What is Chinese literature about? Exile, inner exile. Inside China, banished. Happened to many poets through the ages, including the most famous. Or voluntary exile, to be somewhere else, not among the people. 别有天地非人間。Teaching Latin in a high school in Vienna, a friend of our uses Du Fu 杜甫. Du Fu, Brecht, Theodor Kramer, Guido Zernatto. She teaches Latin, so exile comes from Ovid. Epistulaes ex ponto. From Casablanca. No, it’s that port city on the Black Sea, in Romania. Constantza. Like Tristan Tzara. Z or S? Whatever. Du Fu. They use an old edition from the 1930s. Brought into verse by H. Not just translated, not directly. That’s how they used to do it. Gustav Mahler’s 馬勒 Song of the Earth 大地之歌 came from Li Bai 李白 (Li Tai-po), Wang Wei 王維 and Meng Haoran 孟浩然, through many versions in different languages in between. Mahler wrote the final versions to fit his music. Two poems by different poets merged into one, at the end. No, that Du Fu edition is very accurate, from the feel of it. Two great volumes, large and thick. Not rhymed. But rather formal. Not luosuo 羅嗦. No superfluos words. Hardly. Again, from the feel of it, I haven’t checked, just listened and read. Listened, our friends read well. Very down-to-earth, daily details. Ants, chicken. Fencing in chicken, thinking about it. A reference to the times, the circumstances. Suddenly becoming political, as our friend says. Towards the end. A moral at the end, maybe more in this German version than in Chinese. Circumstances, Du Fu’s circumstances. He always complains, says our friend. Very down-to-earth, very daily life. Strife, poverty, famine. Starving on the streets. We have a master’s thesis on Tang Poetry social critique in Vienna, from 1990. Anna Maria Eigner. Bai Juyi, many different poets. Li Shangyin wrote a lot about poverty in the countryside. Not in is most famous poems, unfortunately.
Daddy, who is this?
He is called Li Bifeng. I just translated a poem by him. He is in prison. They are all in prison. This one is a writer, too.
Why is he in prison?
He took part in protests, demonstrations. Demonstration, you remember what that is? Yes, we were in one together this year.
Where is this?
This is in China.
What else did he do?
He organized strikes. Do you know what strikes are?
No.
Strikes are when workers in a factory say they won’t work, all of them. To get better pay. To get insurance, you know what that is? When you are sick, to get money from insurance so you can get a doctor, go to hospital.
Daddy, are there any places with no government?
Good question. There are some places where women are in charge. They own the land, they run things. Used to. Sometimes still do. Places in China.
Well, they should. Women are important. Women bear children.
I don’t know if there are any places with no government. There are some places with not many people at all. Deserts, mountains.
he jumped from the top of the building
peng!
he was dead
it wasn’t like he had seen it
on tv
on tv
the contractor who owed migrant workers
when he heard someone would jump
right away he came out with his pay
but this time
no-one held him back
that’s how he died
peng!
Olomouc diary
March 27, 2013
Train connection from vienna worked just fine. Half an hour at the border station of břeclav, used it for a short walk, had a big laugh over buying powidl kolačni or so. Tram to down town, found the hostel immediately. Friendly aussies, still.
Weather better than in vienna- at least no snow, and a little bit of sun.
Went out to have lunch in a micro brewery first, then on to the art museum, which has free admission on wednesdays and sundays. Some very strong and original modern stuff here, as well as a lot of boring derivatives.
Tired, both from the museum and the beer with lunch.
Waiting for martin, who went back up to photograph a couple of paintings.
Started talking about all the things we want done in a week- time alone, time together, dissertation writing… I think there just aren’t enough hours in a week. But we will keep working on it.
Went home, Martin quite exhausted. i had gotten a second wind and went out for pizza, which was quite sufficient after a late and massive lunch.
Slept not so well, with the heat coming and going, the blanket problem (only one big duvet), some elephantine neighbor tramping up and down the corridor, and Chang Kai phoning at 11 p.m. For an oh so urgent translation, when we were sleeping.
March 28, 2013, olomouc
Next day martin got yoghurt and pastries for breakfast, in a little shop right around the corner, one of these super- narrow slots in a lovely pink art nouveau building with white friezes round the windows.
Did some soul searching on whether to stay one more night. Martin phoned his parents, and they said, fine. Private room was booked already, so we got a dorm room to ourselves, at 600 crowns instead of 900 (24 vs. 36 EUR).
Went to see the town some more, including the noon-day astronomical clock, playing music on its bells and showing happy members of the working classes. Sent postcards to our respective parents. Asked tourist info about concerts that day. No, we would not drive to Brno for that. Girl in the tourist office slightly clueless. Post office right on the square.
Also bought some chapstick, found a minimalist czech version, good quality, but just a tiny amount stuck in a plastic holder. If it gets warm, you have one mess. But hey, it is still winter, and at 11 crowns i am not going to complain.
Had lunch in a place at the university, bishop’s square. Then went home to veg out a bit and even sleep some.
Caught a little concert in the museum of modern art, 50 crown entrance fee. For that, a middle aged lady who sang chansons in czech, her friend the guitar player, the pianist, and the hand drum (hang drum?) player. All very spontaneous, family- like, with the audience humming or singing along occasionally. Not too long, either, stopped just in time for dinner. Back at the lovely micro brewery, which was packed with young people. Another lovely dinner.
And so off to the hostel, chatting a bit to some finnish and portuguese travellers, and off to the bunk beds.
March 30, 2013, train from olomouc to vienna.
Bit cold in the morning,woke up from that. Snow/ sleet falling. Managed a shower, and breakfast, and were out at the railway station in good time. Trains a bit delayed, but we should be home on time. Nice lunch at the breclav railway station canteen, new and clean place with the loveliest bathrooms.
In the summer of 1992, in a vegetable garden on the roof of a shed housing inmates of the Sichuan Province Prison # 1, I spent three days alone with the old prisoner Zhang Fafu, who had been transferred to this prison at Nanchong from forced labor at a coal mine. Our task was to build a wall out of plastic parts and wire at the side where the roof garden faced the bathing pool, to prevent other prisoners from secretly watching the women taking their baths down below. I got this assignment at that time because my sentence was short, I was working at the kiosk of my unit and wasn’t considered a common criminal. So the cadre chose that old prisoner from the coal mine and me.
From the second day on he told me everything about himself. From his talking, I could feel the jolts in his soul. He had attended high school before Liberation in 1949, he loved reading and understood a lot of things; he even liked poetry. He asked me so often until I had no choice but to give him one of the poems I had written. A few days later, I was transferred. After I arrived at Prison # 3, someone from # 1 came to go over my accounts. That’s when I heard something happened to Zhang Fafu. He had taken the plastic parts from our wall, tied them to is arms and jumped from a building. He wasn’t dead, but he became a vegetable.
I don’t know if he read my poem. Later, when I was released from Prison # 3 upon completion of my sentence, I stuffed the original manuscript of this poem into a bamboo flute I had got from Liao Yiwu, and blocked the hole at the bottom with soap. This way I got to take the poem with me. All these years, whenever I think of Zhang Fafu, I think of our plastic wall. It’s not the same as the wall in my poem, but now I cannot separate the poem from Zhang Fafu.
Tr. MW, 2013
Translator’s note: Li Bifeng’s NOTE and the following poem (http://wp.me/PczcX-zk) are part of his novel Wings In The Sky (天空中的翅膀). One chapter is available on the LIBIFENG2012 WordPress site. The main characters are an old prisoner, a bird and a woman who lives in a shed not far from the prison with her daughter. The plot is rather interesting.
What is Chinese literature about? What is art about, in any medium, time or place? The reading for the imprisoned underground poet and activist Li Bifeng on June 3rd, 2013 in Vienna will include works by a diverse range of authors. Li Bifeng has become known through his association with Liao Yiwu, the exiled poet and documentary writer, now in Berlin. On his own, judging from his available work and his literary impact in China, even in dissident circles, Li Bifeng would not have become famous. This doesn’t mean he is not worth reading. But he has had little opportunity to find an audience, and not everything that is available online now is as compelling as Liao Yiwu’s signature poem Massacre, or any other famous piece of writing in Chinese. Actually, none of the works by Li Bifeng I have read up to now sound very dissident at all. They are “just art”, so to speak. He could have published them, as a different person.
What other texts will be read at Vienna University on June 3rd?
On May 3rd, 2013, we had a very interesting workshop and discussion at Vienna University’s East Asia Institute, on literature in Korea, China and Japan. It was initiated by Lena Springer, who invited Zhang Chengjue 張成覺, expert on the year 1957 and the so-called Anti-Rightists-Campaign in China. Zhang and Springer were inspired by Lu Xun expert Qian Liqun from Peking University, who called for research on the late 1950s in China across disciplines. The workshop in Vienna was about censorship, political changes, publishing conditions and (self-)perceptions of artistic quality. Professor Schirmer told us about a debate in South Korea 45 years ago, in 1968. A big-wig critic who became culture minister later published an essay, lamenting the lame state of Korean literature. A poet responded and said he had poems that could not be published, and his friends also had literature that could not be published because it would be considered dangerous, unstable, unsettling. 不穩。The critic said he didn’t understand. Surely good art would be independent of politics and would only need imagination and talent? Not so, the poet replied. Art is potentially unsettling, if it is powerful art at all. The critic didn’t get it again. Sounded very much like Prof. Kubin and his friends in China. Also like Taiwan 30 years ago, of course.
By calling for a worldwide reading on 4 June 2013 for the Chinese underground poet, Li Bifeng, the international literature festival berlin is demanding that the Chinese government release him from prison.
The poet and campaigner for democracy, Li Bifeng, wrote a report in 1998 about a courageous group of textile workers who blockaded a Chinese motorway and sent a video recording of it to foreign human rights organisations. In 1989, after he had been involved in the protest on Tiananmen Square and on the run for six months, Li Bifeng was captured and sentenced to twelve years imprisonment for ³economic crimes². In November 2012, the 48-year-old was sentenced to another 12 years, with no good reason, without evidence and despite worldwide protests. The authorities
suspect him of having helped his friend, the author Liao Yiwu and holder of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade 2012, to escape to Germany in 2011.
In the short phases in which Li Bifeng has been able to write, he has written numerous poems, prose texts and plays as well as a novel. On the anniversary of the massacre on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, which took place on 4 June 1989, the Peter-Weiss Foundation for Art and Politics e.V. and the international literature festival berlin have initiated a
worldwide reading for Li Bifeng.
