Narrating China: Jia Pingwa and his Fictional World (Routledge Contemporary China Series)

Narrating China Jia Pingwa, whose novels have brought both fame and controversy, has an enormous readership throughout...

Author: Yiyan Wang

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Narrating China

Jia Pingwa, whose novels have brought both fame and controversy, has an enormous readership throughout the Chinese-speaking world. However, despite his cultural signiﬁcance and the use of his poetry, novels and prose in schools and universities, there has never been any substantial academic study of the writer and his writings. Wang answers this omission by examining the corpus of Jia’s writing and emphasizing his importance, prominence and relevance to contemporary Chinese society. Tracing Jia Pingwa’s career from his peasant origins in Shaanxi Province to his status as a professional writer of national and international signiﬁcance, Narrating China brings to light his preoccupation with cultural traditions and national identity. Focusing on the context of ‘national narration’, Wang demonstrates how Jia’s local stories capture regional characteristics and yet strongly identify with an imaginary China. This careful and detailed analysis highlights the importance of nationalism in contemporary Chinese literature and underpins the signiﬁcance of regional writing in negotiating China’s national identities. Yiyan Wang is lecturer in Chinese Studies at the School of Languages and Cultures, University of Sydney, Australia.

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The Politics of China’s Accession to the World Trade Organization The dragon goes global Hui Feng

9

Narrating China Jia Pingwa and his ﬁctional world Yiyan Wang

Narrating China Jia Pingwa and his ﬁctional world

Yiyan Wang

First published 2006 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006.

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group © 2006 Yiyan Wang All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Wang, Yiyan. Narrating China: Jia Pingwa and his ﬁctional world / By Yiyan Wang. p. cm. — (Routledge contemporary China series) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Jia, Pingwa—Criticism and interpretation. I. Title: Jia Pingwa and his ﬁctional world. II. Title. III. Series. PL2843.PSZ945 2005 895.1′352—dc22 2005007124 ISBN 10: 0–415–32675–3 ISBN 13: 9–78–0–415–32675–9

Contents

Preface Acknowledgements

vii ix

1

Introduction

2

The life and career of Jia Pingwa

26

3

Defunct Capital and cultural landscaping

50

4

Defunct Capital and the sexual dissident

72

5

Defunct Capital and female domesticity

94

6

White Nights and sleepless in Xijing

113

7

Earth Gate and loss of native place

131

8

Old Gao Village and native place dystopia

150

9

Remembering Wolves – the function of local events

170

Poetry, essays and textual personality

186

Conclusion: the poetics of native place

211

Appendices 1 Interview with Jia Pingwa 2 Chronology of Jia Pingwa’s publications 3 Autobiographical writings and critical biographies 4 Works by Jia Pingwa

220 241 274 276

10

1

vi Contents Notes Bibliography Index

281 295 313

Preface

This is the ﬁrst comprehensive study of the major contemporary Chinese writer Jia Pingwa (b. 1952). Based in Xi’an, Shaanxi province, in northwestern China, he has been called a nativist writer (xiangtu zuojia !) and is highly regarded as a stylist whose extensive works have enjoyed a sustained and loyal readership for over thirty years. This book traces Jia Pingwa’s career from his peasant origins to his status as a professional writer of national and international inﬂuence, with his major novels studied in their order of publication. This analysis of Jia Pingwa’s writings is linked to the history of modern Chinese literature, especially the development of the ‘novel’ genre. The focus is on the context of China’s ‘national narration’, asking how Jia Pingwa’s native place of Shangzhou emerges as a microcosm of ‘China’. Two aspects of Jia Pingwa’s writing come under special scrutiny: his political goal of nativist national narration and his aesthetic project of restoring and developing Chinese narrative traditions. Jia Pingwa’s literary nativism entails that his local stories capture regional characteristics and yet strongly identify with an imaginary China. Jia Pingwa excels in ﬁction and in the essay, and is deemed to be one of the ﬁnest essayists in China. In both genres he has drawn upon indigenous narrative traditions. Stylistically, his ﬁction has beneﬁted greatly from the narrative techniques of traditional Chinese vernacular ﬁction. His essays show a direct connection to the genre’s great masters in terms of subject matter, style, language, sentiment and aesthetic values. His 1993 novel, Defunct Capital, however, marked a grave setback in his writing career. The ban imposed on the book in 1994 is still in place, and in the view of the authorities the explicit sexual descriptions were harmful to readers. Jia Pingwa has nevertheless continued writing, and published another six novels since 1995. His popularity with his readers, if not always with the critics, is evidenced by the numerous editions and reprints of his works available. Jia Pingwa is one of the most important writers living in China today. Despite his being cold-shouldered by establishment critics, his continuing popularity speaks for itself. His works are unique in articulating the voices

viii

Preface

of Chinese ‘peasants’, his nativist efforts develop and sustain Chinese narrative traditions and his innovative narrative language is imbued with local characteristics and textual beauty. Jia Pingwa’s literary career offers a rewarding way of tracing the history and development of contemporary Chinese literature. I have used both pinyin and Chinese characters when a Chinese proper name ﬁrst appears in the text. In quoting I have used either simpliﬁed or full characters in accordance with the source. Chapter 4, ‘Defunct Capital and the sexual dissident’, ﬁrst appeared with minor differences in ‘Mr Butterﬂy in Defunct Capital: “Soft Masculinity” and (mis)engendering China’, in Kam Louie and Morris Low, eds, Asian Masculinities: The Meaning and Practice of Manhood in China and Japan (London: Routledge Curzon, 2003), pp. 41–58.

Acknowledgements

This book began as my PhD thesis and it has taken me a long time to complete. Help and support from both individuals and institutions have been essential in bringing this project to its ﬁnish. My study and work of the past ten years are closely associated with the Institute for International Studies, University of Technology, Sydney, and School of Cultures and Languages at the University of Sydney. From both institutions I have received much support and I am most grateful to the continuing help and encouragement from many colleagues and friends at these two places. The Fisher Library at the University of Sydney, especially staff at East Asian Collection and Interlibrary Loans, has been most helpful for my research. The Research Seeding Fund of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Sydney made it possible for me to purchase research materials and to conduct interviews in China for this book. The Special Studies Program at the University of Sydney allowed me to spend time at the Fairbank Center for East Asia Research of Harvard University and at the International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden, the Netherlands. As a result, I was able to be in contact with a wide range of leading researchers in my ﬁeld and to beneﬁt from discussions with them and from the excellent library collections at both places. I thank Kirk Denton for his suggestions on the approach this study takes and David Der-wei Wang for the idea of viewing Jia Pingwa’s writing as regional ethnography. I was fortunate to have Mabel Lee as my PhD supervisor. This book would not have been possible without her guidance, supervision and help. What I have learnt and continue to learn from her is not only academic skills and insight about China but the meanings of kindness, generosity and wisdom. David Goodman has been an ‘unofﬁcial’ supervisor for my intellectual endeavours in general for a long time. He was the intellectual inspiration for this book and for my current research project on Chinese regional literatures. The numerous discussions I had with him in the mid-1990s were the beginning of my understanding and appreciation of intellectual debates about China and beyond. Concerned about any undue inﬂuence and out of the belief of the ‘death of the author’, I was reluctant to contact the subject of my study, Jia Pingwa,

x

Acknowledgements

for the entire period when I was a graduate student. However, my correspondence with him in the past few years has been most useful and informative. I thank Jia Pingwa for his assistance, generosity, open-mindedness and, of course his extraordinary productivity. When I ﬁnished my thesis in 1998, Jia Pingwa was the author of four novels. By the time this book was completed, ten novels had been published. Of course his rate of productivity makes the very task daunting, but this book is all the richer as a result. Many people contributed to this book and helped me directly or indirectly. I have learnt a great deal from Maghiel van Crevel, Helen Dunstan, Louise Edwards, John Fitzgerald, Gao Yuanbao, Wilt Idema, Kam Louie, Tim Oakes, Simon Patton, John Stowe and Sun Jianxi. My special thanks also go to Tony Stephens, whose comments on English usage have been the most enlightening and corrections most helpful. Personal friends, especially Catherine Armitage, Margaret Bradstock, Bernard Lane and Susan King, have taught me about Australia and inducted me into Australian society. Love, encouragement, discipline and inspiration from Barry Jay have been instrumental in bringing this book to completion. My last, but not the least thanks are reserved for my daughter Xiaoxiao, whose childhood and teenage years were spent with the need to accommodate my research for this book. Both the mother and the daughter are products of my academic career and I am grateful for her understanding and support.

Introduction

1

1

Introduction

Residing in Xi’an, Shaanxi province, in north-western China, Jia Pingwa (b. 1952) is a proliﬁc producer of novels, novellas, short stories and essays, and an occasional poet. By 2005 Jia Pingwa had published ten novels, dozens of collections of short stories, novellas and essays, and one book of poetry. The ten novels are: Shangzhou (Shangzhou ; 1984), Turbulence (Fuzao ; 1988), Pregnancy (Renshen ; 1989), Defunct Capital (Feidu ; 1993), White Nights (Baiye ; 1995), Earth Gate (Tumen ; 1996), Old Gao Village (Gaolaozhuang ; 1998), Remembering Wolves (Huainianlang ; 2000), Health Report (Bingxiang baogao !; 2002) and Local Accent (Qinqiang ; 2005). Jia Pingwa commands an enormous readership in the Chinese-speaking world. Many of his publications have numerous editions in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Two of his major novels, Turbulence and Defunct Capital, and a small number of his short stories and essays have been translated into many languages, including English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Russian and Vietnamese. His works have been used as textbooks for students in schools and at universities, both inside and outside China.

From mountain village to provincial capital Jia Pingwa began publishing in 1973, initially in Shaanxi’s provincial literary journals and local newspapers. Within a few years, his writing was being accepted by major national literary journals. By the end of the 1980s, Jia Pingwa was able to change the situation in his favour, making it a privilege for journals to be able to publish his works and since then he has often been pursued by the editors of journals and publishing houses for such a privilege. Chinese readers tend to respond differently to the different genres Jia Pingwa uses. In China his novels often attract very different comments, from the extremely positive to the drastically negative. Despite his extensive popularity among Chinese readers and the amount of criticism he attracts from Chinese critics, to date his novels have not been awarded any national prizes. By comparison, his short stories, novellas and essays have won a number of national and provincial prizes in China. His essays have appeared in such a

2

Introduction

variety of editions that it is impossible to track all of them for a totally comprehensive bibliography. In the anglophone countries Jia Pingwa remains little known to general readers, despite his having won the American Mobil Pegasus Prize in 1988 with his second novel Turbulence.1 Some of his essays, short stories and novellas have been translated into English but, with the exception of Turbulence, his novels are not available in English. His readership in the anglophone world largely consists of academics and students of Chinese literature. His best-known and most controversial novel, Defunct Capital, is not available in English, although it has attracted scholarly attention worldwide. Most anglophone academic assessments of contemporary Chinese literature and culture tend to mention the heated debates about sexual descriptions in Defunct Capital, whereas his other writings are barely discussed.2 Jia Pingwa’s works are more favourably received by the francophone world, and a number of his major works already exist in French translation. Defunct Capital’s French translation by Geneviève Imbot-Bichet, La capitale déchue (Jia Pingwa 1997e), much to the puzzlement of Chinese feminists, won the French Femina Prize in 1997 (Xu Kun 1999: 186).3 In 2003, Jia Pingwa was awarded the honour of the Chevalier in arts and literature by the French Ministry of Culture and Communication.4 This book concentrates on Jia Pingwa’s major novels, especially the thematic concerns and textual features of his representative works. However, since this is the ﬁrst monograph in English on Jia Pingwa, his short stories, essays and poetry will also be brieﬂy discussed. Information about Jia Pingwa’s career and his writing is provided as comprehensively as possible, as far as it is relevant to a critical assessment of his literary production. There is also a brief sketch of his biography in connection with an outline of the historical and social context in which his writings occur. The three decades of Jia Pingwa’s literary journey have been marked by very different concerns, difﬁculties and complexities as well as successful and not so successful literary attempts. Coincidentally, Jia Pingwa’s writing career, to a large extent, is easily divisible in terms of thematic development in his works. In other words, a parallel is readily perceptible between stages in Jia Pingwa’s personal growth and various periods in his literary journey – he seems to write about certain issues in certain genres and his writing matures as he himself develops as an individual, an observer and a thinker. Such a parallel lends a convenience to tracing the development of Jia Pingwa’s intellectual concerns and literary production: hence the chronological structure of this book. At the same time the chronological approach also enhances the thematic transition of Jia Pingwa’s creativity, and may also allow this book to serve as a reference for the study of his writing in general. Among the many factors that contribute to the signiﬁcance of Jia Pingwa as a major contemporary Chinese writer, the most important are his narrative aesthetics, the huge quantity of his publications, the enormous readership he commands in the Chinese-speaking world, and the public debates generated

Introduction

3

by his writing. Jia Pingwa’s immense popularity means it is highly relevant to discuss the author, his readership and the critical and popular receptions of his works. The author, the reader and the markets are all active agents in the production and consumption of Jia Pingwa’s works. The continual aggressive and relentless marketing of Jia Pingwa’s works by various publishers since the late 1980s shows Jia Pingwa’s unfailing popularity in the Chinese-speaking world, despite, or rather because of, the very negative opinions expressed by many inﬂuential critics in China. Other than the bestseller Defunct Capital, which remains banned by the authorities, the ﬁerce competition among publishers to publish and market Jia Pingwa’s writings, especially his essays, as a result of the proﬁt his writings bring, and the production of pirated copies, are phenomena of contemporary cultural consumption5 that contradict general assumption on the part of Chinese intellectuals that China is experiencing a cultural crisis in the face of globalization and consumerism.6 Jia Pingwa has produced an enormous number of essays and has been recognized as one of the most outstanding essayists in today’s China.7 Some of his essays have already become classics and form major volumes in large anthologies.8 According to the statistics generated by Martin Woesler in the late 1990s, among the prose essayists who were born after 1949 Jia Pingwa is the most published and his prose essays rank the highest in terms of popularity. Five of Jia Pingwa’s essays are included in the sixty most popular Chinese essays selected from publications since the 1920s, and they rank top ﬁfth (Woesler, M. 2000b: xxxii, 218, 221). Although Jia Pingwa’s ﬁction may not be as popular as his essays, it should still rank fairly high considering the enthusiasm of publishers in chasing after his manuscripts and the number of editions of his novels. What lies behind the immense popularity of Jia Pingwa’s prose and ﬁction is a highly seductive textual aesthetics in terms of both subject matter and narrative style. His stories are highly accessible, usually offering an enticing story told in a lucid narrative language that is rich in local ﬂavours. Even the critics who judge him harshly on moral grounds admit that Jia Pingwa writes well and that his writing is seductive because of its literary excellence.9 Jia Pingwa has borrowed from Chinese narrative traditions in both elite and popular forms. In ﬁction, he insists on the Chinese popular tradition of xiaoshuo , small talk, believing that stories should be written as if they are told orally, face to face to an audience. He also purposefully obscures the boundaries between prose, ﬁction and sometimes poetry with great success. Many of his essays border on being prose poems with a highly perceptible lyrical quality, whereas his short stories, novellas and even novels use many features of prose, especially in terms of narrative structure, plot, language and the ﬂow of events. Unlike many of his contemporaries who draw innovative inspiration from narrative traditions other than Chinese, Jia Pingwa’s literary experimentation is inward-looking, although no less daring in his innovative adaptation of features of classical Chinese literary narratives.

4

Introduction

What he writes and how he writes are highly imbued with local colour, and his writings demonstrate a strong sense of nativism, which expresses a profound concern for the culture and people of his native place. Like political and social nativism, literary nativism is a response to a global colonial or post-colonial context. Jia Pingwa’s literary nativism is informed by the need to preserve, protect and develop indigenous traditions in the continuing process of China’s modernization, which is a result of China’s awareness of the powerful Western Other.

From author to text Bonnie McDougall argues that there is a closer link between the author and the text in Chinese literature than in Western literatures. She believes that there is a stronger, or even an inevitable, link between the author and the protagonist or the narrator of a work of ﬁction, because ‘Chinese authors invite audiences to make the leap from ﬁction to autobiography’ (McDougall, B. 2003: 9). Although it is arguable as to whether all Chinese authors are indeed so autobiographically preoccupied, it is certainly common for them to be often seen as present in their narratives, identiﬁed as either narrators or characters. In Chinese traditional novels, the narrator appears frequently to address the reader directly and his presence is often intended to ‘authenticate’ the narrative by providing historical or geographical details.10 Stories such as those by Lu Xun and Shen Congwen in the 1920s are often narrated in the ﬁrst person against the background of the authors’ native place, and the personas of the author and the narrator often merge to the extent that the ﬁrst-person narratives are taken as the life stories of the authors. The Maoist era reinforced another aspect of this link between the author and the text through continuation of the practice that writers were held responsible and accountable for their text politically. In other words, the authors were considered active participants in textual events and the deeds of their characters were the direct results of their thoughts, if not their personal actions. Chinese literary critics again make close connections between autobiographical elements and texts when they frequently group writers according to the similarities in their backgrounds, for instance, zhiqing wenxue ! – the educated youth literature, meinü zuojia ! – glamorous women writers, or xinshengdai zuojia !" – writers of the newly born generation.11 On the one hand, appreciation of literary works bears a strong connection with the authors’ identity, whether on the basis of their background, gender or age. On the other hand, common thematic concerns and narrative styles in their writings in turn reinforce the shared identity of the authors. A further and deeper connection between Chinese authors and their texts is the Confucian tradition that writing should convey the way (wen yi zai dao !), and that writing should have a didactic purpose. Chinese writers have on the whole taken their moral responsibility seriously, which has

Introduction

5

often led to the positioning and the self-positioning of writers as intellectuals, if not always public intellectuals. In modern Chinese society, writers often take upon themselves a public role as a result of their sense of the historical, if not always political and ideological, mission of national salvation and national narration. In other words, the commonly observed ‘obsession with China’ (Hsia, C. T. 1999: 533–54; McDougall, B. 2003: 9) makes modern Chinese literary texts susceptible to political rendering and reading, and consequently the authors are viewed as political activists, or at least advocates of political causes. This author–text connection affects Chinese literature in two ways: Chinese writers can be politically more vulnerable and (in McDougall’s view) modern Chinese literature has been aesthetically problematical for general readers in the West (McDougall, B. 2003: 17–43). The recent phenomena of ‘glamorous women writers’ claiming to ‘write with their body’ and ‘newly born generation writers’ who ‘write for money and pleasure’ are, to a large extent, reactions to and the rejection of social responsibility imposed upon and accepted by writers of previous generations. This is indeed ‘another kind of reality’, to borrow Yu Hua’s famous title line, in the author–text–society triangle in the Chinese context. Indeed since the 1990s, China’s political climate has changed dramatically and there has been much greater tolerance of innovative and even subversive writings. Although literature remains a primary site of Chinese politics and the state still bans books at its own discretion, publishers, rather than writers, have been the direct targets of state control. Writers have been able to experiment in content, themes and narrative devices, and enormous changes have taken place in the contemporary literary scene. Nevertheless, the connection between authors and their texts remains as close as ever. Insufﬁcient distance between literary output and ideologies, whether on the part of the authors, Party ideologues, critics or readers, has too often led to the association of ﬁctional characters with the authors themselves. Younger writers, such as Weihui , Mianmian and Ge Hongbing , openly claim an autobiographical link with their ﬁction. In the sinophone discourse, it seems impractical and inappropriate to assume a critical stance without considering the biography of the author, let alone taking the ‘death of the author’ to the level of a theoretical framework when examining literary texts. How does Jia Pingwa ﬁgure in this matrix of author–text–society relationships? His writing mounts a complicated but special case. Responses to Jia Pingwa’s 1993 novel Defunct Capital show how closely related the author and his text are in the minds of critics and general readers: Jia Pingwa is simply equated with the anti-hero protagonist Zhuang Zhidie and he as author is accused of the immoral conduct of the ﬁctional character (see, for instance, Xiao Xialin 1993: 283). However, on the one hand, autobiographical elements in his writing are abundant, and many parallels can be drawn between himself and his characters, between his journey through life and those of the characters in his books. On the other hand, to frame the reading of such a rich, diversiﬁed body of literary texts under the notion of

6

Introduction

autobiographical writing is counter-productive, reductionist and limiting. This book attempts a compromise by combining the autobiographical, social and cultural background with close reading of the text. Primarily the readings of Jia Pingwa’s texts will be channelled into the cultural space constructed by the narrative and the unfolding of the various dimensions of that cultural space. This approach means that identity issues are the core of this book. There are two primary reasons for taking identity issues as the key to understanding Jia Pingwa’s writing – his identity as ‘peasant writer’ (nongmin zuojah !) and the close connection between his life and his writing. Jia Pingwa came from a village and was a peasant for a few years after high school until he was nineteen years of age. Most of his writing is concerned with rural life, and Jia Pingwa has furthermore actively participated in manufacturing the label of ‘peasant writer’ for himself. In 1998 he published a memoir of his earlier life in the countryside and deﬁantly titled it I Am a Peasant (Wo shi nongmin !; Jia Pingwa 1998b). For a long time, there has existed a close biographical correspondence between his characters and his personal growth, although Jia Pingwa’s ﬁction in the 2000s has shown signs of change in this respect. For more than two decades, nevertheless, Jia Pingwa’s characters grew with him, their age and degree of maturity matched his own at different stages of life, and they spoke in similar voices, tones and language. In his teens and early twenties, he produced characters in their mid and late teens, such as Bingwa in ‘Soldier Boy’ (Bingwa ; 1977) and the sisters in the story of ‘Full Moon’ (Manyuer ; 1977), the young man and woman in ‘February Apricot’ (Eryuexing ; 1981), the young couples in ‘The Households in the Chicken Roost Gulley’ (Jiwowa renjia ; 1984) and the group of young enthusiastic rural reformers in Turbulence. Since the mid-1990s Jia Pingwa’s protagonists have been largely middle-aged males, who typically live both in the city and the village, or rather on the fringe of the city. The lack of psychological and perceptive distance between the author’s sense of self and the personages in his creative writing inevitably leads to a ready identiﬁcation of the character with the author by general readers and encourages speculation about the author’s biographical details in relation to his writing. My intention, however, is to examine the interactive relation and tension among Jia Pingwa’s life experiences, his inner journey and his writing in order to facilitate a critique on Jia Pingwa’s literary output rather than to assume a direct equation between the author and the personalities of his creativity.

Native place in modern Chinese ﬁction One of the most signiﬁcant departures that modern Chinese ﬁction makes from its historical predecessors is the construction of the native place and the creation of regional representations with local colour. Although its emergence as a literary conﬁguration of space had to await the advent of modern

Introduction

7

Chinese ﬁction in the 1910s, the native place retained its centrality in the modern Chinese literary imagination throughout the twentieth century. Lu Xun, Shen Congwen, Ba Jin , Lao She , Mao Dun , Zhang Ailing and many more produced a great number of short stories and novels that are set in their home towns and in which ‘the place itself becomes a character in the narrative’ (Kinkley 1995: 4). Beginning from ‘native-soil literature’ (xiangtu wenxue !) in the early decades of the twentieth century, the need to construct a native place has been paramount in Chinese writing, whether to articulate concerns of national character defects (Lu Xun), to express cultural nostalgia (Shen Congwen), to arouse social and patriotic passions (Lao She) or to express national potency (Mo Yan ) or lack of it (Liu Heng 2). The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) especially encouraged the use of local colour in the creation of the native place of the Chinese communist revolution in the 1940s (Holm 1986: 7) and later for the nation-building of a ‘new’ China after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. The native place has always been important for personal and group identity in Chinese society, as documented by Bryna Goodman in her study of the native associations in Shanghai in the republic era (Goodman, B. 1995a). Goodman’s study shows that country people who migrated to Shanghai from the same place had connections to each other on many levels. The native village had considerable inﬂuence upon their employment in the city, and fellow villagers helped to provide a support network for each other. Their common language with its similar accent and vocabulary made it much easier for them to talk to each other but, in turn, their cultural and linguistic commonality deﬁnes their origin. The native place for Chinese migrants was tangible, constant and usually rural. In modern ﬁction, however, the native place takes on connotations beyond the realistic and the practical. It may be the city or the countryside, the cosmopolitan centre or the village, the original or the adopted home town, a genuine place on the map or a merely imaginary location. It could be what the author calls guxiang or jiaxiang , home village or home town, but it may or may not be the author’s birthplace, for the home town may be where the author spent his or her formative youth so that it has become the source of cultural identiﬁcation. It could even be the author’s jiguan or laojia , the ancestral location, which may not be the author’s birthplace at all and yet is the location where the author chooses to place his or her cultural afﬁliation. In short, the ﬁctive native place is where the author ﬁnds cultural roots and expresses his or her longing for home, and its narrative construction is a phenomenon that began with the twentieth century. Although the theme of homesickness or sorrow at departing from one’s native place has been present in Chinese literature from the outset, especially in classical Chinese poetry, the native place in the traditional Chinese poetic imagination has been an abstract notion, not a concrete locality. The essence of native place is so effectively captured by the elegant lines of the

