The New York Times has published three reviews of new Chinese works in translation: Wang Anyi’s The Song of Everlasting Sorrow, Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong (pen name for Lu Jiamin) and Mo Yan, Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out. What binds these works together, in particular, is that all three are — at least in part — about the experience of the Cultural Revolution.
Geez, now everybody wants to play. On March 7 our own Charles Hayford started the ball rolling by posting on Five things that Didn’t Happen (But Might Have). This led to Michael Turton coming up with a list for Taiwan history. Now the New York Review of Books is getting in the act, with a piece by Perry Link entitled He Would have Changed China. It is a review of Zong Fengming’s book of conversations with Zhao Ziyang Link starts of with a few favorite Chinese history counterfactuals, like what would have happened to Lu Xun if he had lived past 1949, and then gets on to Zhao, who has also been a subject for these types of games. Link shows that during his years of house arrest Zhao did a lot of reading and came to the conclusion that China needed more democracy, more rule of law and less nationalism. He also concludes that Zhao would have probably had very little effect even if he had held on to power in 1989 and if his thinking had evolved in the same way. The real power was always with Deng Xiaoping and to a lesser extent Chen Yun. Still, lots of people in China like to imagine something that might have been better.
Sam at Useless Tree draws our attention to a really interesting website called 新法家(in English the New Legalist) I’m not quite sure who these people are, but the website is out of Beijing and quite impressive. Sam does not much care for them, seeing them as “nationalists who are appropriating ancient Legalist texts, together with some Taoist volumes, to fashion a neo-traditionalist legitimation for a contemporary Chinese assertion of power globally” That sounds about right to me.
Sam is much bothered by their attempts to tie together Legalism and Daoism, but to me it just sounds like Huang-Lao stuff, as there were lots of links between Legalism and Daoism right from the start. I am also not that surprised to find people looking back to the Legalists themselves, as this was a big item in the early 20th century as people began going through the Chinese tradition looking for the genealogy of a modern nation in the Chinese past. The New Legalists may seem weird, but they have a long way to go before they can match up with Kang Youwei.
Of course these people are looking into the past to find something different than the Chinese thinkers of a century ago. They are finding environmentalism and anti-globalization ideas, along with lots of occasions for nationalist chest-thumping. As Sam points out it is pretty bizarre to see Han Fei as a Green. Still they do seem to be drawing on a pretty wide range of classical thought. According to their mission statement
The Chinese people have built up a unique and comprehensive thought system covering medicine, economics and politics. This system aims at a dynamic balance between different parts of the human body, between different groupings of people within a society, and between human society and nature. All its subsystems follow the principle of “guiding changes towards balance” (from The Yellow Emperor’s Four Cannon ) economically, arranging production and consumption in accord with the change of seasons and with nature’s productive capabilities at the time; and politically, allocating limited resources among people according to their respective contributions to the society1
This actually does sound bit like a lot of the Warring States-Han stuff you would find in Mark Edward Lewis’s work. For me the most interesting part is the twisted Marx quote at the end. A lot of the site has an anti-capitalist feel, or at least a feel that China is best off if it does not totally adapt American culture. Part it seems to be vaguely Maoist egalitarianism and concern for the workers, “end capital’s hegemony in the name of liberty” and part of it an even more vague utopianism that owes something to Mao and also a lot various bits of traditional Chinese thought.
There are few things I enjoy more than following American elections in the Chinese press. Zaobao (from Singapore) had something recently on Obama and why he is doing so well. Like many foreigners I think they were mystified by this unknown becoming known, but they put some thought into it. They rejected the Clinton camp’s suggestion that his success is entirely attributable to his 花言 (flowery words). After all, many prominent officials and movie stars are supporting him. I get the impression that they think American voters are sheep (which I might be inclined to agree with) but that they also think that American elites are significantly harder to fool (which I really doubt, but then I’m an American not a Confucian). They do point out that as a young man Obama can deal with the grind of the campaign trail, and that he has been successful in raising small amounts of money from lots of people. The one I found most interesting is that they claim that people are worried about American becoming a banana republic if we end up with a Clinton to follow a Bush who followed a Clinton who followed a Bush. I have heard Americans mention that, but I doubt many Democratic primary voters will switch to McCain on that basis. I guess from an Asian perspective that problem jumps out at you more. It’s a nice piece that explains things pretty well. As much as I find some of their thinking odd I wish the American press ran articles on foreign elections that were half as informative.