Appeal, texts by and about Li Bifeng: www.worldwide-reading.com, http://libifeng2012.wordpress.com
Some new translations into English and German
AERGER
aerger noch aerger noch aerger noch aerger rauch aerger noch aerger noch aerger jedes jahr fuer jahrzehnte aerger organisation gegen organisation alle machen mit es gibt endlich nach 70 jahren am 8. mai in wien am heldenplatz einen sieg mit musik mit dem heer mit ueberlebenden mit einer freude von beethoven strauss einem tanz einem stolz
I am starting to understand the pain in my poems comes from myself
you don’t have the despair and confusion you are accustomed
working overtime sleeping getting paid sending money
going back home every year or two like a clockwork
you are used to the rhythm you came from a village in a different province
you didn’t face the bewildering city the temporary residence permit’s
iniquity didn’t think of putting down roots in the city
weren’t going to ponder anything a little more distant
or resist you are used to “government rules
or everyone does it that way” so they are always right
all those years being best friends but you could never
comprehend my anger and I could never understand
how you swallowed it all and kept silent “to dream is the greatest right of the age”
and exactly the opposite “why would you dream of anything unrealistic”
facing reality coming from the countryside I feel so
futile and helpless inappropriate alone sometimes
“life is about getting through every day” you tell me
we talk about outfits the weather distant Sichuan
or how we are going to go far in the factory
defective products. staying close to the factory’s wages… life
being used to repeat every day twenty-four hours
sixty minutes per hour this is life finding
work in the fields in the factory getting married giving birth
raising kids getting old like your parents your whole life
you never lose which means you never win it remains
to keep alive keep it simple breaking up endless repetitive
life being dull or pure I think of these words
and of your smile actually your life is getting less
peaceful worrying your husband far away
could he get out of hand and your kids might
obey less and less and your burden grows heavier
wearing you down sometimes you sit at the window
silent alone brooding
moments nobody notices
Leben in täglichen Kleinigkeiten. Voller Rußgeruch.
Gewalt und Denken als zufällige Gewürze.
Die Gewalt des Beraubtwerdens hast du vergessen. Ich müh’ mich
Noch ab unterm Schatten des Denkens. Du sagst jedesmal
Das Leben mache dich viel zu müde. “Warum noch an diese Dinge denken”,
“Man kann ja doch nichts ändern. Die Realität macht nur Kopfschmerzen.”
Genau. In dieser gleichgültigen Welt. Sind wir
Winzig und schwach. All die Jahre. Hat jemand gelesen
Den Zorn und die Trauer in meinen Gedichten. Mir setzt man
Einen seltsamen Hut auf. Über das Denken und die Politik
Hab ich mir nie Gedanken gemacht. Aber zur Gerechtigkeit,
Ich kann nicht tatenlos zusehen. Es muss Aussichten geben.
Du beschwerst dich über mittlere Kader in der Fabrik.
Manchmal sind sie korrupt….Aber am Ende
Seufzt du immer und sagst: “Leider wissen ihre Vorgesetzten
Nichts davon. Sonst…. Damit wir nicht
Verzweifeln. Machen wir uns über unerreichbare Vorgesetzte
Schöne und gütige Gedanken. Bis irgendein Chef mit den Geldern durchbrennt
und dir noch drei Monate schuldet, dann bist du baff. Egal ob
Wir beraubt oder betrogen wurden. Wir stehen der Welt gegenüber
Voller Begeisterung und Vertrauen. Von Anhui bis Dongguan. Ganze sechs Jahre
Hast du lauter Fabriken gewechselt. Von Dongkeng bis Changping. Und Huangjiang
Wir waren nicht weit voneinander getrennt. Dein blinkendes Logo, wir haben gechattet,
Du hast mir dauernd etwas erzählt.
Dass die Fabrik bankrott ging. Dass die Bestellungen verschwanden.
Du hast mir erzählt, dass dein Chef, wegen der Wirtschaftskrise
Jeden Tag buckliger aussah. Du sagtest, als du ihn sahst,
Standest du deinem Vater gegenüber, im Feld nach der Missernte.
Painting by Sara Bernal (untitled, mixed media, 2013)
ANGST AND FEAR
- for Ernst Jandl
FEAR
fear. fear.
fear is. fear.
fear is a. fear.
fear is a bad. fear.
fear is a bad advisor. fear.
fear is a bad advisor, you. fear.
fear is a bad advisor, you lock. fear.
fear is a bad advisor, you lock yourself. fear.
fear is a bad advisor, you lock yourself in. fear.
fear is a bad advisor, you lock yourself in a. fear.
fear is a bad advisor, you lock yourself in a cage. fear.
fear is a bad advisor, you lock yourself in a cage and. fear.
fear is a bad advisor, you lock yourself in a cage and cannot. fear.
fear is a bad advisor, you lock yourself in a cage and cannot even. fear.
fear is a bad advisor, you lock yourself in a cage and cannot even pee. fear.
fear. fear.
fear is. fear.
fear is a. fear.
fear is a bad. fear.
fear is a bad advisor. fear.
fear is a bad advisor in. fear.
fear is a bad advisor in a. fear.
fear is a bad advisor in a tight. fear.
fear is a bad advisor in a tight dress in. fear.
fear is a bad advisor in a tight dress in a. fear.
fear is a bad advisor in a tight dress in a tight. fear.
fear is a bad advisor in a tight dress in a tight cage. fear.
fear is a bad advisor in a tight dress in a tight cage and. fear.
fear is a bad advisor in a tight dress in a tight cage and cannot. fear.
fear is a bad advisor in a tight dress in a tight cage and cannot even. fear.
fear is a bad advisor in a tight dress in a tight cage and cannot even pee. fear.
MW April 2013
ANGST
angst. angst.
angst ist. angst.
angst ist ein. angst.
angst ist ein schlechter. angst.
angst ist ein schlechter rat. angst.
angst ist ein schlechter ratgeber. angst.
angst ist ein schlechter ratgeber, du. angst.
angst ist ein schlechter ratgeber, du sperrst. angst.
angst ist ein schlechter ratgeber, du sperrst dich. angst.
angst ist ein schlechter ratgeber, du sperrst dich in. angst.
angst ist ein schlechter ratgeber, du sperrst dich in einen. angst.
angst ist ein schlechter ratgeber, du sperrst dich in einen engen. angst.
angst ist ein schlechter ratgeber, du sperrst dich in einen engen käfig. angst.
angst ist ein schlechter ratgeber, du sperrst dich in einen engen käfig ein. angst.
angst ist ein schlechter ratgeber, du sperrst dich in einen engen käfig ein und. angst.
angst ist ein schlechter ratgeber, du sperrst dich in einen engen käfig ein und kannst. angst.
angst ist ein schlechter ratgeber, du sperrst dich in einen engen käfig ein und kannst nicht. angst.
angst ist ein schlechter ratgeber, du sperrst dich in einen engen käfig ein und kannst nicht einmal. angst.
angst ist ein schlechter ratgeber, du sperrst dich in einen engen käfig ein und kannst nicht einmal pinkeln. angst.
MW April 2013
ANGST
angst. angst.
angst ist. angst.
angst ist eine. angst.
angst ist eine schlechte. angst.
angst ist eine schlechte ratgeberin. angst.
angst ist eine schlechte ratgeberin in. angst.
angst ist eine schlechte ratgeberin in einem. angst.
angst ist eine schlechte ratgeberin in einem engen. angst.
angst ist eine schlechte ratgeberin in einem engen kleid in. angst.
angst ist eine schlechte ratgeberin in einem engen kleid in einem. angst.
angst ist eine schlechte ratgeberin in einem engen kleid in einem engen. angst.
angst ist eine schlechte ratgeberin in einem engen kleid in einem engen käfig. angst.
angst ist eine schlechte ratgeberin in einem engen kleid in einem engen käfig und. angst.
angst ist eine schlechte ratgeberin in einem engen kleid in einem engen käfig und kann. angst.
angst ist eine schlechte ratgeberin in einem engen kleid in einem engen käfig und kann nicht. angst.
angst ist eine schlechte ratgeberin in einem engen kleid in einem engen käfig und kann nicht einmal. angst.
angst ist eine schlechte ratgeberin in einem engen kleid in einem engen käfig und kann nicht einmal pinkeln. angst.
gut und böse, deutsch und china,
wenn es doch so einfach wär.
manchmal ist es wirklich einfach.
light is china. deutsch ist schwer.
dissonanz ist gut und wichtig,
harmonie ist selten echt.
deshalb ist das allermeiste,
was kubin sagt, falsch und schlecht.
denn er sagt ja stets dasselbe,
wenn man in die zeitung schaut.
in der forschung ist es anders.
was sich in der forschung staut,
was in vielen tausend jahren
dissonant war oder schön
ist halt nicht sehr kompatibel,
sieht man in die medien.
wer ist harmoniebedürftig,
wer ist forscher, dissident,
wer ist dichter, wer ist denker,
wer ist stiller, und wer rennt,
wer ist renitent und fuchtelt,
drängt sich stets ins rampenlicht,
ob in china oder deutschland,
wer ist prächtig, wer ein wicht?
gut und böse, deutsch und china,
wenn es doch so einfach wär.
manchmal ist es wirklich einfach.
blue is china. deutsch ist schwer.
廖亦武本來不想流亡。在中國沒工夫學德語，現在也許都沒工夫。寫作、關心李必豐、當大國敵人很費心。
Die Faszination der Wirtschaft, des Exotischen, der Kunst, der Literatur, der Wanderarbeiterinnen, der Bürger- und Menschenrechte. Die Faszination China/ Lenovo als Big Blue Chip/ Ai Weiwei/ Liu Xiaobo/ Liao Yiwu. Gao Xingjian, Liu Xiaobo, Mo Yan (und Liao Yiwu). Exil und Sprache, Dokumentation und Fiktion, Sprache(n) der unteren Schichten, der Kader, der SchriftstellerInnen drinnen und draußen. Ein mediensüchtiger Professor, der die Sinologie in die Klatschspalte der Nachrichten zerrt. Ein großer Forscher, Vermittler und eifriger Übersetzer als aufdringliche, absurd-komische Fußnote. Schweden und Norwegen sind für die heutige chinesische Literatur viel, viel wichtiger als Deutschland. Als Österreicher stört mich das naturgemäß ganz und gar nicht. Obwohl Deutschland durch die Popularität von Ai Weiwei und Liao Yiwu, in letzter Zeit wegen der Präsenz von und wegen des Preises für Liao Yiwu doch auch nicht unwichtig dasteht. Österreich und die Schweiz kommen sowieso nicht vor. Die Schriftstellerin Yu Luojin 遇罗锦 hat eine Zeitlang in Wien gewohnt, die Dichterin Shu Ting 舒婷 hat in Wien meine Frau und mich miteinander bekannt gemacht. Sheng Xue 盛雪 ist in Kanada. Und Hofmannsthal liegt in Wien begraben. Idol mancher, auch eines bekannten Sinologen. Großer Dichter, vor und im ersten Weltkrieg und nachher agitatatorisch zwischen Österreich und Deutschland gespalten. Von Stefan Zweig gepriesen, der Avantgarde hasste und faschistische Marschgruppen erst einmal faszinierend diszipliniert und schneidig fand, bevor er draufkam, wofür und wogegen sie waren. Avantgarde, Futurismus, Faschismus, Formalismus, Shklovski und Trotzki, Suprematismus, Stalinismus, Surrealismus, Pop-Art, Maoismus. Trakl, Rilke, Bei Dao, Ingeborg Bachmann, Paul Celan, Ernst Jandl, Erich Fried, Mira Lobe, Christine Nöstlinger, Elfriede Gerstl, Rosa Pock, Friederike Mayröcker, Marlen Haushofer, Christine Lavant, Hilde Spiel, Elfriede Jelinek, Robert Schindel, Maja Haderlap, Esther Dischereit, Josef Winkler. Lichtungen. Lichtblau.
dog-fucking corn
dog-fucking football
dog-fucking weather
dog-fucking earthquake
dog-fuck society
dog-fuck bosses
dog-fuck reporters
dog-fucking kids
…………
we Sichuan people
open our traps
cursing at dogs
I have a little dog at home
too small to climb stairs
he’s not amused
one fine spring morning
barks up the day
lyric poetry
“barking in heat, dog-fucking creep!”
hardworking father wanting to sleep
I’m almost ready to add a few words
but what makes us bark?
not our dogs
2013-4-20
Tr. MW, April 2013
INTERVIEW WITH A MADMAN
That time at our paper,
Went to an interview.
