by Yunte Huang
AGENT A: Stop. Get back!
(He forces T’IEH-MEI back. The agents enter the house)
T’IEH-MEI: Oh, Grandma . . .
AGENT A: Search! Don’t move!
(The agents search and mess up the household. One of them finds a copy of an almanac, opens it up, and then throws it away)
AGENT A: Let’s go.
(Exit the AGENTS)
T’IEH-MEI: (Closes the door, pulls down the window curtain, looks about) Grandma! (She throws herself into her grandma’s arms and sobs. A little while later) Grandma, my daddy . . . will he return?
GRANDMA: Your father . . .
T’IEH-MEI: Oh, Daddy! . . .
GRANDMA: T’ieh-mei, your tears cannot save your father. Don’t cry. Our family . . . It is time you should know about your family.
T’IEH-MEI: Know what?
GRANDMA: Sit down, child. Let Grandma tell you.
(GRANDMA gazes at the scarf, and all the past revolutionary events come back to her. Old hatred and new hatred bubble up in her mind. T’IEH-MEI moves a tiny stool and sits by her grandmother)
GRANDMA: Child, your father . . . is he nice?
T’IEH-MEI: Daddy is nice.
GRANDMA: But your daddy is not your real father!
T’IEH-MEI: (Shocked) Ah? What did you say, Grandma?
GRANDMA: I am not your real grandmother either!
T’IEH-MEI: Ah? Grandma, Grandma, you must be crazy.
GRANDMA: No, I am not. My child, we three generations are not from one family. (Stands up) Your family name is Ch’en, mine is Li, and your father’s is Chang. (Sings)
These past seventeen years have been stormy times, and I’m afraid to talk about the past.
I fear that you are too young and your will is not strong.
Several times I have tried but I just couldn’t open my mouth.
T’IEH-MEI: Grandma, tell me. I won’t cry.
GRANDMA: (Sings)
It looks as though your dad will never come home again this time.
And I, your grandmother, will be arrested and put in jail.
I see the heavy burden of the revolution soon falling on your shoulders.
I’ve told you the truth. Oh, T’ieh-mei!
Don’t you cry, don’t be sad!
You must stand firm, you must be strong!
Learn from your father, to have a red, loyal heart and a will as strong as steel.
T’IEH-MEI: Grandma, please sit down and tell me everything slowly.
(T’IEH-MEI helps her grandmother sit down)
GRANDMA: (Sighs) Hai! It is a long, long tale! In those early years, your grandfather worked as a repairman in the locomotive shop on the riverbanks in Hankow. He had two apprentices. One was your real father, Ch’en Chih-hsing.
T’IEH-MEI: My real father, Ch’en Chih-hsing?
GRANDMA: One was your present father, Chang Yü-ho.
T’IEH-MEI: Oh? Chang Yü-ho?
GRANDMA: At that time, the warlords fought each other and the whole country was in turmoil. Later (She stands up), Chairman Mao and the Communist Party led the people to revolt. In February of 1923, the railroad workers organized an all-China union at Chengchow. Wu P’ei-fu, that running dog of foreign devils, would not permit them to form a union. So the union headquarters called a strike; all the workers of that line walked off their jobs. More than ten thousand workers along the riverbanks marched in demonstration. That evening, the weather was just as cold and the sky just as dark as today. I worried about your grandfather. I could neither sit still nor sleep. By the lamplight I mended old clothes. Suddenly I heard someone knocking at the door, shouting, “Mother Li, open the door, hurry!” So I quickly opened the door, and a man rushed in.
T’IEH-MEI: Who was he?
GRANDMA: He was your dad.
T’IEH-MEI: My dad?
GRANDMA: Your present dad. I saw he was wounded all over, holding this signal lantern in his left hand.
T’IEH-MEI: Signal lantern?
GRANDMA: He held a child in his right arm.
T’IEH-MEI: A child . . .
GRANDMA: A baby not quite a year old . . .
T’IEH-MEI: That child . . .
GRANDMA: It was no one else . . .
T’IEH-MEI: Who?
GRANDMA: It was you!
T’IEH-MEI: Me?
GRANDMA: Your daddy held you tightly in his arm; with tears in his eyes, he stood in front of me and cried, “Mother Li, Mother Li!” Then he just stared at me, unable to utter any words. I was so upset I urged him to speak up, fast! He . . . he . . . he said, “My Shih-fu and my brother Ch’en . . . they . . . they all sacrificed their lives. This child is the only heir of my brother Ch’en . . . a second generation of the revolution. I must raise her so that she can continue with the revolution!” Then he repeatedly called out, “Mother Li, Mother Li! From now on, I will be your own son, and this child will be your own granddaughter.” At that moment, I . . . I . . . I took you over and held you tightly in my arms!
T’IEH-MEI: Oh, Grandma! (She rushes to her grandmother’s bosom)
GRANDMA: Now, stand up, and stand straight! Listen to your grandma. (Sings)
During a labor strike your parents’ blood the devils’ hands did stain;
Since then Li Yü-ho has worked hard so the revolution may obtain;
He’s vowed to carry on for those martyrs that the red lantern may shine again;
He wiped the blood off, buried the dead, and went back to the fire line.