8

Introduction

Tang poet Li Bai (701–62) that they have been cherished by the Chinese ever since: ‘I wake, and moonbeams play around my bed, / Glittering like hoar-frost to my wondering eyes; / Up towards the glorious moon I raise my head, / Then lay me down, – and thoughts of home[town] arise’ (Giles, H. A. 1898: 60). Rather than ‘home’ as rendered in English in the last line, the original word ‘guxiang’, literally old country, refers to ‘my native land’. According to Tang Xiaobing, the earliest and the most memorable appearance of the notion ‘guxiang’ or ‘native country’ may be traced to the poem by the ﬁrst emperor of the Han dynasty, Liu Bang , as recorded by Sima Qian (ca. 145–ca. 86 BCE) in his Records of the Historian (Shiji ): ‘When powerful winds arise, all the clouds ﬂy fast and high; / Now that my might is bounded only by the seas, I have returned to my home town; / How could I ﬁnd brave men to guard the four corners of my land!’ Liu Bang, on this occasion, lamented publicly that ‘the traveller always pines for his hometown ( youzi bei guxiang !")!’ (Watson, B. 1969: 141) Tang Xiaobing believes that Liu Bang’s lines have shaped an emotive pattern and propagated a collective pathos to the extent that, since the High Tang period in the eighth century, ‘the image and concept of guxiang best indicates a primary structure of feeling and frequently evokes a melancholic nostalgia that reaches metaphysical heights which also suggest allegorical dimensions’ (Tang Xiaobing 2000: 74 –5). In other words, one’s desolation at being away from one’s home town is virtually an archetype in Chinese poetry. The home town thus remained an abstract poetic notion until the emergence of modern Chinese ﬁction, although one can still argue the case of an abstract notion of native place in modern literary conﬁguration. As in Li Bai’s poem, it is the longing for home that is most conspicuous, especially when the departure is forced by political exile. It is only in modern Chinese ﬁction that the native place is created as the locale where the quotidian of the local is woven into the literary imagination. In his exploration of an English equivalent for the Chinese notion guxiang, which has been rendered as ‘home’, ‘home town’, ‘my old home’, ‘my native heath’, etc., Tang Xiaobing suggests the phrase ‘the native land’, for he believes that it captures both the sense of cultural origin and the emotional longing for that origin (Tang Xiaobing 2000: 74–5). My preference, however, is ‘native place’. The word ‘native’ has wider connotations that are directly connected with the phenomenon of ‘literary nativism’, and ‘place’ is more inclusive in embracing the variety of cultural origins, whether the location concerned is village, county, town or city. In modern Chinese ﬁction, especially in the writings that have been classiﬁed as ‘native-soil writing’, the native space is predominantly rural. However, urban centres may be equally important for cultural identities. The ‘city’ as the ‘native place’ holds equal importance with the ‘village’ in the quest for the location of one’s native culture. Many Chinese cities have a long history with their own distinctive linguistic and cultural traditions. Shanghai and Beijing, for instance, have been local and native in their own ways, despite

Introduction

9

their cosmopolitan qualities. Hence, the study of the literary construction of the native place and its link with local and national identity should not exclude cities. Song of Perpetual Remorse (Changhenge ; Wang Anyi 1996), for example, shows cosmopolitan Shanghai as indisputably local and remaining the location of many cherished cultural memories, at least for ‘native’ Shanghainese.12 Weihui’s Shanghai Baby (Shanghai baobei ; Weihui 2001) demonstrates the city in a similar light – Shanghai’s local culture is largely and paradoxically deﬁned by its cosmopolitanism and Shanghai is the native place for cultural memoirs of Shanghai. The role of the native place in modern Chinese ﬁction has not been examined as a signiﬁcant issue in Chinese literary studies, although many scholars have touched upon the meaning of cultural space when commenting on the writings of native-soil literature and root-searching literature. It is often agreed that Lu Xun was the ﬁrst to give native-soil literature this generic term when he compiled the initial anthology of modern Chinese literature. Leo Ou-fan Lee ﬁnds that root-searching literature re-presents the cultural origins of the writers feeling the need to ﬁnd alternatives after being forced to believe in what the Maoist ideology of the CCP had propagated for decades (Lee, Leo 1994: 221). Moreover, it is this focus on family and – usually rural – regional genealogy and the claim on authenticity that pose a forceful challenge to the CCP’s self-asserted authority as regards the popular imagination for the origin of the nation (Lee, Leo 1993: 367). Rosemary Haddon insists that ‘one should say that nativist literature and its thematics are interwoven with allegorical conceptions of the countryside. These conceptions can be either positive or negative; nonetheless, they evoke agrarian values or an agrarian worldview’ (Haddon, R. 1994: 99). In Kinkley’s study of Shen Congwen’s works, he notices Shen Congwen’s ‘regionalism’ when Shen Congwen presents West Hunan as a better China in his novel Alice in China (Alisi Zhongguo youji !"#$; Shen Congwen 1928) (Kinkley, J. C. 1985). Despite the differences in their perspectives, these critics seem to have reached consensus on one point at least in their situation of the native place in rural areas. Urban environments have been overlooked and have not been associated with the quest for cultural roots. Another obvious reason for the city’s marking a blind spot in critical studies is the close connection between the city and Chinese modernity. China’s modernization began with urban centres, and the city has been the port through which Western ideas were introduced into China and where social and cultural changes were initiated. Hence, the city has not been the most obvious place for one to look for cultural origins as such. Many inﬂuential nativist writers were born and grew up in rural regions and they did not readily associate the city with their cultural roots. The critical neglect of the city as the native place also has to do with the critical attention given to ‘native-soil literature’ and its creation of the rural as the location of Chinese cultural traditions. A re-evaluation of the city in the assessment of the native place in modern Chinese literature is thus long overdue.

10 Introduction

Native place and literary nativism The construction of native place in modern Chinese literature is closely related to ‘literary nativism’. By ‘literary nativism’ I mean both the belief and the practice that literary writing should focus on constructing the native place and that the narrative style should continue and develop ‘indigenous’ narrative traditions. Literary nativism seeks to localize creative writing in terms of subject matter about the local space. It also, usually, strives to adopt ‘indigenous’ narrative devices, including format, style, characterization, narrative setting, language and other features. Literary nativism can manifest itself in some or all of the following ways: ﬁrst, a thematic concentration on creating the native place; second, stylistic innovation aimed at (re)creating narrative forms as ‘indigenous’ as possible; third, an awareness of other or foreign literary traditions that necessarily precedes the quest for ‘indigenous’ practice. Narrative devices may belong to, or be derivative of, ‘indigenous’ narrative traditions. This nativist tendency in stylistics resembles what Jeffrey Kinkley calls in Shen Congwen’s writing ‘visionary cultural revivalism’ (Kinkley, J. C. 2003). Some writers, such as Wang Zengqi and Jia Pingwa, make serious attempts to avoid traces of Europeanization and Maoism as much as possible. Literary nativism is not a genre of ﬁction or prose, or a category created to group writers into ‘schools’. Rather, it is an analytical framework within which modern Chinese literary works of nativist tendency can be viewed, compared and discussed. Literary nativism can therefore be seen as an attitude or a position from which the writing can be perceived. The commonality I seek to identify here is the intention and effort in creating the native place and the imagery associated with it. It is on the basis of nativism and the native place that I wish to explore the process of identity formation and cultural politics in modern Chinese ﬁction, especially Jia Pingwa’s ﬁction. If both subject matter and narrative style are considered, Chinese literary nativism may be best exempliﬁed by the works of Shen Congwen, Lao She, Wang Zengqi and Jia Pingwa. Many others, such as Lu Xun, Acheng or Li Rui , have also produced nativist writings, but theirs is a ‘partial’ literary nativism in the sense that their writings are nativist only with regard to the subject matter – in their concern with the conﬁguration of the native place as a space with ‘Chinese characteristics’. Stylistically, their writings borrow many narrative devices from other traditions and are therefore ‘partial’ in terms of their nativist tendencies. Jin Yong , the writer of martial-art stories par excellence, and Eryue He , the writer of popular historical fantasy, as well as their followers, may represent another kind of ‘partial’ literary nativism. Their ﬁction constructs the Chinese historical fantasy through historicism and indigenous narrative styles. Their novels appear as reincarnations of traditional vernacular ﬁction, especially in its characteristic intertextuality between ﬁction and history. However, creation of native place for the Chinese nation is not their major concern.

Introduction 11 Like political nativism or any other indigenous initiatives, literary nativism is not innate – it can develop only after the arousal of self-awareness as a result of an acquaintance with other literary traditions. Literary nativism can arise only where there are cross-cultural interactions, whether it is the consequence of the dominance of imperial powers or transnational cosmopolitanism or the impact of globalization. In other words, literary nativism may often be a response to the internationalization of literary writing and reading. For these reasons, literary nativism is an indirect product of colonialism and post-colonialism, and it is part and parcel of cultural nationalism. In a way similar to that in which nationalism has played a major part in Chinese politics, literary nativism has been a signiﬁcant phenomenon in China’s literary output, particularly in recent decades. Increasingly, literary nativism is a self-conscious response to the process of globalization, in the sense that Chinese writers increasingly write ‘locally’ and yet think nationally and internationally. The construction of local cultural space, either as an act of resistance to a dominant ideology or as a response to the threatening presence of the Other, can be found in a large number of contemporary Chinese writers: Acheng, Han Shaogong , Jia Pingwa, Mo Yan, Su Tong , Chen Zhongshi , Alai , Wang Anyi and many more. At the same time, where their writings probe into national issues and universal concerns of humanity, such probing is done through the construction of native place. The term ‘nativism’ has been used to refer to native-soil literature in Chinese studies. David Wang uses the concept of ‘nativist movement’ to describe the emergence and development of what he calls Taiwan’s nativesoil literature. He also identiﬁes a shared nativist tendency in mainland China’s ‘root-seeking’ and avant-garde literature (Wang, David 2000a: xx, xxix). Rosemary Haddon uses ‘nativism’, ‘nativist writing’ and ‘native-soil literature’ interchangeably in her study of Taiwan’s literary nativism (Haddon, R. 1996). Jeffrey Kinkley, one of the earlier researchers to have identiﬁed ‘nativism’ in modern Chinese literature, also uses ‘regionalism’ as the framework when viewing Shen Congwen’s writing (Kinkley, J. C. 1987; 1985). My proposal for literary nativism is to present a framework for examining the indigenous tendencies in Chinese literature, and my analytical focus is on aspects of nativist writing, especially its modes of representing the local cultural space. Within the paradigm of literary nativism, one may group many cognate terms: ‘native-soil literature’, ‘root-searching literature’ (xungen wenxue !), ‘neo-realist novels’ (xin xieshi xiaoshuo !"), ‘urban novels’ (shijing xiaoshuo !), ‘regional literature’ (diyu wenxue ) and even some ‘experimental writing’ (shiyan xiaoshuo !). I have deliberately left out ‘city literature’ (chengshi wenxue !). Although its narrative setting is the urban centre, the focus of city literature, especially of recent works in this genre, is largely on aspects of ‘modernity’ in, if not a fetish for, the cosmopolitan life style of the urban elite (see for

12 Introduction instance, Qiu Huadong 1999). In other words, as Li Jiefei argues, the decisive hallmark of city literature is its concentration on commercial activities and the lifestyle of white-collar workers in an ambience where the residents have become increasingly strangers to each other (Li Jiefei 1999: 56, 76). The characteristic of the cultural space in city literature verges on cosmopolitanism, and therefore it is predominantly transnational. Heinrich Fruehauf identiﬁes an ‘urban exoticism’ in city literature, whereby writers may focus on exoticizing precisely such contemporary transnational cosmopolitanism (Fruehauf, H. 1993: 133–64). ‘Urban literature’, in which literary nativism does have a role to play, is different from ‘city literature’. The difference lies in the presence or absence of local cultural space as the primary focus of the narrative. Lao She’s writing on Beijing can serve as a good example of urban nativism. So can Deng Youmei’s Beijing and Feng Jicai’s= Tianjin. What their writings have in common is a total devotion to the local cultural fabric, almost to the point of making a fetish of local and traditional cultural practice. As a result of the overwhelming political dominance over literary creativity in modern Chinese history, there has been an understandable trend to examine modern Chinese literature diachronically. Consequently the organic connections among the works and between the genres have been overlooked through political and historical periodization. The framework of literary nativism is synchronic and thus addresses adequately the divergences of literary production through the passage of time under the auspices of the native place as an alternative cultural space. In line with recent literary trends, increasingly more scholars in China have been paying a great deal of attention to the relation between regional identities and literary production. A number of studies on regional cultures have been produced, and the term ‘nativist writing’ (bentu xiezuo !) has become a frequent keyword in sinophone literary criticism. In 1995, The Best of China’s New Nativist Fiction (Zhongguo xinbentu xiaoshuo jingxuan !"#$%&) edited by Chen Xiaoming was published. In his preface, Chen stresses the importance of the subjective positioning of the writers themselves and their writing in the post-colonial context. The difference between nativist literature (bentu wenxue !) and native-soil literature (xiangtu wenxue !) lies, in his analysis, in two key elements, namely the author’s intended audience and the author’s attitude towards that audience. To Chen Xiaoming, nativist writing emphatically addresses an international audience whereas native-soil literature demonstrates primarily a fondness for pastoral themes for the national audience. In his opinion the most representative writers of native-soil literature are Liu Shaotang or Sun Li . Chen also sees literary nativism as a constantly changing process and Chinese nativist writing as having swung between self-orientation and eroticism in the 1980s and 1990s (Chen Xiaoming 1995: 1–3). He claims to attempt a complementary treatment of the two tendencies in his selection of nativist writing by foregrounding writings that show

Introduction 13 China’s rural life ‘as a close representation of Chinese life in sharp contrast to the situation in Western developed countries’ (Chen Xiaoming 1995: 2). Judging from the ten texts he selected, his preference is entirely for the construction of the native place as a community of closure, and ‘native’ becomes a close synonym to ‘primitive’ and ‘rural’ in sharp contrast to any effects of modernization, enlightenment or westernization. In terms of narrative language and narrative style, the stories do not seem to demonstrate any particular concerns for local colour. Chen Xiaoming does, however, devote a few pages to the linguistic strategies adopted by nativist writers, and ﬁnds (like many others such as Leo Ou-fan Lee) that there is a tendency to move away from Maoist ideology, but he does not emphasize the ‘indigenous’ aspects of narratology.13 In the preface to the sixteen-volume series Stories of Regional Cultures in the New Era (Xinshiqi diyü wenhua xiaoshuo congshu !"#$%&' ; Ding Fan 1998) edited by Ding Fan , he notes an increasingly close literary focus on regional cultural identities as a result of economic globalization and recent cultural changes in Chinese society. He believes that ‘leftover cultural difference’ (wenhua zhicha !) between the past rural cultural discourse and the present reality of Chinese urban lives has resulted in many cultural confusions in Chinese society. Hence many writers have focused on writing about the disjunction between the traditional rural and the modern urban (Ding Fan 1998: 1–2).14 To him, these writers have clearly in mind what constitutes their local cultural identities. To me, these writings also invariably demonstrate an attention to native place, which is certainly a way of responding to transnational cosmopolitanism – the increasing presence of globalizing elements has invoked the longing for home and for cultural roots. Ding Fan’s position admits the regionality in the works he has chosen but he fails to identify, let alone address, the key issues in the Chinese cultural imaginary – the connections and the ruptures between the local, the regional and the national in the international context.

From local stories to national myths On the surface, nativist writing tends to focus either on rural society or on urban folk culture, which does not seem to be directly relevant to the course of the construction of a modern nationhood. Nevertheless, its very articulation of the dichotomies between tradition and modernity, the popular and the elite, the centrist and the regional, the rural and the metropolitan, is part of the discourse of modernity. The awareness of such dualities is essential in narrating a modern nationhood. It is only when the city, the elite and the modern become so overwhelming that there arises the need for their opposites: the traditional, the popular, the rural and the marginal. Chinese nativist writing, with all its nostalgia, its rustic and urban folklore, its exposure of ‘defects’ and enclosure, is a major contributor to China’s nation-building in the imaginary sphere. Indeed, selective memories of the past and of the

14 Introduction native place, and their articulation, have often been used as strategies to express the need for the invention of identity and for the imagined community. Modern nation states have thrived on selective popular memories of the past, from which national identities are subsequently derived, an instance being the use of such strategies in Latin American countries (Rowe, W. and Schelling, V. 1991). At the same time, different national stories are also used by various political forces for their own purposes. The claim to present origins and authenticity often ﬁnds a powerful voice in the imageries of the native place. The CCP is notorious for its manipulation of national memory in its attempt to create a spurious ‘native place’ to accommodate its fabrication of myths of the origin of Chinese civilization to bolster the legitimacy of its party-state (Friedman, E. 2002). On the one hand, the creation of a native place is fundamentally related to narrating China, and Chinese regionality has been articulated solely to elaborate a speciﬁc identiﬁcation with ‘China’. On the other hand, to narrate China also means to locate China in a space more ‘authentic’ than anywhere else. This is where the native place is particularly appealing to both Chinese writers and Chinese readers. Obviously, the location of China, or the native place, in the literary imagination varies from author to author and from locality to locality, depending on the author’s place of cultural identiﬁcation. Literary nativism is motivated by the urge to tell local stories to conﬁgure national identity. Hence, the question most pertinent to literary nativism is: what is China culturally? ‘Culturalism’ – Chinese culture as the focus of loyalty for the Chinese people – remains the ultimate target (Townsend, J. 1996: xii; Levenson, J. R. 1971: 53–68). Hence Chinese literary nativism does not aim at locating a distinctive local cultural identity in order to be separate from the Chinese nation (neither Chinese civilization, nor the Chinese state). Instead, the local is created to authenticate the national and to claim cultural and historical relevance, if not directly aiming at political and economic prevalence. In the early stage of modern Chinese literature, the native place was often created to articulate Chineseness in order to assess the (negative) Chinese national character to awaken the nation and to assist China’s nation building (Fitzgerald, J. 1996). Hence the creation of local identities was to a large extent a by-product of this prime intention. In recent decades, the native place is created more to articulate regional aspirations for national identiﬁcation. Even Chinese ethnic nativist writing, such as Zhang Chengzhi’s stories of the unbearable plight of the Chinese Muslims (Zhang Chengzhi 2000, 1999) and Alai’s epic of the Tibetan tribal wars (Alai 1998), remains subordinate and subservient to the notion of ‘China’, although it is arguable that this may be a result of selfcensorship under the circumstances. National narration was and still is an important motivation for nativist writing. The diversity of the ‘nativist’ experience of the writers means that the emotional core of China has been located in very different regional areas in different times and traditions. In the continual process of narrating China,

Introduction 15 the invention, retelling and displacement of various national stories are also a reﬂection of the nation-building agenda of the Chinese communist state at various historical moments. The national identities located in ﬁction will also continue to change. Nevertheless, wherever ‘China’ may be located, whether its identity is rural or urban, narrating China is equated with narrating Chinese cultural traditions, and that entails the constant reconﬁguration of the native place as the locale. Notwithstanding the difference between nativist literature in mainland China, Taiwan and in the Chinese diaspora, it can be discerned that there are broadly four kinds of nativist ﬁction in terms of the type of native place created and the intention of the writing: ﬁrst, writings of the small towns south of the Yangtze River that are intended to capture national defects, as represented by the writings of Lu Xun, Su Tong or Han Shaogong; second, stories about the Chinese frontier and the national exotic as represented by those of Shen Congwen, Zhang Chengzhi; third, romances illustrating the urban popular that also reﬂect the national spirit as shown in the writings of Lao She, Deng Youmei or Feng Jicai; fourth, the Chinese north-west as the national native place in the CCP’s ofﬁcial nativism. We shall examine these four genres in turn. Lu Xun: the southern village and the national defects Lu Xun’s short stories from the initial decades of the twentieth century bring to life two small townships on the Chinese literary landscape, Luzhen and Weizhuang, based on his early experiences in his home town of Shaoxing in Zhejiang province. Luzhen is the narrative setting for many of Lu Xun’s short stories, among which the best known include ‘New Year’s Sacriﬁce’ (Zhufu ) (Lu Xun 1981, v.2: 5–23), ‘Scholar Kong Yiji’ (Kong Yiji ) (Lu Xun 1981, v.1: 434 – 9) and ‘Home Town’ (Guxiang ) (Lu Xun 1981, v.1: 476–86). Weizhuang is where The True Story of Ah Q (Ah Q Zhengzhuan n) (Lu Xun 1981, v.1: 487–532) takes place. Although the two towns are full of local characteristics, ranging from the local landscape, food, language to customs and the practice of belief systems, their symbolism, however, is not meant or taken as the articulation of a regional conscience. Rather, they are drawn and regarded as representative settings for the stagnation of ‘Chinese’ society as a whole, as a result of Lu Xun’s preoccupation with capturing Chinese national characteristics (Liu, Lydia 1995: 60–76). The ordinary townscape surrounded by small rivers, little villages and rice paddies, inhabited by ignorant, pathetic and conservative town dwellers is indispensable for Lu Xun’s ‘national-character’ stories. The localness is characterized through ruptures of the local’s concentration on the day-to-day matters of life by political events on the national scale, which the locals consistently misinterpret. The local landscape and the local social fabric are equally meaningful for the local cultural geography in the sense that the

16 Introduction native place means women gossiping by the river, men drinking in the inn, popular religious rituals practised in households and the narrator’s familiarity with local history. Dominance of traditional values in the daily life of the villagers colours Luzhen and Weizhuang permanently as negative ‘native places’ on the Chinese literary map. About sixty years later, in the tradition of Lu Xun’s south Yangtze village as the archetypal Chinese native place, Su Tong has invented another such location, Maple and Poplar Village (Fengyangshu cun !) in his short stories and novellas between the mid-1980s and the 1990s. Like Luzhen and Weizhuang, Maple and Popular Village is not exactly rural, for the population consists of ‘urban residents’ according to the PRC’s ofﬁcial residential registration. Maple and Popular Village is a community of the most indifferent and selﬁsh people and it is local in the sense that the turbulent social and political changes of modern China do not seem to have any impact on the mentality and lifestyle of the people. The characters are even more hideous and pathetic than the denizens of Luzhen and Weizhuang, for the narrative has effectively eliminated the distinction between the victims and the victimizers. Worse, hostility permeates the small town, where the residents are enemies to the extent that apathy is a virtue. In addition, the narrator hides safely at a distance so that there is no sense of guilt or conscience on the part of anyone and the narrator does not show even a trace of pity for the hopelessness in this location. A maximum of ‘defamiliarization’ through obscure narrative time in ambiguous historical context contributes to Su Tong’s overall target of essentializing and exposing the defects of Chineseness. Han Shaogong is another writer whose narrative focus is close to Lu Xun’s critical approach to ‘Chinese defects’. He also does so by creating a southern rural location – Maqiao Village. Maqiao Village has been featured in a number of Han Shaogong’s writings but most noticeably in his 1996 novel A Dictionary of Maqiao (Maqiao cidian !). The novel attempts an ‘objective’ ethnography by creating a dictionary documenting the important aspects of village life through itemizing Maqiao Village’s key vocabulary – a biography of everything in Maqiao in the author’s own words (Han Shaogong 1996: 68). Writings that locate China in a small town south of the Yangtze are subversive almost by default in the context of the CCP’s national myths, which favour the yellow earth plateau as the origin of the Chinese nation and prescribe the spirit of perseverance as the essence of the Chinese people. Shen Congwen: cultural nostalgia at the national frontier Shen Congwen is another May Fourth writer whose literary conﬁguration of his native place has far-reaching signiﬁcances in a number of ways – in his symbolism of ‘China as a young and brash land’ (Kinkley, J. C. 1995: 1), in his characterization of local people as lively, honest, sincere and endearing

Introduction 17 and in his narrative language of a poetic mixture of the local and ‘translocal’ vernacular. Coming from west Hunan, an area where people of various ethnicities live and mingle, Shen Congwen asserts that the frontier is the location of Chinese virtues, its innocence deriving from its distance from Han dominance and the cosmopolitan centres. Unlike Lu Xun’s often dumbfounded narrators and inarticulate villagers, Shen Congwen’s narrators do not have an emotional distance from the local people, and his local stories demonstrate a passion for the land, the people and their cultures from ‘within’, that is, from within the community and within the narrator’s own being. Continuing the exploration of the Chinese ‘frontier’ and cultural nostalgia from ‘within’ as both the native place and part of the nation are many writers, most noticeably Alai, Jia Pingwa, Wang Zengqi and Zhang Chengzhi. Mo Yan can also be grouped here with his Red Sorghum series and the creation of Gaomi Village in Shandong province. For this group, their narratives, including the narrator, the characters, the narrative language and narrative devices, all have an intimate relationship with the native place. Lao She: Beijing laneway; and the national spirit A native of Beijing, Lao She writes about the lives of the poor people and popular cultures of the city. His construction of Beijing as a local space for common people is in sharp contrast to the image of Beijing as the national, political and cultural centre inhabited by the elite. His focus is the lifestyle of the working class, and he uses the local language of the lanes (hutong ) rather than of the university campuses. Beijing, as the native place for Lao She’s characters, is very different from Beijing as the narrative background for, say, Ding Ling or Zhang Henshui’s stories. In Lao She’s novels, the local people represent the local place, which is different from treating the place as the coincidental setting for stories to happen. Lao She’s nativist writing is associated with the discourse of China’s nation-building discursively and it is complicated by the duality of the identity of Beijing as both the local and the native place for the natives of Beijing, and as the national centre where state power resides and national politics take place. Beijing’s and Tianjin’s urban popular traditions in time became the subject matter of the ‘urban life literature’ stream of nativist writing in the 1980s. Writers such as Deng Youmei and Feng Jicai produced a number of stories, novellas and novels elaborating on northern urban Chinese culture, echoing the tradition of Lao She’s Beijing-ﬂavoured novels that use strongly local ﬂavoured language with a focus on local customs (Jin Han 1993: 526– 9). Representation of traditional urban Chinese culture is an integral part of the search for China’s cultural roots as it explores other aspects of Chinese cultural identity complementary to the rural components found in the villages. Like the writers who concentrate on representing the rural villages, urban life writers are conscious of their role in unveiling the connection

18 Introduction between urban traditions and the Chinese mentality. Like Lao She, Deng Youmei’s and Feng Jicai’s writings are imbued with colourful local language and customs; however, unlike Lao She’s their ﬁctional world creates fantasies about bygone cultural practices. The CCP: dogma of native place in service to the nation The CCP has a history of inventing the native place for the Chinese nation and for itself, and its rhetoric was especially strong during the Maoist period, roughly between the early 1940s and 1980s, after the launch of Mao’s Yan’an Talks and the beginning of the Deng era. The location of the native place is important for the CCP because it needed to legitimize its self-declared representation of the Chinese people through appropriation of cultural identiﬁcation. The construction of a location for the origin of China that suited the CCP’s goals was therefore an important and signiﬁcant task for creative writers and for the party ideologues in those decades. The CCP’s native-place ideology has inﬂuenced generations of writers with regard to the conceptualization of the native place or its subversion, as later in the case of the ‘root-searching’ literature of the mid-1980s. The CCP favours Shaanxi as the native place of Chinese civilization and articulates a strong identiﬁcation with the empire of Qinshihuang, who, as the King of Qin, uniﬁed China by eliminating the other states by force. The territory of the ancient kingdom of Qin lies within present Shaanxi province, and is characterized by a landscape of the yellow earth plateau. ‘The loess plains of Shaanxi are the birthplace of the Chinese people’, Xia Yan , a CCP veteran, insists, when commenting on the television series River Elegy (Heshang ) (Su Xiaokang 1991) and the ﬁlm Yellow Earth (Huang tudi ) (Barmé, G. R. and Minford, J. 1988: 260). Edward Friedman notes that ‘the People’s Republic of China in the Mao era presented itself as the heir of a Han people who had come together millennia earlier in the North China plain of the Yellow River valley, built a great civilisation, fought to preserve it, and expanded over the centuries by civilising barbarian invaders’ (Friedman, E. 1995: 90). The CCP’s own history also reinforces the myth of Shaanxi as the birthplace of the Chinese nation, since Shaanxi and its adjacent areas were established as the bases of the Chinese communists in the 1930s and 1940s. The ofﬁcially favoured Chinese national character is largely built on the self-sacriﬁcing, industrious peasants in northern Shaanxi incessantly struggling against the harsh environment (Friedman, E. 1995: 330). These assertions of the origins of the Chinese nation have been inﬂuential in the literary construction of a native place for the Chinese nation and for the national character. It was for writers either to conﬁrm or to negate this interpretation by the CCP of the myth of origin for the Chinese nation. Zhao Shuli and Ding Ling were among the earliest to follow the party’s instructions and produced works to connect the Chinese communist revolution with the countryside and the peasants in the 1930s and the 1940s

