  从军行/從軍行
Cui Dezhi  崔德志／崔德志
Cunmang  寸芒/吋芒
Cuotuo suiyue  蹉跎岁月/蹉跎歲月
Da liu zhuang  大刘庄/大劉莊
Da yuebing  大阅兵/大閱兵
da zhiwuyuan zhuyi  大植物园主义/大植物園主義
Dabo  大波/大波
Dagong bao  大公报/大公報
Dahai tingzhi zhi chu  大海停止之处/大海停止之處
Dahe bengliu  大河奔流/大河奔流
dahe xiaoshuo  大河小说/大河小說
Dai Houying  戴厚英/戴厚英
Dai Wangshu  戴望舒/戴望舒
Dalu  大路/大路
Dan jian pian  胆剑篇/膽劍篇
“Dan jian pian”  胆剑篇/膽劍篇
Dangdai zuojia pinglun  当代作家评论/當代作家評論
Dangdai  当代/當代
Daomu biji  盗墓笔记/盜墓筆記
Daomu xiaoshuo  盗墓小说/盜墓小說
Daoshi xiashan  道士下山/道士下山
Daqiangxiade hong yulan  大墙下的红玉兰/大墻下的紅玉蘭
Datang xingbiao  大唐行镖/大唐行鏢
Dayanhe, wode baomu  大堰河我的褓母/大堰河我的褓母

700
 Chinese glossary

Deng Xiaoping  邓小平/ 鄧小平

Deng Youmei  邓友梅/鄧友梅
Di er ci woshou  第二次握手/第二次握手
Di’er ge taiyang  第二个太阳/第二個太陽
dianxing huanjing  典型环境/典型環境
dianxing renwu  典型人物/典型人物
“Diao Luoma”  吊罗马/吊羅馬
difangxi  地方戏／地方戲
Ding Ling  丁玲/丁玲
Ding Yisan  丁一山／丁一山
“Dingdian”  顶点/頂點
“Dinghu de shenhua”  鼎湖的神话/鼎湖的神話
Dingjun shan  定军山/定軍山
dingxiang kong jie yu zhong chou  丁香空结雨中愁/丁香空結雨中愁
Disizhong juben  第四种剧本/第四種劇本
Diyi xian shudian  第一线书店/第一線書店
Diyici Qinmi Jiechu  第一次亲密接触/第一次親密接觸
“Diyijian chaishi”  第一件差事/第一件差事
Dongfang Bai  东方白/東方白
Dongfang yu xiao  东方欲晓/東方欲曉
Dongtian de tonghua  冬天的故事/冬天的故事
Dongxiao hengchui  洞箫横吹/洞簫橫吹
Dongyao  动摇/動搖
Dou E yuan  窦娥冤/窦娥冤
Douluo dalu  斗罗大陆/斗羅大陸
Doupo cangqiong  斗破苍穹/鬥破蒼穹
Du Heng  杜衡/杜衡
Du Yin  杜印/杜印
Du Yunxie  杜运燮／杜運燮
Duan Chengbin  段承滨/段承濱
Duanlian  锻炼/鍛鍊
Duanmu Hongliang  端木蕻良／端木蕻良
“Duannai”  断奶/斷奶
Dubu tianxia  独步天下/獨步天下
Dushi fengjingxian  都市风景线/都市風景線
dushi qiqing pai  都市奇情派/都市奇情派
Dushi xiaoshuo  都市小说/都市小說
Eileen Chang (Zhang Ailing)  张爱玲/張愛玲
Er Ma  二马/二馬
Er yue  二月／二月
Ertong shidai  儿童时代/兒童時代
fan aozi  翻鏊子/翻鏊子
“Fan youchi de”  凡有翅的/凡有翅的
Fan Yusu  范雨素/范雨素
Fang Zhi  方之/方之
Fangfeng zhi ge  芳菲之歌/芳菲之歌
fangkuaishi  方块诗／方塊詩
Fangzhou  方舟/方舟

701
 Chinese glossary

Fannao rensheng  烦恼人生/煩惱人生

Fanren li tongzhong  犯人李铜钟/犯人李銅鐘
Fanren xiuxian zhuan  凡人修仙传/凡人修仙傳
fansi wenxue  反思文学/反思文學
Faxisi xijun  法西斯细菌/法西斯細菌
Fei Ming  废名/廢名
Fei Mu  费穆 /費穆
Feihu waizhuan  飞狐外传/飛狐外傳
Feilengcui de yiye  翡冷翠的一夜／翡冷翠的一夜
“Feitu song”  匪徒颂/匪徒頌
“Feiyue de quan”  吠月的犬/吠月的犬
Feng Jicai  冯骥才/馮驥才
Feng Menglong  冯梦龙/馮夢龍
Feng Wenbing  冯文炳/馮文炳
Feng Xuefeng  冯雪峰/馮雪峰
Feng Zhi  冯至／馮至
Feng Zhi shiwen xuanji  冯至诗文选集(1955)／馮至詩文選集(1955)
Feng Zhi shixuan  冯至诗选／馮至詩選
Feng  枫/楓
“Fenghuang niepan”  凤凰涅槃/鳳凰涅槃
Fengru feitun  丰乳肥臀/豐乳肥臀
Fengshou  丰收／豐收
Fengsuo  封锁/封鎖
Fengyue  风月/風月
Fengyun chuji  风云初记/風雲初記
Fengzheng piaodai  风筝飘带/ 風箏飄帶
Funü daibiao  妇女代表/婦女代表
Fuqin yu minguo  父亲与民国/父親與民國
Furong zhen  芙蓉镇/芙蓉鎮
Fusheng liuji  浮生六记/浮生六記
Fushi  腐蚀/腐蝕
Fuzao  浮躁/浮躁
Ganche zhuan  赶车传/趕車傳
“Ganxie shangdi”  感谢上帝/感謝上帝
“Ganxie zhu”  感谢主/感謝主
Gao Ganda  高干大/高幹大
Gao Jianli  高渐离/高漸離
Gao Shengliang  高生亮/高生亮
Gao Xiaosheng  高晓声/高曉聲
Gao Xingjian juzuo xuan  高行健剧作选/高行健劇作選
Gao Xingjian  高行健
Gaojie de qingsong  高洁的青松/高潔的青松
Gaoshanxia de huahuan  高山下的花环/高山下的花環
Ge Fei  格非/格非
Gechuanjiang xilie xiaoshuo  葛川江系列小说/葛川江系列小説
“Gei Wangwu”  给亡妇/給亡婦
“Gei xin wenxue chongxin duandai de liyou”  给新文学重新断代的理由/給新文學重新斷
代的理由

702
 Chinese glossary

Gei zhandouzhe  给战斗者/

Gesar Wang  格萨尔王/ 格薩爾王
Geshui guanyin  隔水观音/隔水觀音
Gong Qiaoming  龚巧明/龔巧明
Gongkai de qingshu  公开的情书/公開的情書
Gongmu  公墓/公墓
Gongxi facai  恭喜发财/恭喜發財
Gou’er ye niepan  狗儿爷涅槃／狗兒爺涅槃
Great Changes in a Mountain Village  山乡巨变／山鄉巨變
Gu Cheng  古城/古城
Gu Hua  古华/古華
“Gu shenci qian”  古神祠前/古神祠前
Guan Hanqing  关汉卿/關漢卿
Guanghan Gong  广寒宫/廣寒宮
Guanghua daxue  光华大学/光華大學
Guangming ribao  光明日报/光明日報
“Guangrong”  光荣/光榮
“Guanyu kucha”  关于苦茶/關於苦茶
“Guanyu Xiaobaozhuang de duihua”  关于《小鲍庄》的对话/關於《小鮑莊》的對話
guanzhong xuepai  关中学派/關中學派
“Gudao”  孤岛/孤島
Gui chui deng  鬼吹灯/鬼吹燈
“Guilai yin”  归来吟/歸來吟
guilai zuojia  归来作家/ 歸來作家
Guilai  归来/歸來
“Guixiang”  归乡/歸鄉
Gun Xiuqiu  滚绣球/滾繡球
Guo Kaizhen  郭开贞/郭開貞
Guo Moruo  郭沫若/郭沫若
Guo Shixing  过士行／過士行
Guo Xiaochuan  郭小川/郭小川
guofang wenxue  国防文学/國防文學
Guofang xiju  国防戏剧/國防戲劇
Guomin ribao  国民日报/國民日報
Guoqu ji  过去集/過去集
“Guoshang”  国殇/國殤
Gushi xinbian  故事新编/故事新編
“Guxiang”  故乡/故鄉
Guzhu Jun zhi Erzi  孤竹君之二子/孤竹君之二子
Hai Mo  海默/海默
“Hai Rui baguan”  海瑞罢官/海瑞罷官
Haibian shibei  海边拾贝/海邊拾貝
“Haiji”  海祭/海祭
“Haishi”  海市/海市
Haizhuqiao  海珠桥／海珠橋
Haizi wang  孩子王/孩子王
Han Shaogong  韩少功/韓少功
Han Yu  韩愈/韓愈

703
 Chinese glossary

“Hanfeng zhong wen que sheng”  寒风中闻雀声/寒風中聞雀聲

Hang Yuehe  杭约赫／杭約赫
Hanhui ji  寒灰集/寒灰集
Hao Ran  浩然/浩然
“He cha”  喝茶/喝茶
He de zisun  河的子孙/河的子孫
He Jingzhi  贺敬之/賀敬之
He Jiping  何冀平／何冀平
He Qifang  何其芳/何其芳
He Shiguang  何士光/何士光
Hehua dian  荷花淀/荷花淀
Heiwa zhaoxiang  黑娃照相/黑娃照相
Heizi  黑子／黑子
“Hengxing wuchang”  星无常/恆星無常
Heni zaiyiqi  和你在一起/和你在一起
Hong  虹/虹
Hong gaoliang  红高粱/紅高粱
Hong Shen  洪深／洪深
Hong shulin  红树林/紅樹林
Hong Zicheng  洪子诚/洪子誠
Honghong de shandanhua  红红的山丹花/紅紅的山丹花
Hongloumeng  红楼梦/紅樓夢
Hongqi yao  红旗谣/紅旗謡
Hongqi  红旗/紅旗
Hongse niangzijun  红色娘子军/紅色娘子軍
Hongxiu tianxiang  红袖添香/紅袖添香
Hongyan  红岩/紅岩
Hongzhu  红烛／紅燭
Hu Feng  胡风／胡風
Hu Jieqing  胡絜青/胡絜青
Hu Ling  胡零/胡零
Hu Qiaomu  胡乔木/胡喬木
Hu Qiuyuan胡秋原/胡秋原
Hu Shi  胡适／胡適
Hu Yaobang  胡耀邦/胡耀邦
Hu Yepin  胡也频/胡也頻
Hua Fu  华夫/華夫
“Huai Yangzhou”  怀扬州/懷揚州
huaju  话剧/話劇
Huang Chunming  黄春明/黃春明
Huang Jisu  黄纪苏／黃紀蘇
Huang Meixu  黄美序／黃美序
Huang tudi  黄土地/黃土地
Huang Zuolin  黄佐临／黃佐臨
huangdan chuanju  荒诞川剧／荒誕川劇
Huanghe dong liuqu  黄河东流去/黃河東流去
Huangshan zhi lian  荒山之恋/荒山之戀
Huanmie  幻灭/幻滅

704
 Chinese glossary

“Huanxiang ji”  还乡记/還鄉記

Huayuanjie wuhao  花园街五号/花園街五號
Huazhede xingyin  画者的行吟／畫者的行吟
Hudie  蝴蝶/蝴蝶
“Hudie furen”  蝴蝶夫人/蝴蝶夫人
Hufu  虎符/虎符
Hui changge de yuanwei hua  会唱歌的鸢尾花/會唱歌的鳶尾花
Hui Ming  回明/回明
Hui Yan’an  回延安/回延安
“Huida”  回答/回答
Hulan he zhuan  呼兰河传／呼蘭河傳
Huo  火／火
Huo qi xiaoqiang  祸起萧墙/禍起蕭墻
Huohu zhiye  获虎之夜／獲虎之夜
Huoshao hongliansi  火烧紅蓮寺/火燒紅蓮寺
Huozhe  活着/活着
Ji Kang  嵇康/嵇康
Ji Xian (Lu Yu; also Luyishi)  纪弦/紀弦
Ji xiaoduzhe  寄小读者/寄小讀者
“Ji Zou Ming”  记邹明/記鄒明
“Jia”  家/家
Jia Pingwa  贾平凹/賈平凹
jiakong lishi xiaoshuo  架空历史小说/架空歷史小說
Jian Xian’ai  蹇先艾/蹇先艾
Jiang Bingzhi  蒋冰之/蔣冰之
Jiang Guangci  蒋光慈／蔣光慈
Jiang Gui  姜贵/姜貴
Jiang He  江河/江河
Jiang Zilong  蒋子龙/蔣子龍
“Jiangjinjiu”  将进酒/將進酒
Jiangjun di tou  将军底头/將軍底頭
Jiangjun yin  将军吟/將軍吟
“Jiangjunzu”  将军族/將軍族
Jiangnan Sanbuqu  江南三部曲/江南三部曲
jiangyang yun  江阳韵/江陽韵
“Jianli xin minzu shixing zhi chuyi”  建立新民族诗型之刍议/建立新民族詩型之芻議
Jiao Zuyao  焦祖尧/焦祖堯
Jiaoliu  交流／交流
Jiaru wo shi zhende  假如我是真的／假如我是真的
Jiefang ribao  解放日报/解放日報
jietou shi  街头诗/街頭詩
Jin He  金河/金河
Jin Shengtan  金圣叹/金聖嘆
Jin Shijie  金士杰／金士傑
Jin Yong  金庸/金庸
Jin Yong zuopin ji  金庸作品集/金庸作品集
Jindai wenyi  近代文艺/近代文藝
“Jing”  静/靜

705
 Chinese glossary

Jingdulang  京都狼/京都狼
jingju  京剧／京劇
Jingke ci qinwang  荆轲刺秦王/荊軻刺秦王
Jinguang dadao  金光大道/金光大道
“Jinian gu shiren Apolinei’er”  纪念故诗人阿波里内尔／紀念故詩人阿波里內爾
Jinsuo ji  金锁记/金鎖記
Jintian  今天/今天
Jinxiu gu zhi lian  锦绣谷之恋/錦繡谷之戀
“Jinzita”  金字塔/金字塔
“Jiri”  祭日/祭日
Jishi yu xugou  纪实与虚构/紀實與虛構
Jiu shidai de si  旧时代之死／舊時代之死
Jiuguo  酒国/酒國
Jiwowa renjia  鸡窝洼人家/鷄窩窪人家
“Ju song”  菊颂/菊頌
Juedui xinhao  绝对信号 ／絕對信號
Kaoyan  考验/考驗
Kawakami Hajime  河上肇/河上肇
Ke Yunlu  柯云路/柯雲路
kehuan xiaoshuo pai  科幻小说派/科幻小說派
“Kezhi”  可知/可知
Kong Jiesheng  孔捷生/孔捷生
Kong Shangren  孔尚任/孔尚任
Kongbu jiaoxue lou  恐怖教学楼/恐怖教學樓
Kongque Dan  孔雀胆/孔雀膽
Kongshan  空山/ 空山
Ku dou  苦斗/苦鬥
Kuanghuan de jijie  狂欢的季节/ 狂歡的季節
“Kuangren riji”  狂人日记/狂人日记
“Kuangren riji: fanfeng de migong”  狂人日记：反讽的迷宫/狂人日記：反諷的迷宮
“Kuayue wenhua duanliedai”  跨越文化断裂带/跨越文化斷裂帶
Kuihua baodian  葵花宝典/葵花寶典
Kulian  苦恋/苦戀
Kulou Jingling  骷髅精灵/骷髏精靈
Kunlun  昆仑/昆侖
kunqu  崑曲/崑曲
Kuomintang (KMT)  国民党/國民黨
Kuyu  苦雨/苦雨
Lai He  赖和/賴和
Lai lai wang wang  来来往往/來來往往
Lai Sheng-chuan  赖声川／賴聲川
Laji pai  垃圾派/垃圾派
“Lang zhi changhao”  狼之长嚎/狼之長嚎
“Lang zhi dubu”  狼之独步/狼之獨步
langman pai  浪漫派/浪漫派
Lanse de chibang  蓝色的翅膀/藍色的翅膀
Lanshe  兰社/蘭社
Lanxun jiumeng lu  懒寻旧梦录/懶尋舊夢錄

706
 Chinese glossary

Lanyou  兰友/蘭友
Lao Gui  老鬼/老鬼
Lao She  老舍/老舍
Lao Zhang de zhexue  老张的哲学 /老張的哲學
Laobing xinzhuan  老兵新传/老兵新傳
Laogong zhi aiqing  劳工之爱情/勞工之愛情
“Laolai wuqing”  老来无情/老來無情
Laoren yu gou  老人与狗/老人與狗
Laorencang  老人仓/老人倉
Laoyin  烙印/烙印
Laozi  老子/老子
Layue, zhengyue  腊月，正月/臘月，正月
“Leiyu qian”  雷雨前/雷雨前
Leiyu  雷雨／雷雨
Li Guangtian  李广田／李廣田
Li Guowen  李国文/李國文
Li Guoxiu  李国修／李國修
Li Hangyu  李杭育/李杭育
Li Jian  李剑/李劍
Li Jianwu  李健吾/李健吾
Li Jieren  李劼人/李劼人
Li Jieren yanjiu  李劼人研究/李劼人研究
Li Jieren yanjiu xuehui  李劼人研究学会/李劼人研究學會
Li Jinfa  李金发/李金髮
Li Longyun  李龙云／李龍雲
Li Mangui  李曼瑰／李曼瑰
Li Moran  李默然／李默然
Li Qiao  李乔/李喬
Li Shoucheng  李守成／李守成
Li Shuangshuang xiaozhuan  李双双小传/李雙雙小傳
Li shunda zaowu  李顺大造屋/李順大造屋
Li Xin  李歆/李歆
Li Xiucheng zhi si  李秀成之死/李秀成之死
Li Xunhuan  李寻欢/李尋歡
“Li yi li womende gen”  理一理我们的根/理一理我們的根
Li Youcai banhua  李有才板话/李有才板話
Li Zehou  李泽厚/李澤厚
Li Zhun  李凖/李凖
Lian de lianxiang  莲的联想/蓮的聯想
Lian’ai de jijie  恋爱的季节/ 戀愛的季節
Lian’ai yu yiwu  恋爱与义务/戀愛與義務
Liancheng jue  连城诀/連城訣
Liang Jinguang  梁金广/梁金廣
Liang Qichao  梁启超/梁啟超
Liang Shiqiu  梁实秋/梁實秋
Liang Xiaosheng  梁晓声/梁曉聲
Liang Yusheng  梁羽生/梁羽生
Liang Zongdai  梁宗岱/梁宗岱