Went on like this:
“Who are you?”
“Who are you?”
“Why did you kill him?”
“Why did you kill him?”
“Why are you here?”
“Why are you here?”
Went on forever.
Didn’t know what to do.
Suddenly his idiot laugh
Made me embarrassed.
“Number 13!”
“Present!”
“Take your medicine!”
“Yes!”
Doctor and patient
Curt, loud and clear
Immaculate white
All over the room
When I was leaving
He asked very friendly:
“What is your number?”
This is the question
I have kept asking
Myself for years.
2012-12-14
Tr. MW, April 2013
COCKS
if you don’t sing
you are a cock
skulls in the night gnashing their teeth
make your hair stand up on end
in your pupils, from the shadows
feathers hatching, wings unfurling
birdcalls drift above the city
rage against the gloomy forest
birdheads! crazed and cocky kids
twilight subjects, heaven’s rebels
ostermontag ist schön.
man kann die autos zählen
man geht nach emmaus
klingt gar nicht hebräisch.
die meisten sind weg.
ich mein’ nicht die hebräer.
es gibt wirklich nicht viele.
da gibt es den schönberg.
das zentrum dort oben.
ostermontag ist schön.
am schwarzenbergplatz
den stalin umrunden
per roller, zu fuß.
der brunnen geht wieder.
und jemand spielt auf.
das kino spielt das paradies.
das kino kommt weg.
wir geh’n eh viel zu selten.
paradies hat drei teile.
sie heißen glaube, liebe, hoffnung.
ostermontag ist schön.
Liao Yiwu reading his poem “The Massacre”, Meng Huang 孟煌 reading his “Letter to Liu Xiaobo in Prison” and Maria Rosén singing the Swedish folksong “Ballad from Roknäs”, 19th March 2013, 9 pm, Sergels Torg, Stockholm, Sweden
Click here for texts and lyrics in Chinese, and to access the FREE LI BIFENG 釋放李必丰 page：
One call
One pine
One snowy path
The wind in the pine
The pines on the square
The crows in the air
The snow all around
The monument. To end the war.
As futile as easter.
Quite lasting, you know.
The sun from afar.
Ask not what Quan Ju De Peking Duck restaurants can do for you, ask what you can do for Quan Ju De Peking Duck restaurants!
“Dear reporters, after today’s press conference, you will believe in God.”
And here are two more pictures. Waiting for a miracle, doing crazy things in the meantime. Like going shopping.
Photo by Kai Strittmatter
Photo by Kai Strittmatter
Or taking to the streets. Last autumn, all through the first chairmen transition period, China was full of demonstrations and looting because of an island dispute. One Politbureau contender had stumbled over his wife and his police chief. Populist mobilizer for Maoist songs. Then they came up with the Chinese Dream. Same ducks, same colors.
Boycott sushi! Defend Quan Ju De Peking Duck Restaurant!
little wee gets up to play
we are more than what we are
sometimes we may call it god
wee may call as soon as twelve
sometimes we may call it light
wee may call as soon as two
wee may always call at night
little wee wakes up to cry
we are less than what we are
wee may sleep as soon as noon
sometimes we may call it god
wee may call as late as eight
sometimes we can see the light
wee can call us any time
sometimes we can feel the night
sometimes wee can be alright
the days of the blossoms
the yellow the white
the shoots and the air
and the birds and the bees
the flies and the beetles
the earth and the trembling
the cars that come floating
the buildings come tumbling
the life that sprouts
die tage die blueten
die spitzen die gruenen
die weissen die gelben
die bienen die fliegen
die wogen die steigen
die wagen die treiben
die erde die bebt und
das leben das keimt
Time To Say No! is an initiative inspired by Malala Yousafzai. There is a presentation in Brazil today. Yesterday there was a press conference and poetry reading in Vienna, organized by Austrian PEN. Time to Say No! is about rights. Education and dignity, which means not to be violated, are basic rights of all human beings. We heard female writers from Kenya, Sudan, Iran, India, Bulgaria, a wonderful male voice from former Yugoslavia, Austrian voices: Philo Ikonya, Ishraga Hamid, Sarita Jemanani, Boško Tomašević, Dorothea Nürnberg…. And two poems from China. The first one was “YOUR RED LIPS, A WORDLESS HOLE” 你空洞無聲的欲言紅唇 by Sheng Xue 盛雪, English translation by Maiping Chen and Brenda Vellino, German translation by Angelika Burgsteiner. The second poem from China was Lily’s Story 丽丽传 by Zhao Siyun 赵思云. The book Time To Say No, edited by Philo Inkonya and Helmuth Niederle, also contains poems by Ana Schoretits, Chantelle Tiong 张依蘋, Hong Ying 虹影, Reet Kudu, Wu Runsheng 吴润生 and many, many others.
I also wrote a blog post about Mo Yan and ideology in early December, after the school massacre in Connecticut.
Liao Yiwu 廖亦武 is going to visit Sweden this month (March 2013). He wrote another open letter to Göran Malmqvist. I have copied it here, along with a recent speech he held in Hamburg. In the open letter, Liao mentions a new song by the Chinese punk group Pangu 盤古.
Chat with an old friend in Beijing who works in Chinese media. Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013 7:50 am GMT
hello dear
bonjour. 早上好。
how are you ??
還可以
你好嗎？
空氣很臭嗎？
feeling nauseated, pollution is above maximum level again 855 right now
他們兩會喘氣一點也好
disgusting
+o(
you know the article i translated a few days ago to tackle the pollution? they want to forbid the barbecues !!
*^o)
like 羊肉串?
dui !!
太可笑
可悲
the state of the air is the state of the art of ruling the country. we had a guy from shanghai here at the university yesterday, there is a un conference on middle east in the city, and he is a chinese expert on jews in china and relations to middle east. very pragmatic, realist guy, sounds like some of his israeli friends. we don’t want another libya chaos, so we veto.
but who are they defending in the security council? sudan was massacring their own people. China supports any regime that suppresses their own population by military means.
yeaah, so now it is too late for the international community to shine, and the ones who help in Syria are the radical islamist, Al qaida etc..
exactly.
when the war will be over, do we really want an other country ruled by Al Qaida, because china did not want chaos ? such short term vision lets not forget the dearest firend poutine such a nice guy to help his economy by boosting the weapons and jets industry
yes. the chinese love to cooperate on weapons with israel and do all sorts of research. he likes to talk about such things. but nobody asked tough questions. stephane hessel died two days ago in france, wasn’t it? the old guy who survived the nazis and inspired recent civil movements. it’s not easy. arab spring was risky. doesn’t look good now, on the whole.
yes, he passed away, just learned about it a few minutes ago, i just cried watching the news
every revolution takes time, the french one lasted more than 20 years to really settle down
the name arab spring comes from prague spring 1968. there are always risks with popular movements for democracy from the bottom up. participation, human rights, civil rights, civil society.
but the good thing in the chaos in egypt and algeria and tunisia, is that now, people know they can make a difference, and wont take bullshit and abuse like sheep
so, all those who just had personal ambitions are aware that they too can be put down by civilians if they don t act according with the will of the people.
yes. two and a half years ago it looked like mubarak and gaddafi etc. would rule forever.
it will take time, but in the end, we, the basic people all want the same: quiet, freedom, work, and education for the kids
it was more convenient for everybody to support the status quo.
for us, china, eu, diplomats….
you are right. to be left in peace by the government, to have basic rights and freedom, to have work, and education for the kids. in tibetan. in mongolian. in uighur. etc. not very difficult.
it’s very disgusting. the poem is from last october. it didn’t look as if she would get justice. remarkably well-written report in the newspaper when you follow the link., very detailed.
my chinese is too bad to understand the original text, but i will have some of my colleagues help me understand. I am getting ready for the NPA and CCPPC. 3 weeks with no day of for this occasion.
at austrian PEN-club they have a special activity Time To Say No. Started after Malala was shot in Pakistan. I am helping them with Chinese texts. http://www.penclub.at/
One Chinese writer who lives in Canada sent a much more horrible poem than Lily’s Story. Very good poem, too. Her name is Sheng Xue 盛雪. I can send it to you, if you like. Women’s day on March 8 is a good occasion to pay attention to the real world.
yes, please, it is always good to make people aware of these facts
too many people with power still think they can get away from their acts, thank god internet is there so nobody forgets
i can’t stand that these murderous pigs can get away with it !!
i am not for violence, but sometimes i think …
:@
please send it around, if you like.
i will
the english translation is not bad. but the original is even better.
or worse, of course.
i passed them around
what are your colleagues saying? Maybe they know some of the names in the poem by Sheng Xue. I didn’t know the names, but it sounds very real.
i did not hear anything from my colleagues
i guess many chinese just prefer to ignore that kind of things
like the ostrich digging its head in the sand
at least one or two of the names in the poem by Sheng Xue would get results even in English at Google or Baidu. Lily’s Story was reported in China. Even in newspapers, though not very big.
i think the more they hear about this kind of things, the more rebellious they will be towards those jerks
yes. but it isn’t big news every day. the pollution is. that’s the good thing about it. easy to say for me when I don’t smell it right now.
sie haben den baum vorm fenster gefällt
ich weiss nicht warum
er liegt noch herum
sie standen beisammen im hof und sprachen
von polizei und so sachen
ich fragte nicht nach
wir sind nachbarn im anderen haus
es geht uns nichts an
es war nur der baum
unlängst haben sie sträucher gerodet
da ist eine gesprungen
und eine weile liegengeblieben
hat man dann erfahren
sie haben den baum vorm fenster gefällt
es steht noch ein kleiner gestutzter
und bald kommt der efeu der wilde wein
und was rotes das klettert
und noch weisse sträucher
der baum war alt
er hat halt geblüht
von uns aus gesehen das schönste im hof
jetzt gibt es mehr licht
man sieht in der richtung die serbische kirche
und weniger nester vielleicht
Happy year of the snake! How are you doing? I have just finished translating an essay on bonsais in jail. From Chinese into German. Spring in a Prison Cell, by Shi Mingde (Shih Ming-te) 施明德, written in August 1989. He was Taiwan’s Liu Xiaobo. Released in the early 1990s, after 25 years in jail. Nearly executed in 1980 after organizing the Formosa protests. Arrested again in 1997, campaigning for direct presidential elections. Organized protests against corruption in 2006.