Introduction 19 (Feuerwerker, Y. M. 1998). In the process they created a number of northern Chinese villages as the sites of the communist revolution and the birthplace of revolutionary heroes, who are ordinary peasants. To this end, Zhao Shuli cultivated the myth that he was a peasant who became a writer, whereas in fact he was from a wealthy family and had been educated in a high school in the county town. In the ﬁrst decade of the PRC, nativist writings ﬂourished and Zhao Shuli continued to produce similar works in accordance to changing historical circumstances, shifting his focus to writing about the process of collectivization. Many writers also took to the writing of the new village life and the images of ‘socialist new peasants’ in response to the CCP’s call for literary works to reﬂect the images of New China. Liu Qing of Shaanxi, and Zhou Libo of Hunan, among many others, produced a number of novels about the social and political changes that were occurring in rural China at the time. It was imperative for novels on land reform to show how the power structure of the human relationship in the village had changed and that the landscape had been transformed into a new cultural space – the native place of the new Chinese nation. A glance at the titles of the novels produced during the period underscores this point: Ding Ling’s The Sun Shines over the Sanggan River (Taiyang zhao zai Sangganhe shang ! !) (Ding Ling 1949), Zhou Libo’s Hurricane (Baofeng zhouyu ) (Zhou Libo 1949) and Changes in the Mountain Village (Shanxiang jubian !) (Zhou Libo 1958). Until the late 1970s, many of the writings remained focused on the rural society of China and present the village as the most truthful representation of socialist China. Hao Ran’s writing continues with the CCP’s tradition of nativist writing and carries the socialist realism of Maoist ideology to the extreme. Two of his novels are best known for a village landscape of China’s socialist revolution, most appropriately entitled Bright Skies (Yanyang tian ) (Hao Ran 1964 –6) and Road to Glory (Jinguang dadao !) (Hao Ran 1972 – 4). Nativist writing under Maoist ideology presents an idealized landscape of a socialist rural China where negative Chinese cultural traditions have been eradicated. Relationships between the villagers are structured to ﬁt into the Maoist ideology of class division and class struggle. Daily village life is dominated by collective activities and extremely politicized. In the 1990s, the Chinese national story set against the hardship of the yellow earth in and around Shaanxi resurfaces conspicuously with White Deer Plain (Bailu yuan , 1993) by the Shaanxi writer Chen Zhongshi . White Deer Plain has been commonly regarded as a national epic for it returns to the tradition of communist landscaping but adds a charming stretch of modern Chinese history, especially the political battles between the communists and the nationalists. The narrative background is, again, an imaginary terrain situated in rural Shaanxi among enigmatic mountains on the yellow earth plateau along the upper reaches of the Yellow River. The landscape of ‘white deer’ becomes a metaphor to embody the Chinese national character, as it silently endures hardship and war and survives both human

20 Introduction and natural disasters. It unfolds a cultural complex through intimate interactions between two families, the Bais and the Lus. Love and hate, conﬂicts and connections between generations of the two families are tangled with the history of separation and uniﬁcation between the nationalists and the communists. Most characters are cultural stereotypes representing either certain political factions or Chinese values. Two of them are most typical: Bai Jiaxuan , the peasant patriarch, and Scholar Zhu , the village sage. As head of the Bai clan, Bai Jiaxuan marries seven times to produce descendants for the family. His ﬁrst six wives all die within one year of marriage as victims of his powerful penis. His seventh wife survives and bears him three sons and a daughter. Bai Jiaxuan, outstandingly potent, is presented as the mythical mighty patriarch and the symbol of the enduring Chinese race. White Deer Plain presents a close link between the land and the national spirit. It not only lends the CCP its much needed legitimacy but also reinforces the myth that the CCP had been fabricating for decades: the native place for the modern Chinese nation is Shaanxi, which is also China’s ‘true’ ancestral place. In commenting on the emergence of a Chinese ‘Western’ literature by writers from Xinjiang, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, Shaanxi and Tibet, Zhu Hong points out that as one of the most compelling schools of contemporary ﬁction in China, the Western presents a truthful description of the region – its bleakness and barbarity on one hand, its native strength and unsullied beauty on the other. The genre resurrects all the conﬂicts that are raised by the new changes – and it depicts the Chinese themselves differently. Charged with melancholy and the burden of history, the stories portray vital, resilient men and women, committed to survival. (Zhu Hong 1988: ix) If linked with Zhu Hong’s remarks, the aim of White Deer Plain to create a generic native place for modern China becomes very clear. This book won the Mao Dun Prize for novels in 1995 and the author was soon appointed the Chairman of the Shaanxi Writers Association. White Deer Plain proves to be the most articulate of the CCP’s ideal for the native place of the Chinese nation.

Jia Pingwa: Shangzhou and the nativist style An outstanding feature of Jia Pingwa’s writing is his conscious and deliberate cultivation of the link among his narratives, his native place and Chinese cultural traditions. Up to 2005, seven of his ten novels and the majority of his short stories have been set in Shangzhou, in which the native place plays two central roles: as both the narrative background and the central ﬁgure. Jia Pingwa maps his native place geographically, historically and

Introduction 21 anthropologically with a ﬁrm conviction that he is creating a more ‘authentic China’ through Shaanxi, because Shaanxi is where China originated and therefore the local is straightforwardly national and ‘there would never have been China without Shangzhou’ (Jia Pingwa 1995d, v.1: 2). Linguistically, Jia Pingwa holds that the Shaanxi local language has retained many elements and characteristics of the ancient Chinese language, many of which have been lost in other regions of China. Culturally, he believes the locals have kept alive many traces of Chinese traditions and that local Shaanxi folklore reﬂects the traditional Chinese practice of indigenous religions and belief systems. Dynasties rose and fell within the boundaries of Shaanxi, and Jia Pingwa is proud of famous local scholars who were at the same time scholars of national importance as cornerstones of Chinese civilization, such as Shang Yang (390–338 BCE), the statesman whose earlier political measures assisted the ﬁrst emperor in China’s uniﬁcation at around 200 BCE, Sima Qian (145–85 BCE), the ﬁrst renowned Chinese historian, and Sun Simiao (581–682), the medical practitioner and author of highly inﬂuential medical books. The connection between China’s origin, culture and history and Shangzhou’s past and present allows Jia Pingwa to legitimize the localisation of China in Shangzhou. Jia Pingwa’s quest for a Shangzhou identity has not been a deliberate action against the CCP ideology of class struggle, as those of many other root-searching writers have been, especially during the 1980s (Lee, Leo 1994: 221). He genuinely believes in the cultural relevance of his native place to Chinese nationhood and regards it as his mission to reassert Shangzhou’s place on the cultural map of China. He talks at length about Shangzhou’s historical signiﬁcance in China’s nation-building in ‘The Preface to First Records of Shangzhou’ (Shangzhou chulu yinyan !"#) (Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.5: 76–84). Lai Daren conﬁrms the distinctive difference between Jia Pingwa and other writers who are usually grouped into the school of native-soil or root-searching literature by highlighting Jia Pingwa’s deliberation and commitment to his native place: it took more than six years for him to carry out an investigation of his native place, especially its cultural history and social fabric, before he wrote ‘First Records of Shangzhou’ (Lai Daren 2000: 36–7). In my view, Jia Pingwa’s nativist stories stand out in the Chinese nativist writings also because he was part of the local scene and was able to engage with the local people. His writings are able to probe deeply into the value systems of Shangzhou’s rural social fabric, despite his realist intention to reﬂect the social reality of rural China. Jia Pingwa’s literary nativism is a different kind of root-searching and in many ways it deliberately detaches itself from current political affairs. Above all, Jia Pingwa began his quest from within himself while others were engaged in cultivating a ‘naturist’ approach for the purpose of resisting the CCP’s dominant ideologies in their writings. The aim of narrating China with local stories emerged only gradually into Jia Pingwa’s consciousness. His earlier exploration of his native rural

22 Introduction environment slowly evolves into his later thematic concerns and stylistic development, and he becomes increasingly focused on ‘Chinese mentality’ and the ‘national spirit’ as he advances in his writing career (Jia Pingwa 1994j: 65–6). The author’s being a native of Shaanxi, his background as a peasant, his cultivation of classical Chinese literature and other literary skills and tastes, his search for the meaning of life in the regions of China through Taoism and Buddhism, his language skills in Shaanxi local expressions, modern and classical Chinese language, all become relevant to his desire and ability to narrate China. Writing about the native place serves Jia Pingwa’s goal of narrating China effectively, for it not only provides his cultural China with a tangible and emotional location but also equips him with the abundance of regional resources that serve as motifs for his writing. Jia Pingwa is regarded as one of the writers who initiated ‘root-searching’ with his ‘First Records of Shangzhou’ (Xu Zidong 1996). To map his native place culturally was his preoccupation since the early stage of his writing in the late 1970s until he became an important part of the literary trend that sought to essentialize China since the early 1980s. Over the decades Jia Pingwa’s literary nativism aims at constructing a cultural China that transcends history and politics and, in this sense, his ‘national narration’ is not one of the straightforward ‘national allegories’ as referred to by Fredric Jameson’s reading of Third World literature (Jameson, F. 1986). Far from it: the scope and the depth of Shangzhou stories can only begin to be grasped if they are seen as literary regional ethnography, since he is concerned with a cultural China that can be manifested through narrative traditions and the traditions of daily living by locals. Hence, Jia Pingwa’s cultural mapping details the quotidian of the local life, the passions, concerns and anxieties of the local people and the lyrics of the local landscape. At the same time, Jia Pingwa distances himself from China’s political, cosmopolitan centres, such as Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou, unlike say Mo Yan or Yu Hua, two other writers who came to prominence in China in the late 1980s. Both Mo Yan and Yu Hua moved to live in Beijing by the end of the 1980s for professional and family reasons. Jia Pingwa, on the contrary, is determined to stay in Xi’an, Shaanxi, despite the opportunities for him to resettle elsewhere. Retaining his cultural loyalty to his native place has been a priority to him, because he sees an organic tie between his literary output, his cultural belonging and his native place. However, although he identiﬁes himself with the peasants of Shaanxi and most of his characters are villagers, Jia Pingwa never locates his ideal reader among his village fellows. Instead, from the early stages of his career, when he held editorial positions with magazines published in Xi’an, he was publishing in the big cosmopolitan centres of Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou. Jia Pingwa writes local stories in order to be a national writer and he reaches the centre and the wider community through his local stories. On the basis of his discovery of strong connections between localism and the Chinese nation, historian Peter Bol asserts that there was a rise of

Introduction 23 localism as early as Southern Song ‘for the nation exists in the ﬁrst place as a collection of localities, and the commonality that makes a nation possible is instantiated in the shared categories with which local uniqueness is constructed’ (Bol, P. 2001: 76). Bol believes that growth of local wealth in the southern coastal areas gave rise to localism in the sense that the local gentry stopped identifying with the central bureaucracy and instead emphasized their own links with different schools of thought locally. It is not clear if Jia Pingwa is aware of any such localist literati traditions in his native Shaanxi but his literary nativism shows a similar tendency. He deliberately seeks connections with local, historical and cultural ﬁgures signiﬁcant in China’s national history and restages their presence in reconﬁgurations of Shaanxi’s cultural signiﬁcance within the national context. Claiming to be a country man, Jia Pingwa has been determined that his articulation of ‘Chineseness’ should be based on his native place, which in turn substantiates his assertion that his native cultural space is the ‘authentic’ China. Shaanxi’s local popular culture and the local practice of traditional Chinese high culture are indispensable elements in Jia’s conﬁguration of a cultural China through local narratives. Jia Pingwa’s writing demonstrates a close association with both popular aspects and literati cultivation of Chinese narrative traditions. On the one hand there is the contemporary writer Jia Pingwa from Shaanxi, whose novels and stories are situated in Shaanxi with a focus on local landscape, folk cultures, local villagers and residents, and their social aspirations. On the other hand, there is the literatus Jia Pingwa, whose imagination goes beyond Shaanxi as he envisages a China from Shaanxi and articulates a traditional literati aesthetic that encompasses poetry, essays, ink-painting and calligraphy. These two seemingly contradictory tendencies in fact complement each other well, for, as far as his literary nativism is concerned, they suit his ultimate objective of narrating China. In his presentation, the local Shaanxi popular culture and the centralist literati high culture constitute the multilayered dimensions of a complete and accomplished civilization that is highly indicative of what he sees as ‘Chinese’ and as the ‘essence’ of Chinese cultural traditions. Jia Pingwa’s narrative focus on Shaanxi does not mean that his ‘nativism’ is limited to his native place. Equally important is that the narrative goal of Shangzhou stories is not to articulate a unique Shaanxi separate from mainstream Chinese traditions but to convey a vision of China projected from the author’s native Shaanxi. Jia Pingwa’s rural Shaanxi is by implication all of rural China, for Shaanxi and its capital Xi’an are part of the birthplace of the Chinese myth of the yellow earth plateau. The saga of Shaanxi peasants also easily stretches out to the larger part of the Chinese population, and it coincides with the more recent CCP-fabricated myth of a Chinese national identity built on the self-sacriﬁcing, industrious peasants. In other words, although it may never have been Jia Pingwa’s intention to ﬁctionalize Chinese communist nationalism, his early nativist works on Shangzhou are in

24 Introduction tune with this spirit. Jia Pingwa’s earlier publications were also in step with the emerging Chinese ‘Western’ literature and arts of the 1980s (Zhu Hong 1988). This book presents Jia Pingwa’s continuous quest for Chinese cultural traditions and traditional Chinese narrative forms and asserts that he has succeeded in telling the Chinese national stories about his native place in his distinctive narrative style. Jia Pingwa’s ties with his ‘native place’ are not only emotional, cultural and textual but also highly pragmatic. At the age of ﬁfty-two, his home village and Xi’an are the only places he has lived in, although he has increasingly travelled elsewhere inside China since the mid-1980s. He travelled to Hong Kong and the United States once on his way to receive the American Mobil Pegasus Prize in 1988 for Turbulence. He also prefers the cuisine of Shaanxi to that of anywhere else. To a large extent, despite his national fame, Jia Pingwa remains still a Shaanxi local and is reluctant to adapt to other environments and lifestyles. For years, there has been a self-imposed limit to his exposure to the outside world and he has cultivated a proud ‘provinciality’ in his lifestyle in addition to a demonstration of primitive nativism in his literary pursuit. Another signiﬁcant aspect of Shangzhou’s stories is the author’s attachment to the local language. Jia Pingwa ﬁnds it difﬁcult to speak Mandarin (the standard common Chinese speech, based on the speech of Beijing), nor is he interested in trying.15 His native tongue bears the birthmark of a villager that can make it awkward in his social life with non-locals. Feeling inadequate because of his ‘country bumpkin’ accent and unattractive appearance, Jia Pingwa is at the same time proud of his rural background and regionality. He deliberately adopts many local expressions in his writing and puts effort into making Shaanxi local language a signiﬁcant part of his narrative style and of his scheme to narrate China. So far Jia Pingwa’s narrative background has been either villages in the Shangzhou prefecture, or the city of Xi’an, or both. His latest novel, Health Report (Jia Pingwa 2002b), has, for the ﬁrst time, mobile characters who, for one reason or another, have to travel outside the author’s familiar zone of southern Shaanxi and Xi’an into northern Shaanxi and other parts of China. Shangzhou, in turn, also provides the identity for the writer and for his writing. A number of the titles of his writings have direct reference to Shangzhou, such as his ﬁrst novel, Shangzhou, and his prose essays collection, ‘Three Records of Shangzhou’. In 1995, Huaxia Publishing House published a four-volume collection of Jia Pingwa’s works under the title Shangzhou: The Story Continues. The collection highlights the importance of Shangzhou as a literary space where local customs and country life are inspiration, resource and subjects of Jia Pingwa’s writing. Jia Pingwa’s preface to this collection lays special emphasis on Shangzhou’s cultural signiﬁcance to his works. Jia Pingwa’s subsequent writing is also directly and indirectly connected with Shangzhou. He says this himself: ‘Shangzhou constitutes my very being as a writer’ (Jia Pingwa 1995d, v.1: 2).

Introduction 25 Oral stories of Shangzhou locals provide the raw material of Jia Pingwa’s writing, and Jia Pingwa regards the mythological colour of these stories as ‘indigenous’ magic realism of the Shangzhou region. The local language, which retains a large number of ancient Chinese vocabulary items and syntactical structures, according to the writer himself, shapes the narrative language used in his retelling of Shangzhou stories. The fundamental role of Shangzhou as the basis on which Jia Pingwa builds his subject matter and style is summarized by Jia Pingwa: ‘I didn’t do much study of classical Chinese, or deliberately play the game of magic realism. It is Shangzhou itself that has provided me with all I have offered’ (Jia Pingwa 1995d, v.1: 3). The spiritual importance of Shangzhou is reiterated in Jia Pingwa’s identiﬁcation of himself as a Shangzhouren, a Shangzhou local, searching for a Chinese narrative in the language and culture of Shangzhou, and in the continued presence of Shangzhou in his writing over more than twenty years. Shangzhou, the ancient name for the area, was also resurrected by Jia Pingwa’s creative writing. The place was called Shangxian until a decade ago and the local government changed it back to Shangzhou because Jia Pingwa’s writing had made the place nationally famous and it started attracting tourists. However, it remains remote to modern society in the sense that a railway still has not reached the area and there is only one very basic road to connect it to the outside world. Still, it has served as a local centre where information is gathered and disseminated to more isolated areas. It is the gateway through which Jia Pingwa was led to the wider world. Jia Pingwa exercises his aesthetic imagination in Shangzhou. Shangzhou is both real and imaginary as a native place to which the writer constantly returns physically and mentally for artistic inspiration. In summary, Jia Pingwa’s nativist ﬁction demonstrates many characteristics and traditions of the nativist writing in modern Chinese ﬁction since the 1910s, including attachment to the land, resentment of its backwardness, love for its primitive passions, customs of small villages and country towns as well as popular urban traditions. Bringing together a material reality of the local place, the Shangzhou stories have been established as a literary institution of the native place for Jia Pingwa’s goals of literary nativism and for the purpose of narrating China. This literary institution has three components: a literary ethnography of Shangzhou, a narrative infrastructure informed by classical Chinese narrative traditions and a narrative language that, by avoiding as much as possible traces of Europeanization and Maoist discourse, retains the beauty and musicality of the Chinese language.

26

2

The life and career of Jia Pingwa

The life and career of Jia Pingwa

Jia Pingwa’s literary career is still unfolding and, more likely than not, it will continue to unfold in unexpected ways. He has constantly transcended and reinvented himself as a writer over the last three decades. Just over ﬁfty, he has yet years of writing life ahead of him and it is highly unpredictable in which direction his writing will develop. Currently, he has just ﬁnished another major novel and is anxiously awaiting the authorization for the release of Defunct Capital. What can be said with certainty is that Jia Pingwa will continue to write and that his writing will continue to be innovative and transcend boundaries. He perceives an obstruction to the potential depth of contemporary Chinese literature and considers removing it as the most difﬁcult task he and other Chinese writers face. In his view, Chinese literature is limited because there is a limit to the depth of experience in contemporary Chinese life, which in turn leads to limited depths as articulated by individual writers in the Chinese language and Chinese narrative traditions.1 Jia Pingwa, nevertheless, is one of the few writers who began publishing in the 1970s and have remained proliﬁc until the present. In more than three decades of writing, Jia Pingwa has travelled a long distance, intellectually, aesthetically and emotionally, if not physically.

Birth, naming and growth2 Jia Pingwa comes from the heartland of rural Shaanxi. He spent his childhood and early youth in the small village of Dihua (Cherry Blossom) in Danfeng (Red Phoenix) county of Shangzhou prefecture in southern Shaanxi. He was born in 1952 into an extended family of about twenty members, most of whom were peasants working on the land. The extended family was extremely poor, found it difﬁcult to manage, and eventually split into several households. There was not enough food for everyone and the spectre of starvation haunted Jia Pingwa’s childhood and teenage years to the extent that he believes his ill health is a result of malnutrition during that period. Jia Pingwa’s father Jia Yanchun was a village teacher and often posted away from the home village so that his mother managed the household

The life and career of Jia Pingwa

27

while also working on the land. There are four siblings in the family and Jia Pingwa is the eldest with one younger brother and two younger sisters. Although seldom at home, the father’s inﬂuence over Jia Pingwa was overwhelming, not least because the father taught him reading and writing before his schooling. The paternal ethics and values have channelled Jia Pingwa’s outlook and inspired him to aim at higher goals. In a poem, ‘My Father’ (Wode fuqin !) (1985), Jia Pingwa writes in praise of his father’s devotion to teaching and his high standard of professionalism (Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.12: 428–32). During the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) Jia Yanchun was persecuted as a ‘counter-revolutionary’ and for a while lost the income vital to the family.3 The father’s misfortune plunged the family into dire poverty and to the bottom of the social hierarchy, and this period of misery had a lasting impact on the son mentally, physically and professionally. Jia Yanchun himself suffered severe depression as a result of the political persecution, took to drinking and subsequently died of stomach cancer in 1989. Jia Pingwa pays a very emotional tribute to his father in his memoir ‘Mourning My Father’ (Jifu ) (Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.12: 197–207). The name of Jia Pingwa’s mother is Zhou Xiao’e , which, as he recalls, he came to know only by accident, because no one ever addressed her by that name (Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.13: 60–5).4 His mother lived most of her life in the village until he moved her to Xi’an a few years ago and she now lives with one of her daughters in an apartment not far from his own home. Jia Pingwa holds enormous respect for his mother and considers her a great teacher of life. The most memorable thing for him is how she taught him about ‘endurance’ – how to endure the most unbearable at a young age. She set her children a good example when she, in poor health, heroically shouldered the burden of feeding the family with almost no income when her husband was in custody. Jia Pingwa mentions his mother in a number of his essays and memoirs but the most informative is the piece called ‘I am Not a Good Son’ (Wo bushi ge hao erzi !"#$) (Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.13: 60–5). The hardship and the parental love Jia Pingwa experienced in his formative years would later become useful resources for his future life. They are the basis of the bond between him and his native place, which in time turns out to be a valuable inspiration for his writing. Many myths surround Jia Pingwa’s birth and naming, which, in popular belief, are related to his creativity one way or another, and many critics in China have made serious attempts at studying those myths. Before his birth, his mother had a prenatal consultation with a village fortune-teller. She was anxious because her ﬁrst child had died soon after birth. The advice was that she should go into labour not at home but at the neighbouring village of Jinpen (Golden Bowl), which should bring good luck to the baby. After birth, the child should be given a plain name to distract the attention of demons and to allow for a safe growth. Consequently his mother named him ‘Pingwa ’, ordinary boy, which he later changed to its pun, ‘Pingwa ’, meaning ‘level and uneven’.5 The late Shanghai critic Hu Heqing

28

The life and career of Jia Pingwa

offers a detailed study of the possible connotations of Jia Pingwa’s name from a Taoist perspective (Hu Heqing 1994: 38–9). Hu Heqing regards the change of the characters as a magic transformation, for ‘level and uneven’ reﬂects a Taoist balance of natural elements: ‘ping’ refers to ﬂat, unshaded places and therefore implies the element of yang, whereas ‘wa’, the indented surface, is hidden from the sun and naturally stands for the element of yin. ‘Pingwa’ hence achieves the most desirable balance between yin and yang. The interpretation of Jia Pingwa’s naming has been part of the process contributing to his public persona. Hu Heqing insists that, in order to retain his success, Jia Pingwa should never leave Shaanxi, because his family name Jia consists of two characters: underneath the character ‘xi ’, meaning ‘west’, is the character ‘bei ’ (which originally meant ‘cowrie shell’ but has been extended to mean ‘treasure’, because it was an ancient form of currency). ‘Xi ’ also coincides with the second character in the name of the province Shaanxi, that is, Shaan-‘xi ’ and its location in western China. Hence Jia’s name can be seen as a parody of ‘treasure in China’s west’. Hu Heqing says that he has reason to believe that Jia Pingwa has been well aware of this. In addition, ‘pingwa’ can also be read as a verb–object phrase to mean ‘levelling the uneven’. Jia Pingwa’s name thus forms a picture of the most admired fengshui – treasure comes out of the land in the west, with yin-yang elements balanced. In conjunction with his birthplace Golden Bowl, Jia Pingwa’s destiny as a successful writer echoes a Chinese popular belief – ‘A golden bowl produces noble sons’ (Jinpen chu guizi !"). In a critical biography of Jia Pingwa, Lai Daren makes further comments on Jia Pingwa’s name (Lai Daren 2000: 15 –18). He begins with Jia Pingwa’s own choice of the unusual character ‘’, which should be pronounced as ‘ao’ according to the standard pronunciation but in the Shaanxi local language is pronounced as ‘wa’.6 This out-of-the-way character, though hard to pronounce, is very easy to remember. Lai Daren summarizes four points in the popular explanations of how Jia Pingwa’s name has led to his literary success. First, the character is shaped like an ancient silver coin so that it is certain to channel in treasures. Second, ‘pingwa’ indicates a ﬂat stretch of land with an indentation for storing water, hence the focus on the landscape and good fengshui. Third, the character ‘’ has three connotations, which are all ‘productive’ in nature: it refers to a water container waiting to be ﬁlled; it means that the subject is modest and willing to learn; and it entails a lack in the shape, which in time becomes good fortune. Fourth, from a Buddhist perspective, the empty space in the middle of the character shows a spirited, Buddhist touch. Jia Pingwa is therefore destined to succeed (Lai Daren 2000: 16).