707
 Chinese glossary

Liangmian ren  两面人/兩面人

Lianpeng Guihua  莲蓬鬼话/蓮蓬鬼話
Liaozhai zhiyi  聊斋志异/聊齋誌異
Libailiu  礼拜六/禮拜六
Lihe gu de shi  李河谷的诗/李河谷的詩
Lihun  离婚/離婚
Lijiazhuang de bianqian  李家庄的变迁/李家莊的變遷
“Lin jia puzi”  林家铺子/林家鋪子
Lin Liankun  林连昆／林連崑
Lin Shu  林纾/林紓
Lin Yutang  林语堂/林語堂
Lin Zhaohua  林兆华／林兆華
Ling yu rou  灵与肉/靈與肉
Linghun de bodou  灵魂的搏斗/靈魂的搏鬥
Lingshan  灵山/靈山
Lingting  聆听／聆聽
Lingyi xiaoshuo  灵异小说/靈異小說
Linhai xueyuan  林海雪原/林海雪原
“Lisao”  离骚/離騒
Lisao  离骚/離騷
Liu an hua ming  柳暗花明/柳暗花明
Liu Baiyu  刘白羽/劉白羽
Liu E  刘娥/劉娥
Liu Heng  刘恒/劉恆
Liu Jinyun  刘锦云／劉錦雲
Liu Na’ou  刘呐鸥/劉吶鷗
Liu Qing  柳青/柳青
Liu Shugang  刘树纲／劉樹綱
Liu Xiangru  刘相如/劉相如
Liu Xie  刘勰/劉勰
Liu Xinwu  刘心武/劉心武
Liu Xiwei  刘西渭/劉西渭
Liu Yichang  刘以鬯/劉以鬯
“Liulangren de yege”  流浪人的夜歌/流浪人的夜歌
Liuyan  流言/流言
“Lizhi mi”  荔枝蜜/荔枝蜜
Longxu gou  龙须沟/龍須溝
Longzhong  龙种/龍種
Lou Shiyi  楼适夷/樓適夷
“Loudouhu” chen huansheng “漏斗户陈奂生”/「漏斗戶」陳奐生
Lu ban de houyi  鲁班的后裔/魯班的後裔
Lu ding ji  鹿鼎记/鹿鼎記
Lü Heruo  吕赫若/呂赫若
Lü Lun  侣伦/侶倫
Lü Shasha  吕莎莎／呂莎莎
Lu Wenfu  陆文夫/陸文夫
Lu Xinhua  卢新华/盧新華
Lu Xun  鲁迅/魯迅

708
 Chinese glossary

Lu Xun quanji  鲁迅全集/魯迅全集

Lu Xun xiaoshuo li de renwu  鲁迅小说里的人物/魯迅小說里的人物
Lu Xun xiaoshuo quanbian  鲁迅小说全编/魯迅小說全編
Lu Xun yanjiu yuekan  鲁迅研究月刊/魯迅研究月刊
Lu Yanzhou  鲁彦周/魯彥周
Lu Yao  路遥/路遙
Luanshi nan nü  乱世男女/亂世男女
Ludi  芦笛／蘆笛
Luhua dang  芦花荡/蘆花蕩
Lühuashu  绿化树/綠化樹
“Lun wenren”  论文人/論文人
“Lun yizhi zhi hua”  论移植之花/論移植之花
Lunyu  论语/論語
Luo Fu (Lo Fu)  洛夫/洛夫
Luo Guangbin  罗广斌/羅廣斌
“Luo Huasheng”  落花生/落花生
Luofushan xuelei ji  罗浮山血泪祭/羅浮山血淚祭
Luotuo Xiangzi  骆驼祥子/駱駝祥子
Luoye  落叶/落葉
Lushi Canjun  录事参军/錄事參軍
Ma Feng  马烽/馬烽
Ma Sen  马森／馬森
Ma Yuan  马原/馬原
“Maiyi tongzi”  卖艺童子/賣兿童子
Malu tianshi  马路天使/馬路天使
Mang Ke  芒克/芒克
Manman Qingluo  蔓蔓青萝/蔓蔓青蘿
Mao Dun  茅盾/茅盾
Mao Zedong  毛泽东/毛澤東
Maocheng ji  猫城记/貓城記
Maoqiang  猫腔/貓腔
Masai  马赛／馬賽
Maxu Weibang  马徐维邦/馬徐維邦;
Mei Lanfang  梅兰芳/梅蘭芳
“Mei you zhuyi”  没有注意/沒有注意
Meigui can le  玫瑰残了/玫瑰殘了
Meishijia  美食家/美食家
Meiyou jianji de gushi  没有剪辑的故事/沒有剪輯的故事
Meiyou niukou de hong chenshan  没有纽扣的红衬衫/沒有紐扣的紅襯衫
Meiyou shijian de shijian  没有时间的时间/沒有時間的時間
“Meiyu zhi xi”  梅雨之夕/梅雨之夕
Meng Jiao  孟郊/孟郊
Meng Jinghui  孟京辉／孟京輝
“Meng Ke”  梦珂/夢珂
Meng Yao  孟瑶/孟瑤
“Meng Zhongnanshan”  梦钟南山/夢鍾南山
Menghu ji  猛虎集／猛虎集
Menghui Daqing  梦回大清/夢回大清

709
 Chinese glossary

menglong shi  朦胧诗/朦朧詩

“Mengxiang”  梦想/夢想
Mi  米/米
Mianju yu eyu  面具与鳄鱼/面具與鰐魚
“Miantan”  面摊/麵攤
Mingbao  明报/明報
Mingbao yuekan  明报月刊/明報月刊
Minglang de tian  明朗的天/明朗的天
Mingri she  明日社／明日社
Mingzuo xinshang  名作欣赏/名作欣賞
Minzhu tongmeng  民主同盟／民主同盟
Miyang  迷羊/迷羊
Mo Yan  莫言/莫言
Mo Yingfeng  莫应丰/莫應豐
mohuan pai  魔幻派/魔幻派
Moli xiangpian  茉莉香片/茉莉香片
Mu Dan  穆旦／穆旦
Mu Mutian  穆木天/穆木天
Mu Shiying  穆时英/穆時英
“Mu’ai”  母爱/母愛
Mudan ting  牡丹亭/牡丹亭
Mulan congjun  木兰从军/木蘭從軍
Muma ren  牧马人/牧馬人
Muqin  母亲/母親
Murong Xuecun  慕容雪村/慕容雪村
Na yi ye  那一夜/那一夜
Nabian  那边／那邊
Nahan  呐喊/吶喊
Nanbeiji  南北极/南北極
Nanguan Cao  南宫草/南宮草
Nanguo she  南国社/南國社
nanlai zuojia  南来作家/南來作家
Nanpai Sanshu  南派三叔/南派三叔
“Nanqian”  南迁/南遷
Nanyang xuehui  南洋学会/南洋學會
Neijian  内奸/内奸
Ni Kuang  倪匡/倪匡
“Nian nu jiao”  念奴娇/念奴嬌
“Nianqing de yidai”  年青的一代/年青的一代
Niao Ren  鸟人／鳥人
Nie Ying  聂嫈/聶嫈
Nie Zheng  聂政/聶政
Niezi  孽子/孽子
“Night”  夜/夜
Nihong dengxia de shaobing  霓虹灯下的哨兵/霓虹燈下的哨兵
Nine Leaves  九叶集／九葉集
“Ninglei chumen”  凝泪出门/凝涙出門
Nitu de ge  泥土的歌/泥土的歌

710
 Chinese glossary

Niu Tianci zhuan  牛天赐传/牛天賜傳

Niu Zhaolian  牛兆濂/牛兆濂
Niuyueke  纽约客/紐約客
Nongcun sabu qu  农村三部曲/農村三部曲
Nülan wuhao  女篮五号/女籃五號
Nününü  女女女/女女女
Nuorilang  诺日朗/諾日朗
Nüshen  女神/女神
Nüshen zhi zaisheng  女神之再生/女神之再生
nüxing wenxue  女性文学/女性文學
Ouyang Benyi  欧阳本义/歐翰本義
Ouyang Shan  欧阳山/歐陽山
Ouyang Youquan  欧阳友权/歐陽友權
Ouyang Yuqian  欧阳予倩/歐陽予倩
Ouyang Zhonghu  欧阳中鹄/歐陽中鵠
Paman qingteng de muwu  爬滿青藤的木屋/爬滿青藤的木屋
Pan Jinlian  潘金莲/潘金蓮
Panghuang  彷徨/徬徨
Panlong  盘龙/盤龍
Peng Ge  彭歌/彭歌
Pianzi  骗子／騙子
Piaoling Xianb i  飘零闲笔/飄零閒筆
Piaoshi de hua toujin  飘逝的花头巾/飄逝的花頭巾
Ping Guo Xiaochuan de wangxingkong  评郭小川的望星空/評郭小川的望星空
Pingfeng hou  屏风后/屏風後
Pingyuan  平原/平原
Pizi Cai  痞子蔡/痞子蔡
Poetry Creation  诗创造／詩創造
Pofu  泼妇/潑婦
Pu Songling  蒲松龄/蒲松齡
Puhua de qilu  铺花的歧路/舖花的歧路
puluo wenxue  普罗文学／普羅文學
pusu  朴素／樸素
Qi Ren  棋人／棋人
“Qi yu liu”  七与六/七與六
Qian Liqun  钱理群／錢理群
Qian Zhongshu  钱钟书/錢鍾書
“Qianwan buyao wangji”  千万不要忘记/千萬不要忘記
Qiao changzhang shangren ji  乔厂长上任记/喬廠長上任記
Qiao changzhang waizhuan  乔厂长外传/喬廠長外傳
Qiao  桥/橋
“Qiaodayue”  敲打乐/敲打樂
Qidian zhongwenwang  起点中文网/起點中文網
Qie Ming  窃明/竊明
Qilu xuekan  齐鲁学刊/齊魯學刊
Qin Mu  秦牧/秦牧
Qing Cheng zhi lian  倾城之恋/傾城之戀
qingchu jingshen wuran  清楚精神污染/清楚精神污染

711
 Chinese glossary

Qingchun Wansui  青春万岁/ 青春萬歲

Qingchun zhi ge  青春之歌/青春之歌
Qingyi  青衣/青衣
Qinqiang  秦腔/
Qiu  秋/秋
Qiwang  棋王/棋王
Qiyue  七月/七月
Qu Bo  曲波/曲波
Qu Qiubai  瞿秋白/瞿秋白
Qu Yuan  屈原/屈原
Quzhong ji  曲终集/曲終集
Remin wenxue  人民文学/人民文學
Ren a ren  人啊，人！/人啊，人！
Ren dao zhongnian  人到中年/人到中年
Ren shou gui  人兽鬼/人獸鬼
Renjian shi  人间世/人間世
Renjian  人间/人間
Renmian taohua  人面桃花/人面桃花
Renmin ribao  人民日报 /人民日報
Renmin wenxue  人民文学/人民文學
Rensheng  人生/人生
Ri chu  日出/日出
“Richu”  日出/日出
River of Iron  铁水奔流／鐵水奔流
Rongshuxia  榕树下/榕樹下
Rou Shi  柔石／柔石
Ru Xin  汝信/汝信
Ru Zhijuan  茹志鹃/茹志鵑
Ruan Ji  阮籍/阮籍
Ruan Lingu  阮玲玉/阮玲玉
ruanxing dianying  软性电影/軟性電影
“San ge fanshenlunzhe”  三个泛神论者/三個泛神論者
San Jia Xiang  三家巷/三家巷
Renan shandi jumin shenghuo sumiao san tuchu  三突出/三突出
“Sanbajie yougan”  三八节有感/三八節有感
“Sanbu de yu”  散步的鱼/散步的魚
Sangshuping jishi  桑树坪纪事／桑樹坪紀事
Sanli wan  三里湾/三里灣
Sanqianli Jiangshan  三千里江山/三千里江山
Sanshengshi  三生石/三生石
Sanshi qianji  三十前集/三十前集
sanwen  散文／散文
Sanyeji  三叶集／三葉集
Satō Tomiko  佐藤富子
Se Jie  色戒/色戒
Sha Ting  沙汀／沙汀
Sha Yexin  沙叶新／沙葉新
“Shafei nüshi de riji”  莎菲女士性的日记/莎菲女士的日記

712
 Chinese glossary

Shan nüren xingpin  善女人行品/善女人行品

“Shanghai de hubuwu”  上海的狐步舞/上海的狐步舞
Shanghai qunzhong zazhi  上海群众杂志／上海群眾雜誌
Shanghai wangshi  上海往事/上海往事
Shanghai wenxue  上海文学/上海文學
Shanghai xiju xieshe  上海戏剧协社/上海戲劇協社
Shanghai yishu jushe  上海艺术剧社/上海藝術劇社
Shanghen  伤痕/傷痕
shanghen wenxue  伤痕文学/傷痕文學
“Shangren fu”  商人妇/商人婦
shangshan xiaxiang  上山下乡/上山下鄉
Shangshi jie  商市街/商市街
“Shangxiao”  上校/上校
Shangyuan deng  上元灯/上元燈
Shangzhou chulu  商州初录/商州初錄
Shanhai jing  山海经/山海經
Shanhe Rumeng  山河入梦/山河入夢
“Shanlu”  山路/山路
Shaonainai de shanzi  少奶奶的扇子/少奶奶的扇子
Shaonian piaobozhe  少年漂泊者／少年漂泊者
Shaonian Zhongguo xuehui  少年中国学会/少年中國學會
Shediao yingxiong zhuan  射雕英雄传/射雕英雄傳
Shen Congwen  沈从文/沈從文
Shen Fu  沈复/沈復
Shen Rong  谌容/諶容
Shen Xiling  沈西苓/沈西苓
Shen Ximeng  沈西蒙/沈西蒙
Shen Yanbing  沈雁冰/沈雁冰
Shendiao xialü  神雕侠侣/神鵰俠侶
Sheng di  圣地/聖地
Sheng guan tu  升官图/陞官圖
Shenghuo de lu  生活的路/生活的路
Shenghuo sanbuqu  生活三部曲/生活三部曲
“Shengli de si”  胜利的死/勝利的死
Shenglong dao  升龙道/升龍道
Shengsi chang  生死场／生死場
Shengsi hen  生死恨/生死恨
Shengsi pilao  生死疲劳/生死疲勞
Shenmu  神墓/神墓
Shenmuxiangqian  圣母像前/聖母像前
Shennü 神女/神女
Shensheng de shiming  神圣的使命/神聖的使命
Shentu shi  申屠氏/申屠氏
Shi Dakai de molu  石达开的末路/石達開的末路
“Shi de miewang”  诗的灭亡/詩的滅亡
Shi Nai’an  施耐庵/施耐庵
Shi Tiesheng  史铁生/史鐵生
“Shi Xiu”  石秀/石秀

713
 Chinese glossary

Shi yuekan  诗月刊／詩月刊

Shi Zhecun  施蛰存/施蟄存
Shi  蚀/蝕
Shifu  师父/師父
Shige yuebao  诗歌月报／詩歌月報
Shiji  史记/史記
Shijing  诗经/詩經
shiju  诗剧/詩劇
Shikan  诗刊/詩刊
Shike yu xiongnian  食客与凶年/食客與凶年
Shili dian  十里店/十里店
“Shinian kanshan”  十年看山/十年看山
“shisan zhe”  十三辙／十三轍
Shishi zhi siwang  石室之死亡/石室之死亡
Shishōsetsu  私小说/私小説
Shisihang ji  十四行集／十四行集
Shitai de jijie  失态的季节/ 失態的季節
“Shiyiyue de huaixiangbing”  十一月的怀乡病/十一月的懷鄉病
Shizi jietou  十字街頭/十字街頭
Shizuniao  水族鸟/水族鳥
“Shoucangjia”  收藏家/收藏家
shouchaoben  手抄本/手抄本
Shouhuo  收获／收穫
“Shouyeren”  守夜人/守夜人
Shu Qingchun  舒庆春/舒慶春
Shu Ting  舒婷/舒婷
Shuang ye hong si eryue hua  霜叶红似二月花/霜葉紅似二月花
Shui Yunxian  水运宪/水運憲
“Shui”  水/水
Shuihu zhuan  水浒传/水浒傳
Shuijing zhu  水经注/水經注
Shuimo shudian  水沫书店/水沫書店
“Shujia zhong”  暑假中/暑假中
Shujian enchou lu  书剑恩仇录/書劍恩仇錄
“Shunian  鼠年/鼠年
shuqu cao  鼠曲草／鼠曲草
Shushan jianxia zhuan  蜀山剑侠传/蜀山劍俠傳
Shuwang  树王/樹王
shuyun  疏韵
Sifan  思凡／思凡
Sima Qian  司马迁/司馬遷
Sinianni, hualin  思念你，桦林！/思念你，樺林！
Sishengci jie  四圣祠街/四聖祠街
Sishi tongtang  四世同堂/四世同堂
Sishiyi pao  四十一炮/四十一炮
Sishui weilan  死水微澜/死水微瀾
“Sishui”  死水／死水
Song Yu  宋玉/宋玉

714
 Chinese glossary

Su Manchu  苏曼殊/蘇曼殊
Su Tong  苏童/蘇童
Su Wen  苏汶/蘇汶
Su Xuelin  苏雪林/蘇雪林
Suixianglu  随想录／隨想錄
Sun Li  孙犁/孫犁
Sun Yu  孙瑜/孫瑜
Ta shi yige ruo nüzi  她是一个弱女子/她是一個弱女子
Ta ye yao sharen  她也要杀人/她也要殺人
Tai Jingnong  台静农/臺靜農
Taibei ren  台北人/台北人
“Taishan jiding”  泰山极顶/泰山極頂
Taiyang chushi  太阳出世/太陽出世
Taiyang he ta de fanguang  太阳和他的反光/太陽和他的反光
“Taiyang liza”  太阳礼赞/太陽禮贊
Taiyang zhao zai Sanggan heshang  太阳照在桑干河上/太陽照在桑乾河上
Tan Sitong  谭嗣同/譚嗣同
Tan wangxingkong  谈望星空/談望星空
Tan Xinpei  谭鑫培/譚鑫培
“Tan xinshi”  谈新诗/談新詩
Tang Caichang  唐才常/唐才常
Tang Qi  唐祈／唐祈
“Tang Qian de xiju”  唐倩的喜剧/唐倩的喜劇
Tang Shi  唐湜／唐湜
Tangjia Sanshao  唐家三少/唐家三少
Tangli zhihua  棠棣之花/棠棣之花
tansuo huaju  探索话剧／探索話劇
Tanxiang xing  檀香刑/檀香刑
Tao Qian  陶潜/陶潛
Tao Ran  陶然/陶然
“Taohuayuan ji”  桃花源记/桃花源記
Taojin ji  淘金记／淘金記
Taoyuan  桃园/桃園
The Hurricane  暴风骤雨／暴風驟雨
Tian Han  田汉/田漢
Tian Jian  田间/田間
Tian Qinxin  田沁鑫／田沁鑫
Tian Zhuangzhuang  田壮壮/田壯壯
“Tiangou”  天狗/天狗
Tianguo chunqiu  天国春秋/天國春秋
“Tianlangxing”  天狼星/天狼星
Tianlong babu  天龙八部/天龍八部
tianming  天命/天命
Tianming  天明/天明
Tianxia diyilou  天下第一楼／天下第一樓
Tianya fangcao  天涯芳草/天涯芳草
Tianya luntan  天涯论坛/天涯論壇
tianyuan shiren  田园诗人/田園詩人