Now the Japanese bandits have come to loot, kill, and burn;
You’ve watched your father taken to jail, never to return.
Note this “account” of blood and tears, note it down well,
You must set a heroic goal, steel your will, get even with the foe,
For a blood debt can only be with blood redeemed.
T’IEH-MEI: (Sings)
Hearing Grandma talk about revolution, oh, how sad yet heroic!
I now realize I’ve grown up in the midst of these storms.
Oh, Grandma, for seventeen years of rearing the debt I owe you is deep as the ocean.
From now on I’ll aim high and keep my eyes clear.
I’ll demand an eye for an eye; I must carry on the task left by the martyrs.
Now I raise the red lantern, let its light brighten all four corners. Daddy!
My father’s will is, like the tall pine, unbending and strong.
A brave Communist he is, a pillar between the earth and the sky.
Daddy, I shall follow you forward without any hesitation.
Now the red lantern is raised high, its light, bright as day.
For my father to slaughter those beasts, it will light up the way.
Generation after generation, in the battlefield we shall remain
Until all the vicious wolves have been slain.
(T’IEH-MEI and GRANDMA raise the red lantern high, striking a dramatic stance. The lantern shines bright.)
(Stage dims)
(Curtain)
(Translated by Richard F. S. Yang)
* “Master” in Chinese.
CHRONOLOGY
1976
End of the Cultural Revolution
1978
Deng Xiaoping assumes power
Founding of the underground journal Today
1980
Reform and Opening Up
1983
Anti–Spiritual Pollution Campaign
1987
Anti–Bourgeois Liberalization Campaign
1989
Tiananmen Square Massacre
1997
Deng Xiaoping dies; Hong Kong returns to China
2000
Gao Xingjian is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature
2012
Mo Yan is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature
Introduction to the Post-Mao Era
The decade-long Cultural Revolution ended with Mao Zedong’s death in 1976, but the damage done to Chinese literature by
Maoism was hard to repair even as the country slowly returned to “normal.” Major writers like Ba Jin, Mao Dun, Ding Ling, Wang Meng, and Ai Qing, who had endured years of persecution, were rehabilitated and allowed to write and publish again, but memories of the Mao years were impossible to erase. Deng Xiaoping, who had prosecuted the Anti-Rightist Campaign against intellectuals in 1957, came back to power in 1978. A pragmatist, Deng pushed for economic reforms and introduced the plan of Four Modernizations (industrial, agricultural, military, and scientific modernizations). When activists called for political modernization (democracy), they were thrown in jail.
But, as Václav Havel once said, “Life, with its unfathomable diversity and unpredictability, would not be squeezed into the crude Marxist cage.” Literature, a great vehicle for channeling pent-up emotions, made a comeback in China as soon as the government loosened, however temporarily, its grip on cultural life. Leading the way was a short story titled “Scar” by Lu Xinhua, published in August 1978. An otherwise mediocre work, Lu’s story about how a family was ruined by the Cultural Revolution hit a nerve among readers and gave birth to “scar literature,” a label under which thousands of other works would be published in the next two years. It was in this period that a group of poets associated with the underground journal Today, founded by Bei Dao and others in 1978, burst onto the scene. They made a radical departure from the formulaic language of Mao’s era. The poetry of Bei Dao, Gu Cheng, Shu Ting, and Yang Lian was dense with symbolism, rebellious in emotions, and unconventional in technique. Due to its semantic opacity, a quality dreaded by a regime that favors literature with clear messages, the work of these poets was soon criticized by the literary establishment as being too menglong (“obscure” or “misty,” leading to the nickname “Misty Poets”). Similar critique was also leveled at fiction influenced by Western modernism or having themes that were once taboos: absurdism in Gao Xingjian, existentialism in Bei Dao, black humor in Liu Suola, eroticism in Mo Yan, bestiality in Can Xue, and bold celebration of love in Wang Anyi.
The emergence of these new writers coincided with a “culture fever” gripping China. Economic reforms were under way, and intellectuals felt a strong urge to break through ossified official ideology and seek new ways of thinking. The ten-year catastrophe of the Cultural Revolution caused many Chinese to question the viability of traditional Chinese culture, which seemed to have provided a fertile ground for totalitarianism. Hungry for new ideas, China imported many works of Western literature, philosophy, and social science, from Martin Heidegger and Max Weber to Leo Tolstoy, Samuel Beckett, Sigmund Freud, and Walter Benjamin. The younger generation, in particular, were inspired by Western liberalism and felt disgruntled over the political reality in China. Their discontent was exacerbated by the increasing divide between the rich and the poor, a sentiment best captured by Cui Jian’s pop song “Nothing to My Name” (1986).
The government, always weary of any sign of discontent, waged at least two campaigns—the Anti–Spiritual Pollution Campaign in 1983 and the Anti–Bourgeois Liberalization Campaign in 1987—in order to drive out “bad” influences and maintain the party’s ideological control over the country. In June 1989, when student protests led to a nationwide call for democracy and political reform, the government resorted to the most drastic measure—a violent crackdown by guns and tanks, killing thousands of students and citizens in Beijing.