The rising phoenix Jia Pingwa was a good student and his talent for writing was noticed by his teachers from the time when he was a child. His initial creative success in

The life and career of Jia Pingwa

29

writing came when he volunteered to edit a newsposter for a production brigade at the construction site of a reservoir shortly after the Cultural Revolution forced all the students out of the local high school. At nineteen he had the opportunity to leave his native village for Xi’an, the provincial capital of Shaanxi, to enter the Chinese Department of Northwestern University (Xibei daxue !) as one of the many peasants, workers and soldiers selected from the countryside, workplace and army. This was the direct outcome of the CCP’s policy implemented between 1970 and 1976, when national tertiary entrance examinations were stopped and students were selected by local authorities. For a peasant boy from a family with a problematical political identity, this was especially fortunate and he greatly cherished the opportunity. Devoting much of his university time to creative writing, he eventually started publishing in the local newspapers, which paved the way for his future career. On graduating, he was assigned work as an assistant editor with a local Shaanxi magazine, which ofﬁcially transformed him from a peasant into an urban resident with employment, health care and food rations guaranteed by the state. He was even lucky enough to be allocated a room of six square metres where he was able to embark upon a writing career immediately. He was so happy that he gave his ﬁrst ‘home’ a poetic name: Phoenix Pavilion (Fenghuangge ), voicing a connection between the metaphor of the phoenix and his personal ambition, based on the common saying – ‘a golden phoenix ﬂies out from a chicken roost’ ( jiwoli feichu jinfenghuang !"#$%), which has connotations similar to the tale of the ugly duckling. Apparently, this naming was Jia Pingwa’s open declaration of his ambition, and its association with the mythical bird of nobility also reﬂects his interest in Chinese cultural history and his professional aspiration, especially if viewed in China’s historical context of the mid-1970s. During the Cultural Revolution pavilions were regarded in general as the architecture of China’s feudal past and therefore subjected to vandalism. Jia Pingwa’s naming articulated his discord with the dominant Maoist ideology of the time as well as his rebellious spirit, for the prevailing doctrine in the 1970s was that everyone should ‘serve the people’ as a ‘cog in the big revolutionary machine’.

Self-representation of a ‘peasant writer’ Jia Pingwa has not produced a systematic and comprehensive account of his life and writing career. He has, however, sketched several brief autobiographies and written a number of memoirs (see Appendix 3) and many of his essays also verge on being autobiographical. These autobiographical narratives are informative on the process of Jia Pingwa’s personal growth and development in his writing. One central issue in his self-representations is his ‘peasant’ identity, and he constantly, sometimes obsessively and defensively, elaborates on how his rural background is related to his writing, to the perception of his works and to himself as a writer and individual. His obsession

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with his ‘peasant’ identity, although understandable in many ways, is indicative of an inferiority complex, to which he admits openly: !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456/789 !"#$%&'()*+$,-./0123456789: !"#$%&'()*+,-.)/01234)1256 ! !"#$ I didn’t give up completely in those difﬁcult times. On the contrary, it helped me grow and I indeed had an understanding of the family situation that bordered on being precocious. Now that I am able to write a bit, I should be grateful for the training in hardship during the years. People often talk about the preconditioning of writers and their training in their early years. For me, if I have any talent to talk about at all, it comes from being looked down upon and being discriminated against. (‘After Junior High’, Jia Pingwa 1985c: 330) Jia Pingwa’s feeling of inadequacy also extends to his perception of his own physical appearance. In his memoirs he often identiﬁes with ugly rocks or trees and has elaborated on the notion that these ugly, solitary objects survive somehow by pure luck, although they may be ultimately appreciated and useful in some way. His self-perceived inferiority is also mixed with pride and ambition, as shown in the following self-projection: !"#$%&'()D !"# !$%"&'()*" !"#$%&'()"#*+,-.&/0)1123456 !"#$%&'&()*(+,-./012!3145+2 !"#$ %&'()*+,%-./01)23456)7 !"#$%&'()*+,-.(/#" !"# There is an elm tree in a small laneway on South Road in Xi’an. It is very ugly – it bends down terribly with a pump sticking out one way and a split indent on the other side; its trunk often has many blueheaded ﬂies on it. But the tree keeps growing and it gets bigger and bigger. South Road has been reconstructed so many times and each time more beautiful and healthy trees had to be chopped. But that elm tree survives, because it is ugly, because it grows inconspicuously, and because it lives by the garbage dump. Every time I pass it, I feel that the tree is like myself. (I Am a Peasant, Jia Pingwa 2000d: 103–4) Although it seems that this inferiority complex will stay with Jia Pingwa, he has, nevertheless, come to terms with it. His more recent novels, such as Earth Gate, Old Gao Village and Remembering Wolves, show sufﬁcient intellectual

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distance from his self-image, all dealing with recent economic, social and cultural changes in the rural sector and they are passionate portrayals of contemporary rural life. The identity problem is paramount for Jia Pingwa, initially as an issue for surviving the hard manual labour that a male peasant is expected to perform. His memoir ‘I Am a Peasant’ traces the details of the ﬁve most difﬁcult years in his life when he worked in the village after his junior high school. He was physically unable to carry out the male tasks and was relocated to work in the women’s team, earning only half of an adult woman’s credit for a day’s work. Once, on his way home carrying too much ﬁrewood on his back, he fell down the valley and nearly lost his life. Psychologically, the pressure was even more unbearable. Only ﬁfteen years of age, although he had been a good student and his father had always wanted him to receive a good education, he almost lost hope of returning to school. At the same time, being the eldest, Jia Pingwa tried to share the family burden as much as possible. The family was poverty stricken with his father being persecuted, his mother ill and credit from the production brigade under the commune system during the time only earning them half of the food they needed. The memoir is a documentation of Jia Pingwa’s tenacity for survival and his determination to change his destiny to cease being a peasant. The irony for him, if that could still be said of such personal misfortune, is that, once a peasant, one remains one for ever. Although he is not physically or sociologically a peasant any more, mentally, culturally and emotionally Jia Pingwa remains aligned with his native village and proudly so as well. He has not been alone in identifying himself as a villager: his critics insist on him being a peasant and so do his readers (Lai Daren 2000: 21–6). The complications of ‘being a peasant’ for Jia Pingwa also have to do with the term’s loaded socio-cultural meanings in Chinese society. As Myron Cohen has established, the ‘peasant’ is a cultural and political invention of Chinese intellectuals of the twentieth century and it has more to do with the role the elite imagined themselves as playing in China’s modernization than with the circumstances of the peasant. Cohen also points out that the PRC has institutionalized the second-class citizenship of peasants and the elitest belief that peasants are backward, recalcitrant and therefore in need of cultural transformation (Cohen, Myron 1993: 158–9, 166). In Jia Pingwa’s situation, the desire to stop being a peasant had long been planted by his father. The ideological baggage notwithstanding, being a peasant meant to be disadvantaged in many aspects of life. To the Jia family, their limited contacts with those in power meant that the only way was through education and the hope had always resided in Jia Pingwa, apparently the most gifted of the four children. Both the father and the son were devastated when there seemed to be no more opportunities to further his education. Again, to be a peasant means limited access to information and to career opportunities as well and Jia Pingwa did not travel out of Shangzhou prefecture until he was admitted to Northwestern University in Xi’an at the age

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of nineteen. He claims that although he has lived in Xi’an for more than three decades he remains an outsider to the city – his dialect and accent, his lack of connections and roots in the city all contribute to his Otherness in the city. He confesses to his friend Mu Tao in an interview conducted in 1994 that he does not belong to any school of contemporary Chinese literature, for he has always lived in Shaanxi in relative isolation and the difﬁculty for him is that his works do not have the praise or the protection of ‘mates’ (Jia Pingwa 1994j: 15). Considering that the cultural discussions during the Deng era were very much an elitist movement in China’s major metropolitan cities, Jia Pingwa’s national literary success is indeed extraordinary. Very few contemporary writers in China have themselves been ‘peasants’, although many of them have lived in the countryside and experienced village life in one way or another. However, as Jia Pingwa asserts, there is a difference between ‘a Buddhist monk and a person who tries to be a Buddhist monk’, a metaphor he often uses to describe the discrepancy of country experiences between himself as a peasant and those who were sent to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution (Jia Pingwa 1994j: 43). In studies on Jia Pingwa, many Chinese scholars have identiﬁed the importance and relevance of ‘being a peasant’ to his writing (Lai Daren 2000: 21–5; Jia Pingwa 1994j: 122–7). Lai Daren places emphasis on Jia Pingwa’s ‘double identity’, referring to his being a country man and an urban resident simultaneously. Lai Daren sees a conﬂict between the two locations of Jia Pingwa’s being and believes that it has resulted in the constant shifts between the village and the city in Jia Pingwa’s narrative settings, and that the oscillation of social backgrounds of his narratives has prevented him from achieving absolute excellence in his creative writing. Had he been able to devote himself to either, in Lai Daren’s opinion, Jia Pingwa’s success would have been much greater. Indeed the villager and the writer in the provincial centre are the two primary elements of his double identity. However, Jia Pingwa’s identity issue is far more complex than the mentality from which he begrudgingly writes about the city and romanticizes the country. The doubleness of his identity functions at many levels: in his teens, he was both peasant and an educated youth, for he was attending high school in the local county and became the so-called ‘returning to the countryside educated youth’ ( !).7 The hardest of all for him was that he had ﬁrst to learn to become a peasant and he was never successful in that regard. Later in life, he has had to adapt to urbanity and yet he ﬁnds this also difﬁcult. Jia Pingwa’s formative years in the village have had enduring effects on shaping the way he positions himself, his relationship with his native place and the content, subject matter and style of his writing. In other words, the identity of the author, imposed or self-chosen, has so far deﬁned the identity of his texts. There have been two urban centres in Jia Pingwa’s writing: Xijing, the ﬁctional name for Shaanxi’s provincial capital Xi’an, and Zhoucheng, or the city of Shangzhou district, the urban centre of the Shangzhou prefecture. Understandably, his characters from villages are

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more at home in Zhoucheng, which, although small in scale, is the point of departure into the outside world for Shangzhou locals and an alternative to the provincial capital. In Jia Pingwa’s writing, Shangzhou can be the centre of the world at least for the locals, or it can at least serve as a link to the outside. A number of his major characters embark on their journey starting from Zhoucheng and many of them, like Jia Pingwa himself, frequently return. Jia Pingwa’s own identity is further split between Xi’an and the centres of China’s political power and cultural events, such as Beijing and Shanghai, and he often articulates a division between the centre and the periphery, identifying himself as being on the periphery. Constantly returning to Shangzhou is important for him, for Shangzhou provides both his ideas for writing as the primary source and site of his stories, and also the space for writing when Xi’an presents too many distractions. Jia Pingwa’s doubleness, moreover, is manifested also in his ambiguous role as a writer and intellectual. He is a writer primarily and a traditional literatus in his spare time by choice. He has cultivated a self image of literatus – seeking inspiration in Taoism, Buddhism and folklore, befriending local, like-minded friends and practising calligraphy and ink-brush paintings. The subjects and style of his essays, his collection and appreciation of antiques all echo a Chinese literati mentality. Noticeably, his approaches to popular belief systems and Chinese cultural traditions are very different from those of most urban intellectuals, who would normally study traditional Chinese belief systems or cultural practice as subjects of intellectual examination. Jia Pingwa, instead, practises them. His cultural practice in turn perpetuates the association between his ‘peasant’ identity and his distance from the intellectual elite in the political and cultural centres of China. As Myron Cohen argues saliently, modern Chinese intellectuals, with the exceptions of a few anthropologists and sociologists, have long rejected Chinese rural cultural traditions as ‘superstitions’ and ‘feudal’, and set themselves the task of eradicating such practices as part of China’s modernization process (Cohen, Myron 1993: 154). Hence, in terms of his attitudes to China’s traditional rural cultures, Jia Pingwa is by no means the modern intellectual and yet, as an inﬂuential writer, he is regarded as a public intellectual in Chinese society where writers are often seen as advocating certain ideologies. In reality, as a public intellectual, Jia Pingwa is still emerging gradually. He used to decline public engagements, fearing that because of his accent he would fail to make himself understood by the general audience. Increasingly, in recent years, he has been giving public speeches on writing and language on university campuses and has agreed to be interviewed, although he still declines invitations to travel overseas (see, for instance, Jia Pingwa 2003a). He has been appointed adjunct professor at a number of universities in Xi’an and has been an associate dean of arts at Shaanxi’s University of Architecture. That identity politics is emphasized in this book is primarily the result of Jia Pingwa’s ‘peasant/inferiority complex’ and his preoccupation with the rural sector of Chinese society. However, Jia Pingwa’s literary representations

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of Shaanxi peasants are by no means limited to his personal experience. Rather, they should be understood in the context of social change in China, especially those that have occurred since the end of the 1970s. With a focus on the rural sector of Chinese society, Kate Xiao Zhou’s assessment of China’s social and economic change in the reform era resonates with Jia Pingwa’s depiction of the life of villagers, especially her assessment that it is the farmers who have played the major role in bringing about China’s recent development and that in the process they have also transformed themselves into the managers of business, workers, traders and many other professions. Jia Pingwa’s ﬁction and Zhou’s study complement each other well – both illuminate the central and powerful role played by the Chinese peasants in the transformation of China and the transformation of themselves. This is precisely the reason for her to reject the term ‘peasant’ in describing the rural population of China (Zhou, K. 1996). Although I agree with Zhou’s argument that the term ‘peasant’ is not accurate in denoting what the Chinese farmers do and are in today’s China, as many scholars on this issue believe, I still choose to use the term because I believe that the intention behind many of Jia Pingwa’s stories and novels is to remark on the process of change from peasant to farmer and to criticize the Chinese social and cultural prejudices imbedded in that term.

Periods of development Jia Pingwa’s landmark publications can serve as dividing ranges to mark the different phases of his literary career of more than thirty years: ‘Full Moon’ (1977), ‘First Records of Shangzhou’ (1983), Turbulence (1988), Defunct Capital (1993) and Health Report (2002). Each of these writings reﬂects Jia Pingwa’s thematic and stylistic preoccupations over a period of time and their publication also brings about changes in the author’s public image and in the reception of his works. The ﬁrst stage is the initial ten years between the early 1970s and the early 1980s when Jia Pingwa had just begun to publish in the national journals, during which the prize-winning short story ‘Full Moon’ signalled his initial success and set him on the path towards becoming a writer of some national signiﬁcance. The appearance of ‘First Records of Shangzhou’ in 1983 was a harbinger to Jia Pingwa’s progression on to the second stage of rapid development. His works between 1983 and 1986 established him as a promising writer with a distinctive narrative style. Turbulence is the benchmark of the third period between 1987 and 1992, and the novel launched him on to a higher level of national signiﬁcance and brought him international fame. Defunct Capital’s publication in 1993, however, sank Jia Pingwa’s reputation as a ‘serious’ writer into murky waters and he experienced the darkest of all times since he started publishing. His re-emergence afterwards, therefore, was slow and not without difﬁculties and yet in the decade between 1995 and 2004 he has demonstrated even more positive energies and brought about further major changes in his

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writing. Jia Pingwa turned ﬁfty in 2002, and Health Reports, published in the same year, indicated more radical adjustments of his narrative style and subject matter. Jia Pingwa has spent all of 2004 ﬁnishing still another novel on rural Shangzhou, entitled Qinqiang () (local accent) – which has a double reference to both the local opera and the local speech. Presumably the ﬁfty-two-year-old writer is only half-way through his productive years. Ten or twenty years from now, his publications may change the overview of his creative patterns but the present periodization helps to delineate the complexity of a literary journey compounded by tremendous external changes and inner struggles. Apprenticeship in short stories: 1973–82 Jia Pingwa’s literary career began by writing predominantly short stories, although he also wrote poetry and essays. Recognition of him as a writer came with the publication of two collections of short stories – Soldier Boy (Bingwa ; 1977) and Morning Songs (Zaochende ge !; 1980). Both are stories about precocious children or teenagers with a communist conscience, presumably for young readers. Soldier Boy is a publication by the prestigious National Children’s Book Publisher in Beijing and hence a phenomenal success for a young man from remote Shaanxi, who, at that time, had no direct knowledge of the world outside of his immediate environment. The 1970s were a treacherous decade for Chinese writers because of the ongoing Cultural Revolution in the ﬁrst half, and the enormous political changes occurring in the second half with the death of Mao Zedong, the downfall of the ‘Gang of Four’ and the resurrection of Deng Xiaoping to political power. Above all, up until the end of the 1980s, China’s shifting politics demanded that writers conform to the dominant strand of the CCP’s ideology at any given time. Jia Pingwa entered the literary ﬁeld at the height of the Cultural Revolution. His ﬁrst publication was a short story, ‘A Pair of Socks’, in Xi’an Daily in 1973. His early works inevitably reﬂect the limitation and the indoctrination of the time. Being an eager and earnest young man, he worked hard and produced about two hundred short stories and dozens of essays in addition to some occasional poems. Considering that he was an assistant editor at Xi’an People’s Publishing House and writing was only his parttime occupation, Jia Pingwa must have been highly dedicated, and the short stories in particular helped him learn the craft of writing. At this stage, he had to try hard to get published and his writings appeared in various literary journals, including many local Shaanxi journals. His short story ‘Full Moon’ (1977) won the inaugural national prize for short stories, established in 1978 by the Chinese Writers Association, which was an enormous boost to his morale as it represented the ﬁrst national and ofﬁcial recognition of his literary achievement. The prize also took him out of Shaanxi to the national capital Beijing and placed him, physically as well as mentally, among

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other established writers. Jia Pingwa had mixed feelings about the experience. On the one hand there was the pride of the village boy who had made it to the top. On the other hand, he was extremely conscious of the distance between himself and the best known writers of China at the time.8 Nevertheless, he soon won other prizes. In 1979 his essay ‘Love and Passion: Beyond the Writing of the “Full Moon” ’ (Ai he qing: Manyuer chuangzuo zhiwai – ! !; Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.14: 4–7), which he wrote as a postscript detailing the conceptualization and the process of writing the story, won the ﬁrst prize for literary creation from the prestigious national literary journal October (Shiyue ).9 His collection of short stories Morning Songs was awarded the title of the best writing of the year in Shaanxi province. It might be said that Jia Pingwa was ‘fortunate’, as he launched his literary career at a time when Chinese literature was recovering from decades of extreme political repression and censorship. There was ofﬁcial encouragement to develop China’s literature and the arts, which helped to restore the conﬁdence of writers and ensured the (re)establishment of many literary institutions and prizes.10 The change did not come into full swing until the 1990s when the CCP loosened its policy on arts and literature and stopped dictating to writers on what and how to write. Writers soon ventured out of the straitjacket of Mao’s ‘Yan’an Talks’, the CCP’s bible for arts and literature, and subverted socialist realism and romanticism, the only ofﬁcially sanctioned narrative modes until the mid-1980s. Retrospectively, the stories ‘Full Moon’ and ‘Soldier Boy’ are of doubtful literary merit since they are partly products of the CCP’s ideology at the time and it can be very difﬁcult for readers to identify with the characters or to appreciate the plots without direct experience of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Those stories, however, are important, as they are the ﬁrst steps Jia Pingwa took as a writer and they are not totally uninnovative when compared with stories by other writers produced in the same period. From the very beginning, Jia Pingwa consciously sought after new ways of writing within the limitations of his literary environment. Notes from the Highlands (Shandi biji !) (Jia Pingwa 1980a) is Jia Pingwa’s third collection of short stories and his ﬁrst of literary signiﬁcance, in which he discovers his own voice and language. The collection has thirtyseven short stories of approximately three to ﬁve thousand words each. Its brief preface of fewer than a thousand words with the title ‘A Guide to the Highlands – Words at the Beginning’ is a sort of ‘literary manifesto’. ‘I am a highlander’, he begins, asserting his rural identity and conﬁdence that he is able to conduct a guided tour of the mountains, because the ‘mountains have nourished me and I have come to understand them well’ (Jia Pingwa 1980a: 2). He declared his intention to devote his writing to his native place and show his readers how to ‘read’ the mountains. Two elements make this collection stand out among his writings to date: his emerging narrative style of exquisite verbal beauty and the connectedness in his writings to identity and native place.

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In the late 1970s Jia Pingwa had already started seriously searching for what to write and how to write, instead of simply following the party line or the fashionable trends which continued to pop up in the major Chinese cities, although, of course, it was still important to remain within the limits set by the authorities. Living in Xi’an and without powerful connections in Beijing or Shanghai in the late 1970s still meant limited access to information about the outside world, nationally and internationally. From the late 1970s onwards, the Chinese authorities sanctioned the introduction of certain books and ideas from other countries, especially from the West, through ofﬁcial translations with limited circulation. While the literary scene in Beijing and other major cities saw the emergence of signiﬁcant activities – such as the ‘Misty Poetry Movement’, the cultural discussions, the high cultural fever together with the introduction of many ideas and writers from other countries as documented by scholars such as Jing Wang (Wang, Jing 1996), in the Chinese hierarchy of access to information – writers and poets in distant provinces, such as Jia Pingwa, had limited access to the information and the new ideas until much later, and he was not alone. At a speech given at the University of Sydney in 2000, the Yunnan poet Yu Jian speciﬁcally talked about the privileged access to information by writers and poets in the major cities, especially those whose parents were high-ranking ofﬁcials in the government, which the urban intellectual elite at the time used as their cultural capital. For this and other reasons, Jia Pingwa’s search for literary innovation prompted him to return to his native place in sharp contrast to urban intellectuals in major cosmopolitan centres. Furthermore, at the turn between the 1970s and the 1980s, the withdrawal of the CCP’s tight ideological control over artistic and literary creativity meant that it was imperative for writers and artists to innovate – hence the question of what and how to write loomed disproportionately large. One obvious consequence of such selective information access is the different artistic styles those writers develop. In Jia Pingwa’s case, the answer to what to write and how does not lie in Latin America’s magic realism, or in any other imported ideas in fashion at the time, but in the local folklores of his native place and in Chinese literary traditions (‘On Turning Forty’, Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.12: 314 –17). Jia Pingwa wrote only short stories before he gained sufﬁcient conﬁdence to move to the longer genres of the novella and the novel. The year 1982 proved to be a signiﬁcant one for Jia Pingwa: as a result of having published more than ten short stories and over thirty essays, he was allowed to stop working as an editor and became a professional writer, which meant he was able to devote all of his time to writing (Sun Jianxi 2001, v.1: 183). However, between political permissibility and artistic innovation there were still very ﬁne lines in the early 1980s. Although Jia Pingwa tried hard to work within the boundaries, party ideologues, still powerful at the time, found a number of his writings politically problematical and singled him out for criticism. In the ‘anti-spiritual pollution’ campaign, the regional CCP

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committee of Shangzhou staged group meetings to criticize his writings. Jia Pingwa survived as a result of China’s positive political change on the whole, although, according to himself, he has continued to get into political hot water with the authorities on and off until today – his novel Defunct Capital is still banned.11 Journeyman in novellas: 1983–6 Jia Pingwa’s short stories did not only begin his literary career with prizewinning pieces but also prepared him with training in narrative techniques, especially in sharpening his sensitivity to the usage of the Chinese language, to the extent that his writing was known for its distinctive freshness and naturalness. In the 1980s he gradually began to write longer stories with more complex plots and improved characterization, and his writings became increasingly more acceptable by major national literary journals. If the ﬁrst period was his apprenticeship as a writer with moderate success, the ﬁve years immediately afterwards saw Jia Pingwa ﬁrmly established as one of the leading writers nationally. In 1985 alone he produced ten novellas, that is, one novella in about ﬁve weeks. During this period, his publications include four collections of short stories and novellas, three collections of essays, one novel and one collection of poems, with the novella as the major genre of his writing. Although Jia Pingwa had always looked to his village for inspiration, it was in the early years of the 1980s that he seriously and consciously sought his narrative and emotional ‘return’ to his native place. ‘Three Records of Shangzhou’ signalled the beginning of his literary exploration of his native place and marked his achievement of national status as an emerging, innovative writer. ‘Three Records of Shangzhou’ begins with ‘First Records of Shangzhou’, which was published in 1983 in the nationally inﬂuential literary magazine Zhongshan. Fourteen pieces of writing are put together as ‘records’ of the place. Some are stories about local people and their idiosyncratic daily life. Some are poetic essays elaborating on the beauty of Shangzhou’s landscape. Others are depictions of the small towns and their local cultures. In particular, the structure and narrative mode of ‘Three Records of Shangzhou’ show a resemblance to those found in traditional Chinese narratives. ‘First Records of Shangzhou’ was an immediate national success, prompting Jia Pingwa to produce another two: ‘Further Records of Shangzhu’ and ‘More Records of Shangzhou’. These are truly ‘records’ of Shangzhou as they offer detailed descriptions of Shangzhou’s cultural geography and ethnography. The text also has enormous appeal to the general reader, with the most exquisite aesthetic beauty, especially when it comes to the descriptions of the mountains of Shangzhou. The author is particularly good at guiding the tours of ‘mountain reading’. Conspicuously absent and most refreshing at the time is political engagement of any sort in the text.