715
 Chinese glossary

Tianyunshan chuanqi  天云山传奇/天雲山傳奇

Tiemu qianzhuan  铁木前传/鐵木前傳
Tieshan gongzhu  铁扇公主/鐵扇公主
Tiyu huanghou  体育皇后/體育皇后
Tong Tianjian  童天鉴/童天鑒
Tongxinyuan  同心圆/同心圓
Toumingde ye  透明的夜／透明的夜
“Tudi”  土地/土地
Tuibian  蜕变/蛻變
Tuina  推拿/推拿
Tunshi xingkong  吞噬星空/吞噬星空
Wa  蛙/蛙
Wan Guchan  万古蟾/萬古蟾
Wan Jiabao  万家宝/萬家寶
Wan Laiming  万籁鸣/萬籟鳴
wan shengdai  晚生代/晚生代
Wang Anyi  王安忆/王安憶
Wang Hui  汪晖/汪暉
Wang Kar-wai  王家卫/王家衛
Wang Lan  王蓝/王藍
Wang Meng  王蒙/ 王蒙
Wang Runze  王润泽/王潤澤
Wang Ruoshui  王若水/王若水
Wang xingkong  望星空/望星空
Wang Yangming  王阳明/王陽明
Wang Yaping  王亚平/王亞平
Wang Zengqi  汪曾祺/汪曾祺
Wang Zhaojun  王昭君/王昭君
Wang Zhenhe  王祯和/王禎和
“Wangchuan”  忘川/忘川
“Wangren yishi”  亡人逸事/亡人逸事
Wangshu cao  望舒草/望舒草
Wanjing  晚景/晚景
Wannian chun  万年春/萬年春
Wanshengjie  万圣节/萬聖節
Wanshui qianshan  万水千山/萬水千山
Wanxiang  万象/萬象
Weicheng  围城/圍城
Wei Junyi  韦君宜/韋君宜
Wei Minglun  魏明伦／魏明倫
“Wei nuli de muqin”  为奴隶的母亲/為奴隸的母親
Wei xinfu er ge  为幸福而歌/為幸福而歌
“Weile wangque de jinian”  为了忘却的纪念/為了忘卻的紀念
Weiming ji  未明集/未明集
Weitang jishi  苇塘纪事/葦塘紀事
“Weixiao”  微笑/微笑
Weiyu  微雨/微雨
Wen Tingyun  温庭筠/溫庭筠

716
 Chinese glossary

Wen Yiduo  闻一多／聞一多

Wencheng gongzhu  文成公主/文成公主
Wenfan xiaopin  文饭小品/文飯小品
“Wenhua zhiyuezhe renlei”  文化制约着人类/文化制約著人類
Wenhuibao  文汇报/文匯報
wenming xi  文明戏/文明戲
wenti ju  问题剧／問題劇
wenwu shuangquan  文武双全/文武雙全
“Wenxue de gen”  文学的根/文學的根
wenxue geming  文学革命／文學革命
Wenxue jikan  文学季刊/文學季刊
Wenxue yanjiu hui  文学研究会/文學研究會
Wenxue zazhi  文学杂志/文學雜誌
wenyanwen  文言文／文言文
Wenyi bao  文艺报/文藝報
Wenyi pian  文艺片/文藝片
Wenyi yanjiu  文艺研究/文藝研究
Wenyi zhengming  文艺争鸣/文藝爭鳴
Wenyibao  文艺报/文藝報
“Wo de gen”  我的根/我的根
“Wo de jiyi”  我底记忆/我底記忆
“Wo shi ge ouxiang chongbaizhe”  我是个偶像崇拜者/我是個偶像崇拜者
Wo shi shui  我是谁/我是誰
“Wo xieshi ta zaoshu”  我写诗他造树/我寫詩他造樹
“Wo zai Xia cun de shihou”  我在霞村的时候/我在霞村的時候
“Wode didi Kangxiong”  我的弟弟康雄/我的弟弟康雄
Wode diyige shangji  我的第一个上级/我的第一個上級
Women cunli de niangqing ren  我们村里的年轻人/我們村裏的年輕人
Women zheyidai nianqingren  我们这一代的年轻人/我們這一代的年輕人
Woshi Fan Yusu  我是范雨素/我是范雨素
Wu Han  吴晗/吳晗
Wu Qiang  吴强/吳强
Wu Xiaodong  吴晓东/吳曉東
Wu Xun zhuan  武训传/武訓傳
Wu Yonggang  吳永剛/吴永刚
Wu Zetian  武则天/武則天
Wu Zhuoliu  吴浊流/吳濁流
Wu Zuxiang  吴组缃/吳組緗
Wugui lieche  无轨列车/無軌列車
Wuji  无极/無極
Wukong zhuan  悟空传/悟空傳
Wulin  武林/武林
Wure Ertu  乌尔热图/烏爾熱圖
Wurencheng  无人称/無人稱
Wutai jiemei  舞台姐妹/舞台姐妹
wuyun ti  无韵体/無韻體
Wuzi  无字/無字
“Xi Li Bai”  戏李白/戲李白

717
 Chinese glossary

Xi Xi  西西/西西
Xia Yan  夏衍/夏衍
Xiake xing  侠客行/俠客行
Xiandai dianying  现代电影/現代電影
Xiandai hanshi  现代汉诗/現代漢詩
xiandai pai  现代派/現代派
Xiandai shi jikan  现代诗季刊/現代詩季刊
“Xiandai shifeng” 现代诗风/現代詩風
Xiandai wenxue  现代文学/現代文學
Xiandai xiaoshuo jiqiao chutan  现代小说技巧初探/現代小說技巧初探
xiandai zhuyi  现代主义／現代主義
xiandaipai liuda xintiao  现代派六大信条/現代派六大信條
xianfeng xiaoshuo  先锋小说/先鋒小說
“Xiang lei”  湘累/湘纍
Xiang taiyang  向太阳／向太陽
xiang yue  乡约/鄉約
“Xiangchou siyun”  乡愁四韵/鄉愁四韻
“Xiangchou wujie”  乡愁五节/鄉愁五節
“Xiangcun de jiaoshi”  乡村的教师/鄉村的教師
Xianggang dangdai xiaoshuo shi  香港当代小说史/香港當代小說史
Xianggang shangbao  香港商报/香港商報
Xianggang xiaoshuo liupai shi  香港小说流派史/香港小說流派史
Xianglei  湘累/湘累
Xiangli jiuwen  乡里旧闻/鄉里舊聞
“Xiangshan hongye”  香山红叶/香山紅葉
xiangtu (nativist) literature  乡土文学/鄉土文學
Xiangtu wenxue  乡土文学/鄉土文學
xiangtu xiaoshuo  乡土小说／鄉土小說
xiangzheng zhuyi  象征主义/象徵主義
Xianshen  献身/獻身
xianshi zhuyi pai  现实派/現實派
xianxia xiaoshuo  仙侠小说/仙俠小說
Xiao ao jianghu  笑傲江湖/笑傲江湖
Xiao bao zhuang  小鲍庄/小鮑莊
Xiao erhei jiehun  小二黑结婚/小二黑結婚
Xiao Hong  萧红/蕭紅
Xiao Jun  萧军／蕭軍
Xiao San  萧三/蕭三
Xiao Wanyi  小玩意/小玩意
Xiaobing chuanqi  小兵传奇/小兵傳奇
Xiaocheng zhi chun  小城之春/小城之春
Xiaocheng zhi lian  小城之恋/小城之戀
Xiaofan shijia  小贩世家/小販世家
Xiaojie nizao  小姐你早/小姐你早
Xiaojing hutong  小井胡同／小井胡同
xiaopin wen  小品文/小品文
“Xiaoshuo de yishu”  小说的艺术/小說的藝術
Xiaoshuo pinglun  小说评论/小說評論

718
 Chinese glossary

Xiaoshuo shijie  小说世界/小說世界

Xiaoshuo yuebao  小说月报/小說月報
“Xiaoyao you”  逍遥游/逍遥遊
Xiaoyue  小月/小月
Xiaozhenshang de jiangjun  小镇上的将军/小鎮上的將軍
Xiatian  夏天/夏天
Xie Jin  谢晋/謝晉
Xie Tieli  谢铁骊/謝鐵驪
xieshi pai  写实派/寫實派
xieyi xiju  写意戏剧／寫意戲劇
Xili  洗礼/洗禮
Xin de xinnian  新的信念/新的信念
Xin Di  辛笛／辛笛
Xin nüxing  新女性/新女性
Xin qingnian  新青年/新青年
Xin qunzhong  新群众/新群衆
xin sheng pai  新生派/新生派
xin shiqi  新时期／新時期
Xin song  新宋/新宋
Xin wanbao  新晚报/新晚報
Xin wenyi  新文艺/新文藝
xin wuxia xiaoshuo pai  新武侠小说派/新武俠小說派
xin xianshi zhuyi  新现实主义／新現實主義
xin yanqing xiaoshuo pai  新言情小说派/新言情小說派
xinbian lishi ju  新编历史剧/新編歷史劇
xinchao wenxue  新潮文学/新朝文學
Xing Ming  兴明/興明
xinganjuepai  新感觉派/新感覺派
Xingchen bian  星辰变/星辰變
Xingcunzhe  幸存者/幸存者
“Xingkong”  星空/星空
Xingzhan fengbao  星战风暴/星戰風暴
Xinshi she  新诗社／新詩社
Xinshi zahua  新诗杂话／新詩雜話語
“Xinshi” 新诗/新詩
Xinshi  新诗/新詩
xintianyou  信天游/信天游
Xinwenxue daxi shji  新文学大系·诗集／新文學大系·詩集
Xinxing  新星/新星
Xinyue she  新月社/新月社
“Xinyue yu baiyun”  新月与白云/新月與白雲
Xinyue yuekan  新月月刊/新月月刊
Xiong Foxi  熊佛西／熊佛西
Xiongdi  兄弟/兄弟
Xiongdi yehua  兄弟夜话／兄弟夜話
“Xiyang xia”  夕阳下/夕陽下
Xiyou ji  西游记/西遊記
Xu Dishan  许地山/許地山

719
 Chinese glossary

Xu Guangpin  许广平／許廣平
Xu Haofeng  徐皓峰/徐皓峰
Xu Jie  许杰/許傑
Xu Jieyu  许芥昱/許芥昱
Xu mao he tade ernümen  许茂和他的女儿们/許茂和他的女兒們
Xu Yunuo  徐玉诺/徐玉諾
Xu Zimo  徐志摩／徐志摩
xuanhuan xiaoshuo  玄幻小说/玄幻小說
Xuedeng  学灯/學燈
Xuese huanghun  血色黄昏/血色黃昏
Xueshan feihu  雪山飞狐/雪山飛狐
Xueshu Yuekan  学术月刊/學術月刊
Xuezhao  雪朝／雪朝
xungen wenxue  寻根文学/尋根文學
“Xunmeng zhe”  寻梦者/寻梦者
Xushi  序诗/序詩
Ya Xian  痖弦/瘂弦
Yaban gesheng  夜半歌声/夜半歌聲
yang guizi  洋鬼子/洋鬼子
Yang Hansheng  阳翰笙/陽翰笙
Yang Jian  杨健／楊健
Yang Kui  杨逵/楊逵
Yang Lian  杨炼/楊煉
Yang Mo sanwen xuan  杨沫散文选/楊沫散文選
Yang Mo  杨沫/楊沫
Yang Shuo  杨朔/楊朔
Yangge  秧歌/秧歌
“Yanzhi”  言志/言志
Yao Yiwei  姚一苇／姚一葦
“Yaoyao minyao”  摇摇民谣/搖搖民謠
Yaoyuan de qingpingwan  遥远的清平湾/遙遠的清平灣
Yashe xiaopin  雅舍小品/雅舍小品
Ye cao  野草/野草
Ye Fei sanxia Jiangnan  叶飞三下江南 /葉飛三下江南
Ye Hefu  叶和甫/葉和甫
Ye meigui  野玫瑰/野玫瑰
Ye ren  野人/野人
Ye Shitao  叶石涛葉石濤
Ye Si  也斯/也斯
Ye Xiaoxiao  叶肖肖／葉肖肖
Ye Xin  叶辛/葉辛
“Ye zhi ge”  夜之歌/夜之歌
Ye Zi  叶紫／葉紫
“Yecao”  野草/野草
“Yecha”  夜叉/夜叉
“Yewu”  夜雾/夜霧
“Yexing huoche”  夜行货车/夜行貨車
“Yezonghuili de wu ge ren”  夜总会里的五个人/夜總會裏的五個人

720
 Chinese glossary

Yi dai fengliu  一代风流/一代風流

Yi ge ren de shengjing  一个人的圣经/一個人的聖經
Yi jiang chunshui xiangdong liu  一江春水向東流 /一江春水向东流
“Yi Nangang”  忆南港/憶南港
Yi  忆／憶
Yige Nasalerende si  一个拿撒勒人的死／一個拿撒勒人的死
Yige nü gongchengshi de zishu  一个女工程师的自述/一個女工程師的自述
Yige sizhe dui shengzhe de fangwen  一个死者对生者的访问／一個死者對生者的
Yige wuzhengfu zhuyizhe de yiwai siwang  一个无政府主义者的意外死亡／一個無政府主義
者的意外死亡
“Yigeren zai tushang”  一个人在途上/一個人在塗上
Yiguo Qingdiao  异国情调/異國情調
Yin Lichuan  尹丽川/尹麗川
Yinghua zhi ge  英华之歌/英華之歌
Yingluo xunkan  璎珞旬刊/瓔珞旬刊
yingxing dianying  硬性电影/硬性電影
Yingxiong zhi  英雄志/英雄誌
“Yinhuise de si”  银灰色的死/銀灰色的死
“Yinxiang”  印象/印象
Yinyuan  姻缘/姻緣
Yiqing  忆情/憶情
Yitian tulong ji  倚天屠龙记/倚天屠龍記
Yixiang yiwen  异乡异闻/異鄉異聞
“Yiyong jun jinxing qu”  义勇军进行曲/義勇軍進行曲
“Yong wo cansun de shouzhang”  用我残损的手掌/用我残損的手掌
You yige meili de defang  有一个美丽的地方/有一個美麗的地方
You zhi gezi jiao hong chun’r  有只鸽子叫红唇儿/有隻鴿子叫紅脣兒
“Youyitian”  有一天/有一天
“Youyuan hui”  游园会/遊園會
Yu Dafu  郁达夫/郁達夫
Yu Guangzhong  余光中/余光中
Yu Hua  余华/余華
Yu Luojin  遇罗锦/遇羅錦
Yu Luoke  遇罗克/遇羅克
Yu Manzhen  余曼贞/餘曼貞
Yu Pingbo  俞平伯/俞平伯
Yu Qiuyu  余秋雨/余秋雨
Yu Ren  鱼人／魚人
Yu wusheng chu  于无声处／於無聲處
“Yu xiang”  雨巷/雨巷
Yu Xiuhua  余秀华/余秀華
Yu yongheng bahe  与永恒拔河/與永恆拔河
“Yu zhong ti bi”  狱中题壁/狱中題壁
“Yuan de huainian”  远的怀念/遠的懷念
Yuan Kejia  袁可嘉／袁可嘉
Yuan Muzhi  袁牧之/袁牧之
Yuan nü  怨女/怨女
“Yuandan zhufu”  元旦祝福/元旦祝福

721
 Chinese glossary

Yuanye  原野/原野
Yuchou feng  宇宙风/宇宙風
Yueshi  月食/月食
“Yueshiye”  月食夜/月蝕夜
“Yuexia duzhuo”  月下独酌/月下獨酌
Yueyar  月牙儿 /月牙兒
Yuguan  玉官/玉官
Yuhua  雨花/雨花
“Yujie xing”  御街行/御街行
Yumi  玉米/玉米
Yunhe  运河/運河
Yunzhai xiaoshuo  芸斋小说/芸齋小說
Yusi  语丝/語絲
Yuxiu  玉秀/玉秀
Yuyang  玉秧/玉秧
“Yuzhou dansheng”  宇宙诞生/宇宙誕生
Yuzhou feng  宇宙风/宇宙風
“Zai citang li”  在祠堂里／在祠堂裡
Zai hei’an zhong  在黑暗中/在黑暗中
Zai lengzhan de niandai  在冷战的年代/在冷戰的年代
“Zai Qixiangju chaguan li”  在其香居茶馆里／在其香居茶館裡
Zai xiaohe nabian  在小河那边/在小河那邊
Zai xinshiwu de mianqian  在新事物的面前/在新事物的面前
“Zai yiyuan zhong”  在医院中/在醫院中
“Zailun chichi”  再论吃茶/再論喫茶
Zainan de suiyue  灾难的岁月/灾難的歳月
Zang Kejia  臧克家/臧克家
“Zanmen de shijie”  咱们的世界/咱們的世界
Zaochun er yue  早春二月/早春二月
zawen  杂文/雜文
Zazhi  杂志/雜誌
Zenmeban  怎么办/怎麽辦
Zha Liangzheng  查良铮／查良錚
“Zhai”  债/債
“Zhaixing de shaonian”  摘星的少年/摘星的少年
Zhang Ailing nüxing piping  张爱玲女性批评/張愛玲女性批評
Zhang Chengzhi  张承志/張承志
Zhang Daofan  张道藩/張道藩
Zhang Guangtian  张广天／張廣天
Zhang Jie  张洁/張潔
Zhang Kangkang  张抗抗/張抗抗
Zhang Shichuan  张石川/張石川
Zhang Tianyi  张天翼／張天翼
Zhang Wei  张炜/張煒
Zhang Xianliang  张贤亮/張賢亮
Zhang Xiaofeng  张晓风／張曉風
Zhang Xinxin  张辛昕/張辛昕
Zhang Xuan  张铉/張鉉

