“In the spring of 1969, due to the invention of a new drug, a group of sleep disorder patients woke up, but most of them went back to sleep soon after. This awakening was only for the final disillusionment. Chinese Knowledge After experiencing the final convulsions of the Great Awakening in 1989, the molecules all went back to sleep.”
This is a plot mentioned by Yan Geling, a Chinese-American writer and film screenwriter, in her first banned book, Milady, which was completely exempt from censorship by the CCP.
Yan Geling, who has collaborated with well-known directors such as Zhang Yimou, Feng Xiaogang, and Ang Lee, and is the author of best-selling books such as “How to Know”, “Youth”, and “Young Girl”, and has won numerous awards around the world, was criticized for writing an article criticizing the Chinese Communist Party for concealing the epidemic. , supported the women in chains, and bluntly expressed anger to those in power, but was completely blocked by the CCP’s censorship mechanism. Even her name became a sensitive word on the Chinese Internet for a time.
File photo: Chinese-American writer and film screenwriter Yan Geling
“Milati”–an elegy dedicated to the 1980s
Yan Geling, who lives in Germany, decided to set up her own publishing house, and her first novel “Milati” was written in a completely free environment. It tells the story of the Cultural Revolution, armed struggle, educated youth going to the mountains and countryside, returning to the city, labor camps, The crackdown lasted until the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, with the theme of the “awakening” and “disillusionment” of China’s intellectuals in the 1980s. In an exclusive interview with Voice of America’s “In-depth Perspective”, Yan Geling said that the book “Milati” is her elegy to the 1980s. She said: “What our elders endured during the Cultural Revolution is what our generation of intellectuals are experiencing now. The fate of Chinese intellectuals keeps repeating itself, and the reasons behind it are worth pondering.”
Yan Geling reorganized and fictionalized the personal experiences of her father’s generation in the 1980s, coupled with what she saw and heard in the 1980s, as the prototype of the story “Milati”, telling the story of the two generations of knowledge after the catastrophe of the Cultural Revolution. Molecular love, desire for freedom, and thoughts and struggles on literary and artistic creation. Yan Geling said that the protagonist Milady transformed from a dancer in a cultural troupe to a young writer just like she did. She used Milady as a pair of eyes and a clue in the book to link all the possible stories that happened in the 1980s. Although these past events in China may seem absurd, they are as real as surreal oil paintings and are thrilling. The poet Yang Lian commented on the book “Milati”: “If you understand Yan Geling’s book, you will understand contemporary China.”
Writing history with literature
When asked what is the greatest significance of writing the novel “Milati”? Yan Geling said that she hopes to use literature and art to write history for the Chinese nation. She said: Some people, for some ulterior motives, want our nation to forget historical events such as the Cultural Revolution and June Fourth, but if we forget these, our Chinese nation will not be the Chinese nation. I have been thinking, why are we Chinese so forgetful? Can your memory be so bad? All the suffering we have experienced, if we are not remembered or reflected on, we will experience such suffering repeatedly, and this is actually proven to be the case. It has been said from Du Mu’s “A Fang Gong Fu”: “The people of Qin had no time to mourn themselves, and later generations mourned them, and future generations mourned them without taking notice.” That is to say, you never have time to mourn yourself, and you are too busy to take care of it. If we remember these things, each generation will have “no time to grieve for itself”, leaving the next generation to “sorrow for its misfortune”. I think the repetition of this kind of tragedy is too sad.
Yan Geling believes that as a creator, he should use his works to prompt people to reflect on history. She said: “If even we writers do not have such initiative and consciousness to write some history for our nation, then we will not be able to reflect on the difficulties and sufferings we have experienced. On the contrary, Because the artistic image of literature can be very vivid, everyone may be able to realize a little bit of himself, his own experience, and his own tragedy through this artistic image. A history textbook may be too stiff and It goes too straight to the subject, but as a novel, as a literary work, it is very easy to use its vividness to make people reflect and think about why all these characters’ experiences happened. Happened? We can’t ever not pursue why.”
Writing suffering with absurdity
Yan Geling himself wrote in the book “Milati”: “A nation that lacks an understanding of absurdity and a sense of irony is a nation with weak thinking ability and insufficient self-confidence.” Yan Geling told Voice of America that the Chinese people are The suffering and absurdity we have experienced in the past three years during the epidemic have been so surreal and magical! “I feel that I can no longer express my anger and sadness, because these things in China today have gone beyond what ordinary people, common sense and common sense can understand. You see, a leader is missing today, and so and so is missing tomorrow. How could this be something that a normal society and a normal country would experience?”
Yan Geling said: “The older I get, the less I like to accuse seriously or write too seriously, because I have seen too much. I think the most powerful nation can withstand self-mockery. I As a member of the nation, I feel that it is a sign of self-confidence and strength to laugh at myself and my own nation. If I always cry and tell the sufferings of the Chinese people, I feel that this is already a sign of self-confidence and strength. It is no longer enough, because it is no longer a problem that can be solved by love, hate, and anger. It has now far exceeded the original emotions of love, hate, and anger. It has become a kind of absurdity, especially in the past three years. All kinds of things…all the sufferings that the Chinese people have suffered make me feel that there is a sense of absurdity in them. If I still use the original writing method to write about our nation after these three years, I think it may be that I have not grown up. I think I have grown up. This kind of growth is the result of the three years of the disaster of the epidemic that the whole world and the Chinese have experienced. It is a kind of growth that has captivated the city, the country, and the ball. It took the earth to tip over for me to realize a kind of absurdity.”