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Between 1983 and 1986, Jia Pingwa conducted extensive experiments in composing local stories, which were almost exclusively based on the regionality of Shangzhou. In many ways ‘Three Records of Shangzhou’ serves as the prelude to the novellas and novels Jia Pingwa was about to produce. The ten novellas published in 1985 were deﬁnitive of his Shangzhou stories with their characteristic elements of local folklore and ethnography. The ten novellas also form the basis for Jia Pingwa’s claim to a major position in Chinese nativist literature. They are: ‘Heavenly Hound’ (Tiangou ), ‘Ice and Charcoal’ (Bingtan ), ‘Human Extremities’ (Renji ), ‘Desert Grasses’ (Haozimei ), ‘Legends of Shangzhou’ (Shangzhou shishi !), ‘Distant Mountains and Wild Passions’ (Yuanshan yeqing !), ‘Darkie’ (Heishi ), ‘Mountain Town’ (Shancheng ), ‘My Early Days: Four stories’ (Churen siji !) and ‘Northwestern Pass’ (Xibeikou ). These novellas remain the most important and representative of Jia Pingwa’s literary output and are frequently selected by editors for collections. Many Chinese critics regard them as the best of Jia Pingwa’s publications (for instance, Hong Zicheng 1999: 328–9; Chen Sihe 1999: 285–8), and these local stories have successfully put Shangzhou on the Chinese literary map as one of the most memorable and characteristic native places. The success of these novellas has contributed signiﬁcantly to Jia Pingwa’s conﬁdence to tackle the novel. Subsequently, his initial novels further developed the themes previously explored in his short stories and essays. His lyrical narrative style that had emerged in his short stories is also further developed. Jia Pingwa was extraordinarily proliﬁc in the late 1980s and he was publishing at the speed of one novel a year: Shangzhou in 1987, Turbulence in 1988 and Pregnancy in 1989. Shangzhou, Jia Pingwa’s ﬁrst novel, is also the product of a young man, energetic and ambitious, after having been relocated in the city at the beginning of a promising career as a writer. The shift from country to city is indicative of his intellectual growth because it connected him with the outside world and gave him access to information vital for the growth of a writer. However, despite the enormous attractions of the provincial centre, Shangzhou retains its cultural and emotional presence in Jia Pingwa. The writing of Shangzhou for Jia Pingwa is a symbolic and imaginative return to his native place where his writing continues to be nourished and nurtured. The major character Liu Cheng in Shangzhou is a city lad who, because of trumped-up charges of robbery, is pursued by the Security Department of Shangzhou. Liu Cheng seeks refuge with his maternal grandfather, Dong Sanhai , who is a village pedlar. Dong is a miser, even in regard to his own family members. Because he does not have a son and is seeking an heir for his business and property, Dong is happy to house his grandson. Being chased by the authorities, Liu Cheng is constantly on the run, conveniently taking the reader to many scenic spots in the Shangzhou area. In his fugitive process, he falls in love with a beautiful village girl but

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they are not able to consummate their love because of objections from both families. Unable to return to the city to ﬁnd work, Liu starts making a living by carrying the corpses of tourists who fall down the steep slopes when viewing the magniﬁcent scenery of Mount Hua. Liu is subsequently drowned by ﬂood waters of the Zhou River while trying to pull a corpse on to the bank. His lover, devastated by his death, jumps into the roaring torrent to join him. Their deaths, however, establish his innocence and restore their dignity. At this time he is still being sought by the police, but the authorities subsequently acknowledge their mistake in trying to arrest Liu, and the families allow them to ‘marry’. They are buried together and a ceremony for a marriage of the dead is held in their honour. Shangzhou’s local residents are usually obedient subjects of authority, but sometimes they will turn into bandits and outlaws, and follow the role of the outlaw in traditional Chinese society, if justice fails. Jia Pingwa has created a number of such ‘outlaw’ characters who bear strong resemblance to the hero–victim trope in classical Chinese ﬁction. Being highly righteous in his behaviour and handsome in appearance, Liu Cheng is one such outlaw hero, who is ready to ﬁght for justice but remains unjustly persecuted by the authorities. At the same time, he is also representative of the many young male characters in Jia Pingwa’s earlier writing, who are frustrated by their disadvantaged social backgrounds and their remote physical location from economic, cultural and political centres of China. Jia Pingwa’s ﬁrst novel Shangzhou is a landmark in his writing career and it is signiﬁcant in at least two respects: its focus on the native place and native people in literature and its innovative structure. Shangzhou returns to the Chinese narrative tradition of event-based episodes with the narrative divided into eight ‘units’ instead of ‘chapters’, using unit divisions to separate narrative events and to indicate the independence of the stories from each other (Fei Bingxun 1992: 85). In contrast to the continuous ﬂow of narrative generally found in Chinese novels that have used Western narrative methods since the early twentieth century, classical Chinese novels are often ‘episodic’ in the sense that each chapter of the novel focuses on one or two central events and functions as a ‘natural’ pause for story telling.12 Jia Pingwa’s use of ‘unit’ (danyuan. ) is an attempt to follow the ‘episodesection’ narrative structure (zhanghui ), and Shangzhou is a renovation of the narrative traditions of zhanghui xiaoshuo, or novels in episodes.13 At the same time, ‘unit’ can also be seen as a metaphor to show that each of the stories in relation to the entire novel is like a unit in relation to a building, as danyuan also means a unit in a building. Each unit in Shangzhou is then divided into three sections, the ﬁrst of which narrates relevant regional history and local customs, that is, telling old stories, and the other two follow up the plot, telling the current stories. Following the role of the narrator in traditional Chinese novels, the narrator of Shangzhou remains an outsider and a commentator in relation to the stories, unlike many other contemporary Chinese writings, where the narrator is a participant.

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Aesthetically, Shangzhou as the native place enables Jia Pingwa to sketch a typically ‘Chinese’ landscape: winding rivers running down steep mountains covered by dense forests and capped with mists and clouds. Transplanted and located in Jia Pingwa’s essays, the plants and rocks become cultural objects carrying coded aesthetic information in Chinese cultural traditions. Jia Pingwa has composed many essays with such natural or cultural objects as motifs to constitute his literary depiction of Chinese sentiments. In this respect, the novel Shangzhou is akin to his ‘Three Records of Shangzhou’. Jia Pingwa ascribes enormous beauty and charm to Shangzhou, where his family, his friends and naturally his characters have been nurtured generation after generation and where they demonstrate emotional and cultural attachment to the land. A juxtaposed reading of the two produces a picture of Shangzhou most illustrative of a Shaanxi rural culture, with characters related to Chinese culture, history and tradition. The imaginative return to Shangzhou was a great leap forward in Jia Pingwa’s creativity and it led to his discovery and articulation of his nativist concerns. Consequently, their narrative features set Jia Pingwa distinctively apart from his contemporaries. It was also during this period of his quest that he began to perceive an association of Shangzhou with China, both historically and culturally. The process enabled him to articulate Shangzhou’s rural life as alternatives to what had been permitted in literary conﬁgurations of rural China under CCP ideology of the time. Mastery with Turbulence, Pregnancy and Rambling in the Mountains: 1987–92 The ﬁve years between 1987 and 1992 are another period of further growth and development for Jia Pingwa as an individual and as a writer, with his popularity soaring in mainland China. During this period, he wrote three novels, half a dozen novellas and many essays. The number of his publications increased dramatically, for his works began to be sought after by publishers as his attraction to critics and readers multiplied. Most of his publications began to appear in major literary journals ﬁrst and then in book form. His essays also attracted increasingly positive appraisals. His novel Turbulence is a phenomenal achievement, winning the American Pegasus Prize and popularity among Chinese readers and critics. Its Chinese title, Fuzao , is widely believed to have effectively captured the mood of the Chinese population at the beginning of China’s reform era under Deng Xiaoping, although the narrative of Turbulence still bears many traces of socialist realism. As a result of the prize, he visited Hong Kong and the United States where he met writers of many different nationalities. Although he did not write directly about his travel overseas, he talked about the experience as a learning process, when he mentioned his meeting with the American-Chinese sinologist Leo Ou-fan Lee as an eye-opening experience, for it showed him other possible angles for observing China.14

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Pregnancy and Rambling in the Mountains are the other two novels published during this period. They both consist of a number of independent novellas that were initially separate publications. Jia Pingwa, however, in his self-selected series published by the Writers Publishing House, put them together and labelled them as novels (changpian xiaoshuo !), insisting that they should be read as novels, for he had conceptualized both works as single organic entities. They are continuations of Jia Pingwa’s exploration both in terms of Shangzhou folklores and local culture and in terms of narrative structure. Their loose structure is certainly reminiscent of the huaben () novellas in premodern Chinese literature. In short, the ten years from 1983 to 1992 have been Jia Pingwa’s most productive and successful period to date. Booming publications and frequent awards during this period conﬁrmed Jia Pingwa’s status as one of China’s most prominent and inﬂuential writers. Between 1979 and 1992, Jia Pingwa was awarded at least forty-ﬁve prizes by a number of provincial and national institutions and authorities.15 In other words he was essentially showered with certiﬁcates, promotions and salary increases from provincial and national authorities. The most conspicuous recognition was the 1992 special contribution award from the Personnel Department of the CCP Central Committee, which gave him the title of National Professional with Outstanding Contributions with a salary increase. To become a ‘National Professional’ was no small matter in the PRC in the early 1990s as it used to serve as a ‘certiﬁcate’ of political good health and brought other tangible privileges such as better access to transportation and housing. Turbulence further develops the narrative characteristics manifested in Shangzhou. Shangzhou’s scenic landscape remains the narrative background and appears to feature more personalities as the narrative develops. The Zhou River, and the mountains on its banks participate in the narrating as individuals with desires, temperament and emotions. The river carries both life and death for Shangzhou residents: it serves as the major means of transportation but its ﬂoods and temper can be ruthless. ‘Turbulence’ is a metaphor explicitly attributed to the torrents of the Zhou River, as it roars through the valleys, nourishing and ﬂooding the land with boundless energy. It is also an implicit reference to the state of mind of its young male protagonist Jin’gou , whose name can be rendered literally as Golden Dog. ‘Turbulence’ as a metaphor can also be associated with the changes after the economic reforms in China and their impact on the political and social structure in the country and their implications in relation to the life of Chinese peasants. ‘Turbulence’ personiﬁes the Zhou River and enables it to participate in the narrative as a character with personality and passion. In short, Turbulence is not a novel of pastoral harmony but a reﬂection of the desire and energy of the peasants to build a better life for themselves. With Shangzhou Jia Pingwa is still writing the cultural landscape surrounding himself. With Turbulence, the entire surroundings are internalized and personiﬁed. The people and the land share personalities, for it is the

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land and the river that have nurtured the local residents. Shangzhou people have been given the will and the strength to ﬁght against odds, the energy to survive hardship and the passion to love and hate. Turbulence also offers a reading of the landscape and the characters from a Taoist perspective, which visualizes a transfer of energy from the mountains and the river to the characters. The qi, energy or inner force of the surroundings, eventually gathers in the person of Jin’gou, who, born in waters of the river, is believed to have absorbed the best of all in the natural elements. His name contains ‘metal’ as indicated in the character jin, gold, which is balanced by water through his birth and his intimate relationship with a village girl, Xiaoshui , Water Girl, whose name literally means ‘little water’. The composition of Shangzhou’s mountains, rivers, villages, temples and their relation to the local people recall the layout of traditional Chinese painting in the sense that the local people, including the author, are treated as part of the landscape. Golden Dog, born in the river which drowns his mother at the same time, is believed to be the toughest of all creatures. Golden Dog is named such because he has a birthmark in the shape of a bird, which the locals call kanshangou , ‘mountain guarding dog’. Golden Dog lives with his father who is a decorator of local architecture, a lowlier profession than peasants who work directly on the land. Unable to bear the humiliation that his father suffers from his profession, Golden Dog spends more time on the river with the village sage and the ferryman, Han Wenju . From Han, Golden Dog learns about cultural traditions and the history of the village. Han’s niece, Water Girl, who has lived with Han since being orphaned, is Golden Dog’s childhood sweetheart and lover. They eventually get together after unfortunate marriages and relationships with other people, and many other misfortunes. The story shows how Golden Dog grows and confronts poverty and social injustice. He gradually resolves to improve the difﬁcult and restricted life of a peasant. With extraordinary courage and talent, Golden Dog manages to enlist in the army and provides himself with some education. He eventually transforms himself into a journalist for the regional newspaper, a position which gives him contacts and political power. As the market economy opens up, there are more chances for peasants to make money, and Golden Dog and his friends venture into establishing their own enterprises. There are also complexities of the village history where family clans are signiﬁcant contributors to village politics. The narrative develops as the fortunes of Golden Dog and his friends ﬂuctuate between victory and defeat. Politics turn out to be a ﬁerce struggle between life and death, with conspiracy, horror, tears and grief. Golden Dog ends up in prison and one of his friends is murdered. Golden Dog’s ﬁnal release happens like an accident when a woman who loves him dearly rescues him by sleeping with the son of a senior provincial ofﬁcial. Extraordinarily strong and energetic both mentally and physically, Golden Dog is the most potent of Jia Pingwa’s male characters.

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Golden Dog is meant to represent a new type of peasant in China, with an education and reasonable exposure to the world outside of his village. He stands for the changes that have happened in rural China and his role is remodelled to reﬂect the social and cultural implications of rural China in the late 1980s. And yet, at the same time, the narrative shows the deep roots of tradition and village culture through the style of village politics and the manner of social interaction among the peasants. Turbulence is as much about China’s historical past as about its present, and the narrative deliberately highlights a cultural connection between the village’s present, its distant history and its immediate past that is as close as the Cultural Revolution in the 1970s. Pertinent and attentive to social issues in general and their impact on the life of ordinary peasants in the 1980s in particular, the narrative presents the village as a microcosm of the situation in China. The turbulence in the river, while symbolic of the turbulence in the minds of the village youth, is also an accurate description of the turbulent 1980s in China. The extraordinary signiﬁcance of Turbulence lies in its representation of peasants and rural reality of the time, as the rural population was underrepresented generally in writings from China’s early decades of economic reform. Turbulence demonstrates the depth and the scope of social change in the rural sectors, which is no less disconcerting than the often-claimed turbulence occurring in urban centres. The name of Jia Pingwa’s third novel, Pregnancy (Jia Pingwa 1989a) derives from a talk the author had with a village woman who told him about the pain and pleasure of pregnancy. Jia Pingwa identiﬁes his writing and his life with the experience of pregnancy in the sense that the greater the pain is, the greater the pleasure can be. It is also in this connection of pain and pleasure that the independent stories in the novel come together to form a coherent narrative (Jia Pingwa 1994k: 189). As mentioned earlier, Pregnancy has ﬁve chapters, each a separate story which can be read independently. Jia Pingwa conceptualized the stories as a novel, although the stories were written and published separately over a period of time. Hence the narrative does not seem to ‘progress’ in the conventional sense that events happen to characters who ‘last’ throughout the narration. Each chapter or story in Pregnancy deals with a village and the events in that particular village. Throughout Pregnancy, Jia Pingwa presents the lives of several dozen peasants by locating them in Shaanxi villages with very ambiguous notions of time. Unlike Turbulence, where the events are speciﬁcally located in the reform era of China during which Chinese peasants sought opportunities to change their life and identity, Pregnancy removes the villagers from the urge to modernize, although traces of change can not be eliminated completely. Nevertheless, a sense of historical pattern emerges through the many common concerns of the villagers and the prevailing stagnation of their lives. Jia Pingwa seems to be addressing his readers with an emphasis on the peasant lifestyle as the most representative image of China. If Turbulence is a vertical Chinese painting with one village in the perspective, Pregnancy is

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a horizontal scroll, the kind that unfolds continuously with different characters and the landscape stretching horizontally. Rambling in the Mountains has four stories all belonging to the genre of ‘bandit ﬁction’ (tufei xiaoshuo !). The genre has a recurrent theme: the rulers’ cruelty pushes the ruled into rebellion (guanbi minfan !). The major characters in such stories are either bandits already or about to become bandits. Although at the beginning they are all ordinary villagers, they can be heroic in undertaking a community goal or in performing chivalry. The most memorable of Jia Pingwa’s bandit stories all appear in Rambling in the Mountains and they are ‘Bai Lang – the bandit’ (Bai Lang ), ‘The Bride Carrier’ (Wukui ) and ‘The Auspicious Gravesite’ (Meixuedi ). These stories are separate, independent of each other but all take place in the mountains of Shang prefecture. The mountains are inaccessible so they become the base for the bandits, providing ideal geographic protections against intruders. Jia Pingwa sets these stories often in ambiguous historical times to evade political implications with the present authorities. However, the docile, hardworking locals reﬂect only one side of the characters of Shangzhou’s population. The other side is the spirit of ‘chivalry’, as shown in the character of Liu Cheng in the novel Shangzhou. When justice fails, or when life becomes unbearable, the villagers may choose to become ‘outlaws’.16 Jia Pingwa has produced a few such ‘outlaw’ stories where his characters can be vicious or charming. These are collected under the title of Guangshan, ‘rambling in the mountains’, a local term for those who opt for a kind of life outside the existing social system.17 Indeed, the outlawed personalities wander around in the mountains to retreat from ‘mainstream’ society, to escape either hardships of life or persecution of the authorities. Those characters are often empowered villagers with martial arts expertise and extraordinary courage. The sense of righteousness and justice of the villagers as well as their gallantry is best displayed in a character called Bai Lang , the bright, sunny sky, in one of Jia Pingwa’s bandit stories.18 Bai Lang is identiﬁed speciﬁcally as a yinyangren, a man of both yin and yang, in other words, a person with both male and female characteristics and sexuality. His beauty is as outstanding as his martial arts skills and he attracts as many female admirers as male ones. Bai Lang is the head of a bandit community and he rules with beauty, martial arts skills and knowledge of military strategy. In general, Jia Pingwa’s outlaw stories are devoid of political context and have a very strong communal sense of justice. Loyalty to one another and to leaders is fundamental in the outlaw community. The outlaws are outlawed by an ambivalent, perhaps ‘historical’ authority. There is no class-consciousness or communist indoctrination. Survival is the basic driving force for rebellion. The hideouts of the outlaws are mostly located in remote areas and their inaccessibility is protection from intruders. In such outlaw stories, the narrated time is rarely speciﬁed, obviously to avoid political incrimination on the author’s part. The absence

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of historical speciﬁcity ironically pronounces the persistence of the phenomenon and that may imply the existence of injustice and rebellion under any kind of ruler. The rural focus and the pastoral quality of Jia Pingwa’s early writing also contribute to his reputation as a nativist writer, for nativist writing has usually been associated with rural settings. The construction of Shangzhou’s local identity relies largely on the interaction between its residents and the land. Jia Pingwa’s characters are from the land, live by the land and are directly connected to the land. They are imbued with the spirit and personality of their homeland of Shaanxi: generous in poverty, beautiful in crudeness and strong in vulnerability. The Shangzhou stories have explored and articulated such an intimate link between the people and the land. Unlike other contemporary nativist or root-searching writers, Jia Pingwa is one of the very few ‘genuine’ peasants or insiders. Many other nativist writers are intellectuals from the city who experience the rural as an urban visitor. The difference in their positions entails differences in their writing. For instance, Ah Cheng, author of the very inﬂuential ‘The King Trilogy’ (Acheng 1985; 1990), comprising ‘The King of Chess’, ‘The King of Children’ and ‘The King of Trees’, is an urban dweller who went to the country for several years.19 His writing demonstrates a personal distance from the land and the locals. He observes the land and its people and the narrator does not always live among the observed. This is a different kind of relation to the ‘native’. Jia Pingwa demonstrates a much stronger motivation in exploring their ancestral link in writing about the land and the village because the author/ narrator has a closer bond with the ‘natives’. He writes about the land from within his heart and his soul. His familiarity with and attachment to his narrative environment, his appreciation of the living conditions of the peasants, his poetic and affectionate descriptions of the rural landscape and personalities, his adoption and development of Shaanxi local language usage and, most of all, his deep understanding of the Shaanxi village social structure all contribute to his effective representation of the life and aspirations of Shaanxi peasants. Jia Pingwa’s Shangzhou stories also deﬁne his identity as a writer and he has been ranked with that of the best contemporary Chinese writers (Xiao Xialin 1993: 7–9). Meng Fanhua, a Beijing critic who subsequently criticized Jia Pingwa’s Defunct Capital in extremely harsh terms, summarized Jia Pingwa’s writing career up to 1992 with the most generous appraisal, which I quote fully in the following: !"#$%&'()*+,-./01"2345#678 !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:; !"#$%&'()*+,-./01234#5678 !"#$%&'()*+,-. /"0123*45678 !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789: !"#$%& !"#$%&'()*+,-.

The life and career of Jia Pingwa

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In the past ten years or more, Jia Pingwa has earned himself a considerable reputation in the literary world for his proliﬁc and high quality writings. He has the sensitivity of a young writer and is often ahead of fashionable trends. He is also much praised for his graceful style with its blend of classical Chinese. In his early ﬁction and essays, he excels by revealing not only the subtlety of life but also the tranquility and detachment of Taoism and Zen Buddhism. These show his solid grasp and deep understanding of Chinese traditional culture. Because of this, Jia Pingwa is not at all a fashion chaser. He is a patient writer with his own beliefs and goals in art. Many friends in the ﬁeld of literature also agree that Jia Pingwa’s writing has indeed successfully formed a unique style, which clearly derives from Chinese traditional literature, especially the literature in the Ming and Qing dynasties. All these characteristics have qualiﬁed Jia Pingwa as one of the very few writers who have sustained his position in Chinese literature from the 1980s to the 1990s with a loyal readership and followers. He is distant from the ‘centre’ but he constantly becomes the ‘centre’ by being the object of attention of the readers and critics. Very few writers in remote regions are able to sustain themselves with so much productivity for so many years without any traces of declining. (Duowei 1993: 88) Meng Fanhua’s opinion about Jia Pingwa was typical among Chinese critics. However, all this was soon to be changed with the publication of Defunct Capital in 1993. Controversy over Defunct Capital: 1993–4 The publication of Jia Pingwa’s fourth novel, Defunct Capital, carries enormous signiﬁcance in his professional life.20 It marks the shift of his cultural mapping from the rural to the urban environment, where his characters experience identity confusion and alienation as the narrative portrays a doomed destiny for traditional Chinese high culture. Linking China’s cultural past and present, Defunct Capital presents an elegy to Chinese high culture, which is ideologically and conventionally problematic in the context of cultural nationalism in the PRC in the 1990s. This change of narrative background, focus and perspective shocked Jia Pingwa’s readers and critics and provoked one of the most extreme controversies in modern Chinese literary history to date.

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Defunct Capital is a major event not only in Jia Pingwa’s own literary career but also in the history of modern Chinese literature. The book sold half a million copies within six months and generated heated debates among general readers, Party ideologues, literary critics and media commentators about its cultural conﬁguration of China, especially the sexual conduct of the major characters (Zha, Jianying 1995: 129–64). The Chinese government banned the book from 1994 and imposed a hefty ﬁne on the publisher but left the writer alone. Although Jia Pingwa has been able to continue writing and publishing, harsh criticism and personal attacks in the heat of public debates about the book’s virtue and vice have had long lasting effects. The rest of 1993 and the whole of 1994 saw only reissues of his previous writings. At the same time, his personal life went through a very difﬁcult period. Defunct Capital partly contributed to the end of his ﬁrst marriage of more than a decade and he was severely debilitated by liver disease. In his interview with Hu Wenfu , Jia Pingwa refers to this period as being overshadowed by layers of dark clouds (Jia Pingwa 2003a: 207–17). Professionally, not until the end of the 1990s were there any substantial and serious critiques of his writing. The national debate, nevertheless, helped him extend his reputation overseas, especially in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Although his previous novel Turbulence had already carried his name and person to Hong Kong and America, Defunct Capital’s triumph overseas was far more considerable, with large numbers printed in its Hong Kong and Taiwan editions. As a result, Taipei and Hong Kong publishers also began to publish Jia Pingwa’s short stories and essays. In short, Defunct Capital signalled the completion of one creative phase and the beginning of a new one in Jia Pingwa’s writing career. Re-emergence and new directions: 1995–2004 Despite all the difﬁculties he was encountering, Jia Pingwa continued writing and in 1995 he re-emerged quietly with his ﬁfth novel, White Nights. In 1996 the publication of Earth Gate brought Jia Pingwa back into public life. By 2001 Jia Pingwa’s resurrection was complete with another two novels under his belt – Old Gao Village (1998) and Remembering Wolves (2000). In 2002 his ninth novel, Health Report, came out, and in 2005 his tenth, Local Accent. Since 1995, Jia Pingwa’s speed of publication is one novel in every two years, in addition to volumes of essays, one memoir, one cultural history of Xi’an and many other writings, such as prefaces to the publications of friends and junior writers. He has also become a compiler or editor of books of or about essays. All these achievements show Jia Pingwa’s extraordinary resilience and courage and his steady insatiable quest for new horizons. Old Gao Village represents another height in his ﬁction and his representation of native place, and its literary merit and social signiﬁcance have yet to be fully appreciated by critics inside and outside China. Health Report shows

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49

signs of a new narrative direction – there are experimentations with multiple narrative voices and angles, and change of thematic concerns as well. While novels remain the main concern of his literary ambition, short stories have returned, although his narratives are increasingly critical of local characters, which is quite different from his previous lyrical, pastoral writings. The popularity of his essays remains, and the subject matter now varies widely from commenting on soccer matches to observing the creativity of his friends and acquaintances. He increasingly writes prefaces for other people’s publications, to the extent that the prefaces have become an important subgenre of his essays. As discussed previously, Jia Pingwa is a writer who will continue to grow, develop and change. The following chapters are analyses of Jia Pingwa’s major novels since 1993 in chronological order in addition to a chapter on his poetry and essays and a concluding chapter.

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Defunct Capital and cultural landscaping

3

Defunct Capital and cultural landscaping

In Defunct Capital Jia Pingwa creates an urban environment for the ﬁrst time. The shift occurred for a number of reasons, primarily as a result of Jia Pingwa’s accumulation of urban experiences and his observation of the threat to Chinese cultural traditions and intellectual life in China’s rapid marketization in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. Unlike his previous depiction of the Shaanxi village imbued with vitality and energy, Jia Pingwa’s cityscape is a forecast of the doomsday of Chinese high culture. Xijing, the narrative location, is set out as a defunct capital, exemplifying the connection between China’s cultural past and present as well as the social displacement of literati. Xijing city and its cultural scenes are laid out through a system of codes and symbols, using cultural activities as the vocabulary of cultural traditions. Shaanxi’s local cultural traditions are sites where the ‘authentic’ China is located. The system of cultural signiﬁcation through the central metaphor of ‘defunct capital’ presents a pessimistic projection of China’s social and cultural reality at the end of the twentieth century.