722
 Chinese glossary

Zhang Yang  张扬/張揚

Zhang Yigong  张一弓/張一弓
zhanshi  战士／戰士
“Zhao Nandong”  赵南栋/趙南棟
Zhao Shuli  赵树理/趙樹理
Zhao Yanwang  赵阎王／趙閻王
Zhao Ziyue  赵子曰/趙子曰
Zhaohua xishi  朝花夕拾/朝花夕拾
Zhaxi Dawa  扎西达娃/扎西達娃
Zhendan daxue  震旦大学/震旦大學
Zheng Chenggong  郑成功/鄭成功
Zheng Chouyu (Cheng Ch’ou-yü)  郑愁予/鄭愁予
Zheng Junli  郑君里/鄭君里
Zheng Min  郑敏／鄭敏
Zheng Qingwen  郑清文/鄭清文
Zheng Wanlong  郑万隆/鄭萬隆
Zheng Yi  郑义/鄭義
Zheng Zhenduo  郑振铎/鄭振鐸
Zheng Zhengqiu  郑正秋/鄭正秋
zhengming  正名/正名
zhenpo tuili pai  侦破推理派/偵破推理派
“Zhexian ji”  谪仙记/謫仙記
“Zhexian yuan”  谪仙怨/謫仙怨
“Zhi Yangmingshan”  致阳明山/致陽明山
zhiguai xiaoshuo  志怪小说/志怪小說
“Zhijiage zhi si”  芝加哥之死/芝加哥之死
Zhimo de shi  志摩的诗／志摩的詩
zhiqing qunti  知青群体/知情群體
zhiqing wenxue  知青文学/知青文學
zhishi qingnian  知识青年/知識青年
Zhong Jieying  中杰英/中傑英
Zhong Zhaozheng  钟肇政/鍾肇政
Zhongguo dangdai shige shilun  中国当代诗歌史论/中國當代詩歌史論
Zhongguo Lu Xun xue tongshi  中国鲁迅学通史/中國魯迅學通史
Zhongguo muge  中国牧歌/中國牧歌
Zhongguo nongcun de gushi  中国农村的故事/中國農村的故事
Zhongguo shige hui  中国诗歌会/中國詩歌會
Zhongguo wenxueshi jingbian  中国文学史精编/中國文學史精編
Zhongguo xiandai wenxue yanjiu congkan  中国现代文学研究丛刊/中國現代文學研究叢刊
Zhongguo xiandai wenxueguan  中国现代文学馆／中國現代文學館
Zhongguo xinshi cui 50 niandai-80 niandai  中国新诗萃50年代 – 80年代/中國新詩萃50年代
– 80年代
Zhongguo xinwenxue daxi  中国新文学大系/中國新文學大系
Zhongguo zuoyi jutuan lianmeng  中国左翼剧团联盟/中國左翼劇團聯盟
Zhonghua quanguo wenyijie kangdi xiehu  中华全国文艺界抗敌协会／中華全國文藝界抗
敵協會
Zhongshan  钟山/鍾山
Zhongshen dashi  终身大事/終身大事

723
 Chinese glossary

Zhongwang Li Xiucheng  忠王李秀成/忠王李秀成

“Zhongxiao gongyuan”  忠孝公园/忠孝公園
zhongxing  中性／中性
Zhou Enlai  周恩来 /周恩來
Zhou Keqin  周克芹/周克芹
Zhou Libo  周立波/周立波
Zhou Xinfang  周信芳／周信芳
Zhou Yang  周扬/周揚
Zhou Zuoren  周作人／周作人
Zhouzi de beige  舟子的悲歌/舟子的悲歌
Zhu Guangqian  朱光潜/朱光潛
Zhu Ziqing  朱自清/朱自清
Zhuiqiu  追求/追求
Zhulin de Gushi  竹林的故事/竹林的故事
Zhuo Wenjun  卓文君/卓文君
Zhuxian  诛仙/誅仙
Zibai  自白/自白
Zibai – wo de riji  自白 – 我的日记/自白 – 我的日記
Ziji de xiezhao  自己的写照/自己的寫照
Zijing fu  紫荆赋/紫荊賦
“Zijing”  紫荆/紫荊
Zisha riji  自杀日记/自殺日記
Ziye  子夜/子夜
Zong Baihua  宗白华／宗白華
Zong Fuxian  宗福先／宗福先
Zong Pu  宗璞/宗璞
“Zongji”  踪迹／蹤跡
Zoulian  左联/左聯
Zui’e de hei shou  罪恶的黑手/罪惡的黑手
Zuoshou de miusi  左手的缪思/左手的繆思
Zuoyi zuojia lianmeng  左翼作家联盟/左翼作家聯盟
Zuzhibu lai le ge nianqingren  组织部来了个年轻人/組織部來了個年輕人

724
 INDEX

absurdist drama 8, 435 Aragon, Louis 644 – 645

Acme (Dingdian) 157 architectural beauty 119
ACT (alt.chinese.text) 670 Arishima Takeo 52, 103
aesthetic idealism 688 Asturias, Miguel Angel 9, 456
aestheticism 111 – 112, 119 – 120, 122, 298 Auden, W. H. 259, 619
aesthetic orientations 689 Auerbach 143, 147 – 148
aesthetics 14, 16; aesthetics of simultaneous autobiographical fiction writing 130
writing and reading 676; aesthetics of the online avant-garde 72, 103, 168, 170, 177, 211, 237,
writings 669; Marx’s aesthetics 14; modernist 239 – 240, 259, 477 – 489, 507, 530 – 531, 559,
aesthetics 141; revolutionary aesthetics 19 562, 592 – 594, 644, 682 – 685, 690
aesthetic sensibility 15, 19 Avant-garde Fiction 435, 477
Age of Enlightenment 12 – 13, 690 Avant-garde Literature 15, 259, 477 – 479, 488
Ah Cheng (A Cheng) 436, 440, 455 – 456, avant-gardism 1, 9, 236, 436, 477, 482, 484, 503,
458 – 459, 469; “Culture Conditions of 645, 690
Humankind (Wenhua zhiyuezhe renlei)” 455
Ah Quism 26, 28, 30 – 31, 34 Ba, Jin (Pa Chin) 7, 14 – 15, 19, 35, 48 – 56, 171,
Ai, Qing 157 – 159, 161, 217, 223, 235 – 243, 398, 195, 197, 301, 439, 515, 661; Autumn (Qiu)
436, 440, 495; Dayanhe, My Nurse (Dayanhe, 49; Cold Nights 49, 56; The Family (Jia) 49 – 56;
wode baomu) 236 Garden of Repose 56; “Record of Random
Alai 519 – 528; Red Poppies: A Novel of Tibet, Thoughts” (Suixianglu) 49; Spring (Chun) 49
EmptyMountain (Kongshan) 525; The Song of Bachner, Andrea 4
King Gesar (Gesar Wang) 525 Bai, Qiu 646
All-China Literature and Art Association for Bai, Xianyong 371, 623, 627, 631 – 633, 637;
Resistance 112 Crystal Boys (Niezi) 637; “Death in Chicago”
Alliance for the Reunification of China, the 634 (Zhijiage zhi si) 633, 637; “Fallen Immortal”
Althusser, Louis Pierre 12 (Zhexian ji) 633, 637; “The Last Night of Jin
amateur plays (aimei ju) 184 Daban” 637; My Father and the Republican China
ambiguity 6, 29, 40, 66, 272, 306, 315, 482, 536, (Fuqin yu minguo) 637; New Yorker (Niuyueke)
618, 626 633; The Peony Pavilion 637; Taipei people (Taibei
Anni Baobei 670 ren) 623, 637
anti-Communist literature 631, 644 Bamboo Hat poetry society (Lishishe) 645 – 646
Anti-Japanese United Front of All Workers of Under the Banyan Tree Net (Rongshuxia) 670
Literature and Art 7 Baudelaire, Charles 143 – 144, 147 – 152, 165, 492,
Anti-Japanese War 7 – 8, 269, 279, 298, 307, 312, 619, 631, 643 – 645; “Correspondences” 152;
318 – 319, 337, 674 Les Fleurs du Mal 148; “Mists and Rains” 149;
Anti-Rightist Movement 235, 464, 521 “Overcast Sky” 149
Apollinaire, Guillaume 235 – 240, 242 Bei, Cun 436, 684; Baptizing River (Shixi de he) 684

725
 Index

Bei Dao 105, 250, 427, 430, 432, 436, 491 – 499, Cervantes 144, 146 – 147, 156
687 – 688; “The Answer” (Huida) 105, 492 Chagall, Marc: cubist collage 237 – 240
Beijing Film Academy 463, 468 Chang, Eileen (Zhang Ailing) 15, 49, 218,
Beijing Literature (Beijing wenxue) 479, 530 356 – 358, 366, 559, 627, 661; Golden Cangue
Beijing Opera 186 – 188, 226, 424, 502 – 503, 509 (Jinshuo ji) 357; Half a Life Romance (Bansheng
Beijing People’s Arts Theater (Beijing Renyi) 503, yuan) 357; Jasmine Tea (Moli xiangpian) 357;
506 – 507 Legends (Chuanqi) 357; Love in a Fallen City
Belated Generation 683, 685 – 686 (Qing Cheng zhi lian)357; Lust, Caution (Se Jie)
Bell Mountain (Zhongshan) 479, 536 356; Naked Earth (Chidi zhi lian) 357; The Rice
Benjamin,Walter 165, 293, 484; “The Task of the Sprout Song: A Novel of Modern China (Yangge)
Translator” 165 357; The Rouge of the North (Yuan nü); Sealed
bense (original color) 118, 296 Off (Fengshuo) 357; Traces of Love and Other
Bergeron, Regis 208 Stories, and Written on Water (Liuyan) 357
Bergson, Henri-Louis 147 Chang, Kang-i Sun 3
Berry, Chris 206, 471, 554 Changshi Ji (Poetic Experiments) 6, 104
Bi, Feiyu 515 – 516, 603 – 613, 686; Massage (Tuina) Chekhov, Anton 191, 312
604; The Moon Opera (Qingyi) 603; Three Sisters Chen, Baichen 217, 278 – 286, 410; The Dadu River
(Yumi,Yuxiu,Yuyang) 603 (Dadu he) 279; Jintian village (Jintian cun) 279;
Bi, Lijun xiii, 385, 397 Men and Women in Wild Times (Luanshi nan nü)
Bian, Zhilin 20, 144, 157, 159, 161, 171, 258, 371, 279; Shi Dakai’s Road to Ruin (Shi Dakai de
647 molu) 279
Bing Xin 19, 291, 301, 515; Letters to Young Readers Chen, Duxiu 5 – 6, 10, 19, 23, 53, 131 – 132; “On
(Ji xiaoduzhe) 291 Literary Revolution” 5 – 6
Black Humor 435, 674, 695 Chen, Gongmin 440
Blok, Aleksandr 235, 238 Chen, Guokai 435, 441 – 442; “What Should
Blue Star (Lanxing) 643, 645, 650 I Do?” (Zenmeban) 441
body writing 15, 562 Chen, Jiangong 441, 455 – 456; “The Floating
Book of Rites, the 229 Headscarf ” (Piaoshi de hua toujin) 441
Boorism (Manghanism) 687 Chen, Kaige 373, 463, 468 – 471; The Big Parade
Borges, Jorge Luis 9, 480 (Da yuebing) 468; The Emperor and the
Boundary (Jiexian) 675 Assassin (Jingke ci qinwang) 469; Farewell My
Brecht, Bertold 212, 287, 436, 504 – 509, 511, 580 Concubine (Bawang bieji) 469; Forever Enthralled
Breton, Andre 156, 644 – 645 (Mei Lanfang) 469; Life on a String (Bianzou
Browne, Nick 463 – 464, 468 bianchang) 469; The Promise (Wuji) 469;
Bruno, Cosima xiii, 491 Temptress Moon (Fengyue) 469; Together (Heni
Buddhism 2, 143, 147, 253, 375, 378, 547, 570, zaiyiqi) 469; Yellow Earth (Huang tudi) 463, 468
576 – 577, 584, 586, 596, 678, 692 Chen, Ke 187
Burning of the Red Lotus Temple,The (Huoshao Chen, Qianli 52
honglian si) 207 Chen, Ran 690; Nowhere to Say Good-bye (Wuchu
Butler, Samuel 31 gaobie) 690; Private Life (Siren Shenghuo) 690;
Toast to the Past (Yu wangshi ganbei) 690
Cambridge History of Chinese Literature,The 3 Chen, Ruoxi 623 – 625, 632; “The Crossroads”
Camus, Albert 283, 632 (Lukou) 625; The Execution of Mayor Yin and
Can Xue 481 – 484, 683 – 684, 689; “The Hut Other Stories (Yin xianzhang) 624; “The Tunnel”
on the Mountain”/Mountain Hut (Shanshang (Didao) 625
de xiaowu) 482, 689; “Old Floating Cloud” Chen, Sihe 56, 685
(Canglao de fuyun) 482; “Soap bubbles on Chen, Xiaomei 280
dirty water” (Wushui shangde feizao pao) Chen, Xiaoming xiii, xxi, 8, 479, 515 – 516, 522,
482; “Yellow Mud Street”/Yellow Soil Street 600, 670, 682
(Huangni jie) 482, 689 Chen,Yaxian 503; Cao Cao and Yang Xiu (Cao Cao
Cao, Wenxuan 692; Bronze Sunflower (Qingtong yu Yang Xiu) 503
kuihua) 692; Fine Rice (Ximi) 692; Heavenly Chen,Yingzhen 618, 623, 625, 627, 631 – 635;
Gourd (Tian piao) 692; Red Tiles (Hong wa) 692 “The Country Village Teacher” (Xiangcun
Cao,Yu 14 – 15, 20, 50, 194 – 203, 410 – 411, 413, de Jiaoshi) 625; Human World (Renjian) 634;
463, 504; Metamorphosis (Tuibian) 196; Peking “Mountain Path” (Shanlu) 634; “My First
Man (Beijing ren) 197; Sunrise (Ri chu) 20, Case” (Diyijian chaishi) 634; “My Kid Brother
196; Thunderstorm (Lei yu) 194, 504; The Wild Kangxiong” (Wo de didi Kangxiong) 625;
(Yuanye) 196 “Night Freight” (Yexing huoche) 634; “Night

726
 Index

Fog” (Yewu) 635; “The Noodle Stall” (Miantan) Confessions,The 14

633; “A Race of Generals” (Jiangjunzu) 632; Confucianism 20, 265 – 275, 293, 309, 313, 316,
“Return to Hometown” (Guixiang) 634; 544, 549, 576 – 577, 596, 629
“Tang Qian’s Comedy” (Tang Qian de xiju) Confucian morality 23, 135 – 136
634; “Zhao Nandong” (Zhao Nandong) 634; Confucius 14, 28, 53, 65, 135, 267 – 268, 272, 505
Zhongxiao Park 634 Cong, Weixi 312, 435, 440 – 442; “Red Magnolia
Chen,Yuehong xiii, xxi, 329 beneath the Walls” (Daqiang xia de hong
Chen, Zhongshi 515, 542 – 543, 551, 693; White yulan) 441
Deer Plain 543, 693 Conrad, Joseph 59, 63 – 65, 68 – 69; Heart of
Chen, Zidu,Yang Jian, and Zhu Xiaoping 503; Darkness 63
Sangshuping Chronicle (Sangshuping jishi) 503 Contemporary (Dangdai) 479, 592
Chen, Zizhan 5 contemporary literature 2, 4, 8, 16, 371, 684
Chendong 677; God Graves (Shenmu) 677 Contemporary Literature (Jindai wenyi) 647
Chi, Li 515, 554, 562 – 565; Good Morning, Miss Creation Monthly,The (Chuangzao yuekan) 128,
(Xiaojie nizao) 554, 562; To and Fro (Lai lai 151
wang wang) 554 Creation Quarterly,The (Chuangzao jikan) 128
Chiang, Mei-Hsuan xiii, 519 Creation Society, the (Chuangzao she) 94, 99, 128,
Chiang Kaishek xxiv, 36 151 – 152, 265, 279
China Leftist Drama Troupe Alliance (Zhongguo Crescent Moon Monthly (Xinyue yuekan) 117,
zuoyi jutuan lianmeng) 184, 189 121 – 122, 370
China News Digest (Huaxia wenzhai) 670 Crescent Moon Society, the 111, 117 – 119, 121
Chinese Association of Modern Literature 5 critical realism 1, 24, 26, 319, 435, 442
Chinese civil war 7, 119 – 120, 185, 213, 217, 249, Croce, Benedetto 296
299, 312, 319, 369, 385 – 386, 391, 403, 411, 427, Crossroads (Shizi jietou) 212
532, 571, 617, 620, 622, 635, 656 Cui, Dezhi 411, 504; Primrose (Baochun hua) 504
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 7, 23, 36, 84, Cultural Revolution, the 7, 423, 664, 686
86, 184, 186, 227, 259, 278, 344, 369, 385, 397, Cummings, E. E. 72, 651
521, 588, 636
Chinese History of Literature of the Recent Thirty Dadaism 103, 168, 477, 644
Years 5 Dai, Houying 15, 440, 445; “Ah Humanity!” 15
Chinese Internet poetry 675 Dai, Wangshu 20, 155 – 157, 159, 161, 163,
Chinese Low Poetry 675 165 – 166, 169, 171, 173, 242, 643, 647; “Child
Chinese modernism 250, 478, 646 Street Performer” (Maiyitongzi) 155; “Debt”
Chinese New Poetry Monthly 249 (Zhai) 155; Drafts (Wangshu cao) 159, 162;
Chinese performing arts 212 Friends of Orchids 155; “Motherly Love” (Mu’ai)
Chinese Society of Theatre and Arts 279 155; My Memory 159; Poems of Dai Wangshu
Chinese spoken drama (huaju) 183 – 184, 186 – 189 (Dai Wangshu shiji) 159; “Rain Lane” 20, 157;
Chinese Writers Association, the 222, 228, 300, 388 “Smile” (Weixiao) 163; “Written on a Prison
Chow, Rey 54, 419, 471, 564 Wall” (Yu zhong ti bi) 164; Years of Catastrophe
Christianity 226, 292, 375 – 377, 570, 576 – 578, (Zainan de suiyue) 163
625, 633 Daudet, Alphonse 72
cinema of nativity 462 – 463 Davies, Gloria xiv, xxi, 247
cinema of reflection 462 Defoe, Daniel 194; Robinson Crusoe 194
civilized drama (wenming xi) 184 Democratic League, the (Minzhu tongmeng) 117
Classical Age, the 12 Deng,Youmei 455
Classical dramatic romance (chuanqi ju) 188 Denton, Kirk A. 4, 132, 134
Cohen, Paul 80 Detective School (zhenpo tuili pai) 657
cold detachment 348 – 349 Diao Dou 686
collective solidarity 62, 70 Dickens, Charles 30, 39, 59 – 60, 65, 68, 190, 388;
colonialism 634, 646, 656 – 657 Nicholas Nickleby 65; Pickwick Papers 60
Columbia Companion to Modern Chinese Literature 3 Difficult Couple 20
Columbia History of Chinese Literature 3 digital magazine 670
commercialism 657 – 658 Ding, Fan 5, 19
commercialization 8, 478 – 479, 516, 554, 657, 669 Ding, Ling 217 – 218, 305 – 306, 311, 326, 331,
Companion to Modern Chinese Literature 3 343 – 354, 369 – 370, 553; In the Darkness (Zai
Comprehensive Compendium to Modern Literature hei’an zhong) 344; “Meng Ke” (“Mon Coeur”)
(Xinwenxue daxi shiji) 112 344; “Miss Sophia’s Diary” (Shafei nüshi de riji)
concept of Man 12 – 13, 15 344; Miss Sophia’s Diary and Other Stories (Ding