His older brother Shi Mingzheng died in a hunger strike in August 1988.
If you feel like it, please tell me how you like the following poem. Or the translation. Shorter words are easier to fit in a rhythm.
Have a good year!
Martin
Shi Mingzheng (1982)
BIRDS OF PASSAGE
Yes, we are September birds, arriving
on this western pacific island, panting;
marveling at the island’s beauty;
riding the breeze, changing into the foam, soaring over Green Island’s blue skies
We have wings to adore.
We don’t need passports or border controls.
We don’t have professions or housing,
picking grain anywhere, sleeping where we can rest.
We don’t have jails, no informing and framing,
no scaffolds or labor camps, no exploitation.
We eat what we find, at most we have children exploiting their parents.
We don’t have assassinations.
And so we don’t have police and informers.
We don’t have thugs performing as agents.
We have the freedom you people are craving, but if you catch us
We end up on sticks for your peace-loving teeth.
《新诗典》以本诗为天下苍生祈福！ //@老纪微波:抄送@长安伊沙
Zhan Che Chanting sutras, blossoms opening
- stopping by the shrine of the Le Sheng Old People’s Home
[to be demolished]
100 year old banyan tree stretching its roots
sunlight in the wind tipping millions of leaves
some kind of music comes from these instruments
from strings and keys
from hairs and tongues
lepers kneeling before Buddha statues
wrists without hands
wrists that had knives tied to them for cutting vegetables
wrists, mallets tied to them beating wooden fish
- wooden fish swimming in sounds of bells
sounds of bells swimming in rain
those fish without noses
bats with no eyes
earthworms with no hands or feet
by the sound of those wooden fish
growing into whatever they planted
osmanthus smiles magnolia
scents through their four elements six roots of desire
through their five sensory organs in forms of flowers
scents drawing in sutra chanting
in the unseen world -
from their deformed hands feet noses lips
growing twigs and leaves
osmanthus blossoms magnolia smiles
smiling bodhisattvas
in scents of sandalwood and flowers
lighting lanters to walk through the night
but they will be banished by rigid laws
this cultural heritage for all mankind fits into
colonial history public health human rights
they are helpless in this official-commercial structure
but they will take to the streets kneeling and praying
with their deformed blood-swollen hands and feet
kneeling praying entreating towering authorities
bringing their muttering whispering groaning
flower scents and chanting sutras
drip into memory drop in the rain
This post is from Yi Sha’s Sina blog. Iron Lion’s Grave 铁狮子坟 is the bus stop at the east gate of Beijing Normal University 北京师范大学。 White Snow Black Crows Bai xue wu ya 《白雪乌鸦》 is the title of a novel by Chi Zijian 迟子建 that came out in 2012, about a plague outbreak in Harbin 100 years ago that claimed over 60.000 lives. Didn’t know about this novel when I first saw the poem, only after I had translated it. Don’t even know if Yi Sha thought of the novel when he wrote the poem. There was some sarcasm on Weibo about the “new” aircraft carrier in the last two months. Pictures of dilapidated schools in the mountains without even benches to sit on, but the national aircraft carrier is introduced. See also this post by Chinaavantgarde. I recently translated Spring Snow 《春雪》，another poem by Yi Sha that was printed in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
der mond ist ungeheuer oben.
der drache ist bald nicht mehr da.
am spielplatz sehen wir noch den mond.
es war ein schoener nachmittag
mit kleinem bob im belvedere.
der schnee ist jetzt schon laenger da.
die rampe bei den stufen rechts
wenn man hinaufgeht. leo fuhr
auf maias kleinem leichtem bob
vom schiurlaub in kaernten noch.
es war ein schoener ruhiger platz
und niemand stoerte sich an uns.
und eine mexikanerin.
der erste schnee, ganz frisch in wien
mit ihrem freund. der kann gut deutsch
er wohnt auch hier. sie fragten uns
und leo liess sie einmal fahren
und sogar beide je einmal.
der mond ist ungeheuer oben
ein bisschen hoeher als im herbst.
der letzte mond im drachenjahr
das fruehlingsfest ist heuer spaet
es kommt am zehnten februar
der mond ist ungeheuer oben
ein bisschen hoeher als im herbst.
das drachenjahr war ganz ok
mehr wasser als beim letzten mal
es rannte damals jiang zemin
mit fackel in die neue zeit
auf dem milleniumsmonument
jetzt gibt es schon den xi jinping
viel wichtiger: es gibt mo yan
man ahnte beides lang davor
beim letzten mal wars gao xingjian
das war im letzten drachenjahr
recht lang ists her. 12 jahre frueher
da war ich in taiwan
die 80er jahre
das letzte jahr vor 89
hat da shen congwen noch gelebt?
der haett es auch noch fast gekriegt
in stockholm, aus des koenigs hand
fuer literatur aus den vierziger jahren
und dreissiger jahren. vor 49.
jetzt gibts in deutschland liao yiwu
aus taiwan kamen lai hsiangyin
und chen kohua unlaengst nach wien
in taiwan ist viel hoffnung da
in china ist die luft recht dick
der mond ist ungeheuer oben
ein bisschen hoeher als im herbst
das drachenjahr war ganz ok
mehr wasser als beim letzten mal
in peking wars sogar zuviel
im juli, mit ertrunkenen.
zum abschluss wurde es sehr kalt
am ende kam ein schlimmer smog.
war es ein gutes drachenjahr?
ich weiss es nicht. wir sind in wien
in wien gibts haeupl weiterhin
und bundesheer. an seinem platz
und wenigstens nicht fuer den krieg.
der mond ist ungeheuer oben
den fluechtlingen ist ziemlich kalt
vor 20 jahren: lichtermeer
ich war in china. doch davor
nach 89 bald danach
war ich in wien. da war der loeschnak an der macht.
der cap war auch schon funktionaer.
das boot war voll. das sagte wer.
es gab die plakate
gesetze statt hetze
als auslaenderhetze.
das als das das statt war
das wollte ich kleben
auf alle plakate. in einer nacht.
ein bisschen wie bei ai weiwei.
ich hatte nicht genuegend freunde.
dann kam der krieg. jugoslawienkriege.
und ich war in shanghai.
dann war ich zivildiener, lehrer
fuer fluechtlinge aus bosnien.
doch nur weil ich wollte.
der grissemann hat nichts getan.
vielleicht aber spaeter.
es gibt nichts gutes. man tut es.
von kaestner. wie war das?
dann ging ich nach wuhan.
und spaeter nach chongqing.
dazwischen war rumaenien.
wir lernten und lehrten.
wir kamen nach peking.
und jackie ging zum militaer.
militaer in der botschaft.
und alles ganz friedlich.
und ich uebersetzte
dann waren schon die kinder da.
der mond ist ungeheuer oben
ein bisschen hoeher als im herbst
der letzte mond im drachenjahr.
ich muss jetzt endlich schlafen gehen.
Yi Sha became well-known in the 1990s for acerbic remarks on other poets. He has been widely criticized himself. Spring is a time of hope. The Chinese moon year begins with Spring Festival, the biggest holiday of the year. Typically for Yi Sha, this poem sounds rather mundane, laconic and depressing, dashing most expectations connected with poetry. The line “For suicides tomorrow morning” is a little truncated in my German version that was printed in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (see image). “Für die Selbstmörder von morgen” makes a better rhythm than “Für die Selbstmörder von morgen früh”. In English I wasn’t tempted to leave out the morning. But you could say “dear god/for suicides in the morning/ let it snow once more.” In German there is something like a rhyme within the first two lines. When I was prepared/ To stride into spring/ it snowed again. Does it sound better this way in English too? You decide.
Why did I pick this particular poem? I didn’t pick it for publication. Andreas Breitenstein at NZZ (Neue Zürcher Zeitung) likes to print poems whenever he can wrangle a little space in any particular day’s edition. They have to be short. I had translated another poem by Yi Sha about snowfall in 2008. Mr. Breitenstein liked it, but it was too long. So I looked through Yi Sha’s collection Niao Chuang 尿床 (Wetting the bed), published in Taiwan in 2009. It’s a very nice edition. Huang Liang 黃梁, a critic in Taiwan, has brought out two ten-volume Series of Mainland Avantgarde Poetry 大陸先鋒詩叢, in 1999 and 2009. A great resource. I just picked some of the shortest poems in there.
Für Zivildienst. Und ein Bundesheer mit breiter Bevölkerungsbasis. Wenn überhaupt ein Heer. Aber zur Polizei hab ich kaum Vertrauen. Wir sind neutral. Nicht bei der NATO. Vertrau ich der Polizei? Warum soll ich einem Berufsheer vertrauen? Wir gehen jetzt zur Flüchtlingsdemo. 13:30 beim Volkstheater. Bis dann, alles Gute. Martin
We had a vote about our military in Austria on the weekend. And a demonstration for refugees on hunger strike. Complete with a huge Sachertorte. For the protesters. In commemoration of the “Lichtermeer” against racism and xenophobia in Vienna 20 years ago. I didn’t know if I was going to vote, on Sunday morning. So I got Jackie to call our old friend, Gen. A., her employer in Beijing. The Social Democrats wanted to abolish the draft. But some prominent Social Democrats wanted to keep it, incl. the president. General A. is Social Democrat. But he said if the draft is abolished, they will only get certain segments of the population as recruits. You can do all sorts of other things instead of going to the army. Work in a hospital, teach German to refugees (what I did), even go to Qiqiha’er 齊齊哈爾 for a year. (Here is another report in German, translated from 齊齊哈爾日報)。 It’s not that bad if every healthy young man is required to do something for the community. That was my reasoning. When I did that alternative community service thing, we had to do some training at first for being able to help in case of floods, storms etc. That boat thing was fun. The guy in our group whose parents were in the far-right Freedom Party volunteered and was the first to try and row to an island in the icy Danube. Boat leaked. He didn’t get very far. They sent him to hospital. He was ok. Later on he had to teach German to refugees, helping me. He wasn’t bad, they liked him. He really tried, and I’m quite sure his attitude to refugees etc. changed.
