Patricia Laurence

China Diary (Selections)

September 7, 2008

In my first week in Shanghai, a busboy told me that he wanted to go to America. “Why,” I asked. “To get the human rights.”

I was invited to China in early September to give some talks about my book, Lily Briscoe’s Chinese Eyes: Bloomsbury, Modernism and China, recently translated into Chinese. I was initially amazed that there was an interest, expressed no less, by a government press, Shanghai Bookstore Publishing Company. China, now more engaged now in following international trends, purchased the rights to my book as many others these days from my US publisher The book is a study of the relationship between the literary and intellectual circles of Bloomsbury and the Crescent Moon group, an Anglophone literary community in China in the 1920s-30s. The group I focused upon, Crescent Moon, was once labeled “decadent” and vilified because of its identification with English culture and literature; art for art’s sake; and humanitarian values. It was a group that was international in spirit at a time when China was not. It championed the value of the individual voice at a time of national crisis when the social mission (propaganda) of literature was all. Recently though, the group has drawn some attention because of its individualist stance and connections with Bloomsbury, and some of the writings of Ling Shuhua, Chen Yuan, Xu Zhimo, Lin Huiyin are being republished.

Speaking to a group of 200 students in a historic lecture hall at Fudan University in English (most students at this top university, I was told, know English), I connected with the younger 80s generation. These students, issue of China’s single-child policy grew up with more nurturing, material things, exposure to the West, and food than their parents (this generation sometimes depicted as the “Fat Grandson” in avant-garde painting). Many of their parents had been “sent down” to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. The 80s generation were exposed to the global early (as Deng Xiaoping had just opened up China after the Cultural Revolution) through television, video games, websites and movies.

The female students, interested in being “feminine,” eschew their parents’ generation genderless Mao suits, and don the trendy fashions displayed in the booming commercial streets of Shanghai. They read Chinese writers—Wang Anyi and Eileen Chang were often mentioned, but also international writers—some mentioned Virginia Woolf, Vladimir Nabokov, Margaret Yourcenar, Amy Tan, as favorites—and, yes, Gossip Girl, publicized widely in Shanghai bookstores. After I talked about the book, they asked questions about Virginia Woolf whom they like, and whether she (or I) was prejudiced in using the phrase “Lily Briscoe’s Chinese eyes” in To the Lighthouse; curious about Bloomsbury’s unconventional relationships; interested in approaches to writing about women in literature; and definitely drawn to the story of the illicit East-West romance between Julian Bell and Ling Shuhua described in the book (the plot suggestive of the harlequin romances now selling well in China i.e. Wei Hui’s Shanghai Baby, Chun Su’s, Beijing Doll). They seem eager for new ideas, open, curious about America. The title of my talk was “The Narrow Bridge of Art” (the title of a Woolf essay), and I walked the students across it in the Republican era-Modernist discussion in hopes of generating trust in the arts and good will in the younger generation. Like the fisherman in Wang Wei’s poem: “Watching the fresh-coloured trees, …[I] never think of distance.”

September 8-9: Attending the China Forum, Shanghai Exhibition Center

I attended and spoke at the 3rd World China Forum on China Studies, a two-day conference sponsored by the Shanghai Municipal Information Office, the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences in cooperation with State Council Information Office of PRC. Read, CP. It’s now an annual conference focused on China’s economic, technological and cultural development and challenges. Some of the more interesting items on the agenda were China’s health care system, reform of property rights, China’s global responsibilities, anti-Americanism in China, Sino-Israeli relations, political trust in rural China, development options of China’s democracy, and a review of the Chinese legal system. The question for me was what do all these economic and cultural shifts mean for literature?

A few panels, including my own focused on “soft power”—China’s investment in its culture, international image and people. My panel, “Cultural Spreading and Its Impact on China’s Image” made observations about the construction of China’s image in different countries. I discussed the cross-cultural and literary conversations between Bloomsbury and the Crescent Moon literary group during a period of openness in China.