The “Rakshasa Sea City” where beauty and ugliness are reversed
Yan Geling believes that this absurdity in today’s Chinese society is also the main reason why Daolang’s recent song “Rakshasa Haishi” has aroused great resonance. Because Daolang also uses satirical lyrics to sing and shout out the absurd reality of “ugliness is considered beautiful” in Chinese society. Yan Geling also cited two examples to illustrate this “reversal of beauty and ugliness” in today’s Chinese society. She said that once at a book signing party, a young woman came up to her and asked her to sign a book. She also wanted Yan Geling to add four more words, “promoted step by step.” Yan Geling asked her why? The lady said matter-of-factly that when I became a civil servant, I wanted to “get promoted step by step.” Yan Geling returned the book to the lady and said to her: “Serve the people well!”
Yan Geling also cited another example: a girl cried and asked her father why he didn’t become a corrupt official because he had no money to study abroad. Yan Geling felt heartbroken by the naked “ugliness as beauty” in Chinese society. He said that from such a young mind, when she was 17 or 18 years old, she felt that she would rather be a corrupt official than a poor, moral, and moral person. A person full of virtue.
Yan Geling put forward a soul torture to all Chinese people in front of the camera: “Do you think virtue can be eaten? Can it be spent? If these two purposes cannot be achieved, it can neither be eaten nor consumed, nor can it be turned into anything. If there is no actual benefit, then this virtue is worthless and is rubbish. But if every Chinese treats virtue as rubbish and we become such a nation, then do you think we can still be good?”
File photo: Chinese-American writer and film screenwriter Yan Geling
Wherever the truth can be told, there is China
Yan Geling admitted in an exclusive interview that she once suffered from depression. The doctor told her that if she took medication, she might lose her creative ability, but she said she first wanted to be a normal person. Just like when she left China after the June Fourth Incident in 1989, she first needed to be free and able to speak the truth.
Yan Geling also expressed her feelings through the words of the heroine’s father Mi Xiao after leaving China: “Wherever there is true art, there is China.” This echoes the words of the late historian Yu Yingshi. I have said: “Wherever I am, there is China.”
Yan Geling said: “This is a blood relationship. I think China is the concept of a motherland. You can’t say that because you are not in this country, this motherland does not belong to me, so I am very confident that as long as I can Writing in Chinese allows me to tell my story about China to readers all over the world. This motherland follows me and can drift with me, because this motherland is a cultural motherland. To be more specific, it is Cao Xueqin’s. , belongs to Tang Xianzu, and belongs to Guan Hanqing. It is the motherland they passed down to me.” “You can take me out of China, but you can’t take China out of me.” (You can take me out of China, but you can’t take China out of me.”) You can’t take China out of my heart.) Yan Geling emphasized this sentence repeatedly in English and Chinese during our exclusive interview with her.
intellectual backbone
Although she is in a foreign land and may not be able to return to China in the short term, Yan Geling has questions about the intellectuals who are still in China and who are as outspoken as she is, such as Xu Zhangrun, Geng Xiaonan, journalist Gao Yu, and writers Zhang Yihe and Fang Fang Others paid their respects. “I think they are braver than me, because after all, I am not in danger of being subject to border control, being summoned, or being detained personally, but they live in a place where such threats are very close. I think they are truly warriors, I feel like I am learning from them.” Yan Geling said.
I was asked whether writers in China still have room to create under the intensified suppression of speech and ideological control by the Xi Jinping administration. Do intellectuals still have the backbone and responsibility? Or can we only be forced to become a “sleeping man” like what is written in the book “Milati”? Yan Geling said: “I think they are also very hard-pressed. How can they write so that they can publish their works in a less distorted and less emasculated way? They cannot put their best talents and greatest intelligence into use. How to write these works well, but to spend time on how to write obscurely, write smoothly, and pass the test, which is very sad. But on the other hand, I think pretending to sleep is also a way of survival, right? It is a This is a way to survive and survive. I don’t think we have any right to criticize a person who wants to live, but I just hope that if every Chinese writer can have someone like Geng Xiaonan, like Gao Yu, like Fang Fang If you have the courage to say something you really want to say, I think this will be of great help to our Chinese nation and our nation’s literature.”
Challenge stage plays and movies
Yan Geling said that although her current income has been reduced, her life can be simplified, and the environment of complete freedom from censorship by the CCP has also stimulated her more creative potential. In addition to continuing to write in Chinese and English in the future, the “New Song Media” she and her husband established will also publish works by other Chinese writers. She also plans to try writing stage plays and plans to film herself Yan Geling said that she can provide the script for free. There are already some directors who are willing to cooperate, so please look forward to it.
The above is a text summary of the interview between Voice of America and Yan Geling. For the complete interview video, please see “In-depth Perspective” Interview with Yan Geling: The Awakening and Disillusionment of Chinese Intellectuals.
2023-09-30 12:42:00
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