727
 Index

Ling xiaoshuo xuan) 346; The Sun Shines over Fiction Monthly 36, 38, 42, 157, 370, 375
the Sanggan River (Taiyang zhao zai Sanggan Fiction Monthly/Short Story Monthly (Xiaoshuo
heshang) 345 yuebao) 36, 60, 115, 157, 344, 370, 375
Ding,Yishan 504; The Resurgence of Chen Yi (Chen Fiction of New China 218, 385
Yi chushan) 504 fiction of the educated youth 447
Dingjun Mountain (Dingjun shan) 206 Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers, the 463
Dionysian nature 24 films of reflection 462
Dong Xi 686 Fin-de-Siecle Splendor: Repressed Modernities of Late
Dostoevsky, Fyodor 89, 347, 631 Qing Fiction, 1848 – 1911 5
Dowson, Ernest 165, 643 Fiss, Géraldine xiv, 343
Drama of New China 218, 410 Fitzgerald, Carolyn xiv, 258, 580
Dream of the Red Chamber,The (Honglou meng) Flaubert, Gustave 72, 76, 347 – 350, 352, 354;
52, 56, 194, 197, 592, 594 – 598, 600, 620, 639 Madame Bovary 72, 348; Salammbô 72
Du, Heng 155 – 156, 159, 165, 169 Forster, E. M. 622 – 623
Duan, Guozhong xiv, xxi, 669, 682 Fort, Paul 159
Foster, Paul B. xiv, 656
Early Spring in February 215 Foucault, Michel 12 – 13; The Order of Things 12
ecoliterature 587 Four Modernizations 440, 450, 452 – 453
ego 14, 32 – 33, 103, 365 Frankenstein (James Whale) 212
Eisenstein, Seguei 206, 208, 212 free indirect style 66
Eliot, T.S. 8, 144 – 145, 147, 498, 619, 645; Waste free verse 19 – 20, 102 – 105, 111 – 112, 118, 122,
Land 498 223, 240, 404, 619
Epoch Making (Chuangshiji) 643 French Revolution 34, 213
Epoch-making Poetry Journal 645 French Symbolism 143, 151 – 152, 166
Essenin, Sergei 235, 240 French Symbolist 148 – 150, 152, 165
existence before essence 15 Freud, Sigmund 11, 14 – 15, 20, 33, 135, 147, 169,
Existentialist Fad 15 171, 178, 357, 419, 486
experimental fiction 477 Freud Fad 15
experimentalism 478, 481 – 482, 508, 646 Frontline Bookstore (Diyi xian shudian) 169
Expressionism 100, 103, 168, 185, 237, 435, 477 Froth Bookstore (Shuimo shudian) 169, 170, 172
externalization of the internal 191 Fukuoka Asian Cultural Prize 49
extra-sensory fictions (Lingyi xiaoshuo) 674 Fumian, Marco xv, 318
Fusini, Letizia xv, 278
factory fiction 451 Futurism 43, 103 – 104, 168, 435, 477, 644
false consciousness 12
Fang, Achilles 100 Gao, Xiaosheng 307, 435 – 436, 440, 445, 451,
Fang, Xiangshu xiv, 385, 397 454; “Chen Huansheng’s Adventure in Town”
Fantasy Fiction (Xuanhuan xiaoshuo) 672 – 673 (Chen huansheng jincheng) 451; “Master of
Faulkner, William 8, 456, 458, 480, 486, 537 The ‘Hopper House’ ” (“Loudouhu” chen
Fei Ming 19 – 20, 94, 143 – 148, 178, 291, 592; huansheng) 451
Bridge (Qiao) 143; Date (Zao) 144; After Mr. Gao, Xingjian 371, 436, 440, 455, 503, 505,
Neverwas Rides a Plane (Moxuyou Xiansheng 507 – 508, 515 – 516, 580 – 589; Absolute Signal
zuo feiji yihou) 144; Peach Orchard (Taoyuan) (Juedui xinhao) 503; Bus Stop (Che zhan)
144; Tales of the Bamboo Grove (Zhulin de 503, 580; Collected Plays of Gao Xingjian
Gushi) 144 (Gao Xingjian juzuo xuan) 580; One Man’s
Fei, Xiaotong 251 Bible (Yi ge ren de shengjing) 581; A Pigeon
female writings 515 Called Red Beak (You zhi gezi jiao hong
feminine subjectivity 344, 348 chun’r) 580; A Preliminary Exploration of
feminism 1, 343, 347, 553 – 565, 606, 686 Modern Fictional Techniques (Xiandai xiaoshuo
Feng, Jicai 440 – 441, 456; “Alas” (A) 441; jiqiao chutan) 580; In Search of a Modern
“A Branch Road Paved with Flowers” (Puhua Form of Dramatic Representation (Dui yi zhong
de qilu) 441 xiandai xiju de zhuiqiu) 580; Soul Mountain
Feng, Tao xiv, xxii, xxviii (Lingshan) 580
Feng,Yuanjun 19 Ge, Fei (Liu Yong) 436, 481, 515, 592 – 601,
Feng, Zhi (Zha Liangzheng) 20, 217, 242, 684 – 685; The Banner of Desires (Yuwang de
247 – 259, 647; The Fourteen-Line Collection qizhi) 684; The Encounter 593; Enemies (Diren)
(Shisihang ji) 250; “The Man in Green” 247; 684; The Lost Boat 593; The Margins (Bianyuan)
Selected Poems of Feng Zhi 248 684; Remembering Mr.Wu You 593

728
 Index

Ge, Liangyan xv, xxi, 194 Han Chinese Poetry (Hanshi) 687
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 2, 100, 103, 108, hand-copied texts 431
118, 247, 252, 254, 256, 259, 332, 347, 482 Han Han 670, 693
Goldman, Emma 51 Hans Christian Andersen Award 693
Goncourt, Edmond de 72 Hao Ran 307, 424 – 425; The Golden Road
Goncourt, Jules de 72 (Jinguang dadao) 425
Gorki, Maxim 89 Harvest (Shouhuo) 49, 479, 684
Gourmont, Remy de 156, 159, 165 He, Dun 562, 686
grand narrative 8 – 9, 82, 510, 515, 534, 553, 563, He, Jingzhi 398 – 400, 410; “Return to Yan’an” 399;
575, 593, 599, 671 White Haired Girl (Baimao nü) 399
Great Divide 16 He, Jiping 510
Greek mythology 24, 292 He, Qifang 144, 171, 371, 495
Green, Frederik H. xv, 111 He, Tong xv, xxi, 128
Gu, Cheng 491 – 499; “A Generation” 496 He,Yin Zhen 553
Gu, Ming Dong xv, 1, 6, 23, 134, 356, 682 Heidegger, Martin 12
Gu Hua 371, 435, 440 – 446, 464; A Small Town Henningsen, Lena xvi, 423
Called Hibiscus 446 historical fiction 435, 519
Guizi 686 historical humanity 9
Guo, Jingming 670, 693 historical plays (lishi ju) 102, 188 – 189, 217,
Guo, Moruo 6, 14 – 15, 20, 86, 99 – 108, 118, 128, 265 – 275, 278 – 280, 287, 411 – 413
134, 217, 238, 265 – 275, 279, 287, 308, 336, 402, historical tragedies: A Draft from the Southern
407, 410, 412 – 413; Cai Wenji 266; “A Clear Captive (Nanguan Cao) 266; The Flowers of
Morning” (Qingchao) 102; Death on the River Brotherhood (Tangli zhihua) 266; Gao Jianli 266;
Xiang (Xianglei) 266; Fallen Leaves (Luoye) 100; Peacock’s Gall (Kongque Dan) 266; Qu Yuan 266;
The Flowers of Brotherhood (Tangli zhihua) 266; The Tiger Tally (Hufu) 266
The Goddesses (Nüshen) 6, 100; “The Heavenly History of Contemporary Chinese Literature 3, 410, 443
Hound” (Tiangou) 104; “Hymn to the Sun” History of Modern Chinese Fiction 10
(Taiyang lizan) 102; “I am a Worshipper of Idols” History of Modern Chinese Literature 3
(Wo shi ge ouxiang chongbaizhe) 104; The Hollywood 176, 207 – 209, 347
Lamp of Learning (Xuedeng) 99; “Looking Afar homodiegetic narrator 130
from Fudetate Peak” (Bili shantou zhanwang) Hong, Huang 491
104; The Moon Palace (Guanghan Gong) 266; Hong, Shen 20, 183 – 186, 192, 195, 463, 506, 509;
“New Moon and White Clouds” (Xinyue yu Yama Zhao (Zhao Yanwang) 184; Young Mistress’
baiyun) 102; “The Nirvana of the Phoenixes” Fan (Shaonainai de shanzi) 185
(Fenghuang niepan) 103; “Parting” (Bieli) 102; Hong,Ying 691; A Starved Daughter (Ji’e de
“The Pyramids” (Jinzita) 107; “The Rebirth of nü’er) 691
the Goddesses” (Nüshen zhi zaisheng) 103, 266; Hong, Zicheng 3, 339, 410, 413, 440, 443; History
Starry Skies (Xingkong) 101; “Sunrise” (Richu) of Contemporary Chinese Literature 410, 443
107; “Three Pantheists” (San ge fanshenlunzhe) Hong Kong Literature Monthly 658
102; The Two Sons of Lord Guzhu (Guzhu Jun horizontal transplantation 618, 643 – 645,
zhi Erzi) 266; Qu Yuan 100; The Vase (Ping) 101; 647 – 648,  652
“Venus” 103; “Victorious Death” (Shengli de si) Hsia, C. T. 10, 26, 33, 49, 133 – 134, 211, 308,
106; Wu Zetian 266; Zheng Chenggong 266 357 – 359, 362, 620, 651
Guo, Shixing 503; Leisure Trilogy (Xianren Hsia, T. A. 622 – 625, 632; “A Critique of Setting
sanbuqu) 503 Moon and Discussion of Modern Fiction” 622
Guo, Xiaochuan 403 – 405; “Gazing at the Starring Hu, Jieqing 63, 65
Sky” (Wang xingkong) 404 Hu, Qiuyuan 171
Hu, Shi 5 – 6, 10, 19 – 20, 31, 104, 111 – 112,
Habermas, Jürgen 515, 677 121, 184, 195, 334, 371, 506, 508, 643 – 644;
Haft, Lloyd 254 Experiments (Changshi ji) 104; “On New
Haizi 687 – 688; But It Is Water,Water (Danshi shui, Poetry” (Tan xinshi) 104; “Suggestions for a
shui) 687; Earth (Tudi) 687 Literary Reform” 5 – 6, 10, 19
Hakka 99, 148, 628 Hu, Xingliang 191
Han, Dong 686 – 687 Huang, Chunming 623, 625 – 627; Fish” (Yu) 626;
Han, Shaogong 371, 440, 455 – 456, 459, 515 – 516, “A Flower in the Rainy Night” (Kan hai de
545, 694; Dictionary of Maqiao (Maqiao cidian) rizi) 626; “Set Free” (Fangsheng) 626; “The
694; “The Root of Literature” (Wenxue de gen) Story of Grandpa Qingfan” (Qingfangong de
455; Suggestiveness (Anshi) 694 gushi) 626; “Young Widow” (Xiao guafu) 626

729
 Index

Huang, Jisu and Meng Jinghui 504; The Accidental (Xiatian) 647; “On the Transplanted Flower”
Death of an Anarchist (Yige wuzhengfu zhuyizhe (Lun yizhi zhi hua) 648; “The Wolf ’s Long
de yiwai siwang) 504 Howl” (Lang zhi changhao) 648; Works Written
Huang, Meixu 510 before Thirty Years Old (Sanshi qianji) 647
Huang,Yiju xvi, 542 Jia, Pingwa 14, 301, 371, 436, 451 – 456, 515,
Huang, Zuolin 504 – 505, 508 542 – 543, 547, 551, 679, 683, 693 – 694, 696;
Hugo,Victor 52, 156, 165 Deserted Capital (Feidu) 693; Gaolao Village
Hui, Xiongmao 672; Stealing Ming Dynasty (Qie (Gaolao zhuang) 693; “The People of the
Ming) 672 Chicken Nest Hollow” (Jiwowa renjia) 451; Qin
humanism 111, 113, 195, 316, 435, 440, 445 – 446, Opera 543; In Remembrance of Wolf (Huainian
448, 462, 466 – 467, 470, 478, 495, 682 lang) 693; “Story of Moon Girl” (Xiaoyue)
humanity 9, 48, 53, 79, 112, 138, 230, 255, 300, 451; “Turbulence” (Fuzao) 451; Turbulence and
404 – 406, 440, 445 – 448, 458, 462, 467, 492, Ruined City 543; “Twelfth Month, First Month”
494 – 495, 508, 510, 540, 571 – 572, 575, 619, (Layue, zhengyue) 451
640, 673, 679, 683, 689, 691, 694 Jian, Xian’ai 305
Hundred Flowers Awards 463 Jiang, Guangci 15, 19, 84 – 89, 94; “Modern
Husserl, Edmund 13 Chinese Society and Revolutionary Literature”
Huters, Theodore xvi, xxi, 36 86; “Two Brothers’ Night Talk” (Xiongdi yehua)
87; “On Yelu River” (Yelujiang shang) 87; The
Ibsen, Henrik Johan 14, 20, 103, 189, 195, 200, Youthful Tramp (Shaonian piaobozhe) 85 – 86
209, 332, 347, 504 – 505, 510; A Doll’s House Jiang, Gui 620; Whirlwind (Xuanfeng) 620
195; An Enemy of the People 195 Jiang, He 492, 497, 499; Begin from Here (Cong
id 14 zheli kaishi) 497; The Sun and His Reflection
idealism 50, 107, 112, 117, 121 – 122, 283, 408, 494, (Taiyang he ta de fanguang) 497
498, 596, 631, 635, 688 Jiang, Rong 692; Wolf Totem (Lang tuteng) 692
Imagism 8, 104, 118, 435 Jiang, Zilong 435, 451; “Manager Qiao Assumes
imperialism 44, 117, 148, 210, 221, 527, 634 Office” (Qiao changzhang shangren ji) 451
indeterminism 4, 6 – 7, 9, 17 Jiao, Jian 451, 455 – 456; “Old People’s Store
individualized writing 515 House” (Laorencang) 451
inner monologue 65 Jiao, Zuyao 451; “Wader” (Bashezhe) 451
interior monologue 64, 66 – 69, 171, 583, 627 Jin, Feng 54
Internet literature 669 – 671, 675 – 680 Jin Hezai 678; The Story of Wukong (Wukong
Internet poetry 675 zhuan) 678
Ionesco, Eugène 8, 436 Jin, Shijie 511
Jin,Yong 657 – 666, 675; The Smiling, Proud
Jackson, Shelley 671; Patchwork Girl 671 Wanderer (Xiao ao jianghu) 662; the Sword
Jade Necklace Trimonthly (Yingluo xunkan) 156 Manual to Ward-off Evil (Bixie jianpu) 662
James, Henry 623 Jingpai (Peking Style) writers 144
Jameson, Fredric 8, 28, 61 – 62, 65, 67 – 69, 480, Jinzi 672; A Dream Back to Qing Dynasty
516, 520, 677 (Menghui daqing) 672
Jammes, Francis 156, 159 – 161, 165, 643 Journey to the West (Xiyou ji) 194, 212, 678
Ji, Xian 157, 618, 643 – 649, 652 – 653; Betel Nut Joyce, James 8, 59, 65, 68, 147, 176, 480, 581, 632,
Trees 1 to 5 647; “The Birth of Universe” 637; Dubliners 637
(Yuzhou dansheng) 647; Collected Poems by Ji Joyce, Michael 670; Afternoon, a Story 670
Xian,Volumes 1 and 2 647; “Demise of Poetry” Julian, Rupert 212; The Phantom of the Opera 212
(Shi de miewang) 648; “Dog Howling at the July (Qiyue) 135
Moon” (Feiyue de quan) 647; “Drinking
Alone Under the Moon” (Yuexia duzhuo) Kafka, Franz 8, 456, 458, 480, 482 – 483, 487, 531,
648; Evening Scenes (Wanjing) 647; “The Fish 581, 593, 632, 695
on a Stroll” (Sanbu de yu) 647; The Memoir of Kant, Immanuel 12–13, 297; Kantian “a priori
Ji Xian (Ji Xian huiyilu) 647; “In Memory of forms of intuition” 677
Yangzhou” (Huai Yangzhou) 647; Modernist Kawakami Hajime 100; Social Organization and
School 644; “Seven and Six” (Qi yu liu) 647; Social Revolution 100
“Six Doctrines of the Modernist School” Ke,Yunlu 435, 451; “A New Star” (Xinxing) 451
(Xiandaipai liuda xintiao) 644; “Solitary Wolf Kong, Qingdong 670
” (Lang zhi dubu) 648; “The Star-Plucking Kropotkin, Peter 48, 51 – 52, 343; Appeal to the
Youth” (Zhaixing de shaonian) 647; Summer Young 48