The story and characters Defunct Capital’s plot has no grand historical moments or heart-breaking tragedy. It details the daily life and love affairs of a writer named Zhuang Zhidie in the ﬁctional city of Xijing. He is involved in a literary lawsuit that provides plot complications for the story. Zhuang, middle-aged, short and ordinary looking, is the protagonist, or perhaps more accurately the antagonist, of the book. Zhuang is more of a literatus than a contemporary writer as illustrated by his writing, his mentality, his ambition and his lifestyle. Defunct Capital starts with Zhou Min , an ambitious young man, coming to the capital and wanting to become a famous writer like Zhuang. Like Zhuang, Zhou Min is from a small town called Tongguan, to the east of Xijing. His arrival at Xijing is the beginning of his adventure with ‘the rich and the famous’. Settlement in Xijing is also Zhou’s necessary escape, since with him also comes his girlfriend Tang Wanr , of abundant beauty and sexual attraction. She is married to an abusive husband with whom she has a child, but she decides to elope with Zhou Min. Zhou

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and Tang trust that Xijing will provide them with shelter and opportunities for Zhou Min to become successful. However, it takes time for Zhou Min to develop connections to provide the necessary passport for survival and success in the city. By chance he makes the acquaintance of Meng Yunfang . Meng is a researcher in a local cultural and historical institute and is a conspicuous character in Xijing’s cultural scene. More importantly, Meng is a close friend of Zhuang Zhidie. Being the pride of the city, Zhuang’s name carries no little commercial and political weight. By using Zhuang’s connections with an attractive bureaucrat, Zhuang’s ﬁrst girlfriend, Jing Xueyin , now in charge of the Bureau of Culture of Xijing, Meng helps Zhou ﬁnd work, without informing Zhuang at all. In no time Zhou is doing odd jobs for the editorial board of the Xijing Magazine. Anxious to succeed but even more fascinated by the anecdotes and ladder-climbing in Zhuang’s life, Zhou writes ‘The Story of Zhuang Zhidie’ which is soon published in the Xijing Magazine, without Zhuang’s knowledge or consent. It contains some ﬁctitious details about Zhuang’s life, especially Zhuang’s relationship with Jing. Zhuang acts ‘nobly’ and forgives Zhou when he reads the article, although he smells trouble. Indeed, Jing is offended and angered by the public exposure of her private, emotional life. She believes that Zhuang has used their story for personal gain and takes Zhou and Zhuang to court. Zhuang’s defeat in the lawsuit, and his estrangement from Jing become the last straw for Zhuang’s already fragile sanity. Zhuang is married with no children. His wife Niu Yueqing is a woman of abundant Chinese traditional ‘virtue’ as prescribed by Confucian decorum. She is good-looking but not attractive; kind-hearted but too selfrighteous; caring but short of understanding; shrewd but in need of imagination. Lack of communication and intimacy with his wife leads to Zhuang’s impotence, and their family life in due time collapses. However his acquaintance with Tang Wanr directly launches him on the road to romance. Tang is able to arouse Zhuang immediately and soon the two are having an affair. Zhuang enjoys sex with Tang and he regains sexual conﬁdence. He moreover develops an excessive appetite for sex and indulges in affairs with other women as well, including his housemaid Liu Yue and another woman Ah Can . Although Zhuang himself is reluctant to become involved in the politics of Xijing, the court case increasingly drags him into the mire of corrupt activities because of the corrupt functioning of the courts. In a desperate bid to win the court case, Zhuang loses his integrity and self-respect. He increasingly indulges in extra-marital sex but, in the process of the lawsuit, the women he is associated with leave him one after another. His affair with Tang Wanr is discovered by his wife who humiliates both to ensure that they can no longer freely enjoy each other’s company. To make things worse, Tang is soon kidnapped by her husband and is reportedly tortured at home. In exchange for favours from the mayor to help with the court case,

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Zhuang himself decides to marry Liu Yue to the mayor’s crippled son. Ah Can also has to leave the city because of some misfortune on her sister’s part. By now Zhuang’s wife has also resolved to divorce him and returns to live with her mother. Zhuang ends up relying ﬁnancially on the proﬁts made by his own bookshop from publications on his private life, in particular stories covering his relationship with Jing Xueyin and the infamous legal dispute between them. Zhuang at last decides to reinvent himself by destroying his own fame as a writer and cutting short his social life. He puts out a declaration in the newspaper proclaiming that he has lost the ability to write. As soon as he ceases to be the most famous writer of the city, the privileges that came with fame disappear. He is ignored by the mayor despite their familarity until a short while ago and ﬁnds himself abused by shopkeepers and others. He has indeed repositioned himself amongst the ‘common’ people but feels even more isolated. Ultimately he chooses to leave the city and as he boards the train to head south, a stroke stops him indeﬁnitely and he loses consciousness.

National allegorization As a title Defunct Capital reveals both the major theme and the narrative environment. Defunct Capital has many different connotations subject to the reader’s understanding of the book. While du in the context refers to a large or a capital city, the word fei has at least three essential meanings. It can mean to abandon or to abolish; waste, useless or disused; disabled or maimed. The three meanings are all applicable in this instance, hence the book title Feidu has the combined meanings of ‘defunct capital’, ‘waste city’, ‘the abolished capital’. Fei can also mean ‘decadent’, so that the defunct capital city may well have been abolished because it had degenerated and been abandoned.1 Defunct Capital is a metaphor for space but also a metaphor for time, for it is used to locate China’s cultural past and present. The setting of the book is Xijing, meaning the ‘west capital’, which is a historical name for the city of Xi’an. The city had been China’s capital for a number of dynasties, notably the rigorous dynasties of Qin, Han and Tang from 220 BCE to about 900 CE. With the relocation of the capital to elsewhere and eventually in Beijing, the northern capital, Xijing constitutes a ‘defunct capital’, for it has long been marginalized as the frontier city in China’s remote north-west as reﬂected in its current name, Xi’an, which means ‘the west is peaceful and calm’. According to Jia Pingwa, his reason for so naming the book is to elaborate on what he calls ‘a defunct capital consciousness’: ! !"#$%&' !"#$%&'()*+,-./ 01#2345-($

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!"#$%&'()*+,- ./01,234567 !"#$%&'()*!+,-. !"#$ !"#$%&'()*+&,-'./0123#'.456 !"#$%&'()*+!,-./0123456%789 !"#$%&'()*+$(),-./0123 I like the words ‘defunct capital’. ‘Defunct’, how much history there is! . . . Xijing could be regarded as typical of defunct capitals in China; China then could be regarded as a defunct capital of our planet; in turn the earth could be looked upon as a defunct capital of the universe. Naturally people here have a glorious past, but the past glory imposes a cultural burden. Hence the mixed feelings of loss, self-consciousness, discomfort, regret and helplessness. Such defunct capitals can be stiﬂing but they also provide opportunities for new ways out of the blood and the ﬁlth. The here and now [of defunct capitals] reinforces the hardship and perplexities of human existence. However, only through knowing the nature of such a situation can people come to terms with it and discover a way out of the blood and ﬁlth. (Xiao Xialin 1993: 194) Apparently it is from ‘the mixed feelings of loss, self-consciousness, discomfort, regret and helplessness’ with regard to the glory of the past that Jia articulates his understanding of a defunct capital city and its cultural and social implications. Jia Pingwa’s parody of Xi’an as the defunct capital of China and China as the defunct capital of the world clearly indicates his positioning of Xijing in Chinese history and Chinese culture in international space. This location dictates a comparison of China with the outside world and in turn a comparison between the present and the past. From this perspective, Defunct Capital, with its representation of contemporary literati culture, encourages a reading of its text as national and cultural allegorization.2

Semiotics of Chinese cultural space The metaphor of Xijing as a defunct capital is central to the author’s invention of Chinese cultural traditions in this novel. Imbued with literati practice, urban myths, street scenes, markets, temple ceremonies, Chinese classical music and other urban cultural ‘traditions’, Xijing is created as an urban space to showcase both literati high culture and contemporary urban popular cultures. Moreover, this cultural information is not summoned to form a picture of prosperity. Instead, the cultural encoding is geared towards landscaping a city that is dysfunctional as a metropolis and defunct as a capital. From space to time, from language to music, from traditional cultural activities to their contemporary appropriation, from food to clothing,

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from the role of literati, Buddhist monks, Taoist practitioners to many other cultural ‘specialists’, the defunct capital becomes a comprehensive embodiment of Chinese cultural dystopia. Jia Pingwa has intended this system of cultural signs quite deliberately as he explains in 1992–3, shortly before the publication of Defunct Capital: !"#$%&"#$'(')*+,-.!/01 ! !"#$%&'()*+,-./012/34'53 !"#$%&'()*+,(-./0123456789# !"#$%&'()*+== !"#$%&'()%&* (Jia Pingwa and Han Luhua 1993e: 34) These days people all talk about semiotics ( fuhao xue). I have my own views about semiotics. For instance, Poetic Criticism (Shipin ), and especially The Book of Change (Yijing ), are truly semiotics. In The Book of Change, every trigram has a general sign (xiang ). The hexagram has a general sign. In regard to writings, strictly speaking, characters and objects become signs once they enter the work. This is to elucidate something non-characters objects through signs . . . It is only through signs that there can be symbolism and images. (English translation, Lu, Sheldon 2001: 245) !"#$%&'( !)*+,$-./0123$4567 !"#$%&'()*+,"-./0(/0 12345 !"#$%&'()*+,-.,/012+34,/56 !" (Jia Pingwa and Han Luhua 1993e: 39) Art is a matter of fabrication. I want to establish a system of signs, a world of images on the basis of reality. Don’t be only concerned about whether some detail is real or unreal. It is enough if there is a kind of enlightenment, a kind of pleasure in aesthetic judgement . . . I endeavour to create a reality in fabrication, create another imaginary reality. (English translation, Lu, Sheldon 2001: 245) On the basis of this understanding, Defunct Capital’s cultural landscaping focuses on the lifestyle and individual aspirations of a literati group, the ‘cultural idlers’ as the narrator calls them, with Zhuang Zhidie as the focal point. Zhuang and his male friends are contemporary literati, who are privileged cultural agents having the expertise either to produce or to appreciate cultural products. They form a collective that has signiﬁcant cultural and social functions distinct from other groups in Xijing society. They constitute the cultural scene of Xijing and their individual activities are depicted to reﬂect the situation of Chinese cultural traditions at present.

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Zhuang Zhidie’s private space In order to compensate for his lack of cultural capital, since Zhuang Zhidie is from the countryside originally, he is conveniently married into the legendary, distinguished Niu household. The family is part of Xijing’s history and has an old house on the Double-Benevolence-Mansion Street (Shuangrenfu Jie !) in downtown Xijing. Niu Yueqing’s grandfather was a legendary hero of the city in the 1920s and 1930s. He appeared in the northern outskirts of the city out of nowhere but soon became famous, for he had the ability to know the unknowable by observing celestial events and the movements of both natural and social forces. He was also a talented strategist, and, with his magic powers, he accurately predicted the position of the enemy’s attack and helped General Yang Hucheng , Shaanxi provincial governor at the time, to protect Xijing from its enemies. Niu’s son, Niu Yueqing’s father, established the water bureau of Xijing City to distribute pure drinking water. The family still has the wooden water coupons of the old days, now collectable antique items. Despite Zhuang’s fame as the best writer of the city, he nevertheless cannot compete with the legacy of his grandfather-in-law and father-in-law, at least in winning respect from his wife and his mother-in-law. Moreover, Niu Yueqing’s father retains his presence in the family house through her mother, which limits Zhuang Zhidie’s masculine power, although it provides a kind of supernatural dimension for Zhuang’s creative curiosity. The old house of the Niu family features traditional Chinese architecture with carved woodwork and furnishings of traditional Chinese architecture. It is disgracefully run down but the very ﬁne carved decorations are still visible as indications of former grandeur and prosperity. Zhuang Zhidie’s eighty-year-old mother-in-law lives in the house by herself with occasional visits from her daughter and Zhuang. She refuses to move into the modern concrete block where Zhuang and her daughter live. She was widowed at the age of ﬁfty. At the age of sixty-three, she lost consciousness for a fortnight but miraculously came back not only to life but also to full health, to the total surprise of everyone. Her resurrection, however, puts her in touch with the ‘other’ world, in which the dead live their afterlife. From that time on, the mother-in-law exists in the worlds of both yin and yang, mediating between the dead and the living. She forces Zhuang to buy her a cofﬁn and starts sleeping in the cofﬁn, holding her shoes to her chest so as to keep her spirit from wandering. She foretells births and events, and observes cosmic changes. Her stories about the dead sound as if they are part of the living world and she is also part of their dimension. Moreover, however incredible it might be, on frequent occasions her spooky stories of the dead and the supernatural are conﬁrmed by experiences of other people in the household. For instance, without having been to the site, the mother-in-law knows that her husband’s tomb has recently acquired a neighbour and her husband is not happy with his changed ‘living’ conditions and environment. Zhuang and

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Niu Yueqing are urged to pay a visit to the tomb to remedy the situation. To Zhuang’s shock and horror, he sees an adjacent new tomb over-shadowing his father-in-law’s, and ﬁnds that some of the soil from the grave has been washed away by rainwater (36). The mother-in-law also has habits and practices to match her double existence. She preserves almost all the ‘old’ things. She makes vinegar, preserves vegetables and herbs. She leaves the dust and the cobwebs undisturbed and insists that they contain the footprints of the dead of the family. She maintains traditional practices and rituals and in fact all the ‘old’ beliefs. Her living quarters are mythical enclosures and she exists from within the cofﬁn or in the family house enclosed by walls. And yet her vision extends from the tombs of her ancestors to her own neighbouring households and far beyond. She does not seem to experience any boundaries between the living and the dead. She and her practices constitute the mystic household in which Zhuang follows and co-operates with ‘old’ traditions to invent ‘Chinese magic realism’ (37). Zhuang perceives the stories told by his mother-in-law as narratives in magic realism. He acknowledges receiving inspiration from her stories and happily conforms to her demands to improve the life of the dead and even encourages her indulgence in her double existence. In general, the Niu family functions as Zhuang’s cultural roots in Xijing. Zhuang’s own family background is never mentioned, except that he is from the county of Tongguan. The narrative also ﬁnishes with uncertainty about Zhuang’s future, because it remains unclear whether he dies or recovers in the end. Neither does he leave behind a descendant. Indeed, Zhuang Zhidie identiﬁes himself categorically with ancient literati, claiming that ‘great personalities are always without ancestry or descendants’ ( !" !"#$%) (62), as he alludes to the famous lines that have been cherished by many of the like-minded for centuries by the Tang poet Chen Zi’ang =(661–702): !"

Song on the Youzhou Terrace

No ancient men before me Or new comers after Thinking of the longevity of the heaven and the earth Alone I burst into tears (Hengtang Tuishi [Qing] 1993: 23)

!" !" !"" !"#

To be cut off from one’s ancestral roots seems to be most unbearable for Chinese literati and such situations evoke sentimental moments in them as a general rule. This element is highlighted as a precondition under which the author started writing Defunct Capital. Jia Pingwa admits that rumours about his private life and the death of his father have left him feeling devoid of ancestral connections and family continuation, particularly that he, as the eldest son, does not have a son (520).

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The arrangement of Zhuang Zhidie’s private space is highly revealing of his cultural inclinations. Zhuang and his literati friends mostly live somewhere deep in the cultural landscape – either in traditional households or in the headquarters of the cultural industry. Zhuang Zhidie’s main residence is his ofﬁcially designated ﬂat in a residential block in the courtyard of the Writers Association. The ﬂat is arranged like a cultural warehouse and the decorations are a deliberate demonstration of the literati lifestyle Zhuang cultivates. Although there are Western-style couches, carpets, a television set and other household utilities indicating a form of superﬁcial modernity, the Chinese literati tradition prevails. The furnishing and decorations apparently ‘transcend’ history: in the middle of the main wall of the lounge hangs Zhuang Zhidie’s own calligraphy in a black frame – ‘No Message from Heaven’ (shangdi wuyan !), Zhuang’s favourite quotation from some ancient book. There is a four-panel screen of phoenixes and ﬂowers against the wall, in front of which stands a black oval table with a black high-back wooden chair at each end (91). Zhuang’s study houses a large collection of antiques from Tang statues to Ming vases to Han bricks and tiles. Despite his fame as a contemporary ﬁction writer, Zhuang chooses to position himself in this ‘classical’ Chinese setting to place himself as far away from reality as possible, and he produces anything other than contemporary ﬁction, including love letters and poems in classical format. More frequently, the study is the place where he and his close friend, Meng Yunfang, read Taoist scriptures and perform glyphomancy. Alternatively, the study becomes a private chamber where Zhuang copulates with his lovers. Zhuang Zhidie has another apartment, a present from the mayor for his contribution to the mayor’s successful ‘re-election’ into ofﬁce, and Zhuang names it ‘Search for Imperfection Studio’ (Qiuque wu ), claiming the space for reﬂecting on the philosophical quest for imperfection. The apartment is supposed to be a literary salon, but Zhuang uses it more often as a hideaway where he sleeps with his mistresses, with or without any reﬂection. Again, as at home, he writes the name of his studio in his own calligraphy and hangs it up in a black frame. Not surprisingly it is here that he discovers his fantasy residence: the body of his mistress Tang Wanr, which he names ‘Worry-Free Hall’ or ‘Hall of Jouissance’ (Wuyou tang ). This time he claims her body as his private space by inscribing the name on her inner thigh with her lipstick. Zhuang’s ‘decadence’ in the Worry-Free Hall, however, hardly makes him individualistic or contemporary – his counterparts in history and at present are not dissimilar at all. When the space is demarcated with the ﬂavour of classical Chinese, it becomes clear that ‘tradition’ is the target the narrative aims at inventing. In general, Zhuang Zhidie’s various residences are theatres for the performance of Chinese traditions where he exhibits the behaviour and mentality of traditional Chinese literati, and others play supporting roles in accordance with traditional codes of conduct. His desire for antiques, his habit of naming with classical style and his calligraphic skill all derive from

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the traditions of Chinese high culture in which he indulges himself. In creating his living space according to the protocols of Chinese tradition, the narrator asserts the dominance of tradition over modernity. Moreover, Zhuang’s literati friends all live exclusively in the old, stylish houses with courtyards and high walls. They are deliberately located in the depths of Chinese culture and tradition and sheltered as much as possible from social reality. With the private space of the literary circle arranged in reﬂection of their lifestyle, the defunct capital is created, as a ‘known unknown’ location in the sense that the known space of Xijing/Xi’an has been remade outside the parameters of general perception. Xijing is thus effectively ﬁctionalized and transformed into the location of culture to stage cultural performances. Zhuang Zhidie’s literati associates Zhuang Zhidie’s best friend Meng Yunfang conducts research on Chinese culture and history and is an ardent practitioner of Buddhism, Taoism and other Chinese belief systems, despite the inconsistency. His research enables him to appreciate the value of cultural products but he does not show any genuine interest in academic research, and rarely studies for academic purposes. Instead he directs his energies to discovering more about the supernatural for his personal enlightenment. He lives partly in the supernatural world and partly in social reality, but his main interest lies in fortune-telling. He searches for the ‘heavenly’ prescribed destinies of people and society, and follows Master Wisdom at Yunhuang Temple, although not for Buddhism but to learn qigong and the system of glyphomancy. However, Meng’s quest is more pragmatic than spiritual. He craves longevity and practises whatever he learns as a means of prolonging life or preserving his bodily essence. He becomes a vegetarian and gives up smoking and drinking. In the end, he even successfully indoctrinates his son and together they embark on the ‘journey to the west’ to look for a Taoist master. Meng Yunfang personiﬁes the obsession with the supernatural in Chinese traditional culture among educated, literary males. Meng Yunfang is pragmatic and shrewd in other respects of life as well and assumes an understanding of the mechanics of Chinese society as part of the role of traditional Chinese ‘scholars’. He communicates with members of society at all levels: from the mayor to ordinary bureaucrats, from reclusive Taoists to prostitutes. When the chance arises, he also ﬂirts with nuns. He moves around at ease in Xijing among the ofﬁcials as well as in the underworld. He is also the ‘know-all’ in the cultural circles of Xijing, wellconnected with the four celebrities in the circle of ‘cultural idlers’ (wenhua xianren !) and the ‘social idlers’ (shehui xianren !), a group of ‘righteous’ social outcasts.3 Meng Yunfang is the one who introduces Xijing’s four most famous cultural idlers with details concerning their cultural engagements, their aspirations, their personal lives and his own evaluation of their professional achievements. In Meng’s introduction he

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deliberately separates Zhuang from the other three, because the other three are more practical and all have contacts with social idlers for self-protection. Meng commends Zhuang and maintains that Zhuang as a writer is a sincere person despite his accidental (in Meng’s assessment) involvement in proﬁteering, corrupt politics and womanizing. The ﬁrst of the four famous Xijing cultural idlers is Wang Ximian ( ), a successful artist in traditional Chinese brush painting and also a talented forger of masterpieces. He made his fortune by selling his forgeries at the Wild Goose Pagoda, a historical site on the outskirts of Xijing, which attracts hundreds of domestic and international tourists daily. Wang Ximian is also well known for his promiscuity, able to afford and often take female companions wherever he goes, whereas his wife is left to live with his mother. However, Wang’s forgery business eventually attracts the attention of inspectors and he is soon sought by the police. Calligrapher Gong Jingyuan ( ), cultural idler number two, conquers Xijing with his calligraphy to the extent that almost all the shops, restaurants, hotels and other public venues regard the display of his works as an unofﬁcial but more authoritative recognition of certain standards. All the famous chefs in the city would have cooked for him in order to establish their business successfully, because Gong Jingyuan’s fame as a gourmet entails that his visits mean an excellent rating. His calligraphy is prized by collectors and anything he writes has a high market value. However, since his hobbies include gourmet food, women and gambling, not unlike the old-time scholars, he is not a ‘law-abiding citizen’ of the ‘civil society’. He is hence also a frequent visitor to the police station. Furthermore, Gong has a son who is a hopeless drug addict and who sells off Gong’s calligraphy and art collection for drugs. Towards the end of the novel, Gong is once again arrested by the police for gambling and the ﬁne asked by the police is beyond what Gong’s son can pay. At this critical moment Zhuang Zhidie intervenes and becomes the agent for both Gong’s salvation and his destruction. In order to pay the ransom demanded by the police, Gong’s son is cornered by Zhuang to sell him the best of Gong’s calligraphy and art collection. On his release from prison Gong is devastated at the loss of his artistic treasures and commits suicide. Ruan Zhifei ( ) is the third in the group. He was originally a skilled performer and a master of some special techniques of the local opera, Qinqiang. Ruan grasps an opportunity in the open market economy and becomes the proprietor of an entertainment business that has a band, a troupe of dancers and a team of fashion models. Ruan’s business soon prospers, and the capital accumulated allows him to expand the business to catering and modelling. However, his big money and ﬂamboyant lifestyle make him a target of envy and greed which lead to him being robbed one evening after work. His eyes are injured and replaced with transplants from a dog. Zhao Jingwu , a friend and a business partner of Zhuang Zhidie in bookselling and the antique trade, offers a fascinating family saga which

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links Xijing with some key events in modern Chinese history and therefore allows the city to acquire a role of national importance. According to Zhao, he is a descendant of the secretary to the Minister of Justice in the Qing court under the regency of the Empress Dowager Cixi, China’s last empress (1835–1908), who ruled China at a time when China was confronted with world powers at its doorstep. Zhao’s grandfather was supposedly one of the top ﬁve ofﬁcials in favour of military resistance to foreign invasion during the Opium War (1839–42) and a secret supporter of the Boxer Rebellion, a secret society turned into the popular xenophobic movement in the late 1890s with the slogan ‘Overthrow the Qing; destroy the foreigner’ (Fairbank 1992: 376–83). When the Qing court failed in their effort to resist the foreigners, Cixi had to escape from Beijing. Zhao’s grandfather was Cixi’s companion and guard in her escape to Xijing. After the Qing court signed the peace treaty with the foreign powers, the foreigners allegedly demanded public execution of Zhao’s grandfather as revenge and also to silence Chinese resistance. Cixi, not having further negotiating power with the foreigners, reluctantly ordered Zhao’s grandfather to commit suicide, despite a demonstration of sixty thousand Xijing residents protesting against the decision. At the age of ﬁfty, Zhao’s grandfather attempted the traditional way of committing suicide by swallowing gold, but he was unsuccessful and his servants had to place paper over his face to suffocate him. The family saga is interesting enough but what is more interesting is the way Zhao Jingwu narrates his grandfather’s tragedy: he shows more pride than grief and regrets only that his grandfather died in his prime, unable to ensure the welfare and career success of his descendants in ofﬁcialdom. The narrative deliberately avoids glorifying the past and, of course, with such an undigniﬁed death and his loyalty to Empress Dowager, the public enemy of Chinese people at least in popular belief, Zhao’s grandfather can only be a national hero of ambivalent political signiﬁcance. Like Zhuang’s father-in-law, Zhao’s grandfather is inserted to stand for ‘cultural’ legacy and Defunct Capital has in several ways transformed political capital into relevant and valuable cultural heritage. Hence, although Zhao Jingwu’s grandfather fails to provide his grandson with assets for a political career, he leaves Zhao Jingwu abundant cultural heritage. Zhao Jingwu’s family and personal history demonstrates how ownership of cultural history becomes materialized in the ownership of cultural sites. His expertise for antique dealing derives from his up-bringing in an aristocrat household with many cultural relics from the past. The Zhao family used to own the entire Western Bureau Street (Xifu jie ), famous for buildings with traditional architecture, craftsmanship and many other cultural characteristics. As a result of the family’s gradual decline into poverty, all the houses have been sold except for the one which Zhao now occupies with his parents. Now even the remaining house also has to go – the city council has decided to build a modern sports stadium on the street. Prior to the demolition of the house, Zhao invites Zhuang over specially for

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a visit of cultural nostalgia. Apart from traditional Chinese architectural features, the family house is like a museum with a display of many invaluable cultural objects and collections of paintings, calligraphy, ceramics, bronze utensils, ancient coins, old rubbings, carvings and much more. Zhao is most proud of his collection of inkstands, each of which is ancient and inscribed with anecdotes and tales of its own. Zhao and Zhuang share an interest in and fascination for cultural items and antique dealing. Zhao collects not only antiques but also contemporary objects, such as Zhuang’s manuscripts and calligraphy. In the literati circle of Xijing, items related to many of the late Chinese communist leaders have become collectable new antiques, as those leaders are regarded as heads of dynasties. Their cultural signiﬁcance seems to derive from their political importance and yet has ironically nulliﬁed their relevance to the current political situation. Mao Zedong, Kang Sheng, Zhao Yuanren, Kang Youwei, Yang Hucheng, renowned ﬁgures in modern Chinese history, are all relevant to Xijing’s cultural discourse, despite their enormously varied political ramiﬁcations in modern Chinese history.4 In the cultural context provided by those politically inﬂuential ﬁgures as cultural heritage, pieces of Zhuang’s calligraphy are sought after by Zhao both as collectable items for himself and as goods for future transaction in his own networking. In return, Zhao presents to Zhuang a pair of Song Dynasty bronze mirrors with delicate carvings and ﬁne inscriptions. The history of the Zhao family exempliﬁes the degeneration of the aristocracy to commoners and highlights the endangered situation of the Chinese literati tradition. With Zhao Jingwu trading on the family heritage like any other commodity, the high culture his family stands for has come to a symbolic death. Zhao Jingwu himself personiﬁes the (dis)connection between China’s cultural past and present. Although he is the descendant of the ruling elite, Zhao has lost touch with political power and has little political ambition. In addition, if viewed from the Confucian point of view, he has also failed to honour his ancestors by not being able to marry and to produce a son. His interest in art collecting is purely commercial and yet, without the enrichment of his cultural heritage, he would not have been able to understand the monetary value of his dealings. In the process of transacting art as goods, he nevertheless participates in the commodiﬁcation of the very cultural objects valued by his family. Unlike his friend Zhuang Zhidie, who consciously undertakes self-cultivation and is profoundly shaken by the process of social reiﬁcation, Zhao Jingwu understands and moves in a society increasingly industrialized and with a booming market economy. Zhao’s attitude towards materializing his own cultural heritage bespeaks the death of his traditional belonging. Zhao’s pettiness and ruthlessness in his cultural business dealings indicate the emergence of a new breed of businessmen who trade in cultural knowledge and products. His image is that of the younger generation of cultural idlers, whose outlook and lifestyle differ from those of their forefathers, the

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traditional literati. The latter are artistically skilled, with specialties either as artists, calligraphers or poets, and are directly involved in cultural production and cultivation, whereas Zhao and his peers are more interested in culture as business or adventure. Zhou Min’s scandalous writing about Zhuang’s love affair is another instance of such ‘adventures’. Such cultural degeneration is obviously caused by the invasive market economy. The commercial reiﬁcation of cultural traditions has only one result: the death of Chinese civilization as illustrated by Xijing as the defunct capital.