The large character of “Harmony,” sailed over the conference site, the Shanghai Municipal Exhibition Center, old CP headquarters, now hosting conferences and the trendy Shanghai Contemporary Art Exhibit. Listening to seemingly endless speeches on the “emancipation of productive forces” and the “socialist road with Chinese characteristics,” I also became alert to stray rhetorical notes about “soft power,” a concern with “emancipation of mind,” cultural creativity, and “people’s lives and fundamental interests.” Wang Zhongwei, Director of the Publicity Department, CPC Shanghai Committee, opened the conference noting that 2008 was the 30th anniversary of China’s opening and reform, bracketed with Deng Xiaoping’s 1978 economic reforms and the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Affirming the change in China from a closed system to a “socialist-market system,” and its economic boon as the world’s fastest growing market, he announced that “China was now fully open.” Economically. Zheng Bijan, former executive VP, Party School of the Central Committee, CPC, noted that this change also “includes citizen’s democratic rights in economy, politics, cultural and social life.” And Wang Ronghua, Research Professor, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, harkened back to holistic philosophy of The Book of Changes. Focusing on the environment and the “demoralization of the people,” he spoke of needed changes in China’s world view given that its ecological system is at risk--the shrinkage of forestry, desertification (around Beijing), carbon emissions, species disappearance. Progressive, and, at times, humanitarian rhetoric—sometimes delivered in Mao-like intonations—a new combination in the municipal hall.


September 11: Literature, Politics and Culture

Aware of PEN’s campaign for writers detained during the Beijing Olympics, I thought I might discreetly explore the issues of being a writer in a socialist/communist country. Acutely aware, however, that any revelations by writers or others could mean serious punishment, I expected little. But the questions were in mind: what does it means to be a writer in a socialist/communist country as compared to a capitalist country. How does the economics of writing differ in each country? The freedoms? The censorship? The punishments for candor? What are the structures for publishing and distribution now that joint ventures have formed since China entered WTO in 2001? What is the role of the Writer’s Union?

I was invited to speak with a group of Shanghai women writers at the Writer’s Union in Shanghai (also doubling as the PEN center) in a beautiful, 1950s mansion, built by “a rich capitalist,” I was told. Unlike Shanghai, the International PEN Center in Beijing is independent of the Writer’s Association. When I asked officials of the WU about detained writers, as expected, I was told that they heard nothing about this. Other writers I asked said the same thing. When I tried to connect with some contacts given to me, I had no success….cultural firewalls.

Though I had asked to talk with women of different generations at the Writer’s Union, I was speaking mostly to older writers of the 60’s generation who had experienced the Cultural Revolution, some of them “sent down” to the countryside experiencing humiliation or abuse; others enjoying a time of high youth fired by the ideas of socialism and the “liberation” ideology of Mao. I met with Wang Zhousheng, a writer supported by the WU; Chen Dan Yan, non-fiction writer, historian of cities; Wang Xiao Ying, writer of short stories; Xue Shu, a somewhat younger than the others writing about tensions between government projects and local people’s lives, and a visiting writer from Japan, part of the first exchange program of the WU. It was clear from the conversation that these writers’ ideas of nation and Mao’s doctrines that once served as the political and emotional center of their lives were now diminished. Mao still operates as a symbol in the society—statues here and there and, of course, the explosion of his image in the visual arts—but his emotional and political appeal (given the Great Famine and the Cultural Revolution) is gone for many. Also these women’s writer’s “shining” days of popularity in the 80s were over. Publishing was in the doldrums during and after the Beijing Olympics, and, perhaps, for women writers of their values and generation. One of the writers said, “you need a tie-in,” a movie or a tv series “to bring you popularity.”

I asked about the seeming ascendance of the visual over the literary arts in China. Having seen so many avant-garde paintings and sculptures at the Shanghai Biennale and Shanghai Contemporary International Art Show, I noted that the visual arts somehow demonstrate more “freedom” of expression. They agreed that there was an eclipse of literature but they also spoke of a younger generation of writers of the 80s—products of China’s single-child policy-- who are more popular than they—writers who want to be more “free and more “natural” (a word I heard often in discussions), to write about everyday life, and who are not interested in history. We spoke of feminization and feminism and the focus on sex, the body and material things in newer novels. They know nothing of “duty,” one writer said, without rancor.

A young reporter I met--in describing younger 80s readers (now in their twenties)--said that movies were more important than books to a younger generation brought up with more access to the West, video games, television, movies and websites. “We want to be heroes, but we want material things first,” she asserted.