730
 Index

Kulou Jingling 674; The Storm of Star Wars 148; Sing for Happiness (Wei xinfu er ge) 148;
(Xingzhan fengbao) 674 “Woman Forsaken” (Qifu) 149
kunqu (Kun Opera) 637, 639 Li, Longyun 503; Small Well Alley (Xiaojing
Kwan, Stanley 210 hutong) 503
Li, Mangui 510
Laborer’s Love (Laogong zhi aiqing) 206 Li, Meng xvi, 439, 450
Lacan, Jacques 11 – 12; “The Agency of the Letter Li, Qiao 628 – 629; Wintry Night: a Trilogy (Hanye
in the Unconscious or Reason since Freud” 11 Sanbuqu) 628
Lai, Stan 511 Li, Shangyin 118, 120, 158
Lai He 617 – 618 Li, Tonglu xvi, 290, 305, 569
Lang, Olga 52 Li, Xunhuan 670
language reform 4 – 5, 10 – 11, 25, 104, 295 Li, Zehou 7, 454, 682
language/text (yan): meaning/intention (yi); Li, Zhun 388, 390; “A Brief Biography of Li
emotion (qing); scene (jing) 405 Shuangshuang” (Li Shuangshuang xiaozhuan)
La Nouvelle Littérature (Xin wenyi) 169 388; The Yellow River Flowing East (Huanghe
Lao She (Shu Qingchun) 15, 19, 55, 59 – 69, 90, dong liuqu) 388
171, 222, 337, 410 – 420, 425, 506, 510; The Li, Ziyun 553
Biography of Niu Tianci (Niu Tianci zhuan) 60; Lianda 247 – 248, 250 – 251, 258 – 259
Camel Xiangzi (Luotuo Xiangzi) 19, 60; The Liang, Qichao 61, 121, 131, 183, 417; “juvenile
City of Cats (Maocheng ji) 60; Crescent Moon China” 131; “saving China” 61
(Yueyar) 60; Divorce (Lihun) 60; Dragon Beard Liang, Xiaosheng 445, 447; “A Land of Wonder
Ditch (Longxu gou) 60, 413; Four Generations and Mystery” 447
Under One Roof (Sishi tongtang) 60; Mr. Ma Liang,Yusheng 658, 675
and Son:Two Chinese in London (Er Ma) 60; The Liang, Zongdai 151 – 152; Symbolism (Xiangzheng
Philosophy of Lao Zhang (Lao Zhang de zhexue) zhuyi) 152
60; Teahouse (Chaguan) 60, 416, 506; Zhao Ziyue liberal realism 341
(Zhao Ziyue) 60 libido 14
Lao Zi 29; The Way and Its Virtue 29 Life and Letters 250
Late Modern Period 8, 14 – 15, 502, 504, 506, Lin, Bai 690; Fatal Flight (Zhiming de feixiang) 690;
508 – 512 One Person’s War (Yigeren de zhanzheng) 690
Lawrence, D. H. 8, 364, 366, 632; Sons and Lin, Hengtai 644 – 646, 648
Lovers 366 Lin, Julia C. 123, 619
leadership plays (lingxiu ju) 503 Lin, Pei-yin xvi, 631, 643
Leftist writing 620 Lin, Shu 90, 102
Left-Wing Writers (Zuoyi zuojia lianmeng) 15, Lin, Shuhua 19
37, 84, 86, 89 – 91, 93, 95, 156, 168, 170, 177, Lin,Yutang 291, 293, 295 – 297; The Gay Genius:The
221, 227 – 228, 281, 318, 336, 343 – 344, 346, Life and Times of Su Tungpo 296; The Importance
369, 372, 390 of Living 296; Moment in Peking 296; My Country
Legend of Tianyun Mountain,The (Tianyunshan and My People 296; “Touring Hangzhou in a
chuanqi) 462, 464 Spring Day” (Chunri youhang ji) 296
Les Contemporains (Xiandai) 162, 170 Lingyi 674
Li, Dazhao 20, 23, 131; “youthful China” 131 literary Chinese (wenyan) 111, 290
Li, Feng 686 Literary Magazine 144
Li, Guowen 435, 445, 451; “No. 5 Garden Street” Literary Reform 5, 6, 10, 19
(Huayuanjie wuhao) 451 the Literary Research Association 112 – 113,
Li, Guoxiu 511 115, 375
Li, Hangyu 455 – 456; “Let Us Untangle Our Literary Review (Wenxue zazhi) 622, 632
Roots (Li yi li womende gen)” 455 Literary Revolution 5, 6, 10, 12, 19 – 20, 23, 72,
Li, Jieren 5, 19, 52, 55, 72 – 82; “Garden Party” 104, 111
(Youyuan hui) 5; The Great Wave (Dabo) 73; literary subjectivity 682
Ripples on Dead Water/Stale Water Stirs Ripples Literature of China in the Twentieth Century,The 3
(Sishui weilan) 19, 73; Before the Tempest literature of desires 515
(Baofeng yuqian) 73 literature of humor 291, 295 – 296
Li, Jinfa 20, 143, 148 – 151, 159, 162, 166, 645, 647; Literature of Reflection (fansi wenxue):
Exoticism (Yiguo qingdiao) 148; Guest Visitor and “introspective fictions” 15, 444
Hard Time (Shike yu xiongnian) 148; Idle Jottings Literature of Reform/Reform Literature (gaige
(Piaoling xianbi) 148; Light Rain (Weiyu) wenxue) 15, 435, 445, 450 – 454, 478

731
 Index

Literature of Root-seeking/Root Seeking the Editor of the Theatre” 29; The True Story
Literature (xungen wenxue) 9, 15, 450, of Ah Q (A Q zhengzhuan) 15, 26; Wandering
454 – 455, 458 – 459, 478, 485, 519, 558 (Panghuang) 24; Wild Grass (Ye cao) 24,
Literature of the Cultural Revolution 218, 148, 291
423, 447 Lu Xun Literature Prize 592, 604 – 605
Literature of Trauma (shanghen wenxue) Lu,Yang 334, 686
439 – 446,  450 Lu,Yao 451, 453, 542; “Human Life”
Literature Quarterly (Wenxue jikan) 195, 633 – 634 (Rensheng) 451
Little Theater (xiao juchang) 503 – 504, 506 – 508 Lu,Yin 19
Liu, Baiyu 218, 297 – 299; The Second Sun (Di’er Lubbock, Percy 623
ge taiyang) 299; “Three Days on the Yangtze Lü Heruo 617 – 618
River” (Changjiang sanri) 299 Lunyu (Analects) 266 – 268, 270 – 271, 296
Liu, Bannong 6, 20 Luo, Fu (Lo Fu) 618 – 620, 645 – 646; The Death
Liu, Dabai 20 in a Stone Chamber (Shishi zhi siwang) 646;
Liu, Jinyun 503, 506, 509; Uncle Dogge’s Nirvana Death of the Stone Cell (Shishi de siwang) 619;
(Gou’er ye niepan) 503 Driftwood (Piaomu) 619
Liu, Lydia H. 65 – 66, 553, 557, 572 Luo, Guangbin 393, 395, 427; Red Crag
Liu, Na’ou 14, 156, 168 – 171, 175 – 178; Modern (Hongyan) 393
Cinema (Xiandai dianying) 169; Scène (Dushi Luo, Liang xvi, 413, 502
fengjingxian) 169 Luo, Wangzi 686
Liu, Shugang 436, 508 Lupke, Christopher xvii, 617
Liu, Xinwu 8, 435, 440 – 444; “the Class Teacher”/ Lute,The 188
“The Head Teacher” (Banzhuren) 8, 440 Lyotard, Jean-François 8 – 9, 480, 534
Liu,Yichang 657 – 658; Drunkard 657; Lyricism 122, 189, 236, 241, 243, 267 – 269, 316,
Tête-bêche 657 371, 498, 648
Liu, Zaifu 326, 444, 454, 682
Liu, Zhenyun 516, 562, 683, 694, 696; Home- Ma, Feng 386 – 387; “Han Meimei” 387; “My First
place, Noodles and Blossoms (Guxiang mian Superior” (Wode diyige shangji) 386; “The
huaduo) 694; Legends of the Home-place (Guxiang Young People in Our Village” (Women cunli de
xiangchu liuchuan) 694; A Word Is Worth Ten niangqing ren) 386
Thousand (Yiju ding yiwan Ju) 694; Yellow Ma, Ning xvii, 265, 464, 467
Flowers under the Sky of Home Village (Guxiang Ma, Weidu 670
tianxia huanghua) 694 Ma,Yuan 436, 455, 477, 481, 484 – 486, 683 – 684;
Localist 628 Entanglement (Jiuchan) 485; “The Goddess of
localized realism 91 Lhasa River” (Lasa he de nüshen) 485; Ox
Longfellow, Henry W. 102; “The Arrow and the Demons and Snake Spirits (Niugui sheshen)
Song” 102 485; “Point Zero” (Ling gongli chu) 485; “The
Lou, Shiyi 169 Spell of the Gangdise Mountains” (Gangdisi
Louie, Kam 3 de youhuo) 485; Up and Down, Always Smooth
Love and Duty (Lian’ai yu yiwu) 211 (Shangxia dou hen pingtan) 485
Love-Forsaken Corner, A (Bei aiqing yiwang de Magagnin, Paolo xvii, 99
jiaoluo) 462 magical realism 8 – 9, 24, 435, 456, 480, 508, 520,
Lu, Ling: Hungry Guo Su’e 92 525, 531, 570, 657, 661
Lu, Lun 657; Amei’s Strange Encounter 657; magical realist 9, 528
Lottery 657 Magical School, the (mohuan pai) 657
Lü, Xin 152, 436, 684; Caressing (Fumo) 684 Mair,Victor 3
Lu, Xinhua 8, 435, 440 – 443; “Scar” 440 Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School 15, 155
Lu, Xun 5 – 6, 10 – 15, 19 – 20, 23 – 34, 37, 49 – 51, Mandate of Heaven (tianming) 267, 402
53, 61 – 62, 84, 86 – 95, 105, 111, 130 – 131, 148, Mang Ke 492 – 493, 495; “Frozen Earth” 492;
195, 208, 211, 214 – 215, 224, 227, 247, 252, “Sky” 492; “The Vineyard” 493
254, 256 – 257, 271, 274, 290 – 293, 295 – 296, Mann, Thomas 632
305, 308, 311 – 312, 336 – 337, 343, 358 – 359, Mao, Zedong/Mao Tse-tung 7, 37, 50, 99,
366, 386, 399, 424 – 425, 441 – 442, 482 – 483, 209, 222, 250, 329, 335 – 337, 345, 369, 378,
505, 593, 603, 625, 633, 661, 664; “A Madman’s 385 – 386, 388, 390, 398 – 399, 401, 405 – 407,
Diary”/“Diary of a Madman” (Kuangren riji) 410, 424, 427 – 429, 556; “Reply to Comrade
5 – 6, 23 – 25, 148; Morning Flowers Plucked at the Guo Moruo” 407; “Shaoshan Revisited” 406;
Sunset/at Dusk (Zhaohua xishi) 24, 291; Old “Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and
Stories Retold (Gushi xinbian) 24; “A Reply to Art” 7, 50, 217, 218

732
 Index

Mao, Dun 14 – 15, 19, 26, 36 – 38, 42, 44 – 45, 55, modern essay/creative nonfiction prose 20, 290
87, 91, 105, 171, 222, 230, 279, 291, 305 – 308, modernism 1, 8, 20, 24, 143, 155, 165 – 166, 236,
439, 620, 661; Disillusion (Huanmie) 37, 39; 250, 259, 265, 425, 435 – 436, 440, 448, 450,
“The Lin Family Store” (Lin jia puzi) 37; Maple 456, 463, 477 – 480, 482, 486, 515 – 516, 520,
Leaves as Red as February Flowers (Shuang ye 580 – 581, 585, 593, 617, 619, 623, 631 – 633,
hong si eryue hua) 37; Midnight (Ziye) 19, 37, 637, 643 – 644, 646, 651, 653, 682 – 684, 686,
42; Pursuit (Zhuiqiu) 37; Putrefaction (Fushi) 37; 693, 696
Rainbow (Hong) 37; “Spring Silkworms” (Chun modernist 8, 9, 24, 26, 55, 66, 68, 72, 104,
can) 37; The Tempering (Duanlian) 37; Waverings 143 – 144, 146 – 149, 155, 157, 161 – 162,
(Dongyao) 37 165, 168 – 169, 171, 176 – 177, 209, 221, 240,
Mao Dun Literature Prize 299, 525, 543, 549 – 550, 243, 247 – 250, 254, 258 – 259, 372, 436, 440,
555, 592, 604, 693 456, 458, 463, 480, 482, 492, 510 – 511, 531,
Maoist era 326, 440, 443, 447, 480, 503, 508, 557 – 558, 585 – 586, 592 – 593, 595, 617 – 619,
563, 598 623, 625, 627, 631 – 634, 637 – 639, 643 – 650,
Maple Leaves as Red as February Flowers (Shuang ye 657, 677, 682 – 684, 690
hong si eryue hua) 37 modernist aesthetics 141, 631
Márquez, Gabriel García 9, 456, 458, 480, 483, modernist poetry 149, 165, 171, 618 – 619, 645
487, 537, 570; Chronicle of a Death Foretold 487; modernist poets 144, 157, 247, 259, 618,
One Hundred Years of Solitude 570 643 – 644,  647
martial art historical (or chivalric) movie Modernist School, the (xiandai pai) 643 – 645, 648,
(wuxiapian) 207 657, 682 – 684
Marx, Karl 14 – 15, 33, 306, 440, 682; Marx’s Modern Literature (Xiandai wenxue) 623 – 625,
aesthetics 14 632, 637
Marxism 14, 99 – 101, 107, 183, 250, 278, 390, 405, Modern Poetry (Xiandai shifeng) 156
440, 443, 446, 549 – 550, 576, 625, 682 Modern Poetry Quarterly (Xiandai shi jikan) 643
Marxist 9, 12, 15, 19, 44, 61, 85, 89, 101, 156, 165, modern tragedy complex (xiandai beiju qingjie) 280
168, 228, 242, 286, 300, 326, 329, 333, 337, 369, Moran, Thomas 61
446, 448, 480, 520, 550, 571, 578, 625, 682 Mordell, Albert 129; The Erotic Motive in Literature
Maupassant, Guy de 72, 319, 374; Notre Coeur 72; 129; “immoral literature” 129
Une Vie 72 Morning Post Supplement,The (Chenbao fukan) 117
Mayakovsky,Vladimir 227 – 228, 230, 235, 240, 399, Motion Picture Review,The 205
403; “Rosta windows” posters 227; “staircase Moulthrop, S. 671; Victory Garden 671
form” 403 Mo Yan 94, 307, 436, 455 – 456, 459, 516,
May Fourth 10, 14 – 15, 20, 36, 45, 49 – 52, 56, 569 – 578, 592, 600, 679, 683 – 684, 686,
72, 86 – 87, 100 – 101, 103 – 107, 112, 114, 694 – 696; Big Breasts and Wide Hips (Fengru
116 – 118, 121, 130 – 131, 138, 147 – 148, 189, feitun) 569, 694; Frog (Wa) 570, 695; Life and
192, 195, 265 – 267, 269, 274, 278, 280, 292, Death Are Wearing Me Out (Shengsi pilao) 569,
301, 305 – 312, 319, 324, 329, 334, 338, 343, 695; POW! (Sishiyi pao) 569; Red Sorghum
346 – 348, 375, 425, 439, 450, 454, 462, 477, 479, (Hong gaoliang jiazu) 569, 694; Red Woods
504 – 505, 510, 551, 563 – 564, 570, 575 – 578, (Hong shulin) 569; The Republic of Wine
593, 621, 632, 656, 658 – 659, 661 (Jiuguo) 569; Sandalwood Death (Tanxiangxing)
McDougall, Bonnie S. 3 569, 695
Mei, Lanfang 186, 212, 469 Mu, Dan 247 – 250, 257 – 258
Meng, Jiao 223 – 224; “On Painstaking Work” Mu, Mutian 151 – 152, 171; “Pale Bell” (Cangbaide
(Kuxue yin) 223 zhongsheng) 152; Traveler’s Heart (Lu xin) 152;
Meng, Jinghui 504, 516; Longing for the Mortal “What is Symbolism” 152
World (Sifan) 504 Mu, Shiying 14, 20, 168 – 171, 175 – 178; “Five
Meng,Yao 620; Before daybreak (Liming qian) 620 in a Nightclub” (Yezonghui li de wugeren)
Menglong shi (Misty poetry) 424, 436, 491 168; “The Man Who Was Made a Plaything”
Mengzi 267 – 268; Mengzi 267 (Bei dangzuo xiaoqianpin de nanzi) 170;
Meredith, George 296; “Essay on Comedy” 296 North Pole, South Pole (Nanbeiji) 170; “Our
meta-fiction 477 World” (Zanmen de shijie) 169; Public Cemetery
metanarratives 8 (Gongmu) 170; Statue of a Platinum Woman
Mianmian 691 (Baijin de nüti suxiang) 170
Middle Modern Chinese Literature 217 Mulan Joins the Army (Mulan congjun) 212
Miller, Arthur 436, 506, 509 Murong, Xuecun 670
Miller, J. Hillis 669 Muses 24
Mimesis 143 mutual mediation 147