Every country or region has repressed issues. 有時候被壓抑的事偶爾出頭。奧地利前內政部長剛被判4年徒刑。 A 14-year old boy was shot dead for breaking into a supermarket in Austria in 2009. The policeman who ran after him and shot him in the back is still on duty. The facade of the Konzerthaus in Vienna says “Honor your German masters and ban good spirits”. Whom or what did they ban in the 1930s and 1940s? This poem is from Beijing. We lived in Beijing 1999-2008.
Photo by Andreas Landwehr, dpa
reden (und sonnenschein)
reden fegt der wind im winter
fegt der wind im winter weg
reden hilft bei starker sonne
hilft bei starker sonne kaum
reden haelt der sturm im fruehjahr
haelt der sturm im fruehjahr nicht
reden kommt im herbst in beijing
kommt in beijing oft zu spaet
Thank you, 20th century
We all grew up some time with you
I was born and grew up too
In your arms I feel at home
In your last year
You are generous
To set me free
One hundred years
Two world wars
Cold war east-west
Countless other wars and conflicts
I don’t have much experience
I carried my gun
Two years military service
Thank heavens
I stayed alive
One hundred years
One economic depression
America’s streets full of beggars
Some nations went hungry
Russia and China adopted
Communism
I have only shallow experience
When I was small
There was no rice
But there were dried sweet potatoes
Thank you
I didn’t stay hungry
Although malnourished
There was political tragedy
Military dictators
Even governing through terror
Countless people
Went to jail
Wailing was heard on
The earth’s every corner
I have limited experience
Held and carried
Flags and banners
Walked in streets
Of silent protests
There was art in various ways
Dadaists and surrealists
Stream of consciousness, expressionism
Existentialism, postmodernism
Baffling and shouting, collapsing
Suicide and going crazy
I don’t have much experience
Still at my desk
With simple words
Writing my poems
I went to Grandpa’s grave
One hundred years of graves and mounds
Thousands and millions
Buried simply
Left in the 20th century
Wrongs and grievances abroad
I don’t know much and beg your pardon
I went through this time
And stayed alive
20th century
I don’t count as your victim
Listen, century
I’m not qualified
To raise my voice
In blame
But begging your pardon
At night when the Milky Way blazes
Raising my head
I often think of
Flying away
Tr. Martin Winter, Jan. 2013
With help from Khinhuann Li 李勤岸
My favourite comments on Mo Yan in the last few months are in the article by Liu Jianmei (刘剑梅), published in FT Chinese on Dec. 11 and posted on the MCLC list on Dec. 19. The title asks something like ‘Does literature still work like a shining light?’ Maybe my translation is not too bright. Should literature be a shining lantern? That’s one of the questions in Liu’s article. Literature and art were thought of as relevant to society and the nation in the 1980s. Liu talks about different approaches and relationships of life and art. Mo Yan deserves careful reading, just like Yan Lianke and Lu Xun. Nothing more or less. Liu uses “Save the cildren”, the last line from Lu Xun’s Diary of a Madman, for a close look into Mo‘s works as well as Yan Lianke’s latest novel Four Books (not published in Mainland China). The main characters of Republic Of Wine and Frogs are unable to save the children, like Lu Xun’s narrator. Republic of Wine features cannibalism and a riotous carnival of language. It’s my favorite among Mo Yan’s novels, along with The Garlic Ballads.
What is art? What is it for? A little more than 100 years ago now, the Dadaists (in voluntary exile in Switzerland and other places) concocted a virtual antidote to the First World War. Words, ordinary and exalted speech, had lost any meaning in the collective carnage. Not much later, Hu Shi, Zhou Zuoren, Lu Xun etc. attempted to change the Chinese language, in written form and on stage. Yomi Braester shows in Witness Against History how Lu Xun’s most famous passages retain ambiguities that belie any straight nationalist reading, even if the author himself would have read them that way. I like the crazed language of the Madman. Republic of Wine, more experimental than any other works by Mo (to my knowledge), goes into that direction. In Bei Dao’s Rose of Time (Shijian de meigui), a collection of essays that appeared in Shouhuo (Harvest) magazine in the early 2000s, when Bei slowly became acceptable in China again, he writes about Pasternak and Mandelstam. In his youth, Pasternak praised Stalin. Later he tried to extricate other writers from the Gulag, with mixed success. Mandelstam believed in Communism all the way to his death in a labor camp. Bei Dao doesn’t say that. But the chapter on Pasternak invokes Russian Formalism and Structuralism that grew out of the abortive 1905 revolution. Art makes reality appear strange and different, enabling the spectator to perceive it more clearly. And the flag of art is always different from the flag on the citadel.
Republic of Wine is wilder than the real Mo Yan on the Nobel stage. When the real Mo (sounds funny, doesn’t it? The real NO, or the real NOT, like NOT A WORD), when the real Mo Yan talked about his mother, I was moved. It sounded like my grandmother in rural Austria around 1920. Sometimes she couldn’t go to school in winter because she had no shoes. But Mo Yan also said his mother was afraid he would “leave the collective” with his storytelling. Qunti 群体, the masses, the collective, could that be called an example of Mao wenti or Mao-ti, Mao-Speak in this usage? Actually not, qunti 群體 is an older word, could have been used by Li Dazho and other founders of the Chinese Communist Party, before Mao, Prof. Weigelin told me recently here in Vienna. She was right, I encountered qunti in another text I liked very much, was it by Yu Hua? Anyway, I was rather baffled when Perry Link related how a mother would tell her child on the bus to “jianchi 堅持”, to hold it until the driver could stop and let the child out to go to take a leak. Would “jianchi” really sound strange outside of Mainland China? But the discussions about Mao-style are still relevant – Mo Yan is an establishment figure nowadays, and generates critique of China’s established system in general.
I was a little surprised when Chinese critics of Mo Yan talked about the carnivalesque language in his novels. As if you had to be careful not to lose yourself in there. I did think of Mikhail Bakhtin and his concept of carnival in Dostoyevsky’s novels when I read Republic of Wine. But as far as I remember, Bakhtin had defended language and storytelling that would sound strange and crazy, as opposed to Socialist Realism. So when was Mo Yan’s writing first associated with carnival? Maybe in the 1980s? And how did this association evolve?
A few days after the recent massacre in a primary school in Connecticut, Ross Douthat in the New York Times talked about Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov. Although Dostoyevsky was a Christian, Douthat says, the senseless cruelty against children in the novel is just cruelly senseless, there is no “rhetorical justification of God’s goodness”. You have to look at the behaviour of characters who show “Christian love” to find any counterpoint. Below this op-ed, there are 121 reader’s comments, all within one day. Many say they want to talk about guns, not literature.
What is literature for? Why is there a Nobel for literature, but not for music or fine art? Or films? Nobels make for debate. Very much debate, in this case. Great.
Das tal ist angefüllt mit schnee so sieht es aus am vormittag um sieben wird es langsam hell um acht uhr geht die sonne auf um vier uhr sind die berge rot der runde mond kommt gross und grau.
Wir fahren heut zurück nach wien es war ein wunderschöner tag ein boot im ossiacher see den grossen wörthersee entlang das licht war einfach ideal und manchmal gibt es auch noch schnee.
Ich kann nicht hinein, auch wenn das Zimmer nicht versperrt ist
Auf der Treppe
Denk’ ich an einen weggegebenen Drachen
An eins, an das zweite
Kind dass ich abtreiben musste
Ich kann nur hinunter gehen
Auf dem Fluss treiben eisige Blasen
Über das Wasser schweben die
Jahre, ich gehe schneller
mein körper wie wasser sich erstreckt
klar, auf eine gewisse distanz zum netz
der wind wie eine hohe saite
sammelt licht, leert es auf deine faltigen wangen
ich sinke
und geb meine ruhigen tage dafuer
anstecken, abbrennen, fliegen können
in klang und takt, der fluss behält das ziel im blick
Hong Ying 1996-01-04
MW Übers. 2005-2012
_______________________________________________________________
wer dort geht am ersten ort, der heimat
das ufer der anlegestelle gegenüber
die steinernen häuser
das geheimnis der begierde, mehr als dreissig jahre
besungen
den namen, durchgemacht hat er
den sommer der freiheit
hab ich mir vorgestellt jetzt zu
schreiben, beginn bei der kindheit verletzung
eingeschlossen den goldenen tiger in deinen armen stimmt er mit ein
der strenge winter ist zu ende
vermeide mich
vermeide den wohnort, beginn bei der aussprache
scharf, ich sehe hin und lache
hell: ich tippe mit dem finger, und der regen stürzt herunter
ist das ein mensch dort
bloss vor meinen augen? erst verfault, dann wachsen
keime. salzige zungen
rufen nach mir, sie kommen aus jeglichen ecken gerannt
suchen mich, sie wollen mich
hier, das ist der ort des ziels
ganz gerade hängt das feuer, brennt bis an des wassers grund
in einer wendung, wagenrad trägt allein
diese zeit
kreuz längen und breiten dring in die wolken über dem grab
zieh herunter
azaleen blühen
verschlingen den regen
schreien: ich brauche dich hier
irgendwann beisst die kaelte zu
wenn du draussen wohnst
kennst du die wege
unten am bach, wo das licht nicht hinkommt
koennen enten im wasser schlafen?
enten stecken den kopf in die federn
im schilf in den straeuchern im haus auf der insel
obdachlose schlafen am spielplatz
jedesmal wenn sie ein spielzeug verliert
einen kleinen drachen eine matrioschka
ist meine tochter traurig.
manchmal singt sie dem spielzeug ein lied.
one day or another you feel the jaws
when you live out there
you know the paths
by the stream where the light can’t enter.
are they sleeping on the water?
ducks tuck their head in their feathers
in the reeds in the growth in their house on the island
sometimes the homeless sleep on the playground
each time she looses a toy
a little dragon a matryoshka
my daughter is sad.
sometimes she’ll sing her plaything a song.