One of my students is doing an honors thesis on kissing. Specifically she is looking at a series of articles from Ling Long that explain what kissing is and why Shanghai women of the 1930’s should be doing more of it if they want to be modern women. One of the interesting things about Ling Long is that there are lots of pictures of scantily clad women (usually foreigners) in it. She suggests that the pictures (like the text of most of the issues) was intended to present modern, western ideas about sexuality and the role of women to Chinese people in a way that was both intimate and at the same time foreign enough to not be threatening. Thus foreign movie stars were great subjects.
It is an interesting thesis1 in part because it is interesting and in part because I think it offers an insight that helps us to understand some aspects the modern Chinese press. Even fairly serious Chinese papers tend to have a lot of cheesecake shots (almost always women. sorry) like this set of photos of Jessica Alba2 Part of it is just the idea that this will sell papers, but I find the text fascinating, as they seem to be dressing it up as something that will help us (Chinese readers) to understand the West. Here is the caption
中国日报网环球在线消息：Jessica Alba在出演电影《甜心辣舞》中，用热辣的舞姿，加上漂亮的脸蛋，赢取了“美国甜心”的称号。一组Jessica Alba的内衣泳装照，甜蜜诱人好似草莓蛋糕，解释了秀色可餐一词。
An overly literal translation might be: Jessica Alba in the film Honey? used her hot and spicy dancing and and a beautiful face to win the title of “America’s Sweetheart”3 In this set of photos of Jessica Alba in her underwear and swimwear she is as sweet and tempting as a strawberry cake, looking both sexy and tasty?
Very weird, in part because it is always hard to really translate some types of language, but also because the ’serious’ American press does not dress up its pictures of movie stars this way. But as long as it helps you to understand Americans I guess it is o.k.
早报有好奇怪的文件关于中国得婚姻制度。 作者 叶鹏飞谈到中国的离婚率上升。在一部分时一个建立在史学研究基础上的观点。 他说道国外婚姻制度的改变，特别斯泰芬尼·库茨（Stephanie Coontz) 的书。对我来说这是很有意思，因为在美国的报纸如果有一事可以说有”永恒精神“就是我们的婚姻制度。
但是，他也说道中国文化的最基本的特色。一个 是余英时的“一生为故国招魂”，和“回家过年”的文化精神。
“回家过年”的冲动显示着中国文化在基层的旺盛生命力，但愿中国人在现代化的过程中不会因此陷入“无家可归”的困境中去。
有一部分”日本人論 “的味道。在国外他可以分析历史变成，但在国内(或者文化内)他要识别中华的永恒精神。最有意思是他的文化特点是回家过年。美国的文化是一样。以前我们没有火鸡节，但是在二十世纪我们越来越多“在冰天雪地中艰难跋涉，坚持回家 ”. 是非常现代的文化传统
Philip J. Cunningham at Informed Comment Global Affairs has a great post about Chinese State TV and their Dialogue commentary program. I’m just going to excerpt the funny and historical bit below the fold, but the rest of the discussion, hopeful and realistic, is quite worthwhile. The focus is actually on the collaboration/mutual exploitation relationship between CCTV and Japan’s NHK.