The implications of ‘cultural idlers’ The ‘cultural idlers’ have in common, on the one hand, their commodiﬁcation of cultural products for material wealth and, on the other hand, their lucrative ways of generating wealth from their cultural capital assets. Their daily life comprises mostly cultural activities and business exchange involving cultural products. Zhuang Zhidie’s other friends from the editorial board of the Xijing Magazine, for instance, would gather together from time to time to discuss ‘pure literature’. Most likely one of them has discovered Han Dynasty bricks in a garbage pile. At dinner parties, hosts and guests play word games (as in The Dream of the Red Chamber) that demand and display a good grasp of vocabulary, or they all sit around to talk about Zen or The Book of Changes. They frequent bookshops, entertainment centres and temples. To honour their friends, they compose classical poetry and their calligraphy to one another fetches high prices on the market. Their presents to each other or even their bribes to ofﬁcials have to be products of high culture of good taste, whether antiques, calligraphy or paintings but deﬁnitely not the commonplace cigarettes and wine. To sum up, wealth and sex are indispensable pleasure for them and, with their cultural skills as capital, both are readily available. The role and connotations in contemporary Chinese society of ‘cultural idlers’, were a focal point in the controversy over Defunct Capital. In an article titled ‘Townships, Literati and Old Novels’, Wu Liang considers Defunct Capital a poor imitation of ‘old’ ( jiu , both in terms of the form and the content) Chinese novels: ! !"# !"#$%&' !"#$%&'#()*+,-./0123)*+, !"#$%&'() ! !"#$%& !"#$%&'()*+,- ./0 !" !"#$ the characters in Defunct Capital are not intellectuals but old-fashioned cultural dilettantes – those who watch the sky from the bottom of the well – artists, writers, performers, calligraphers and researchers of culture and history. These ancient occupations, together with the ‘cultural circles of Xijing’, are not only indications of the cultural retrogression

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in Xijing but also evidence that Defunct Capital adopts the perspective of those cultural dilettantes, which necessarily betrays the non-urban and non-intellectual stance of Defunct Capital. (Jiang Xin 1994: 255) Wu Liang insists that Defunct Capital is not a novel about modern city or contemporary urban life but a ‘story about a small town’ at the end of the twentieth century told in the language of folklore and village fashions. By doing this, Wu Liang argues, the narrative leads the reader to observe, through the eyes of a peasant, the displacement experienced by a group of narcissistic, old-fashioned literati in modern times. Wu Liang sees Defunct Capital as extremely narrow-minded in its perception of Chinese culture and society and he pronounces Defunct Capital ‘a tasteless, sick, weak and out-of-tune distortion of history’ (Jiang Xin 1994: 257). Wu Guozhang holds an opposite view as to what the roles of the ‘decadent’ literati entail, although he agrees that Defunct Capital ’s characters are cultural dilettantes and not modern, enlightened intellectuals: !"#$%&'()*+,-./012+%345()6 !"#$%!&' !"#$%&'()*+, !"#$%&'(&)*+,)-./01&2345/67 != !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456 !"#$%&'()*+%,-./01)2#$&'33 !"#$%&'()*+,-./012345678% !"#$%&'(&)*+, -"./%01234 56 !"D !"#$%&'()*+,-./01 !"#$%&'()*+,- ./0123456 !"# !"#$%#&'()*+,-./0123 !"#$%&' In terms of social groups, the so-called concept of ‘cultured people’ is rather obscure. One cannot draw an equation between knowledge and culture. Defunct Capital does not make a clear distinction of the group among others. But when an author uses writers and artists as the subjects in his narrative, he is able to reach the very bottom of the collective psyche. The point here is not to say that writers and artists are outstanding representatives of society, but rather that they best reﬂect various kinds of cultural accretions . . . Generally speaking, they are the creators of the cultural achievements of a society, but at the same time they are also critics of the cultural values of that society . . . In Chinese literary history, The Scholars exposes the insigniﬁcance of literati in society. Fortress Besieged tells about the impotence of the intellectuals in coping with their own emotions. Both are far from attaining the depth of Defunct Capital, especially in terms of its exposition of the conﬂicts between human dignity, human nature and culture. (Xiao Xialin 1993: 174)

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Wu Guozhang’s comment is representative of a number of critics who see Defunct Capital as a timely reﬂection on the conﬂicts between Chinese cultural tradition and current social changes, and on the confrontation between the oppressive nature of traditional protocols and individual desires. In agreement with Wu Guozhang are Bai Ye , a researcher and a literary critic, Defunct Capital ’s editor Tian Zhenying and Jia Pingwa’s biographer Fei Bingxun. All acknowledge that Defunct Capital expresses bold social criticism while it probes deeply into the sense of loss for Chinese intellectual elite in current social changes through depiction of the sexual conduct of the literati characters. Bai Ye identiﬁes the book as the reverse Bildungsroman of the major character Zhuang Zhidie, in the way Zhuang degenerates from a celebrity (mingren ) to an idler (xianren ) and ﬁnally a useless person ( feiren ) (Xiao Xialin 1993: 162). Zeng Zhennan shares this view and considers Defunct Capital extraordinary in at least two aspects: ﬁrst its realistic and straightforward mirroring of present social reality in Chinese cities and second its empathetic review of the tragic circumstances in the life and mentality of Chinese writers and artists at the present time (Jiang Xin 1993: 159–61). The decadent and outrageous conduct of Zhuang Zhidie and his friends is conspicuously negative and they are often mistaken for ‘(mis)representing’ modern Chinese intellectuals. However, their roles are those of cultural idlers and not those of modern intellectuals. These are two distinct social groups, although both have education and engage in cultural activities. The roles given to the cultural idlers in the book are speciﬁcally those of scholars and producers of high culture in traditional Chinese society in transition, that is, those of literati or wenren with knowledge, skill and lifestyle compatible with their social status. Contemporary social changes have modiﬁed their position and rendered them ‘idle’ in the sense that high culture as a way of life is no longer viable. Literati have hence become an endangered species, if not completely extinct. The term ‘intellectuals’, or zhishi fenzi !, generally refers to the social group with a higher than average level of education. More importantly Chinese intellectuals have an overtly political role. Many of them are conscious of social responsibilities and take upon themselves the destiny of saving China from disgrace.5 In short, Zhuang Zhidie and his literati friends in Xijing are culturally and socially deﬁnitive as actors of Chinese cultural protocols. Defunct Capital presents the process in which those literati are being displaced. This group is made up of calligraphers, artists, singers, performers, writers, editors and journalists, but at the same time they are also gamblers, forgers, proprietors and traders. They trade in cultural products, commodifying their own and other people’s creative works. They move around sites of historical and cultural heritage and thrive on the commercial gains of their cultural possessions. On the one hand, this group enriches the cultural life of Xijing and makes important contributions. On the other, they also embody the decadence and disillusion in society, as they bribe, corrupt and womanize. Moreover,

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they are sentimental about their increasing marginalization in the Chinese society. Their dignity is more often than not sacriﬁced for ﬁnancial or political necessity and this causes psychological disturbances and trauma. They are cultural phenomena themselves and products of a Chinese society that is experiencing drastic value changes. The characterization of Zhuang Zhidie as an ‘antagonist’ obsessed with cultural cultivation and excessive sexual encounters is problematic in the context of the PRC cultural nationalism. Paradoxically, some critics realize the implications of Zhuang as a personiﬁcation of the decline of traditional Chinese high culture and yet such symbolism is dismissed as an unacceptable literary exercise. Chen Xuguang points out speciﬁcally that the reality of Xijing and the life of Zhuang Zhidie ‘imply the worsening predicament of Chinese literati and their helplessness in real life at present’ and that ‘the simple truth is that Chinese literati can no longer afford to remain aloof from politics and material pursuits. The story of Defunct Capital is indeed the history of the fall of the four famous dilettantes of Xijing and also the record of the failure of Zhuang Zhidie as the last recluse’ (Duowei 1993: 112). Chen’s insightful comment highlights the quality of Zhuang as a literatus cultivating a tradition on his own. More importantly, as Chen states, it is not appropriate to view modern Chinese intellectuals in Zhuang Zhidie’s image of decadence. The cultural idlers and their role in Xijing’s urban life are far more symbolic than realistic. They do not constitute a social group that embodies political activism for speciﬁc political ideology or purposes. Instead, they are inherently part of the social system that derives from the culture they represent. As cultural signiﬁers, they are also created with their own conjoined twins – their counterparts, the transgressive social idlers. In fact, the younger generation of cultural idlers frequently switch between these two identities. Zhou Min, Zhao Jingwu and Hong Jiang , for instance, are cultural idlers and hooligans at the same time. Their power in society is culturally meaningful in that their behaviour follows cultural codes and social or group protocols rather than law as dictated by the state. They alternate between being instrumental to or antagonistic towards the authorities, which on the other hand, also tolerate and use them for their political ends. The narrative focus on the ‘idlers’, whether cultural or antisocial, is compatible with Defunct Capital ’s systematic cultural landscaping, for these have been organic to Chinese society since ancient times. If, say, other groups had been chosen for the task of cultural encoding, such as university students or factory workers, they would have been too ‘new’ and too ‘modern’ to personify the sense of China’s prolonged history and the gloom of cultural decline. Furthermore, other groups might have been overloaded with political connotations that could easily overtake their cultural signiﬁcance. Although it may be argued that Jia Pingwa’s characters are either peasants or literati because of his personal background, the subjectivity of those characters is culturally meaningful precisely as such: Jia Pingwa has

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indicated throughout his writing that the popular or folk cultures represented by peasants and the high culture represented by literati constitute the very ‘essence’ of Chinese civilization. With misfortune befalling all the cultural idlers, Defunct Capital is obviously constructed as an elegy to Chinese high culture. The dilemma of Xijing’s literati also extends to the city itself so that ‘defunct capital’ is not only a metaphor but also a cultural and social reality. Like many other ancient cities, its prosperity in modern society relies on cultural tourism in particular and cultural commodiﬁcation. By nature, this process negates the very value of the cultural traditions but Xijing does not have much choice. Very soon Xijing’s development and town planning are geared towards an emphasis on restoration, or rather a commercial reinvention of the past, since proﬁt stands in the way of proper research and restoration. Soon, construction of the city’s ‘historical’ sites becomes the focus of township development, blatantly geared for commercial activities: !"#$%&' #(%)#(*+,-./012345 !"#$%&'()%*+,"-'./0123456)% !"#$%&'()*'+,-./012345!"#$ !"#$%&'()*+, the city walls of Xijing have been renovated; the moat has been dredged and along the moat an entertainment centre with local architectural characteristics has been established. Furthermore, three streets have been restructured: ﬁrst, a Tang dynasty Street, specializing in the sale of paintings, calligraphy and ﬁne porcelain; second, a Song dynasty Street, which is an extended food court speciﬁcally organized to promote Shaanxi’s local cuisine; and the last is a Ming-Qing dynasty Street, concentrating on folk art and handicrafts as well as other local specialties. (4–5) At the same time, destruction of ‘authentic’ cultural sites takes place to make space for those fake historical streets. Old houses are demolished one after another to give way to new concrete blocks. The family houses of the Nius and the Zhaos both vanish in no time, and so does the cultural ‘authenticity’ they stand for. While Xijing residents experience the painful death of their old city in the hope that the transformation into modernity may happen like a miracle, they are avenged by the backlash of their own history. From the ruins of old houses, thousands of vicious moths, dormant for centuries hidden underground or in the cracks of old walls, now awaken to attack them. Their bites are extremely unpleasant and sometimes fatal. The gods must be angry too, since violent ﬂoods also come as part of the cosmic reaction to human misconduct. Electricity is cut off, transportation stops and epidemics break out. Physically and culturally the capital city of the ancient civilization becomes totally dysfunctional.

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In their compliance with the process of commodiﬁcation, Xijing’s literati have turned themselves into entrepreneurs, adapting themselves to commercial means for survival. However, this very adaptation entails self-denial and thus a dilemma: their commercial success means the death of the elite literati traditions they represent. As a result none of the male literati characters comes to a good end. Their tragic destinies indicate an unpromising future for Chinese society projected as the defunct capital at the ﬁn de siècle. As cultural remnants in the defunct capital, the misfortune of the literati in the end is perceivably an omen of the gloomy future of Chinese high culture. In this sense, the literati or entrepreneurs symbolize China’s transition from the past to the present and are important constituents of the current cultural landscape, implicating special ramiﬁcations for ‘Chinese’ cultural traditions. Most noticeably their images do not glorify but critique aspects of the Chinese culture they stand for. The negative images of the literati characters are caricatured to emphasize qualities bearing negative traits of Chinese cultural traditions. Indeed such negative characters are not easily acceptable to Chinese readers or critics as mirroring either Chinese reality or Chinese cultural tradition.

Marketplaces, popular culture and urban life in Xijing In sharp contrast to the painful death and commodiﬁcation of Xijing’s literati and high culture are the prosperity of popular culture and the practice of popular religions. The markets, temples and streets are full of vitality. The most dynamic feature in Xijing’s urban life is the local markets scattered around the city and frequented by all sorts of people; many activities also take place in the marketplaces. At the grocery markets, all kinds of local agrarian produce are available for the local cuisine and essential not only for the daily living of the local people but also for the dinner parties held in the family homes of Xijing’s literati, where they display the best of local cooking with local ingredients and spices in characteristically rural Shaanxi style. Niu Yueqing’s shopping lists, for instance, reveal the family and their friends’ close link with their rural roots. The ‘ghost’ market receives its name from its evening opening hours and the fact that many transactions there are not strictly legal, particularly the trading in industrial products, from screwdrivers to bags of cement to steel plates. Most local residents apparently lead a very different life from the elite and from what the authorities prescribe for them. The markets that deal with cultural products are also booming. Most of the cultural goods are forgeries produced by people like Ruan Zhifei and are destined for the markets in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou and eventually for those in Hong Kong and overseas. The pet market called Dangzi, meaning the ‘Gap’, is not very big but very crowded and most remarkable (317–19). The market has for sale a large variety of pet animals, from rare and near-extinct species of birds to ﬁsh and insects, as well as plants, containers and animal food. Fighting crickets are

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sold, and passers-by are more than welcome to witness prize ﬁghts between shrewd ‘champion’ crickets. The visitors and stall vendors of Dangzi come from all walks of life and from all sorts of backgrounds, particularly from the ‘low’ or dark sides of society, and they may be Taoist, kungfu practitioners, gangsters, outlaws and even criminals. When Zhuang Zhidie happens to visit Dangzi, the market takes him by surprise with its prosperity, dynamism and extraordinary orderliness that he believes can be found only in a preindustrialized community. There is no policing, and community rituals and traditional ethics rule with efﬁciency. Old traditions are followed meticulously and business transactions are conducted in accordance with traditional business protocols. Even the language there is different, and Zhuang Zhidie ﬁnds himself a total stranger. The liveliness of such ‘lower’ life in its native locality contrasts greatly with the placelessness of the ‘high’ culture and the constant feeling of self-loss and self-pity on the part of literati. Though not particularly relevant in terms of the plot development or characterization, the markets are necessary cultural signiﬁers as wonderful displays of local customs and traditions, especially the dynamism and vitality of common local Xijing residents, posing a sharp contrast and mocking the decline of the literati. From the markets to streets, one is likely to run into one of the most ‘outstanding’ characters of Xijing: the cow. She comes from Mount Ultimate South and plays a number of crucial narrative roles. As carer and intimate conﬁdant to Zhuang Zhidie, she is also an independent narrator and a detached, philosophical observer of social changes with a unique voice. Having lived several lives already as a cow, her life journey is drawn as a parallel to the degradation of social alienation in the process of human civilization. Either among her own herd in Mount Ultimate South or in villages among the humans in and outside of Xijing City, her memory records history as it ‘progresses’. Her existence in Mount Ultimate South is idealistically harmonious, as it is believed to be one of the ‘holy’ sites of Chinese culture and indigenous religion. Lying to the south of Xi’an, it is said that some of the prominent early Taoists lived there and practised the religion there. As a literary motif, the mountain has frequently appeared in literary texts, especially in classical poetry as a location of natural harmony and beauty, symbolizing location in nature. However, in modern Chinese literature, Mount Ultimate South seems to have disappeared. Its resurrection in conjunction with the defunct capital articulates the binary between nature and culture and an appreciation of nature. The cow stands for the belief that nature nurtures life and culture destroys it, a motif with which Jia Pingwa is to re-engage in his 2000 novel, Remembering Wolves. At the same time, the idealized Mount Ultimate South is a deliberate removal from its reality of having been a popular tourist site for years. However, the fond memory of the cow enables Zhuang Zhidie to retain the site as the location of the dream of the literati to return to the life of a recluse, as an alternative to socialized existence.

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The association between the cow and Zhuang Zhidie is emotional, historical, cultural, intellectual and spiritual. Zhuang is married into the Niu/cow family, because Niu means cow. Zhuang is the one who saves the cow with his suggestion that her owner, Sister Liu, takes her to the city to sell her ‘authentic’ milk directly from her teats. They have developed special means of communicating with each other, share an unusual empathy, and they are able to read each other’s minds meaningfully. Moreover, the cow simply knows his whereabouts and will greet him warmly with her special ‘mooing’. She offers her teats for him and for him only to suck in public. Subconsciously, Zhuang is also aware of the cow’s well-being and miraculously appears at the cow’s side when she falls sick, and again at her death ‘bed’ on her last day. In addition, the cow is also an acquaintance of Liu Yue, Zhuang’s mistress and housemaid. In their previous life, Liu Yue used to be a cat at the old Niu household when the cow worked for the Niu family and pulled the water-delivery cart. Liu Yue as the cat still owes the cow a favour and in their brief encounter in the current life the cow takes revenge by breaking Liu Yue’s bracelet. The cow observes that Liu Yue’s personality echoes the conduct of the cat and understands that Liu Yue’s position as a servant from the country is compatible with her previous destiny as a cat, and perhaps a slight promotion in the cow’s opinion. The intertwining of the cow’s life with those of the humans provides her with the opportunity to make observations on human society and to draw a comparison in terms of evolution and degeneration between the humans and the animals they have domesticated. The narration of the cow is conducted in the ﬁrst person so that her perception of social and material alienation of humans and cows is conveyed as inner thoughts. In her knowledge, humans and cows both had apes as their ancestors. They grew apart because they had different thinking modes – humans use their capacity for speech whereas cows ruminate. The close blood tie of cows with humans has led to their willing subjugation by humans, despite their strength and intelligence. Humans have conquered cows with their whips and their ingratitude. The cow concludes that the ruthlessness of humans will bring their downfall, although so far it has brought prosperity. In the cow’s analysis, this is the result of urban dwelling, which has caused humans to lose their vital energies. The cities are crowded and polluted, and food is too reﬁned to produce enough energy: permanent damage has been caused to their wellbeing. The cow even has the urge to invade every household to rape and impregnate every woman so as to make humans genetically stronger (254). Unfortunately, the cow herself is no exception and falls victim to living in the city. She contracts stomach cancer and soon dies. Her death, in the presence of Zhuang, is mourned by him and her carer, Sister Liu, and their sadness is shared by other cattle in the village. At the moment of the cow’s death, the cattle manifest a magniﬁcent demonstration of their anguish and pain, a scene comparable to the funerals of Zhuang’s calligrapher friend

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Gong Jingyuan and the magazine editor Zhong Weixian . Unable to bear separation from the cow, Zhuang Zhidie takes her skin home. Before Zhuang departs from Xijing, Ruan Zhifei, who is in charge of the Xijing art festival, takes the skin for a drum which is to be placed on the top of the tower gate of Xijing. The cow’s life is thus perpetuated as she will continue to oversee the cultural scenes of the city and express herself loudly to the entire city. The author conveniently embodies a supernatural voice in the cow as part of his experimentation in ‘Chinese’ magic realism. The cow is able to tell the story from quite different narrative angles, exploring supernatural aspects of Chinese life as experienced through folklore and popular religions. The cow has been an important symbol in Chinese popular culture. Its role as guardian of Hell in Chinese mythology is expressed in set phrases such as ‘cow’s head and horse’s face’ (niutou mamian !) or ‘cow ghost and snake spirit’ (niugui sheshen !). The choice of the cow as a philosopher who contemplates the meaning of human existence and the ‘sins’ of civilization is a cultural decision as well as a political one. The cow’s distance from political interests is a safeguard and allows the author the freedom to comment on any aspect of human behaviour. The cow, being a Chinese cultural symbol, is able to convey the mood of the ﬁn de siècle from the stance of ‘culture versus nature’ rather than involving party–state political ideologies directly. She conveniently enters and leaves human society not as a participating subject but as an observer, representing ‘nature’ which is being progressively damaged by ‘culture’. She is able to see and say what is prohibited to human individuals by the social conventions and the state ideological apparatus. Defunct Capital is effective in its creation of two simultaneous historical moments, the now of commercial reiﬁcation and the then of glory and traditional order. The novel’s articulation of history is achieved largely through its understanding of the inseparability of space and time, and its deliberate interplay of the two. In order to express the perplexity of an ancient civilization confronting contemporary times and the imperative of modernization, the narrative illustrates how the present and the past interact and intertwine in the same spatial locality. As such, multiple pasts are reinvented in one modern space, and modern times emerge within the debris of the past. Distance is either inserted or deleted to contrive contemporality and historicity alternatively. Nevertheless, the irreversible process of ageing and decaying prevails and it gives a sense of the elegiac to the general atmosphere of the narrative. In Defunct Capital the present is often overshadowed by the past. This overwhelming currency of the past is crucial in the construct of the time structure in the narrative. From this extension of the past into the present, the narrative deﬁnes a cultural space where time appears static. The narrator patiently and repeatedly guides the reader through a cultural environment with overwhelming evidence of its antiquity: the run-down temples, the city

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walls, the clock towers, the imperial cemetery, the city moat and its various restaurants with names of special historical signiﬁcance. This space is also constantly ﬁlled with the melancholy of the ancient music of the xun to reinforce the lingering of an ancient civilization in modern times. The xun music always hovers in the air, in the remote distance or close by, mingling with the funereal tunes of Qinqiang (Shaanxi local opera), which the protagonist Zhuang is particularly fond of listening to, especially during his bouts of chronic depression. Despite the presence of modern technology (cars, telephones, tape-recorders) and big building blocks, the majority of urban spaces described in the narrative display their historical heritage in great detail and show a much stronger echo of the past than of the present. Defunct Capital is as much about history as about contemporary Chinese society. The city of Xijing, as a symbol of lost glory and marginalized centre of the past, expresses not only a nostalgia with regard to history but also a regret at the doomed future of the ‘essence’ of Chinese civilization. Because of Xijing’s centrality in Chinese history, the author insists on equating historicity with authenticity. In other words, because Xijing has been the capital for many Chinese dynasties, the author insists on its local identity and cultural traditions as those that inevitably deﬁne China. With narrative events being mostly contemporary and cultural practice historical, the past and the present are in effect merged in the location of Xijing through the metaphor of a defunct capital.

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Defunct Capital and the sexual dissident

Much of the controversy over Defunct Capital is related to the sexual conduct of the major character Zhuang Zhidie. Interpretation of Zhuang Zhidie’s sexuality and sexual involvement is essential in a critical assessment of Defunct Capital, because the narrative devotes a fair amount of text to his sexual engagements, and much of his inner world is revealed through his sexual activities. The authorities claim that the novel contains pornographic content harmful to the minds of the young and have banned the book since 1994 (Zha, Jianying 1995: 163–4). Indeed, the sexual descriptions are bold and explicit to the extent that many critics question the author’s intent. Hence the focus of criticism and controversy over the novel is largely argument about whether the author uses sex as bait to seduce readers – indeed, the book is believed to have sold half a million copies within the ﬁrst few months (Zha, Jianying 1995: 129). In addition, Zhuang Zhidie’s sexuality is rather problematic, for it is not clear how he is able to retain such powerful sexual attraction with his obviously unattractive physical appearance. His personality is even more problematic: temperamentally, he is unstable and irritable; morally he is a habitual polygamous adulterer; physically he suffers from periodic impotence; psychologically he is rather disturbed, torn between guilt and desire. A major contributor to the formation of Zhuang Zhidie’s sexuality is his social belonging as a literatus. His behaviour and mentality are so closely associated with the historical and cultural protocols of traditional literati that an understanding of his sexuality requires an understanding of the sexuality of his historical and cultural counterparts. In the context of Chinese high culture, writing has often been an indication of the degree and style of personal cultivation and the means to achieving political power or success in sexual seduction. Zhuang’s sexual adventures reﬂect the masculine nature of writing as presented in the text and in the context of Chinese cultural traditions. Masculinity as demonstrated by Zhuang Zhidie is ‘soft’, although by no means weak, as it is reﬂected not through his physical strength but in his literary talent and artistic achievement. The manner in which Zhuang succeeds sexually makes him a stereotype of the talented scholar in the traditional Chinese caizijiaren ! romance, i.e. love stories depicting ‘a talented

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scholar and a beautiful woman’. Defunct Capital thus compels a reading into the relationships between identity, sexuality and textuality and in particular, the literary tradition of privileging ‘soft’ masculinity. More importantly, in terms of Chinese national signiﬁcance and its usual manifestation in male sexual potency, especially in the early 1990s when there was a deep social concern for the weakening of masculinity (Zhong, Xueping 2000: 5), Zhuang Zhidie may qualify as a sexual dissident. His sexual indulgence serves as a diversion from and subverts the promotion of national potency. Zhuang Zhidie’s ‘soft’ masculinity was problematic in the context of Chinese cultural nationalism in the 1990s, and as a ‘sexual’ dissident Zhuang’s characterization contributed to its rejection by many literary critics and the subsequent ofﬁcial banning of Defunct Capital.