Mo Yan’s Nobel lecture is worth seeing and hearing. The link above doesn’t work in China. Tried to post it on Weibo 微博, didn’t work either. Nobelprize.org is still banned in China, it seems. The video of Mo Yan’s speech is of course accessible on many websites in China. What is also accessible, to my surprise, is a video of Gao Xingjian’s Nobel lecture, 12 years ago. One Weibo user made this comment:
对莫言的指责，不尽赞同。但与高行健相比，莫言的差距不是一点点。结局是一个不能回国、只能在海外流浪，而另一个可以继续做作协副主席，备受当下世人追捧。相对于莫言的获奖演说，高行健2000年演说，恐怕更堪称是中文世界的骄傲。
“I don’t agree with Mo Yan’s critics. But if you compare him to Gao Xingjian, there is a huge difference. In the end, one of them can never return to his home country, the other one can keep his job at the Writer’s Association and be celebrated. Comparing the two Nobel speeches, Gao Xingjian’s could be the one more deserving of pride in the Chinese-speaking world.” Hard to translate, because it’s very good and rather literary Chinese.
Thanks to Charles Laughlin for his eloquent and far-reaching defense of literature. A defense, at least a deeper discussion of art and literature, is what has been missing from the debate. We’ve had apologies of Mo Yan 莫言, or the Nobel prize 諾貝爾獎. From himself, in his storied speech. From commentators, including me. I said debate in China is the best thing, perhaps the only thing, that comes from this prize. But what kind of debate? And why? Shouldn’t we be glad about the attention for Chinese literature, and for literature in China? Isn’t it enough to read more, and read more carefully?
Nick Kaldis has observed that Anna Sun’s article was the first attempt to debate Mo Yan and the current situation of Chinese literature in literary terms. Charles has pointed out the crucial flaws. The concept of Mao-speak or Mao-ti 毛體 came up in the 1980s in the context of a renaissance of culture, writing, philosophy, debate- everything that had been missing in the Mao-aftermath. Charles has emphasized that new literature in the 1980s, like the fiction of Yu Luojin 遇羅錦, Dai Houying 戴厚英, Zhang Wei 張煒, Zheng Yi 鄭義, Zhang Jie 張潔, A Cheng 阿城, Wang Anyi 王安憶, Liu Suola 劉索拉, Zhang Xianliang 張賢亮, Han Shaogong 韓少功, Jia Pingwa 賈平凹, Can Xue 殘雪, Ma Yuan 馬原, Yu Hua 余華, Ge Fei 格非 and many others, along with the critical writing, philosophy etc. around it, was supposed to overcome the effects of Mao-speak. Charles has also shown how Anna Sun’s view deliberately blocked out major portions of Chinese literature in many centuries, including the last 100 years.
But let us go back to the 1980s. In hindsight, it was very naive to believe that art and literature could renew the nation. What nation? What kind of nation, stemming from which revolution? It’s very easy and futile now to say all the hope of renewal was naive. The hope ended in 1989, and has been ending ever since, in the selling off of land 地, air 空氣, culture 文化, heritage 傳統, water 水, people 人 – with steadily worsening consequences. On the other hand, art and literature are still involved in an ongoing renewal, with very interesting results.
The only flaw in Charles’ essay, from my point of view, is what I’ve said before, too many times perhaps. I believe that ideology isn’t harmless. Questions involving ideology and philosophy aren’t harmless. At least they were thought of as relevant in the 1980s. Copying Mao’s seminal 1942 speech on literature and art in 2012 is just a ritual, yes. But what do Mao Zedong, the “Yan’an Talks” 延安講話, the involved concepts and the furious critique of ritual obeisance signify in the first place?
Are they all more important than reading more art 藝術? Maybe not. Still, how about a little theory 理論? What is ideology 意識形態? Lacan’s 拉岡 answer, according to Žižek 齊澤克, comes down to emptiness 空虛. No, this is not about Buddhism 佛教. Ideology is what people hold on to in their hearts and minds, in order to belong. To belong to a group. To have an answer, the hope of an answer, a meaning. Do you need to know what your ideology is all about, where it came from, what it involves? Not really. It’s there. Like the believe that everyone is entitled to buy automatic weapons. Every citizen.
In the 1980s, such questions, or more intelligent ones than I can elaborate here, there and anywhere, were asked a lot. A very, very big hope was involved. That’s where Liu Xiaobo 劉曉波 comes from. That’s where Wang Shuo 王朔 comes from. That’s where Yu Hua 余華 comes from. With some writer’s, it’s not always obvious where they come from. Liu Zhenyun 劉震云 and Feng Xiaogang 馮小剛, who are known for lively comedies, with sometimes well-hidden serious issues, have just released “1942″, a film about famine 飢荒. Man-made famine, mostly. And campaigns. Campaigns to unite the nation, to beat intruding foreigners.
It is rather obvious where Gao Xingjian 高行健 comes from, when you hear him speak. Some Weibo 微博 users did that last weekend, for a comparison in Nobel literature speeches 諾貝爾文學演講. Gao’s Nobel speech was available, copied on Chinese servers, which had not been policed very severely in this case, apparently. Gao Xingjian’s Mandarin has a southern accent. He is not hard to understand, but it’s not the kind of Mandarin Mo Yan commands, rather effortlessly, it seems. Mo Yan is the Writer’s Association’s 作家協會 vice chairman 副主席. The chairwoman is Tie Ning 鐵凝. I like her stories, they are very much about memory. But I haven’t heard her speak in public. Don’t know if a shining, booming Mandarin like Mo Yan’s is the standard at official cultural associations these days.
Is it obvious where Mo Yan comes from? Everybody knows where he comes from, we know his aunt, father, wife and brother, as far as they have been interviewed and compared to how they might appear in his novels. That’s what Mo Yan said in his speech. Is that all we need to know? Mo Yan spoke about is mother. It was very moving, at least to me. It’s a great text, that speech. Censorship-resistant. Available in six or seven languages on the official website. Which is blocked 被阻擋 in China, of course.
Gao Xingjian and Mo Yan are very different in their language. Everyone who has read Soul Mountain 靈山 and One Man’s Bible 一個人的聖經 in the original knows that. Mo Yan and Gao Xingjian are very different in their attempts to overcome Mao-ti. Both have written great novels, in my experience. Both stay away from day-to-day political issues and debates. But Gao Xingjian emigrated in order to write and paint in peace, comparatively. Mo Yan worked on his spoken Mandarin. Ok, that was unfair, I don’t know how he sounded in the 1980s. His novels from back then are great, especially The Garlic Ballads. Liu Xiaobo liked Red Sorghum 紅高粱, because it was very sexy, in the 1980s. I like The Garlic Ballads 天堂蒜薹之歌, and The Republic of Wine 酒国. Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out 生死疲勞 and Big Breasts And Wide Hips 丰乳肥臀 are fascinating, too. All stories about more or less recent decades. Sandalwood Death 檀香刑 is a 19th-century-story. Sex, gore and folklore. Very well done. And maybe as moving as Mo Yan’s words about his mother.
Yu Hua’s first novel Cry In The Drizzle 在細雨中呼喊 has a guy running amok in China’s 1970s. The hero’s father, if I remember correctly. Gao Xingjian’s Nobel made many exiled and self-exiled writers and other culture workers think about their paths. Maybe the prize was for all of them, in a way. Is Mo Yan’s prize, in a symbolic way, a reward for everyone in China? Depends on your ideology.
(Sorry, I am not sure where exactly Žižek 齊澤克 published what I’ve related above. Maybe in Has Someone Said Totalitarianism?)
how far is the mouth from the tip of the brush?
how far from the tip of the brush is the street?
how far is the street from the court?
how far is the court from the jail?
how far is the jail from the sound of the shot?
how far is democracy from the court?
how far is democracy from the jail?
how many light-years away from the shot?
(Taiwan, 1980ies-1990ies)
Tr. Martin Winter, 2009-2012
wie weit ist die pinselspitze vom mund?
wie weit von der strasse?
wie weit ist die strasse entfernt vom gericht?
wie weit ist das gericht vom gefaengnis?
wie weit vom gefaengnis hallt denn der schuss?
wie weit vom gericht ist die demokratie?
wie weit ist die demokratie vom gefaengnis?
und wie viele lichtjahre vom schuss?
weiss und rosa leuchtend schweben
fortgetragen in die tage
unter allen irren menschen
bluehen zweifellos die baeume
wachsen, fallen, reifen, stehen
atmen, oeffnen sich im wind
MW April 2011
blossom
shine and float in white and pink
carried forth into the day
all among the loony people
certainly the trees are blooming
growing, falling, ripening
standing, breathing in the wind
There is Zhang Xinying’s 张新颖 fine anthology 中國新詩 from 2000 (in Chinese), incl. 2 interesting poems by Zhou Zuoren 周作人. Zhang has close to 100 poets and up to 10 poems from each of them. If you cover the last 30 or 40 years, it would have to be rather thick to include at least ten or twenty examples each from 食指、芒克、多多、楊煉、于堅、韓東、西川、伊沙等等，to mention only a few older living males.
My favorite contemporary anthology is 黃梁’s 大陸先鋒詩叢. 10 volumes came out in 1998/1999 – Bai Hua 柏华、Zhu Wen 朱文、Meng Lang 孟浪 etc. 等等. Another 10 came out in 2009, incl. Tibet’s poetess and dissident blogger Woeser 唯色, migrant worker poetess Zheng Xiaoqiong 郑小琼（鄭小瓊）, and a few more not-so-well-known poets like Pang Pei 庞培（born 1962).
The new 300-poems-anthology is Chinese-English, but it seems the English versions will all be done by Chinese translators. Some translators could be native speakers of English, and/or writing poetry in English. But it does look like an inner-Chinese project, so to speak. The Chinese Issue of The Drunken Boat from 2006 provides a very broad spectrum in the categories minorities, gender and localities in Asia and beyond. Xi Chuan is prominently featured. The 2008 China issue of The Atlantic Review also has an interesting mixture and beautiful poems, incl. Xi Chuan. But these two anthologies are all in English. In my earlier blog post on this topic of anthologies I have written about the advantages of starting from women writers and minorities. That was in Chinese, sorry.
Huang Liang is operating in Taiwan, but he still had some trouble with Mainland authorities about meeting and publishing Woeser 唯色. The 300 modern poems anthology includes the blind folk singer Zhou Yunpeng 周云蓬, who is also in the 10/19/12 New Statesman issue curated by Ai Weiwei, along with Zuoxiao Zuzhou 左小祖咒. On the other hand, compiler Diablo 野鬼 （Zhao Siyun 赵思云 is not the editor) told me they could never include Li Qin’an’s 李勤安 When Martial Law Was Lifted 解嚴以後, because with books you have to worry much more about (self-)censorship than online. I think When Martial Law Was Lifted 解嚴以後 is a landmark poem in any sense. I like Xi Chuan’s poetry very much, but on the whole now and then it needs to be complemented with something more explicitly political. Actually you could say the same about Hsia Yu 夏宇, maybe. Anyway, Li Qin’an 李勤安 still sounds relevant in Taiwan today, according to some of my friends there. On the Mainland, the role(s) of poetry are more acutely questioned, also by Zhao Siyun 赵思云 and Diablo 野鬼 (Zhang Zhi 张智), for example. See Diablo 野鬼’s “非诗” and Zhao Siyun’s Lili’s Story 丽丽传.