September 12: Thinking about the Writer’s Union

When Mao and the Chinese Communist Party took power in 1949, many writers suffered a literary death. Expected to follow a realist formula with a political mission, many stopped writing or were imprisoned because of “rightist” sentiments. After Deng Xiaoping’s economic and cultural reforms in 1979, the stance toward writers and literature changed. Deng announced that literature would not simply serve politics, and international literature and free-er discussion was once again allowed into the culture, to a degree. This opening up has evolved, and what has changed in contemporary Chinese writing is that most writers are less overtly concerned with politics—not only because the censors that all writers are subject to do not allow criticism of the government, reference to events like Tiananmen 1989 or too explicit sexuality or homosexuality in writing—but also because they are more concerned with the market. Because of the influence of the market and new venues for publishing, authorities in the ministries are having diminishing influence in literary circles. Though censorship still exists….

When I asked Chen Dayan, a popular non-fiction writer who writes about the history of Shanghai, why her generation joined the Writer’s Union, she replied that it was a central government conduit for writers: those favored by the union have access to publishers, writing grants, and approved leaves from their jobs for writing, It offers security—and surveillance. Some of the younger Beijing writers I interviewed belong to the Union but don’t believe it’s important to their careers. They make their own connections with agents and are subject to the vagaries of the market, and worried about continued success and readership in order to support themselves. Some writers play to the market to support themselves writing harlequin romances like Wei Hui’s Shanghai Baby. Literature is now a commodity in China.
Since China entered the WTO in 2001, publications distribution opened up to foreign investors. Overseas investors are now allowed to set up retail joint ventures in special economic zones and in certain cities, including Beijing and Shanghai. This means that there is now competition with the government-controlled distribution networks, and reforms. New technologies and more efficiency in a more diverse publishing scene.


September 16: Beijing Bookworm

It was a rainy evening in Beijing and I traveled across the sprawling city to the Chao Yang new diplomatic district to the Beijing Bookworm. I gave a talk to an audience of about twenty ex- pats at this trendy, successful English language bookstore, restaurant, lending library and, now, writer’s residency in Beijing. I’m told that they have about 2000 members, the audience being 75% ex-pats and the rest, Anglophone Chinese. It’s an attractive candlelit space in the evening with three large rooms, and has become a literary center for readings, talks, debates. That night, I met an international bureau chief, a reporter from the Beijing News, a director from the British Council, and an American with an interest in Bloomsbury temporarily working in Beijing. The idea for the store, I’m told, was Alex Pearson’s, a Sinologist, who set up a small library and restaurant about five years ago, that has now has expanded with branches in Suzhou and Chengdu. Jenny Niven, the energetic handler of bookstore events and marketing was my contact through their attractive website describing events and writers (www.beijingbookworm.com).

The bookstore often features young Chinese writers who either write in or are translated in English. This past month, they presented Hu Wen, Chinese Dollar and Guo Xiaolu, A Concise English-Chinese Dictionary for Lovers, shortlisted for the Orange Prize in London.

September 17: A visit to a Beijing Bookstore; Interview with Zhang Yue Ran

Eager to see what was featured in the bookstores in translation, I walked down the fashionable shopping street, Wangfujing Road, to the one of Beijing’s largest bookstores. I noted Chinese literature in translation, but also international bestsellers, given China’s integration into the world market. The Diary of Mo Yan was well displayed, Chun Sue’s Beijing Doll, Lilian Lee’s Farewell My Concubine (adapted for Zhang Yimou’s film), Jiang Rong’s Wolf Totem, Helen Tse’s Sweet Madarin, Su Tong’s Rice, Eileen Chang, Love in a Fallen City, Fan Wu’s February Flowers…And international literature displayed: Amy Tan’s The Opposite of Fate, Barack Obama’s Audacity of Hope (also displayed in Chinese translation), the Gossip Girl series, Harry Potter books (the fifth in the series I was told, sold 500,000 in translation), Jack Kerouac’s Dharma Bums, Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach, Iris Chang’s Rape of Nanking, Murakami Haruki, and How they Got into Harvard….On several occasions, I talked with people about the absence of important American and English novels on the shelves, and the issue of translation, an undervalued and underpaid profession (often given to grad students in China). Publishers sometimesin a rush to get titles into the bookstores, use poor translators, and the profession needs standardization and regulation. More to be said on this…

Also interviewed Zhang Yue Ran, a writer born in 1986 in Jinan, Shandong province, and who spent four years in Singapore. A popular writer (though not yet translated into English), s=she has published six volumes—three novels, three collections of short stories—in six years. She has tapped into the young adult market, teens who enjoy reading about the problems of teen obesity, jealousy, cliques and harassment.