733
 Index

national character 25 – 26, 30, 296, 457, 692 New Youth (Xin qingnian) 5 – 6, 19, 23, 53, 104,
national defense literature 281, 319 131, 195, 643
National Defense Plays (Guofang xiju) 184 Ng, Kenny K. K. xvii, 72
national form 117 – 118, 121, 307 Nietzsche, Friedrich 14 – 15, 88, 100, 105, 256;
national identity 94, 132, 136 – 138, 221, 618 Thus Spoke Zarathustra 100; Übermensch 105
National Poetry Prize, the 495 Nietzsche Fad 15
National Writers and Artists Resistance No No School (Feifei pai) 687 – 688
Association 59 Northern Expedition, the 37
Native Soil Fiction (xiangtu xiaoshuo) 85 nouveau roman 480, 508, 581, 583
Nativist Literary Debates 633
Nativist Narration 9 Oedipus complex 135, 364
Nativists or xiangtu writers 617, 623, 628 O’Neill, Eugene 183 – 185, 196, 436; The Emperor
Nativity Literature/nativist literature (xiangtu Jones 184
wenxue) 15, 305, 625 Online Literature 516, 671, 693
Natsume Soseki 52 online publication 669 – 670, 679
Neo-Confucian 53 – 54, 102 – 103 opaque poetry 436, 491
Neo-Confucianism 293, 549 Orchid Society 155; Friends of Orchids 155
neo-realism 553, 685 – 686 Orphan of Asia 618
neorealist fiction (xin xieshi zhuyi xiaoshuo) 562 Ouyang, Jianghe 436, 515, 687 – 689
Neri, Corrado xvii, 205 Ouyang, Shan 217, 329, 336 – 339; The Bitter
netizen 669, 670, 678 Struggle (Ku dou) 337; Eternal Spring
Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) 644 (Wannian chun) 337; Light at the End of the
New China 7 – 8, 49, 51, 99, 116, 218, 292, 298, Tunnel (Liu an hua ming) 337; The Sacred
300, 331, 344, 356, 385 – 386, 398, 402 – 403, 405, Land (Sheng di) 337; Three-Family Lane (San
410 – 411, 424 – 425, 444 – 445, 466, 521, 525 Jia Xiang) 329; A Whole Generation of Heroes
New Condition 515 (Yi dai fengliu) 337
New Culture Movement 7, 10, 13 – 14, 20, 23, 36, Ouyang,Yuqian 20, 183 – 184, 186 – 188, 192, 195,
48, 53, 59, 61, 72, 111 – 112, 119, 131 – 132, 138, 506, 509; Behind the Screen (Pingfeng hou)
169, 265 – 266, 269, 292, 343, 370, 375 187; Li Xiucheng, the Loyal Prince (Zhongwang
New Era Literature 439, 440, 444 Li Xiucheng) 188; Pan Jinlian 187; The Peach
new folksongs 398, 401 – 404 Blossom Fan 188
New Generation of Writers 515, 623 Ouyang, Zi 632, 638
New History 515 overlapping indeterminism 4, 7, 9, 17
new immigrant (xin yimin) 657 – 658 overlapping vagueness 4, 7
new life era (xin sheng pai) 657 Owen, Stephen 3
New Literary History of Modern China, A 3, 5 Oxford Handbook of Modern Chinese Literatures 4
New Literary Movement 90
New Meadows 524 Pan, Renmu 620; Cousin Lianyi (Lianyi
New Media Literature 516 Biaomei) 620; The Story of Ma Lan (Ma Lan
new peasantry 305 – 307, 315 de gushi) 620
new-period literature 4 Pang, Laikwan 208
New Poetry (Xin shi) 101, 104, 111 – 114, 117 – 118, patriarchal family system, the (dajiazu zhidu) 53
121 – 122, 156 – 159, 165, 224, 228, 249 – 250, Payne, Robert 223, 228; Contemporary Chinese
499, 644 – 645, 647 – 648, 686 Poetry 228
New Poetry Society: Liu Yanling 112;Ye Shengtao Pearl Necklace Trimonthly (Yingluo xunkan) 169
112;Yu Pingbo 112 Peking Opera 20, 206, 254, 410, 413, 452, 469,
New Realism 435, 509, 515, 682 604, 622
New Romance Fiction School (xin yanqing Peng, Ge 620, 622 – 623; Setting moon (Luoyue)
xiaoshuo pai) 657 620; Shooting Star (Liuxing) 620
New School of Martial Arts Fiction (xin wuxia Peng, Xiuyin xviii, 603
xiaoshuo pai) 657, 661 People’s Literature (Renmin wenxue) 313, 387 – 388,
New Sensationalism 20, 357 451, 482, 521, 684
New Sensationists (xinganjue pai) 168 – 169, People’s Literature Prize 604
176 – 177 Period of Openness and Reform, the 7
New Threads (Xin yusi) 670 personal integrity (“yi”) 267 – 269
new wave fiction 477 personalized writing 15
New Waves 682 Pesaro, Nicoletta xvii, 84
new women 176, 344, 346 Pi Dan 675; The School of Trash (Laji pai) 675

734
 Index

Pizi Cai 669; The First Intimate Contact (Diyici Qu, Bo 390 – 392; Tracks in the Snowy Forest (Linhai
Qinmi Jiechu) 669 xueyuan) 391
Plum in the Golden Vase,The 187 quwei (fascination) 296
Poetic Life (Shi shenghuo) 675
poetic of selfhood 267 Rainbow (Hong) 37
Poetic World (Shi jianghu) 675 Rain Lane Poet 157
Poetry (Shikan) 117, 222, 398 – 399, 403 Reading with Beauty Net (Hongxiu tianxiang) 670
Poetry Creation 249 realism x, 14, 21, 208, 478, 537; literal realism 341;
poetry dramas (shiju) 266 neo-realism 515, 553; postmodern realism 567;
poetry expresses intent (shiyan zhi) 408 psychological realism 64 – 65, 134; revolutionary
Poetry Monthly (Shi yuekan) 113 – 115, 249 realism 217, 303; socialist realism 218, 383
Poetry of New China 218, 397 Realism School, the (xieshi pai or xianshi zhuyi
Poets of the Ocean Group (Haishang shiqun) 687 pai) 657
political melodrama 464 rectangular poems (fangkuaishi) 122
popular forms 236 red classics 331
post-Mao era 310, 462, 502, 507, 519 – 520 Remorse at Death (Shensi hen) 212
post-Mao feminist writings 554 – 555 Renjianshi (The Human World) 296
Post-Misty Poetry (Hou-Monglong Shi) 686 Republican Daily, the (Guomin ribao) 37 – 38
postmodern 7 – 9, 24, 82, 478, 480, 515 – 516, 531, revolution (geming) 267; “changing the Mandate”
535, 617, 677, 696 267; “transferring the Mandate” 267
Postmodernism 1, 8 – 9, 16, 435, 480, 515 – 516, revolutionary literature 221, 227 – 228, 310, 312,
520, 534, 685, 693, 696 337, 339, 575, 600
postmodernity 683 – 684, 696 revolutionary novel 15, 86, 427
postmodern literature 7 – 8, 520, 536 revolutionary realism 217, 329, 337, 424, 443
postmodern realism 567 revolutionary romanticism 218, 329, 337,
Potato School, the 311, 386 385 – 386, 390, 406 – 407, 424, 443
Pound, Ezra 8, 72 Revolution plus Love 330, 339
present-day literature 4, 8, 696 Riemenschnitter, Andrea xviii, xxi, 592
Prévost, Marcel 72 Rilke, Rainer Maria 249, 253 – 256, 259; Sonnets to
problem plays (wenti ju) 503 – 504 Orpheus 254
proletarian literature (puluo wenxue) 85 – 86, 170, Rimbaud, Arthur 151, 159, 235 – 236, 631
329, 335, 337, 401 river novel (dahe xiaoshuo) 73
Proto-feminism 218, 341 Rojas, Carlos 4, 543
Proust, Marcel 8, 73, 143, 581 Rolland, Romain 34, 52, 88
Prusek, Jaroslav 228 Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo yanyi) 272,
Psychoanalysis 171, 357 678
psychological/family/social drama (wenyi pian) 207 Romanticism 1, 84, 99 – 100, 118, 128, 132, 135,
psychological realism 64 – 65, 134 156, 159, 265, 271, 435, 557, 561, 617
psycho-narration 64, 66 Romanticist/Idealist School, the (langman pai or
public sphere 677 – 678 lixiang pai) 657
purposive without purpose 295 Root-searching School, the 683 – 684, 686, 694
Pursuit (Zhuiqiu) 37 Rosenmeier, Christopher xviii, 168
Putrefaction (Fushi) 37 Rou Shi 15, 19, 84 – 86, 88 – 89, 573; Death of the
Old Times (Jiushidai zhi si) 88; February (Er yue)
Qian, Liqun 86 88; “A Slave Mother” (Wei nuli de muqin) 85,
Qian, Zhongshu 15, 159, 218, 369 – 370, 378 – 380, 88
425; Fortress Besieged (Wei cheng) 378; Humans, Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 14
Beasts, and Ghosts (Ren shou gui) 378 Routledge Handbook of Modern Chinese Literature
Qideng Sheng 632 1, 4
Qin, Mu 297 – 298, 300; “Collection Sea Shells on Ru, Zhijuan 435, 445, 558; “A Story out of
the Beach” (Haibian shibei) 300; “The Land” Sequence” 445
(Tudi) 300 Ruan, Lingyu 196, 207, 210 – 211; The Goddess
Qin, Zihao 645, 648 – 650; “Where is New Poetry (Shennü) 211
Going?” 645 rural literature 542, 683, 694, 696
qingjing jiaorong (emotion and scene melt Rydholm, Lena xviii, xxi, 59
together) 406
Qiu, Huadong 686 Sartre, Jean-Paul 14 – 15, 632
Qiu, Jin 553 Saussure, Ferdinand de 11

735
 Index

Scar Literature 8, 15, 313, 424, 432, 435, 440 – 441, short lyric (xiaoshi) 112, 114 – 115
491, 519, 682 Shu, Ping 686
Schmitt, Carl 282 – 285, 287 Shu, Ting 436, 492 – 493, 495 – 496; “To the Oak
Schnitzler, Arthur 169; Frau Berta Garlan 169 Tree” 492; “Ah, Mother” 492; Archaeopteryx
Schweiger, Irmy xviii, 477 (Shizuniao) 495; A Boat with Two Masts 495;
Science Fiction School, the (kehuan xiaoshuo “Motherland, My Dear Motherland” 495; The
pai) 657 Singing Iris (Hui change de yuanwei hua) 495
Science Fiction World 524 Shui,Yunxian 435, 451; “Trouble Arises” (Huo qi
scientific essay (kexue xiaopin) 296 xiaoqiang) 451
Scott, Walter 102; Ivanhoe 102 Sima, Qian 28, 268 – 269, 272 – 273; Shiji (The
secondary authors 427 – 428 Grand Scribe’s Records/ Historical Records) 28, 268
self-actualization 359 – 360, 367, 554 Sino-Japanese War 92, 99, 112, 129, 137, 144, 164,
self-alienation 359 – 362, 365, 367 178, 217, 221 – 222, 227, 266, 279 – 281, 336,
sensationalism 20, 169, 169, 177; New 357 – 358, 556, 570 – 571, 641, 647, 691
Sensationalism 20, 169; New Sensationalist Skyline Forum (Tianya luntan) 670, 674
fiction 177; sensationalist school 168 Słupski 65 – 66
sentimentalism 228, 404, 406, 424, 442, 634 socialist literature 312, 329, 392, 401, 414, 569
serve the people 50, 424 socialist realism 49, 107, 218, 306, 312 – 313,
Seventeen Years (Shiqi nian, 1949–1966) 218, 319 – 321, 323, 325, 327, 329, 344, 385 – 386,
410 – 411, 413 – 414, 416, 420, 423 – 425, 388, 390, 394, 397, 424, 427, 431, 480, 505, 563
443, 503 Society for Literary Research 36, 45
Sha, Ting 84 – 86, 91 – 92; “In the Ancestral Hall” soft film (ruanxing dianying) 207
(Zai citang li) 92; “An Autumn Evening” (Yi Song, Weijie xix, 410
ge qiuye) 92; The Gold Diggers (Taojin ji) 91; Song of Midnight (Yeban gesheng) 212 – 213
“The House of the Fragrant Teahouse” (Zai Songs of Chu (Chuci) 102, 268
Qixiangju chaguan li) 92 Songs of the Red Flag (Hongqi yao) 402
Sha,Yexin, Li Shoucheng, and Yao Deming 502, Southern China Society (Nanguo she) 186
504; If I Were for Real (Jiaru wo shi zhende) South Sea Society, the (Nanyang xuehui) 129
502, 504 Soviet socialist realism 319, 385
Shaanxi literature 542 spatial-narrative scheme 75
Shadow Magic (Xiyangjing) 206 Spingarn, J. E. 296
Shakespeare 59, 144, 147, 152, 194, 249, 282, 287, spiritual victory 26, 31 – 33
482, 506, 536; The Merchant of Venice 194 spoken drama (huaju) 53, 183 – 190, 192, 194 – 195,
Shanghai Journal of Literary Criticism (Shanghai 280, 410, 503 – 504, 507 – 508
Wenlun) 685 Spring and Autumn Annals 650
Shanghai Masses Magazine (Shanghai qunzhong Spring in a Small Town (Xiaocheng zhi chun)
zazhi) 236 214 – 215
Shanghai Theatre Association (Shanghai xiju Spring River Flows East 213
xieshe) 183 – 184, 186 Spring Willow Society (Chunliu she) 186
Shen, Haobo 675; Cotton Mill 675 Stapleton, Kristin xix, 48
Shen, Rong 445 – 446; “At Middle Age” (Ren dao Starting Points Chinese Net (Qidian
zhongnian) 446, 462 zhongwenwang) 670
Shen,Yinmo 6, 20 stream of consciousness 8, 65 – 66, 130, 147, 171,
Shen Congwen 14 – 15, 19, 55, 144, 171, 218, 173, 184, 349, 372, 436, 446, 456, 509 – 510, 521,
258, 343 – 344, 369 – 380, 588; Border Town (Bian 581 – 583, 634, 639, 657 – 658, 689
cheng) 19, 371; “Quiet” (Jing) 372 stream-of-consciousness narrative 349
Sheridan, Richard 188; The School for Scandals 188 Street Angels (Malu tianshi) 212
Shi, Teisheng 448; “My Distant Qingpingwan” street verse (jietou shi) 227, 230
448, 455 – 456 Su, Manshu 620; The Lone Swan (Duanhong
Shi,Yaohua xviii, 155 lingyan ji) 620
Shi, Zhecun 14, 20, 155 – 157, 159, 162, 165, Su, Wen 169, 171
168 – 178; Exemplary Conduct of Virtuous Women Su, Xuelin 149, 645
(Shan nüren xingpin) 172, 174; The General’s sublime love 112, 118, 121
Head (Jiangjun di tou) 172; “One Evening in Sun, Ganlin 684
the Rainy Season” (Meiyu zhi xi) 168, 172; Sun, Ganlu 436, 481, 684; Breathing (Huxi) 684
Spring Festival Lamp (Shangyuan deng) 172 Sun, Li 217, 299, 301, 306, 311 – 313, 316; The
Shijing (the Book of Odes/the Book of Songs/the Blacksmith and the Carpenter 313; “Glory”
Classic of Poetry) 102, 117, 152, 229, 650 (Guangrong) 313; “The Lotus Lake” (Hehua

736
 Index

dian) 312; “The Reed Marsh” (Luhua dang) drummer of the age” 228; Even She Wants to
312; “Wu Zhaoer” (Wu Zhaoer) 313 Kill (Ta yeyao sharen) 228; To the Fighters (Gei
Sun,Yat-sen 19 zhandouzhe) 228; It Is Not Yet Dawn (Weiming
Sun,Yu 209 – 210, 411; The Big Road (Da lu) 209; ji) 227; To the Soldiers Patrolling in Storms (Cheng
Daybreak (Tianming) 209; Life of Wu Xun (Wu zai da fengsha li benzou de gangweimen)
Xun zhuan) 209; Little Toys (Xiao wanyi) 209; 228; “Stories of the Chinese Countryside”
Queen of Sports (Tiyu huanghou) 209; Wild Rose (Zhongguo nongcun de gushi) 227
(Ye meigui) 209 Tian, Jinxin 503; The Field of Life and Death
superego 14, 32 – 33 (Shengsi chang) 503
supernatural realism 24 Tian, Zhaungzhuang 214, 463
surrealism 8, 24, 164, 435, 436, 456, 477, 644, 688 Tiancan Tudou 673; The Legend of an Inner Energy
Su, Tong 436, 481, 515, 530, 536 – 537, 539 – 540, Practitioner (Doupo cangqiong) 673
592, 684; Blush (Hong fen) 536; “The Escape tianyuan shiren (“pastoral poet” or “poet of the
of 1934” (Yijiusansi nian de taowang) 536; countryside”) 223
“Memories of Mulberry Garden” (Sangyuan Tie, Ning 435, 516, 554, 689 – 690; “A Button-less
liunian) 536; Rice 536; Why Can the Snake Fly Red Shirt” (Meiyou niukou de hong chenshan)
(She wei shenmo hui fei) 536; “Wives and 554; Cotton Stack (Mianhua duo) 690; Green
Concubines” (Qiqie cheng qun) 536 Grass Stack (Qingcao duo) 690; Haystack (Maiji
symbolism 8, 20, 24, 118, 143, 151 – 152, 156, duo) 690; Three Stacks (Sanduo) 690
165 – 166, 237, 299, 367, 435, 456, 463, 468, 483, time-travel fiction 671 – 672
492, 494, 510, 634, 644, 658 Tina 674; The Road of a Sad Ghost (Yuangui
symbolist poetry 143, 149, 152, 159 lu) 674
Today 492
Tagore, Rabindranath 100, 102 – 103, 112, 121, Tolstoy, Leo 52, 305, 347, 581; Resurrection 52
492; The Crescent Moon (Xinyue ji) 121 Trackless Train (Wugui lieche) 169
Tai, Jingnong 305 traditional Chinese martial arts (wuxia) novel 86
Taibai (Morning Star) 296 traditional Chinese opera (xiqu) 410
Taiwan theater 510 – 511 translation style 250
talented scholar and beauty (caizijiaren) 86 Trilogy of the Countryside (Nongcun sabu qu):
Talks on the New Poetry (Xinshi zahua) 113 Wukui Bridge, Fragrant Rice, The Black Dragon
Tam, King-fai xix, 439, 450 Pond 184
Tang, Tao 3 Turbulent Stream Trilogy, the: The Family, Spring,
Tang, Xiaobing 49, 321 Autumn 49
Tangjia Sanshuo 670, 673; The Douluo Continent Turgenev, Ivan 52, 388; On the Eve 52
(Douluo dalu) 673 typical characters 324
Tang poetry 102, 157, 254
Tao, Ran 657 – 658 unconsciousness 11, 14
Tao,Yuanming 254, 595 unity of heaven and man 13
Taoism/Daoism 147, 309, 375, 576, 584, 596 Upright Official Drama 275
Tashi Dawa (Zhaxi Dawa) 455 – 456 Urban Fantasy/Romance School (dushi qiqing
Theater of Hong Kong and Macao 511 – 512 pai) 657
Them (Tamen) 687 urban fiction (Dushi xiaoshuo) 673 – 674
Third Generation of Poetry 686 usefulness of uselessness 295
Third Way 117 Utopia 686, 688
Thirteen Tracks/Thirteen Rhyme Groups (shisan
zhe) 254 Valery, Paul 152
Three Family Lane 15 Verhaeren, Emile 235 – 238, 240; The Hallucinated
Three Rebellious Women 266, 412; Nie Ying 266; Fields (Les Campagnes hallucinées) 237; The
Wang Zhaojun 266; Zhuo Wenjun 266 Tentacular Cities (Les Villes tentaculaires) 237
Three Travels to Jiangnan 431 Verlaine, Paul 143, 159, 643; “Chanson
Tian, Han 20, 99, 183, 186, 207, 217, 238, d’automne” 158
265 – 267, 269, 271 – 275, 278 – 279, 410, 413, vernacular Chinese (baihua) 10, 66, 111, 129, 378
506, 508 – 509; Chen Yuanyuan 266; Guan Vuilleumier,Victor xix, 235
Hanqing 266; “The March of Volunteers”
(Yiyong jun jinxing qu) 265; Princess Wagner, Rudolf 412; “new historical dramas”
Wencheng 266 (xinbian lishi ju) 412
Tian, Jian 221 – 222, 227 – 233; The Cart Driver 228; Wan brothers, the 212; Iron Fan Princess (Tieshan
Chinese Pastorals (Zhongguo muge) 227; “the gongzhu) 212