The Tiananmen Square massacre dealt a blow to China. Many writers went into exile abroad, part of a post-Tiananmen exodus of intellectuals, scientists, and students who had lost hope for their country. Those who stayed had to cope with a regime needing to repair its image in the world while tightening censorship and surveillance over what people say and write. Activists were jailed, books by Gao Xingjian and others were banned, and officials advocating liberal policies were sidelined.
Despite the setback and repression, Chinese writers continued to write, as they had always done in the tumultuous twentieth century. A new generation of poets came of age, including Che Qianzi, Yu Jian, Xi Chuan, and Zhang Zao. These poets, after the spiritual baptism of June 4, wrote with more abandon and less fettered imaginations. Commercialization of publishing houses also led to a boom in Chinese fiction, which began to draw worldwide readership with new talents such as Ma Yuan, Yu Hua, Su Tong, and Chi Zijian. The winning of the Nobel Prize in Literature by Gao Xingjian in 2000 and then by Mo Yan in 2012 symbolically signaled the rise of Chinese literature in the world, just as the return of Hong Kong to Chinese rule in 1997 indicated the ascension of China as a new world power.
Yet when Premier Zhu Rongji was cornered by foreign journalists in 2000 for comments on Gao Xingjian, now a French citizen, winning the Nobel Prize, the premier diplomatically congratulated France and refused to acknowledge Gao as a Chinese writer. Fifteen years later, Gao’s books are still banned from bookstore shelves in mainland China. For official China to reject or repress the best of its national literature, that is a typical, ironic tale of modern China.
BEI DAO
(1949– )
Born in the year that saw the founding of the People’s Republic, Bei Dao, the foremost poet in contemporary China, often characterizes himself as someone who has truly been raised “under the red flag.” A concrete mixer and blacksmith during the Cultural Revolution, Bei Dao, whose real name is Zhao Zhenkai, became disillusioned with Communist ideology and turned to poetry. On a snowy day in December 1978, in a suburb of Beijing, he and his friends founded an underground literary journal, Today, dedicated to a new poetry of fresh imagery and symbolic density. Their style was soon dismissed by literary orthodoxies as being “obscure” or “misty.” After June 4, 1989, Bei Dao lived abroad in exile for many years, without a passport or homeland, as a true citizen of the world, until he was offered a prestigious teaching position at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. A Guggenheim Fellow and honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Bei Dao is also a highly accomplished prose writer, translator, and photographer.
The Answer
Debasement is the password of the base,
Nobility the epitaph of the noble.
See how the gilded sky is covered
With the drifting twisted shadows of the dead.
The Ice Age is over now,
Why is there ice everywhere?
The Cape of Good Hope has been discovered,
Why do a thousand sails contest the Dead Sea?
I came into this world
Bringing only paper, rope, a shadow,
To proclaim before the judgment
The voice that has been judged:
Let me tell you, world,
I—do—not—believe!
If a thousand challengers lie beneath your feet,
Count me as number one thousand and one.
I don’t believe the sky is blue;
I don’t believe in thunder’s echoes;
I don’t believe that dreams are false;
I don’t believe that death has no revenge.
If the sea is destined to breach the dikes
Let all the brackish water pour into my heart;
If the land is destined to rise
Let humanity choose a peak for existence again.
A new conjunction and glimmering stars
Adorn the unobstructed sky now:
They are the pictographs from five thousand years.
They are the watchful eyes of future generations.
Let’s Go
Let’s go—
Fallen leaves blow into deep valleys
But the song has no home to return to.
Let’s go—
Moonlight on the ice
Has spilled beyond the riverbed.
Let’s go—
Eyes gaze at the same patch of sky
Hearts strike the twilight drum.
Let’s go—
We have not lost our memories
We shall search for life’s pool.
Let’s go—
Is covered with a drift of scarlet poppies.
Notes from the City of the Sun
Life
The sun has risen too
Love
Tranquillity. The wild geese have flown
over the virgin wasteland
the old tree has toppled with a crash
acrid salty rain drifts through the air
Freedom
Torn scraps of paper
fluttering
Child
A picture enclosing the whole ocean
folds into a white crane
Girl
A shimmering rainbow
gathers brightly colored feathers
Youth
Red waves
drown a solitary oar
Art
A million scintillating suns
appear in the shattered mirror
People
The moon is torn into gleaming grains of wheat
and sown in the honest sky and earth
Labor
Hands, encircling the earth
Fate
The child strikes the railing at random
at random the railing strikes the night
Faith
A flock of sheep spills out of the green ditch
the shepherd boy plays his monotonous pipe
Peace
In the land where the king is dead
the old rifle sprouting branches and buds
has become a cripple’s cane
Motherland
Cast on a shield of bronze
she leans against a blackened museum wall
Living
A net
The Red Sailboat
Ruined walls broken ramparts all around
how can the road extend beneath our feet
not morning stars but streetlights that have slid
into your pupils pour forth