Ye Ran told me that she does well financially: her books cost about 23RMB (about $3), and she sold 200,000 copies of her last novel receiving a 12% royalty fee. She, like other young novelists, however, does not feel secure as her following “might get jobs, not have time for reading and drop her.” She told me that she thinks of herself as a woman writer as the women of her generation are “fed up”: they study hard just like a boy to be #1 in their class, and they are treated like boys. But, she says, women of her generation are learning how “to be women,” as they were always urged by their mothers to “keep a distance” from the boys during years of study. Girls, she said, are not confident with themselves. Their mothers, perhaps, don’t know how to convey “femininity,” having grown up during a different and more difficult time in China, and she and her generation learn from Western countries. Yet they are urban women, she said, who “don’t want to be taken care of,” having been educated to be self-supporting. Only a small number of women want to find a rich man. “Most of us,” she said “look for a man with true love.” She writes of these themes in her stories.

When I asked about censorship, she said that government excised political statements, explicit sexuality, and “girl and boy love. “ Sometimes, such themes are acceptable if placed in a historical setting, and she is now writing a historical novel of the Ming era. She also noted that students could download “boy-love” stories from the web, Japanese anime, and sometimes they show off by cross-dressing or play at "girl love." Amazing in a culture that was puritanical in not even allowing people to hold hands or kiss in public about thirty years ago. Homosexuality is tolerated, Yue Ran added, in certain careers, fashion, artists, actors…

September 18: Interview with Chun Sue, BEIJING DOLL

I met another young, successful Beijing novelist whose first novel was banned in China. Written at the age of 19, her semi-autobiographical coming of age novel, Beijing Doll, translated into English by the distinguished translator, Howard Goldblatt, is described as a “novel of cruel youth” in China. In America, it has often been assessed as a bundle of clichés. In my interview, she rejected that assessment and argued that her generation is facing something different, something confusing in Chinese society that Mian Mian’s Candy also expresses. The sentiments may be familiar in America but in the Chinese context, the genre captures, as she states in her Author’s Note to the book, “the irreconcilable incompatibility with society, family and school….Many young people in China wrote to tell me that reading Beijing Doll was the most memorable event of their lives.” What young people were taught by their parents and the schools, she said, is different from “what is.” China, somehow, she mused, does not have the same “integrity”: even in my parent’s generation, the common people’s dream was not realized. “And so young people are depressed now even though some of the elites of the 50s are doing well.” My novels, she said, do not teach you “how to behave or act”—and represent a small portion of Chinese youth-- but tell you about another existence of feeling and thinking.”

Reading a review of a Beijing drama by Elyse Ribbons, /Pride and Prejudice,/ I had another glance at the contemporary female’s dilemma in modern cities. The main character, an editor at a trendy fashion magazine, is single, and grappling with the issue of whether to marry for love or money (money wins out), discussing along the way abortion with facile references to earthquakes that anger the audience. Is this the generation that Mo Yan writes about through the character of Ximen Mao in /Life and Death are Wearing Me Out/, the new generation that does nothing but talk and criticize? These plots and concerns are not Wang Anyi’s in /Song of Everlasting Sorrow/, Mo Yan’s or Jiang Rong’s, /Wolf Totem/-- thoughtful, slower-paced novels that take you into Chinese history and rural and minority culture in new ways--but they represent China’s pluralism, one of the many new windows into the younger generation that have developed in the house of Chinese fiction.

September 19: San Wei Teahouse/Bookstore

On my last night in Beijing, I went to an old teahouse to meet its charming owner, Ms. Liu Yuansheng, who has converted it into a bookstore holding mostly classical Chinese writing, and hosting talks, readings and music. Ming style tables and chairs, bamboo bird cages, beautiful calligraphy, and colorful tea jars graced the room. Another new enterprise in China I noted as a group of young Americans on China Tours--and learning Chinese--entered to have tea, converse and listen to a concert of Chinese classical music. Not quite Barnes and Noble, but established in the spirit of preservation of the culture of old Beijing.

Video excerpts of Patricia Laurence's talk, "The Narrow Bridge of Art: Bloomsbury, Modernism and China, at Fudan University, Shanghai, China, on September 16, 2008. The talk was part of a book tour in Shanghai and Beijing on the occasion of the translation of her book, LILY BRISCOE'S CHINESE EYES; BLOOMSBURY, MODERNISM AND CHINA, into Chinese by Shanghai Bookstore Publishing Company, July 2008.

A video presenting Fudan University can also be seen below.