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Everybody knows about ping pong diplomacy, but we seem to have just completed a period of Canto-pop diplomacy, as Jackie Chan has recorded an “official” song for the Olympics. Canto-pop is of course the dreadful Cantonese pop music that infects every corner of the Chinese world. More generally I suppose it can be used to refer to the general pop culture of Hong Kong1 Just as Beijing used ping pong to try and create a connection with the U.S. so to the central government has embraced the commercial culture of Hong Kong as part of their attempt to create a Greater China. John Hamm discusses some of this in Paper Swordsmen which is partially about the rise of New School martial arts fiction but mainly about Jin Yong 金庸 and his work. Jin, a.k.a. Louis Cha, in addition to being the world’s best-selling author of martial arts novels is also the founder and long-time editor of Ming Pao once one of the more independent-minded papers in Hong Kong and now the center of a multi-national media empire. Zha was thus exactly the type of person Beijing would want to cultivate as they tried to re-unify the motherland. Zha was received by Deng Xiaoping at the Great Hall of the People in 1981, the first important figure from Hong Kong to be so honored. Zha would have been worth talking to just as a newspaper editor, but being an author of martial arts novelist made him even better. Although Beijing never accepted Tapei’s claims to be the “real” preservers of Chinese culture, after the Cultural Revolution a figure like Zha who had been critical of the CR and could make claims to be a preserver of Chinese culture was solid gold. As Beijing was trying to re-unify Hong Kong (and Taiwan) calling for a unified state was a non-starter, and so the ties of history and culture were needed. What is Chinese culture? Some bits of what might be called Chinese culture were not perhaps things Beijing wanted to play up, such as the Confucian concept of government by a class of incorruptible officials chosen for their skill rather than their connections. Everyone likes gong fu heroes, however, and given that so many of Cha/Jin Yong’s stories had strong anti-imperialist/ nationalist elements he was a perfect fit.
Jackie Chan is in some respects ever better for this than Louis Cha. He is, I think, about the last of the martial arts movie starts to have had real old-fashioned opera training. He is also a bit less prickly. Cha’s Ming Pao has been accused of cuddling up to Beijing a bit more than some would like, but he was also quite critical of Beijing, especially after 6/4. Chan is not critical of anything, as far as I can tell, and this sort of ties in the comic persona he takes on in most of his films.2 Bruce Lee does not work as well for Beijing’s purposes as a living symbol of Hong Kong culture. Besides being dead and thus unable to turn up for events far to many of his roles (and Jet Li’s) involved playing people who defied corrupt power-holders. The Jianghu (rivers and lakes) tradition that was at the center of martial arts fiction always had a problematic relationship with authority (That’s why so many of the stories have elements of Ming loyalism/ anti-Manchuism. That way one can defy cruel oppression and be loyal to the true rulers.) Jackie Chan has none of that (compare his Wong Feihong in Drunken Master with Jet Li’s in Once Upon a Time in China) If you want a nice, non-threatening haohan Jackie Chan is your man.
As a visual aid for Charles’s post below I would like to add this.
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Historians have been very interested in World’s Fairs, international exhibitions and such for a while now. This is in part because of Gellner and Anderson’s ideas about nationalism, and above all the idea of a nation as an imagined community. Looking at a country’s exhibit at some sort of international do is a quick and easy way to figure out what their imagined community is, or at least what the people responsible would like to claim that it is to an audience of foreigners.
We are in the run-up to one of these events now, the Beijing Olympics. Lots of people (including lots of people in the Chinese government) are aware that this will be China’s big moment of exposure, and they are trying to spin how China will be seen long before the first shot is put. China Rights Forum has a whole issue out on it on this which can be found on-line here I liked Chen Kuide’s essay where he hopes that the Beijing Olympics will end up like the Seoul Olympics, where international attention may have helped the democracy movement, rather than like the Hitler Olympics where the Olympic movement served to validate the power of one of history’s greatest monsters. Even more interesting was Xu Jilin’s essay The Making of a True Athletic Superpower Xu contrasts the current Olympics with what he saw in Vancouver in 2004.
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