The situation is maddening for every serious literature critic who cannot acknowledge the encroachment of such a hyper-prize-situation on their territory. On the other hand, this is the perfect opportunity to see, and maybe even acknowledge, the impossible challenge of writing a balanced political or literature and art history of the last 100 years, or even 20 or 30. You could see the huge discrepancy between the international relevance of China and its surroundings and the impossibility for Chinese Studies (and Taiwan Studies etc.) of doing it justice in research, of reacting in adequate or satisfying ways. Actually, Anna Schonberg has found a convincing personal way of talking about Mo Yan’s work and the current debate. Goenawan Mohamad has written an article on Mo Yan and Yu Hua, seen from Indonesia. And Yang Jisheng’s investigation of the Great Leap famine is spawning documentary work in villages in the way of writing “people’s histories” in the People’s Republic. Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the US came out in 1979. China is catching up. There is Yang Xianhui, and there is 1942, a new film centered on famine, after the story Remember 1942 Liu Zhenyun wrote in 1992. But how relevant is literature on the whole?
Li Bai, China’s most famous poet, has been constructed as a would-be useful patriotic official in a recent play. I remember one or two other political readings of his poems. The political role of all literature and art that the CCP ostensibly demanded led to, or enforced overwhelmingly political reading of everything. Now Mo Yan cannot escape political criticism because he is a CCP official. He has written great literature. But because he got this larger-than-anything-even-China-in-a-way-prize, on one hand he can finally be a public intellectual, let his conscience speak and speak out for a return to reason in Chinese-Japanese relations and for a release of Liu Xiaobo, both taboo topics. A voice of reason after “street protests” against Japan (?), somehow evoking both Cultural Revolution and Fascism. Tolerated and stoked by a system in the midst of a supposedly tightly choreographed leadership transition. Leaders of the Bo Xilai generation installed. They’re different, of course.
Yang Jisheng in the international media is the perfect contrast, or antidote, to the 18th Party Congress spectacle. Another good contrast is running a detailed article on the One Child policy, like Die Zeit did. Speaking of family planning, Mo Yan’s Frogs is coming out soon in English and German. Granta magazine has an excerpt online.
Mo Yan spoke out, but he still was attacked because he didn’t speak out before, which is kind of unfair, because it would mean every writer has to be like Liao Yiwu, every artist like Ai Weiwei etc. The Nobel prize is very unique, because it entails so much international attention. And so especially societies with a huge inferiority complex, stemming at least in part from a rather recently constructed nation (as in Turkey) have to turn the recipient into an anointed emblem. The only alternative is to deny, like in Gao Xingjian’s case, that he/she belongs at all to the country he/she comes from and the language he/she wrote most of his/her works in, as Anne Sytske Keijser and Maghiel van Crevel have pointed out in a recent article in “De Groene Amsterdammer” (10/17/2012). In today’s China, for a virtual, fleeting audience online, you can show you are not part of this official face. Up to a point, that is. No mentioning of other recent Chinese Nobel laureates. But you can criticize Mo Yan, no matter if you have read his fiction or not. So anyone interested in freedom of speech has to be thankful to the Nobel prize and to Mo Yan for all the national and international attention they have generated. Mo Yan has chosen to speak out, so he should be respected. You can speak about your own impression of his work, as you should, according to Kant, if the question is “whether it is beautiful” (Critique of Judgement, Book 1). Or you can speak about your personal relationship with him and his work, as Howard Goldblatt has done. But you can also write about Mo Yan in a political light, which is what everybody has done, including me. Reading “Republic of Wine”, for example, both in Chinese and in translation, is much more rewarding.
The debate after Mo Yan won the Nobel is about debate. How much debate is allowed? How does debate get allowed or possible at all? It’s obedience vs. disobedience. What Charles Laughlin said on the MCLC list sounds like this: Demanding outspokenness from Mo Yan now is the same as demanding, in effect, obedience to the Party line in 1942. This is how it sounds like, not only to me, I am afraid. Obedience and disobedience are thus blurred. One-party systems enforce obedience and silence. Draconically, as the 8-year sentence on Oct.31 in Kunming of a young father of an unborn child for talking about a multi-party-system online shows. Multi-party systems include and tolerate traditions of disobedience. In some countries, civil disobedience is highly valued- think of Thoreau and Ghandi. Doesn’t mean these places are always better in every area and aspect.
It was great. Lai Hsiangyin 賴香吟 read part of her story about a member of a former underground movement who has to confront his own weakness when his divorced wife needs his attention. I read Julia Buddeberg’s translation. Chen Kohua 陳克華 read three poems. First came Nothing 無, very Buddhist. Then a couple of last things. The last café 最後的咖啡館. The last motel 最後的汽車旅館. Very Taiwanese kind of motel dive. Secrete details, medical details, scientific details included in all three poems. Questions and answers. Audience members asked a few questions, and we had an interesting discussion. How and why did Ms. Lai write the story? What comes first, life or politics? And so on. Students, immigrants, veterans maybe, of Taiwan politics. Chinese Studies, East Asian Studies Institute, Vienna University 維也納大學東亞文化系. Austrian PEN. Two days in Vienna. Two nights. 維也納卌八小時左右。Arriving, getting lost on the airport. Translator’s fault. Translator’s idea, the whole thing. Not lucrative. I am sorry. Not smooth. Interesting, yes. Freezing. Exhausting. Fun. Fruitful, hopefully. Thanks very much! To the organizers. Thank you! Everyone who helped us. But above all 賴香吟、陳克華多謝！辛苦你們！Liebe. Liebe und Erinnerung. 愛和記憶。Love and memory. 賴香吟小說的主要題材。維也納很適合你們。柏林也是。柏林比較像現在的台北，相當開放、國際化的。柏林非常重視記憶。維也納的過去其實比柏林可怕，因為沒有柏林那麼公開的重視記憶。
So we had Q&A. Then the encore. We had Vienna in the café, in my translation. Apocalypse. Pouring coffee, to the last. Tabori. Hitler and Freud. Is there a Freud statue? There is his private clinic. Oh well. Statues of Strauss, Beethoven. Vivaldi, very recent. With his orphan students, all girls. Musicians, composers. When Aids broke out in Taiwan, the government forbade intercourse with foreigners. As well as doing it from behind. That’s how Chen Kohua thought of the poem. As a medical man. And risk group member. No intercourse with foreigners, no sex from behind, and we’ll be fine. Right. That’s where the quotation marks in the title come from. Freud and Jelinek. Dreams of Vienna. Love and memory.
陳克華 今生
我清楚看見你由前生向我走近
走入我的來世
再走入來世的來世
可是我只有現在。每當我
無夢地醒來
便擔心要永久地錯過
錯過你，啊–
我想走回到錯誤發生的那一瞬
將畫面停格
讓時間靜止：
你永遠是起身離去的姿勢。
我永遠伸手向你。
1985
Chen Kohua
DIESES LEBEN
Du näherst dich aus meinem früheren Leben.
Ich seh’ dich ganz klar, du gehst in meine Zukunft.
In die Zukunft der Zukunft.
Aber ich hab’ nur die Gegenwart. Wenn ich
traumlos aufwache,
hab’ ich jedesmal die Sorge,
dass ich dich verpasse, für immer –
Ich möchte zurück in den Augenblick des Fehlers,
den Film anhalten,
die Zeit und das Bild:
Für immer stehst du auf, um zu gehen.
Ich streck’ dabei die Arme aus.
I want to thank Charles Laughlin for his recent posts on the MCLC list and on Facebook. His conclusion included these words: “Mo Yan’s critics are expecting the same of him that Mao Zedong would have: the political subservience of writers and their responsibility to serve as the political conscience of the nation”. Now I have written another blog post about this. 罗老师多谢!
Mo Yan’s 莫言 situation is ironic, as Charles Laughlin says. But serving “as the political conscience of the nation” is not the same as “political subservience”. It is rather the opposite. As we know, Murakami Haruki 村上春树 and his colleagues can be “the political conscience” of Japan, making “politically progressive gestures”, but Chinese writers in China, because of “political subservience” cannot be “the political conscience of the nation”, except obliquely in their fiction, poetry etc. Or in the first few days after they win a Nobel.
Along with Charles and many other people I am very glad that after Mo Yan was announced as a Nobel winner, he finally felt up to, or forced to open his mouth as a public intellectual, in contrast to the meaning of his pen name. Now he can be a public figure, like Murakami in Japan, not just an ambivalent functionary and a reclusive writer. Or can he? Is he going to say anything more on China-Japan relations or political prisoners? Is he going to mention Liu Xiaobo 刘晓波 in Stockholm? He will certainly be asked about other Chinese Nobel winners. That’s the nature of this particular prize, whether you like it or not.
Murakami and his colleagues can “serve” as public intellectuals, when their conscience tells them to do something additional to their writing. The irony is that under CCP 中国共产党 rule, there are no public intellectuals in China. There are occasional trouble-makers and commentators, like Ai Weiwei 艾未未 and Murong Xuecun 慕容雪村, Yu Hua 余华 and Wang Shuo 王朔. But can any of them speak their mind in public at length about Sino-Japanese relations or other sensitive topics? Apart from these writers and artists, there are professors like Cui Weiping 崔卫平, who issued the call to turn back to reason in Sino-Japanese relations, which got censored on Sina Weibo 新浪微波. She has often been prevented from traveling abroad. And there are some civil rights lawyers, who sometimes disappear.
Murakami and his colleagues can “serve as the political conscience” of Japanese society in and out of their books. Mo Yan has to be very circumspect with his topics. The Garlic Ballads was censored and supressed for a while. Mao’s “Talks” 讲话 at the “Yan’an Forum” 延安文艺座谈会 helped to make sure writers and artists could not speak their conscience. Vague documents like this have played an important role as instruments of obedience inforcement in one-party societies, as Anne Sytske Keijser and Maghiel van Crevel have shown in a recent article in “De Groene Amsterdammer” (10/17/2012). Mo Yan knows about this dilemma. His comments after he won the Nobel, and even some comments before, suggest he cannot find hand-copying and displaying Chairman quotes quite as harmless as Charles. That would be the difference between working with political realities in China and teaching about them in the US. The conditions of these political realities are still determined by largely the same factors as decades ago. As Keijser and Van Crevel put it, Mao’s “Talks” and other directives are up on the shelf, routinely mentioned in speeches by present leaders, and ready to be enforced again as needed. Yes, Mo Yan and his colleagues fought successfully for enough freedom to write great literature. Isn’t that enough? Not outside the realm of fiction, unfortunately. The cultural achievements of the 1980s couldn’t prevent the 1989 crackdown and everything that stays vague and threatening in theory and practice today.