737
 Index

Wang, Anyi 455, 554, 558 – 559, 689; Bao Town (Xiao for Dowry” (Jiazhuang yi niuche) 627; Rose, Rose,
bao zhuang) 558; Documentation and Fabrication I  Love You (Meigui, meigui, wo ai ni) 627; “Xiao
(Jishi yu xugou) 559; A Japanese Singing Star Lin Comes to Taipei” (Xailin lai Taibei) 627
(Gexing riben lai) 689; Love in a Small Town Wang, Zuoliang 250
(Xiaocheng zhi lian) 559; Love in the Brocade Water Margin,The 146, 172, 177, 187, 196
Valley (Jinxiugu zhi lian) 559; Love on a Barren Waverings (Dongyao) 37
Mountain (Huangshan zhi lian) 559; Singaporeans Wedell-Wedellsborg, Anne xix, 530
(Xinjiapo ren) 689; Song of Everlasting Sorrow Wei, Minglun 503, 508; Pan Jinlian 503, 508
554, 559; “The Terminal of The Train” 447; The Wei Hui 691; Crazy like Wei Hui (Xiang Weihui
Uncle’s Story (Shushu de gushi) 689; Utopian namo fengkuang) 691
Poems (Wutuobang shipian) 689 Weiskopf, F. C. 228
Wang, Anyi and Chen Cun 455; “Dialogue over Wen,Yiduo 20, 101, 111 – 113, 116 – 118, 121 – 123,
Little Bao Village (Guanyu Xiaobaozhuang de 222 – 225, 228, 258, 414; “Beauty and Love”
duihua)” 455 (Mei yu ai) 118; “Confession” (Kougong) 120;
Wang, David Der-wei 3, 65, 68, 89, 259, 488; The “Dead Water” (Sishui) 118; “Deserted Village”
Lyrical in an Epic Time 267 (Huangcun) 120; “The Metric Structure of
Wang, Duqing 151 – 152; Egyptians (Aijiren) 151; Poetry” (Shi de gelü) 118; “original color”
“I come out of a Café” (Wo cong café-zhong (bense) 118; Red Candle (Hongzhu) 118;
chulai) 151; Before the Image of Holy Mother “Tiananmen” 120
(Shenmuxiangqian) 151; “Mourning for Rome” Westernization 3, 118, 294, 311, 463, 650, 653
(Diao Luoma) 151; Venice (Weinishi) 151 Western literature 3, 16 – 17
Wang, Kar-wai 658; 2046 658; In the Mood for Love Whitman, Walt 100, 103, 105, 240, 496, 631; “Song
658 of Myself ” 105
Wang, Lan 620 – 622; The blue and the black (Lan yu Wilde, Oscar 185
Hei) 620; Long night (Chang Ye) 620 Williams, Philip xix, 369
Wang, Meng 435, 440, 445 – 446, 455, 515, Wise Judge’s Decision,The 188
519 – 524, 527 – 528; “The Bolshevik Salute” Wochi Xihongshi 670, 674, 676; Coiling Dragon
445; “Butterfly” 445; Long Live Youth (Qingchun (Panlong) 676; Devouring the Starry Sky (Tunshi
Wansui) 521; Season of Carnival (Kuanghuan xingkong) 674
de jijie) 522; Season of Embarrassment (Shitai de Wong,Yoon Wah 63; “A Great Creator of Setting
jijie) 521; Season of Hesitation (Chouchu de jijie) and Character in Modern Time: Joseph Conrad,
522; Season of Love (Lian’ai de jijie) 521 My Most Respected Writer” 63
Wang, Runze 451, 454; “Descendants of the Woolf,Virginia 8, 143, 632; To the Lighthouse
Carpentry God” (Lu ban de houyi) 451 143, 147
Wang, Shuo 683, 685, 692; Dialogues with Our world literature 2 – 4, 696
Daughter (He women nu’er tanhua) 692; Don’t Woshi Gaoyang 672; Back to the Song Dynasty:
Treat Me as A Human (Qianwan buyao bawo A Story of Reincarnation (Bubu Shenglian) 672;
dangren) 685; Ferocious Animals (Dongwu Reborn Back to the Ming Dynasty to be a Prince
xiongmeng) 685; Half Is Sea Water and Half Is Fire (Huidao Mingchao dang wangye) 672; Reviving
Flame (Yiban shi haiyang,Yiban shi huoyan) 685; the Ming Dynasty (Xing Ming) 672
I’m Your Dad (Woshi ni baba) 685; It Looks Beautiful Writers’ Gathering (Bihui) 632
(Kanshangqu henmei) 685; Letters to My Daughter Wu, Han 275, 410, 413, 423; Hai Rui’s Resignation
(Zhi nu’er de xin) 692; A Master Player (Wanzhu) (Hai Rui baguan) 275; “Upright Offi cial
685; My Thousand Year of Coldness (Qiansui han) Drama” (“Qingguan Xi”) 275
692; Playing for Heart-Beating Fun (Wande jiushi Wu, Sunfu 42 – 46
xintiao) 685; Rubber Man (Xiangpiren) 685 Wu, Xiaodong 146
Wang, Wenxing 623 – 624, 632; Backed against Wu,Yu 52 – 55; “Cannibalistic Family Rituals”
the Sea (Beihai de ren) 623; Family catastrophe (Chiren de lijiao) 53
(Jiabian) 623 Wu, Zhuoliu 617 – 618, 628
Wang, Xiaobo 515, 683, 691 – 692; Age of Bronze Wugude Chongzi 672; Returning to Ming Dynasty
692; Age of Gold (Huangjin shidai) 691; Age of (Hui Ming) 672
Iron 692; Age of Silver 692 Wulin (Martial forest) 660
Wang, Xiaoming 685 Wure Ertu 455 – 456
Wang,Yangming 103
Wang,Yanjie xix, 462 Xia,Yan 183, 189 – 192, 207, 272, 279, 410 – 411;
Wang, Zengqi 144, 178, 301, 371, 440, 455 At the Corner of the City 189; Under the Eaves of
Wang, Zhenhe 623, 625, 627 – 628; “Ghost, North Shanghai (Reunion) 189; The Fascist Germ (Faxisi
Wind, Man” (Gui, beifeng, ren) 627; “An Oxcart xijun) 189; Fragrant Flowers on the Horizon

738
 Index

(Tianya fangcao) 189; Leisurely Searching for Yang, Kui 617 – 618

My Past Dreams (Lanxun jiumeng lu) 189; Yang, Lian 492, 497 – 499; Concentric Circles
Saijinhua 189 (Tongxinyuan) 499; Lee Valley (Lihe su de shi)
Xiao, Hong 19, 84 – 85, 89, 93 – 95, 291, 572; “The 499; Masks and Crocodiles (Mianju yu eyu) 499;
Abandoned Child” 93; “On the Bridge” 93; No Person Singular (Wurencheng) 499; “Pagoda”
“The Death of Wang Asao 93; The Field of Life 498; Where the Sea Stands Still (Dahai tingzhi zhi
and Death 85, 93; “Hands” 93; “Little Liu” 93; chu) 499
Tales of the Hulan River (Hulan he zhuan) 94 Yang, Mo 217, 329 – 331, 334 – 335, 337, 427; The
Xiao, Hui Faye xx, 553 Song of Beautiful Plants and Flowers (Yinghua
Xiao, Jun 19, 84 – 85, 93 – 95; Countryside in August zhi ge) 331; The Song of the Fragrance of Flowers
(Bayue de xiangcun) 85, 94 and Grass (Fangfeng zhi ge) 331; Song of Youth
Xiao,Ying 670 (Qingchun zhi ge) 329
xiaopin wen 290, 296 Yang, Shuo 218, 297 – 298; “Apex of Mt. Tai”
Xiaoshuo Shijie (Fiction World) 278 (Taishan jiding) 298; “Litchi Flower Honey”
Xiaoyue Tingfeng 672; Beauty in the Dynasty End (Lizhi mi) 298; “The Mirage” (Haishi) 298;
(Qinggong qingkong jingkong) 672 “Red Leaf of Mt. Fragrant” (Xiangshan hongye)
Xie, Jin 463 – 468, 470; The Herdsman (Muma 298; The Three-Thousand-Mile Territory (Sanqianli
ren) 464; Hibiscus Town (Furong zhen) 464; Jiangshan) 298
The Legend of Tianyun Mountain 464; The Red Yang,Yi 88, 377
Detachment of Women (Hongse niangzijun) 463; Yao,Yiwei 510
Two Stage Sisters (Wutai jiemei) 463; Woman Ya Xian 149, 645 – 646; “Colonel” (Shangxiao) 646
Basketball Player No. 5 (Nulan wuhao) 463 Ye, Lingfeng 14, 20
Xing,Yusen 670 Ye, Shaojun 19
xintianyou (Rambling Songs of Natural Rhythms) Ye, Shitao 618, 628, 633
399 – 400 Ye, Si 657
Xiong, Zhengliang 686 Ye, Zi 15, 19, 84 – 85, 87 – 89; “Fire” (Huo) 87;
Xi Xi 657 “Harvest” (Fengshou) 85, 87
Xu, Dishan 20, 369, 374 – 378, 380; “The Yeats, W. B. 498; The Tower 498
Merchant’s Wife”375; Yuguan 376 Yeh, Michelle112, 251
Xu, Jie 305 Yin, Lichuan 675; Cheap (Lian jia) 675; Lover
Xu, Jieyu 441 (Qingren) 675
Xu, Xiaowen xx, 183 Ying, Ruocheng 506, 509
Xu, Zhimo 20, 111 – 112, 117 – 118, 121 – 125, 157, yingxi 205 – 206
495, 619; “Chance Encounter” (Ouran) 124; Young China Study Society (Shaonian Zhongguo
Fierce Tiger (Menghu ji) 124; A Night in Florence xuehui) 72
(Feilengcui de yiye) 123; “Second Farewell to Youth Writing 15
Cambridge” (Zaibie kangqiao) 124; “A Snowfl Yu, Dafu 14 – 15, 19, 99, 103, 105, 128 – 132,
ake’s Delight” (Xuehua de kuaile) 122; Zhimo’s 136 – 138, 148, 171, 247, 290 – 291, 347; Cold
Poems (Zhimo de shi) 122 Ashes (Hanhui ji) 128 – 129; Flight (Chuben)
Xuanyu 674; The Legend of a Soldier (Xiaobing 129; Late-flowering Cassia (Chiguihua) 129; The
chuanqi) 674 Lost Sheep (Miyang) 129; The Past 129; She
Was a Weak Woman (Ta shi yige ruo nüzi) 129;
Yan, Fu 131 Sinking 129, 148; Spring Tide (Chunchao) 129
Yan, Geling 691; Aunt Duohe (Xiaoyi Duohe) 691; Yu, Guangzhong 158, 161, 618, 645 – 646, 649 – 653;
Feminine Grassland (Cixing de caodi) 691; The Associations of the Lotus (Lian de lianxiang) 651;
Ninth Widow (Dijiuge guafu) 691 Balsam Pear Made of White Jade (Baiyu kugua)
Yan, Jiayan 5 651; The Blue Wings (Lanse de chibang) 650;
Yan, Lianke 516, 683, 694 – 696; Flowing Years under Bodhisattva across the Water (Geshui guanyin)
the Sun (Riguang liunian) 695; Hard as Water 651; Elegy of a Boatman (Zhouzi de beige)
(Jianying rushui) 695; Lenin’s Kisses (Shou huo) 650; Halloween (Wanshengjie) 650; The Left-
695; Popular Songs and Elegant Odes (Feng ya handed Muse (Zuoshou de miusi) 650; “Myths
song) 695 of Dinghu” (Dinghu de shenhua) 650; “The
Yang, Bingfeng xx, xxi, 221 Night of Lunar Eclipse” (Yueshiye) 651; Ode to
Yang, Chichang 644, 646 Bauhinia (Zijing fu) 651; “River of Forgetfulness”
Yang, Hansheng 188, 217, 278, 280 – 281, 284, (Wangchuan) 651; “Sirius” (Tianlangxing) 650; In
286; Annals of the Heavenly Kingdom (Tianguo Time of Cold War (Zai lengzhan de niandai) 651; A
Chunqiu) 279; The Death of Li Xiucheng 280; The Tug-of-War with Eternity (Yu yongheng bahe) 651;
Death of Li Xiucheng (Li Xiucheng zhi si) 279 “Whatever That Has Wings” (Fan youchi de) 651

739
 Index

Yu, Hua 307, 436, 481, 487 – 488, 515, 530 – 535, Zhang,Youwen 674; Horror Teaching Building
539, 592, 684; Brothers (Xiongdi) 530; China (Kongbu jiaoxue lou) 674
in Ten Words (Shige cihuili de Zhongguo) Zhang,Yue’ran 693
531; Chronicle of a Blood Merchant/Xu Sanguan Zhang, Ziping 14
Sells Blood (Xu Sanguan mai xue ji) 530, 684; Zhao, Shuli 217, 306 – 309, 314 – 315, 326; The
Crying in the Drizzle/Shouting in the Rain (Zai Changes in the Li Village (Lijiazhuang de
xiyu zhong de huhuan) 487, 531, 684; To Live bianqian) 307; “Little Erhei Got Married” (Xiao
(Huozhe) 487, 530, 684; “On the Road at erhei jiehun) 307; “The Rhymes of Li Youcai”
Eighteen” (Shiba sui chumen yuanxing) 487, (Li Youcai banhua) 307; Sanliwan Village (Sanli
530; The Seventh Day (Di qi tian) 530 wan) 308
Yu, Pingbo 20, 112, 116, 291 Zheng, Chouyu (Cheng Ch’ou-yü) 618 – 619, 644
Yu, Xiuhua 679; I Crossed Half of China to Sleep Zheng, Min 247, 251, 258
with You (Chuanguo dabange zhongguo qu Zheng, Qingwen 628
shuini) 679 Zheng, Wanlong 455 – 456; “My Root (Wo de
Yuan, Liangjun 658 gen)” 455
Yusi 296 Zheng,Yi 440 – 442, 455 – 456; “Bridging the Cultural
Yuzhou feng (The Cosmic Wind) 60, 296 Rupture (Kuayue wenhua duanliedai)” 455
Zheng, Zhenduo 121, 575
zaidao (sustaining the dogma) 290 Zhong, Dingwen 650
Zang, Kejia 217, 221 – 227; The Brand (Laoyin) Zhong, Zhaozheng 628
222; The Canal (Yunhe) 222; The Evil Black Zhou, Gang xx, 143
Hand (Zui’e de heishou) 222; Self-Portrait (Ziji Zhou, Keqin 435, 441, 443 – 444; “Xu Mao and
de xiezhao) 222; Songs of Soil (Nitu de ge) 222 His Daughters” 443
zawen 290 – 291 Zhou, Libo 217, 306, 311, 318 – 322, 325 – 327;
Zbigniew Słupski 66 Great Changes in a Mountain Village (Shanxiang
Zhang, Chengzhi 436, 440, 455 – 456, 515 – 516 jubian) 318; The Hurricane (Baofeng zhouyu)
Zhang, Daofan 620; Literary Creation (Wenyi 318
Chuangzuo) 620 Zhou,Yang 171, 242, 279, 307, 318 – 319, 337,
Zhang, Guangtian 504, 516; Che Guevara (Qie 401 – 402, 439, 442, 448, 682; “literature of
Gewala) 504 national defense” (guofang wenxue) 337
Zhang, Jie 435, 440, 447, 451, 515, 554 – 558, 565, Zhou, Zuoren 6, 14, 20, 30, 111 – 112, 114, 129,
689; A Homeless Old Dog (Liulang de lao gou) 247, 290 – 292, 296 – 298, 300; “Bitter Rain”
555; “Leaden Wings” (Chenzhong de chibang) (Kuyu) 291; “Tea Drinking” (He cha) 291
451, 555; “Love Must Not Be Forgotten” 447; Zhu, Dake 670
“The Music of the Forests” (Senlinli laide haizi) Zhu, Donglin 13
555; Wordless (Wuzi) 554 Zhu, Guangqian 143, 287, 440
Zhang, Kangkang 447, 689 Zhu, Wen 686
Zhang, Min 686 Zhu, Xiang 20, 157
Zhang, Mo 645 Zhu, Xining 627
Zhang, Tianyi 19, 84 – 86, 90 – 92, 171, 305, 379; Zhu, Ziqing 20, 111 – 117, 149 – 150, 158, 161,
“Bao and His Son” (Baoshi fuzi) 90; “Twenty- 223, 251, 258, 291; “Attachment” (Yilian) 114;
one Men” (Ershiyi ge ren) 85, 90 “Coal” (Mei) 113; “Destruction” (Huimie)
Zhang, Wei 436, 515 – 516, 455 – 456, 694; Ancient 115; “The Lotus Pond by Moonlight” (Hetang
Boat (Gu chuan) 694; Fables of September (Jiuyue yuese) 115; “Among My Fellow Men”
yuyan) 694; My Former Love Bohui (Bohui) 694 (Renjian) 114; Notes from London (Lundun zaji)
Zhang, Xianliang 14, 435, 440, 444 – 445, 451, 115; Notes from my Travels in Europe (Ouyou
464; “Mimosa” 445; “Seed of the Dragon” zaji) 115; “On Short Verse and Long Verse”
(Longzhong) 451; “Soul and Body” 445 115; “Small Grasses” (Xiaocao) 114; A Snowy
Zhang, Xiaofeng 510 Morning (Xuezhao) 113; Tracks (Zongji) 113;
Zhang, Xuan 445, 447; “The Corner Forgotten by “The View from the Rear” (Beiying) 115
Love” 445, 447 Zhuang Zhuang 672; The Legend of Qingluo
Zhang,Yang 425, 427, 432; The Second Handshake (Manman qingluo) 672
425 Zhuangzi 163, 373, 407; Zhuangzi 102 – 103, 163,
Zhang,Yigong 445, 451, 453; “Black Boy Takes a 251, 650
Photo” (Heiwa zhaoxiang) 451 Zola, Emile 52, 73, 76; The Beast in Man (La bête
Zhang,Yimou 463, 468, 487, 531, 536; Red humaine) 76
Sorghum (Hong gaoliang) 463 Zong, Fuxian 502, 504; In Silence (Yu wusheng
Zhang,Yingjin 55, 177 chu) 502, 504

740