Mo Yan writes “stupendous” novels, as Charles Laughlin says. Yes, he does. His development as a writer was influenced by the threat of starvation, the brutality in the name of revolution, and by the ideology. Yes, including the Yan’an “Talks”, as Charles shows. Now, Charles says, “China’s writers are receiving much-deserved international recognition simply because they are devoting their souls wholly to literary art.” Yes, they do. Liao Yiwu’s 廖亦武 speech in Frankfurt was in Sichuan dialect 四川方言. The text is available on the Internet. Try to find a video not dubbed into German. The German translation was fine, it just wasn’t dialect or even colloquial German. And it didn’t sound half as humble as Liao himself did. Politics made him into the writer, musician, poet and activist he is now. And his temper, his foolhardiness, as he readily admits. Not a hero, as Jonathan Stalling suggested. The German Book Trade’s Peace Prize has often been awarded to writers such as Orhan Pamuk.
The irony is that in theory, as taught by Charles, “Mao Zedong would have” reminded writers of their “responsibility to serve as the political conscience of the nation.” In practice, he silenced them. Virtually all, in time. So there would be no political conscience. That’s what Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty-Four is about. Words like “Ministry of Truth” 真理部 are very well-known in China. 1984 is a vision of the closed world of a one-party state. Some moments of life in other societies can feel just as eerie, like a progressive college professor who turns into a cult leader, as in Murakami’s 1Q84, or, even more so, the perfectly cultured killer with secret roots in Korea. But on the whole, Japan in the 1980′s, evocatively and masterfully portrayed, is not ironic enough for connecting to Orwell’s 1984. I guess Taiwan under martial law 台灣戒嚴, in 1984, could have just made it.
Hu Ping 胡平, elected as independent candidate in Beijing’s Haidian district towards the end of the brief Beijing Spring over 30 years ago, recently circulated an excerpt from Mo’s “Life and Death Are Wearing me Out” (Shengsi pilao 生死疲勞). The novel was already well-known before the Nobel. A land owner who had his head blown off in the land reform in 1950 is born again as a farm animal several times, most famously as a donkey. In this excerpt, the donkey/landlord laments his unreasonable and unnecessarily bloody execution, until the guy who shot him tells him he acted with expressive backing from local and provincial authorities, to make sure the revolution was irreversible. So was it “a matter of historical necessity”? I don’t know what Hu Ping meant by circulating the email that somehow ended up forwarded in my inbox, because I don’t follow Chinese exile communications very closely. To me, the excerpt sounds just as absurd, evocative, tragic and yes, “stupendous”, as Mo Yan’s novels usually do. And thus rather close to Orwell’s 1984, or Wang Xiaobo’s 王小波 2015, in a way. I don’t think most readers would think that the author wants to commend, recommend or even excuse such acts of brutality.
There is another irony. Gao Xingjian 高行健 was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 2000 even though, or maybe because, he did not and does not make himself available for political comments. Gao emigrated to France in the late 1980s and rescinded his Party membership in 1989, and it doesn’t seem he wants to come to terms with the powers that be in China in his lifetime. But on the whole, Gao has made about as many explicit political comments in the last 20 years as Yang Mu 楊木.
Chinese writing in 2012 is very complex. At least there is “much-deserved international recognition”, finally. Yu Hua’s essays “China In 10 Words” 《十個詞彙里的中國》 were serialized in the New York Times 紐約時報, among other international papers. And now Yang Mu, Mo Yan and Liao Yiwu appear together in headlines, also in the New York Times. What more could we wish for?
I like both Mo Yan’s 莫言 and Murakami Haruki’s 村上春樹 novels. But 1Q84 left me disappointed, although it’s brilliantly written. Great evocation of ordinary lives and neighborhoods. But not very much connection to Orwell. No prison. The two lovers escape at a terrible price. Maybe I sort of hoped neither Mo Yan nor Murakami would get it. Although I think they’re both great writers. Murakami deserves great credit for his political candor, both in some of his novels and otherwise. He recently spoke out for a return to reason in Chinese-Japanese relations. After Mo Yan got the Nobel, he also said something in this direction. Mo Yan has never made political comments before. Now he can do it. So maybe it is a good thing that he got the prize.
Making handwritten copies of the speech that was the reference point for decades of repression in literature is an absurd, shameful act.
On the other hand, Mo Yan’s novels could be called an important continuation of the magical realism tradition. The realism of The Garlic Ballads clearly shows the helplessness of peasants and ordinary people in the 1980s. The Republic of Wine is a fantastically powerful indictment of official corruption. Some other novels have broader historic scope. The stories take place in many different periods, under CCP rule as well as before and even in the 19th century. But they are all fantastic tales of familiar people in villages and small towns. Ma Lan’s 馬蘭 How We Killed a Glove 我們如何殺一隻手套 employs different techniques, but when you are in the middle of reading you also realize the details refer to massacres and tragedies that seem very fantastic in hindsight but which are actually quite familiar still for many people even now. So I have great respect for Mo Yan 莫言 and Tie Ning 鐵凝, even though they chair the Chinese Writer’s Association. They don’t even have Party members in their stories, as far as I recall. There are no chairmen or even higher functionaries at all in recent Chinese literature. There are no vindications of official policy, in contrast to the 1950s and 1960s. As to the Yan’an Talks or Yan’an Forum 延安文藝座談會, it was not really a discussion with different voices being respected. Maghiel van Crevel 克雷 has put the whole context together in his book on Duo Duo 多多 in 1995, on the basis of Bonnie McDougall etc. The Chairman had remarkable rhetoric skill, but it can’t be separated from the context of writers disappearing, getting imprisoned and killed, not to speak of other people, right then and there in 1942, on the grounds of what Mao was saying. It’s not the kind of literary theory you can discuss on its own. Socialist realism with its many facets and developments in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, GDR etc. is certainly worth a great deal of attention and discussion, but it is always very directly connected with politics. In some countries, like the former Soviet Union and China, this connection was compounded by dictators considered as intellectuals. Marxism, Socialism and Communism were taboo in the US for a long time. This kind of repression is still quite visible in the propaganda against Obama, who isn’t really leftist at all. And because of this, literary and social theory have a very strong and special status in US academia. Infatuation with China and/or what was perceived as its politics is an additional factor, also in other countries. When I look at the social and political context of literature in China, I prefer Yu Hua 余華 to Mo Yan. But it’s not that simple. Mo Yan is a soldier, joining the PLA was the only way for him to become a writer. He has done and is doing what is possible in his position, and deserves respect.
My name is Lili Wu
Nine years old
born in North Zhufeng, Tongshi;
Pingyi County, Linyi City district.
When I was very small
My parents were divorced.
I went to live with Mama and Grandma.
Now I am in 3rd grade at South Fuwan primary school.
I like English.
Got 80% in my last exam.
The math teacher is nice to me.
The ethics teacher is nice to me.
But
I haven’t gone to school for 4 months.
On May 30 this year
During Chinese lesson with our class advisor
Vice-principal Jiang Feng
Called me to the music classroom,
Principal Wang Jiasheng was there, too.
They gave me sweet pills
And took off my pants.
Wang Jiasheng put his weewee into my little hole
When Wang Jiasheng came out
Jiang Feng went in
They told me
Not to tell Mama
Otherwise they wouldn’t let me go to school here
And they would kill me and my mom.
They told me many times.
(Then I must have fainted.
Hearing screams
Class advisor Chen Yongxiang came running.
She pulled up my pants.
Then someone lifted me up
Put me in Wang Jiasheng’s car
And brought me to the clinic on the right side of the gate.
My classmate Xiao Wen wrote all this down on paper.
She said
Other kids saw it too.
On that day
I should have been home at twelve
When I came home at 1:30 p.m
Tottering left and right all the way to our door
Grandma had been waiting on the corner for a long time.
When I was home I wanted to throw up
Didn’t want to eat
Mama wasn’t home
She was at the county hospital visiting a relative
Didn’t come home till the evening
My face, hands and feet were all white
That evening
A nice teacher called Mama
Told her I had been raped by Wang Jiasheng and Jiang Feng
I liked going to school before
Now I don’t dare to go
When school is mentioned I break out in sobs
I am afraid
I took a rest at home for a month
On July 2nd, Mama went with me
To the Pingyi County People’s Hospital for a checkup
The medical record was written a follows
Patient complains of small bleeding in vagina
Accompanied by discharge for over one month.
Recent medical history:
Complains of vaginal pain, red spots, much discharge,
feels like another person forced in his sexual organ
Physical examination:
Normal vulva development
Hymen opening greatly slackened
Old fissures at #3, #8
No other …(I cannot read the writing)
Initial diagnosis:
Hymen ruptured, slackened
Actually
From last winter
I had been bleeding
One day I came home in the evening
There was blood on my legs
I wiped it off with paper
Mama has also helped me wipe it
Last winter
Wang Jiasheng and Jiang Feng
Put their cocks into my little hole several times
After school
I felt dizzy, sick, burning
Mama didn’t know then
She took me to the clinic to get some cold medicine
All winter
I got shots, took pills
Mama went to the police
People’s Police Uncles from the criminal police
Went to Xiao Wen’s home several times
So her folks complained at our house
They said Xiao Wen was frightened
And would hardly dare to go to school
So Xiao Wen said her testimony was instigated by my mom
The teacher who had called my mom that evening
Also denied it
The doctor at the clinic said first I was brought in unconscious
But then they said I came in with the principal and two classmates for checkups and shots
Reporters from the province came to our village
They interviewed six children on their way home from school
Five said they didn’t know anything
Another girl
Did not say a word
Our class advisor said
She took a bribe from my mom
She said my mom made her give false testimony
She said I was in class all day as always
She never pulled up my pants
Over one month later
I had another checkup at Pingyi County People’s Hospital
The results were the same
On Sept. 19th, 2012
Wang Jiasheng declared online
The whole affair was all defamation
Jiang Feng also declared
It was a frame-up, made up
To attain some unspeakable purpose
The Pingyi police
Said conditions were not fulfilled
For prosecution
the sun is streaming
against the mosaic.
the fountain’s broken,
turned off.
the people are busy, most of them.
it’s 9 am.
shopping, smoking.
high heels. maybe productive.
in jackets and scarves.
it’s chilly compared with a few days ago.
for a moment, the sun.
the warm morning sun.
MW August 2012
From August 28. 周二，8月28日。 The sun was on the door at eight or nine. In the afternoon it’s around the corner. The door to the street is over 100 years old, like the house. Military officer’s quarters, originally. Our apartment is downstairs, ground floor. Still expensive, inner city. The picture is from May. The pictures below are from Beijing. Click on them and get to a song of healthy food.