The triumph of ‘soft’ masculinity in scholar–beauty romance Chinese literature has a long tradition of scholar–beauty romances – love stories between a talented scholar (caizi ) and a beautiful woman ( jiaren ). The genre has often privileged ‘soft’ masculinity as demonstrated by talented scholars, especially those studying for the imperial examination, or by intellectuals in modern times. The sexual attractiveness of such an educated male mostly derives from his cultural cultivation and his literary talent; hence, masculinity displayed through cultural or literary engagement is ‘soft’ in contrast to that of ‘tough guys with muscles’. ‘Soft’ masculinity is a result and an indication of sophisticated cultural tastes in art and literature. In traditional Chinese high culture, writing has been an indication of personal cultivation, the means to succeed in sexual seduction and the way to achieve political power. ‘The talented scholar’ has been the model of charm for male characters and has had many enduring representatives in Chinese literary history. ‘Soft’ masculinity appears to have occupied a central position in Chinese writing from the Tang dynasty until recent times. There has been much more narrative focus on the talented scholar than on other social groups. ‘Soft’ masculinity holds the supreme position – at least in the realm of arts and literature. Chinese literary representation has mostly favoured the scholar in its depictions of masculinity, and has to some extent contrived a hierarchy between the cultural and the physical. In his recent book on Chinese masculinity, Kam Louie raises the importance of avoiding the use of Western notions of masculinity as the ‘norm’ in the study of Chinese masculinity and of avoiding generating simple and reductive comparisons between the two (Louie, K. 2002: 8–9). His study of the wen–wu paradigm provides a useful framework for understanding the models of Chinese masculinity. The polarity between wen, cultural attainment, and wu, martial valour, invokes the authority of both the scholar and the soldier in the discourse of Chinese masculinity. Louie observes that Chinese masculinity can comprise both wen and wu and that a scholar is considered no less masculine than a soldier. More importantly, Chinese

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men might aspire to achieve both, and either was considered acceptably manly. Although the examples he uses to support the wen–wu paradigm mostly fall into the practices of the cultural elite in Chinese history, Louie rightly points out that the hierarchic structure of wen–wu has mostly favoured wen historically. Louie’s exploration of the wen–wu dyad explains the privileged appearance of the scholar and ‘soft’ masculinity in Chinese literature. More importantly, when literary representations of the soldier and the scholar are compared, the scholar usually dominates and is therefore seen as more ‘masculine’. The scholar apparently has more political inﬂuence than the soldier and is thus more sexually attractive. Representations of masculinity in Chinese literature have created many ‘soft’ or ‘feminine’ male characters who are by no means mentally ‘weak’ but who often suffer misfortune. The scholar–beauty romance in particular reﬂects this literary tradition of assigning male characters sentimental roles and qualities that are often associated with femininity. To some extent the scholar–beauty romance genre has perpetuated the attraction of the effeminate, talented scholar. His textual and stage images articulate a masculinity that emphasizes male creativity and intelligence, together with his fragile health and tender sentimentality. In classical Chinese novels, particularly those written since the Ming dynasty, male sexuality has frequently been manifested through the recurrent image of an ideal lover who is ‘a delicate hyper-sensitive youngster with pale face and narrow shoulders, passing the greater part of his time dreaming among his books and ﬂowers, and who falls ill at the slightest disappointment’ (van Gulik, R. H. 1961: 296). In addition, in Chinese traditional and folk theatre, the male characters most admired by and sexually attractive to women, both on and off the stage, were usually represented as ‘talented scholars’, with fair skin, elegant features and delicate physiques, as well as tender voices and romantic hearts – similar to female characteristics in many other cultures. In other words, these delicate males appealed to Chinese women and the Chinese audience in general, and were mostly the favoured choices as lovers, husbands or sons-in-law in the texts. Their masculinity seemed to lie in their intellectual ability or artistic creativity rather than in their physical strength, wealth, aristocratic background or other attributes that are more frequently associated with masculinity. Peking Opera has a role known as xiaosheng (the young man with a clear voice) for such feminine men, to distinguish them from heitou (dark head, or the ‘tough guy’ with a deep and rough voice). Peking Opera also had a tradition whereby some female roles (dan) were played by male actors who had been trained to cultivate feminine manners and develop a falsetto voice. These well-known male actors of feminine roles, such as Mei Lanfang , not only retained their masculinity off stage but were also sexually attractive to women. On the other hand, in some local operas such as Huju and Yueju in the south Yangtze region, the male roles were played by female actresses. Apart from

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the historical fact that in these areas men and women were not allowed to perform together, such transsexual role-playing occurred also because female actresses were seen to be more suited to depicting the tenderness and sentimentality of these ‘talented young men’. In historical terms, the ‘effeminate’ male scholars depicted in scholar– beauty tales were always gifted in literary writing, and were often on their way to becoming government ofﬁcials or achieving literary success, whereas the ‘tough’ guys were usually farmers, servants or bandits. To some extent, the ‘tough guys’ had ‘lower’ social status, and did not play a central role or roles in the discourse of sexuality in Chinese literary texts until the twentieth century. The hierarchy drawn between soft and macho masculinity reﬂected the relation between sexuality and power of the time. The scholars, who obviously wrote the stories of their own success or their fantasy of such success, concentrated on depicting masculinity and power that derived from their pen. Hence, in the classical novels, the ﬁgure of the feminine male stood for civility, better education and higher social status. As such, these characters were favoured by both Confucian ofﬁcialdom and by female partners. Their political power was closely associated with their class background and their writing. In turn, writing provided the male scholars with dominance and hence sexual attractiveness. On the other hand, the dominance of soft masculinity did not mean that women had higher status than men. Women were not on the scale. Even in the Taoist cosmological interpretation of sexuality, which stresses the balance of the masculine and the feminine, femininity is seen as simply complementary to masculinity, and not vice versa. Female sexuality is deemed indispensable for a balanced male body and mind (van Gulik, R. H. 1961: 45–51). Novels of the Ming and Qing dynasties frequently privileged such feminine– masculine prototypes over their ‘rough’ masculine counterparts: Jia Baoyu , Qin Zhong and many other male characters in The Dream of the Red Chamber are typical examples of talented scholars who are undoubtedly favoured by the females in the Grand View Garden over brawny types such as Jia Lian and Jia Qiang . Xue Pan , the licentious, macho son of the wealthy Xue family, was never the dream lover of any woman, whether high-status ladies or servants. Although he possessed wealth and power, he married a shrew, who properly matched his own unpleasant temperament, and the marriage quickly contributed to the downfall of his family.1 In The Water Margin the small number of scholars such as Song Jiang , Wu Yong and Lu Junyi function as the heads of the rebel group, able to lead martial arts experts and macho ﬁgures such as Li Kui and Lu Zhishen who ‘kill without blinking’. When the 108 ‘good men’ (haohan ) arrange the seating to reﬂect their status and contribution to their political and military campaign, the learned scholars, despite their small number and inferior martial skills, precede the diehard ﬁghters. In Journey to the West, on his way to India, Tripitaka, the Tang monk with a pink face, tender ﬂesh and a very gentle heart, is desired by

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many female devils either as a sexual partner or as an elixir for longevity. He relies entirely on his disciples as his protectors and yet he is in absolute control of their destiny. Interestingly, Pigsy, who serves as a symbol of ‘wanton wallowing in sex’,2 suffers from frequent sexual rejection and frustration, even though his martial skills are second only to those of Monkey. There are at least three possible interpretations of the privileged soft masculinity prototype. To begin with, apart from the notion that knowledge is power and therefore sexual, the authors of the stories were themselves more or less talented scholars of the sort they depicted, either within or outside the ofﬁcial system. It is understandable that they modelled their characters on their own life experience and attempted to empower and idealize such images. Alternatively, the inﬂuences of Taoism and Buddhism may have created an aspiration for calmness and passivity both within oneself and in social interactions. The prevailing belief in the yin–yang balance resulted in femininity becoming an equally, if not highly, desirable attribute. Cultivating the balance between yin and yang, or male and female elements, was essential for men and was especially important for those in positions of power. Another important implication of this desire for a balance between yin and yang is that masculinity comes to be equated with innate ﬂaws, because it ‘lacks’ femininity and needs to absorb yin. Hence, ‘the problem of the lack is quite reversed in the Chinese cultural context: it is the man who lacks’ (Wang, Yuejin 1989). Thus, the ‘feminine’ man who appears to have achieved the balance is paradoxically more admirable. Thirdly, admiration for soft masculinity reﬂected the Han antipathy for non-Han rule in the Yuan and Qing dynasties. As they came to be dominated by the Mongolians and the Manchus, the Han Chinese, especially the literati scholars, tended to regard admiration for martial arts and bodily strength as barbaric. This is because both the Yuan and Qing rulers cultivated an image of themselves as tough warriors, and promoted themselves as the conquerors who had mastered the martial arts through great physical strength. The reaction from Han scholars was a dislike of those images, and their admiration for femininity and literary cultivation carried a subversive edge to the ruling governments (van Gulik, R. H. 1961: 196). Cultivation of literary skills was seen by Han scholars as a choice of civilization over barbarity. It should therefore not be surprising that it became a common practice for Ming and Qing novels to have ‘talented scholars’ as the prototype of masculinity in the literature of the time.

The talented communist scholars The scholar–beauty narrative mode and the dominance of soft masculinity continued well into the twentieth century and in China’s literary quest for modernity. Modern writers such as Ba Jin , Mao Dun and Yu Dafu created more of these feminine–masculine ﬁgures, although by this time ‘talented scholars’ had become modern intellectuals with a very different

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outlook and knowledge structure. Stories of ‘Mandarin Ducks and Butterﬂies’3 – or sentimental love stories – were popular in the early decades of the twentieth century and produced further non-macho male ﬁgures. The sexual appeal of the ‘soft’ male scholars contributed at least in part to the genre’s popularity. By comparison, the workers and peasants, who were gradually emerging on to the central stage of literary representation in line with China’s social and political changes in early decades of the twentieth century, were hardly sexually appealing, either to readers or to their female acquaintances in the narrative settings. Although it might have been intended that those characters should be plain and down-to-earth, they were not charismatic or attractive to their female partners even in the event of their courtship. Some of Lu Xun’s major male characters are obvious examples. Ah Q, the central character in ‘The True Story of Ah Q’ (Ah Q Zhengzhuan: !) (Lu Xun 1981, v.1: 487–532), has often been seen as the negative archetype of Chineseness. Ah Q tries to court and ﬂirt with the housemaid of his employer, but his sexual adventures result only in his being insulted and humiliated. Runtu , the villager friend of the ‘talented-scholar’ narrator in ‘Home town’, another short story by Lu Xun, is inarticulate and demure, and remains a very dull character to the end, except when described as a young playmate (necessarily genderless) in the narrator’s nostalgic retrospection. The masculinity of both Ah Q and Runtu seems subdued by their lack of intellectuality and exhausted by their hard daily manual work. Other male characters created by Lu Xun, such as Hua Laoshuan and Hua Xiaoshuan in ‘Medicine’ () and Zhao Siye in ‘New Year’s Sacriﬁce’ (Zhufu ) (Lu Xun 1981, v.2: 5–23), are virtually genderless: they are either old, sick or observant of Confucian puritanism. The rickshaw puller in ‘A Small Incident’ (Yijian xiaoshi: !) is portrayed as old, fragile, kind, caring and, more importantly, devoid of any trace of sexuality or masculinity. The gaze of the male narrator perceives him only in terms of his moral quality of ‘goodness’. However, when Lu Xun did explore sexual relationships, he too adopted the scholar–beauty narrative pattern. His novella ‘Regretting the Past’ (Shangshi ) has as its male protagonist a young writer, who is unable to sustain his love and de facto relationship ﬁnancially and emotionally because of his difﬁculty in establishing himself as a viable ‘scholar’. Lu Xun was mainly concerned here with depicting the consequences of the radical social and historical changes earnestly sought by the youth of the time, and also with exposing the discrepancies between idealism and harsh social reality. However, the failure of the relationship between the young couple is primarily portrayed as the result of the lack of social recognition of the male protagonist as a ‘scholar’, and of his literary talent, which brought about the ﬁnancial difﬁculties that eventually led to their separation and the death of his partner. Because the male character’s masculinity is so closely connected to his identity as a ‘scholar’, his inability to sustain his ultimate male gender identiﬁcation eventually causes the tragic end of the scholar–beauty

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story. In general, male characters in Lu Xun’s stories seem to be the unsuccessful subjects of sexual desire or to be deprived of sexual desire. Nevertheless, the scholar–beauty narrative pattern remains strong. From the 1930s to the 1970s, the CCP tried in many ways to promote the representation of working-class characters in arts and literature. For some time after the establishment of the PRC, the CCP allowed only workers, peasants and soldiers to become major literary heroes. However, the CCP’s movement of workers, peasants and soldiers from the margin to the centre in literary representation did not succeed in substantially undermining the literary tradition. The central stage of arts and literature was dominated by working-class males, but, if one observes closely, soft masculinity in the traditional sense still had an upper hand. The professions of the dominant male may have changed but they were actually ‘talented communist scholars’, who were workers, peasants and soldiers tamed by communist education or simply talented scholars in the setting of modern China. Despite the CCP’s guidelines, literary narratives in general still privileged ‘brains’ over ‘brawn’. Intelligence obviously ranked higher than physical strength, as soldiers and Party secretaries with a communist education played dominant roles in the political, sexual and literary discourses over the ‘crude’ masses of workers, peasants and soldiers. This was achieved by transforming the usually macho males through education or communist indoctrination so that their rough masculinity was softened and thus able to meet the expectations and discipline of the Party. Part of becoming a revolutionary hero meant successfully subjecting oneself to the CCP’s indoctrination, to the Party’s leadership, and to the ultimate patriarchy. The Party’s insistence on obedience effectively reduced the macho males to a more submissive ‘feminine’ role. In the process, macho males were overshadowed by their ‘intellectual’ counterparts or supervisors. Their ‘enlightenment’ thus implies their transformation into the equivalents of the ‘talented scholar’, with their sexual identity following suit. Thus, ‘soft’ masculinity and talented scholars can be identiﬁed in literary representations of seemingly very different ideological orientations and at different historical times. Song of Youth (Qingchun zhi ge !) (Yang Mo 1961) may serve as an illustration of such a discourse of sexuality in which traditional scholar– beauty interaction is combined with the supremacy of the workers, peasants and soldiers. Lin Daojing , the female protagonist possessed of beauty, virtue, innocence and naivety, was to be married by her widowed stepmother to an elderly Guomindang bureaucrat. She was rescued on the verge of suicide by a student from Peking University; he seduced her and she subsequently moved in with him. Lin, however, was soon attracted to a young communist, also a student at Peking University, but he was murdered before they were able to consummate their passion. She then decided to leave her saviour and devote herself wholeheartedly to the revolutionary cause. For years she lived alone, working as a primary-school teacher in a small village and as an underground liaison for the CCP. This process

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re-established her as a ‘virgin’ – indeed, her sexual desires had to be reawakened later by another ‘talented scholar’. Jiang Hua came from a working-class family and had once been a printing hand, but was now an enlightened revolutionary intellectual, whose mission was to mobilize the villagers in the area where Lin Daojing taught. After Jiang Hua became Lin Daojing’s mentor and encouraged her to join the CCP, he realized that she was not only a strong comrade but also a woman in need of tender love from a man. He proceeded to kiss Lin, and she happily accepted his sexual advances. The assumption here is that he ﬁlled her emotional void and they lived happily ever after. Jiang Hua was probably one of the few early talented scholars with a working-class background in PRC literature, and his romantic attraction lay more in his communist education than in anything else. Wang Dachun in the ballet version of White-Haired Girl (Baimaonü ) is another example of the transformation of a peasant from an illiterate, ignorant, macho character to an educated and enlightened hero.4 As a poor farmhand before he joined the revolution, Dachun was not able to protect his ﬁancée when she was abducted and raped by the landlord. He himself had to escape, which led him to join the communist army. In time, communist education successfully transformed him into an army ofﬁcer with both charm and power. On his return to the native village he was thus able to reclaim his lover and take revenge on the landlord. His political maturity is demonstrated by his understanding of the CCP’s class-struggle theory, and his masculine power is displayed in his ability to mobilize the villagers into denouncing the landlord. There are many more examples of the CCP’s narrative version of the scholar–beauty stories. These stories have been regarded by some critics as an emerging genre, most appropriately entitled ‘new revolutionary romance’.5 The theme of the talented scholar in exile from society and family has been a recurrent one in post-Mao literature. The scholar–beauty sexual paradigm functions just as effectively and frequently. Examples can be found in the writings of Zhang Xianliang , whose male protagonists are frustrated scholars who have been mistreated by the CCP but saved and cared for by village beauties. Zhang Yonglin , the male protagonist of several of Zhang Xianliang’s novels, has many of the traits of the suffering talented scholar. As an intellectual persecuted by the CCP’s frequent political campaigns from 1957 to the end of the Cultural Revolution, Zhang Yonglin has been in exile in the north-west grassland, the outback frontier of China. On the verge of collapsing under extreme hardship, he is rescued and nurtured time and again by women of great passion and beauty who offer him food, love and sex. His exile, similar to that of the ‘talented scholars’ who lost favour with the emperor in premodern China, enables him to meet women who provide love and sympathy, and to assume the sexual role of the talented scholar. Zhang Yonglin embodies various qualities of ‘soft masculinity’, such as literary talent and a fragile physical

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constitution, enabling him to situate himself as ‘scholarly’. Surprisingly, although he is greatly disadvantaged by the CCP’s persecution, he still has power over women who are far ‘politically healthier’. Similarly to the way his historical predecessors treated their female lovers, the intellectual in the stories either drops his sexual partners or chooses to fulﬁl his promise of marriage. Zhang Xianliang’s women are indeed only ‘half of men’, as blatantly put in the title of one of his novels. Zhang Xianliang’s female characters are conveniently placed in the path of the male exile in the traditional discourse of sexuality, which urges them to help desperate male scholars.

Cultural roots and masculinity The central position of talented scholars has been seriously challenged only since the emergence of root-searching literature as a result of social and cultural changes during the early 1980s. The search for national potency and the inﬂuence of Western conceptions of sexuality have contributed to changes in relation to the Chinese perceptions of masculinity and have induced the birth of ‘real men’ in Chinese literature in recent decades. Women writers in China ﬁrst began to lament the lack of ‘real men’ in the late 1970s.6 The desire for ‘real men’ implied changed perceptions of masculinity as China began to open up to the outside world. The impact of the ‘tough’ guy images in Japanese and Western ﬁlms was a very important element in this. The late 1970s and the early 1980s saw the Japanese actor Ken Takakura enter the minds of Chinese audiences with an enduring and endearing power as the ‘real man’: reserved, taciturn, tall, strong and yet profoundly passionate. His image almost instantly replaced that of the ‘smooth-faced’ young men (naiyou xiaosheng !), a derogatory term popular at the time to indicate the diminishing charm of soft masculinity. The rise of the macho man came with root-searching literature, but perhaps not simply as the response of male writers to complaints about the lack of ‘real men’. Such concerns may have contributed to male writers’ attention to sexuality, especially male sexuality, but the search for masculinity was an essential part of the search for cultural roots. The macho male ﬁgures in their writings stand for the strength and potency of the Chinese nation. Noticeably, most of the nativist writers are men, and their protagonists are villagers of ‘primitive passions’ with little Confucian-literati restraint.7 In many respects, root-searching literature represents a male gaze into Chinese cultural traditions and lifestyles, in order to locate the source of power of the Chinese nation. Interestingly, macho masculinity, as depicted in hard life and harsh landscapes, becomes the literary representation of the Chinese national essence. To a large extent, as a reaction to the CCP’s previous strict censorship, love and sex play a dominant role in the literary search for cultural roots. In the last two decades of the twentieth century Chinese novelists produced many ‘tough guys’ in the process of cultural root-searching, and macho

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masculinity became the dominant discourse of sexuality. Unlike the tame workers and peasants in literature produced in the previous decades under the guidance of the CCP, the male characters in this literature tend to possess the opposite qualities to those of scholars. Prominent heroes of the genre include farmhands, bandits, butchers and winemakers such as those in Mo Yan’s Red Sorghum Family (Hong gaoliang jiazu !") (Mo Yan 1987). The family patriarch in Chen Zhongshi’s White Deer Plain (Chen Zhongshi 1993) has an enormous penis, and his potent sexual demands kill six wives one after another.

The talented scholar in Defunct Capital Defunct Capital brings the talented scholar with his ‘soft’ masculinity back to centre stage through its anti-hero Zhuang Zhidie. Zhuang’s image has been extremely controversial and in most cases it is his ‘soft masculinity’ that has been the subject of criticism. Being more a traditional literatus than a modern intellectual, Zhuang Zhidie indulges himself in composing classical poems of self-expression rather than writing modern ﬁction voicing social concerns. His appearance recalls the image of the fragile male in the scholar–beauty romance – he is short and skinny, deﬁnitely lacking the macho masculinity demonstrated by the Shaanxi country ‘blokes’ in Jia Pingwa’s other writings. Zhuang rides a motorbike designed for women with the brand name Mulan . ‘Mulan’, literally ‘magnolia lily’, immediately brings to mind the Chinese legendary heroine who disguised herself as a man to become a soldier in place of her father when he was conscripted. Mulan distinguished herself as a warrior, and her name is synonymous with women endowed with ﬁghting prowess. The brand name of the motorbike thus instantly underlines Zhuang’s femininity. As he rides the motorbike daily, people take ‘her’ to be his alter ego, for her presence indicates his. Even the name Zhuang Zhidie is problematic in its gender implications. The character for butterﬂy, die, is mostly, if not exclusively, used in female names in China. The image of the butterﬂy is usually and frequently associated with feminine beauty and the transformation of the ugly into the beautiful. Hence, despite the obvious Taoist association in his name, being named ‘butterﬂy’ also obscures Zhuang’s sexual identity. Zhuang’s personality also carries a ring of ‘innocence and naivety’ when he is often placed around ‘mother ﬁgures’. His occasional childish behaviour, in turn, not only endorses the necessary eccentricity of an established literatus but also stresses his inherently problematic gender image. Zhuang is very fond of a cow, which the owner brings into town to sell milk but he sucks milk directly from the cow’s teats in public. His intimacy with the cow suggests a mother–child bond and immediately conceals Zhuang’s masculinity: he is more like a child being breast-fed. He behaves as a child towards both his wife and the cow. There is also a direct link between the cow and his wife, whose family name niu is also the Chinese character for cow. Such

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mother ﬁgures offer a maternal atmosphere to contrast Zhuang’s childish conduct and irresponsibility. Odd, childish, wilful and irresponsible in the family environment, he is constantly irritated and irritating. In many ways he needs his wife’s ‘maternal’ care for his daily needs, but he does not take part in decision making or show any compassion towards her. At the same time, Zhuang quickly assumes the role of the ‘sincere’ and ‘innocent’ seducer when in the presence of good-looking women. On the whole, Zhuang’s manner of interaction with women, such as his polygamous tendency and his association of erotic quality with women’s small feet, belongs to the Chinese patriarchal tradition.8 There is an obvious psychological need on the part of the literati in history and at present to depict themselves as the ‘talented scholars’ of the scholar–beauty romance. Zhuang Zhidie obviously suffers from a typical ‘talented scholar’ complex as he searches for social, emotional and sexual conﬁrmation. Psychologically, the ‘talented scholar’ is on a journey to attain manhood. On the cusp of family and society, Zhuang, like his historical counterparts, remains sentimentally attached to his alienation and isolation. The feeling of not belonging produces frustration and depression that cry out for empathy from others. In Zhuang’s case, he seeks both sexual release and textual articulation of his inner loneliness. Interacting with women at intimate levels gives him the opportunity to establish a feeling of his own identity at a safe distance from his family and profession. In this respect, Zhuang’s experience is not unlike a delayed Oedipal crisis. His estrangement from his wife/mother and his eventual abandonment of family and society read as a male journey motivated by self-discovery, laden with guilt and characterized by exile.

Writing and ‘soft’ masculinity Literary creativity is essential to Zhuang Zhidie’s existence as a talented scholar. His literary talent brings him many tangible privileges such as housing and political power. He also enjoys intangible beneﬁts such as fame and inﬂuence. As a well-known writer, he is able to choose among the women he encounters and to seduce them. Like his historical, cultural and literary predecessors, Zhuang Zhidie always uses his writing to assert himself intellectually, culturally or linguistically before asserting himself sexually. He skilfully employs the techniques of the ‘talented scholar’: poetry, writing, music and even his need for sympathy and empathy. Both his eloquence and his position bespeak his masculinity in its ‘intellectual’ capacity in the traditional cultural context, which is ‘softer’ than and yet ‘superior’ to physically deﬁned beauty. Zhuang Zhidie as a talented scholar is therefore irresistible to the beautiful women he encounters. Zhuang Zhidie is constantly reassured by women who, attracted either by his fame or by his writing, actively court him and are willing to devote themselves to him unconditionally. He attracts women with his writing, and

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the seduction process repeats itself several times with instant success, although not necessarily always convincingly. Tang Wanr, Zhuang’s ﬁrst mistress, becomes fond of Zhuang soon after their ﬁrst meeting, after she hears his philosophical discussion on seeking imperfection. Zhuang Zhidie seems far more attractive than her current partner, Zhou Min, simply because Zhuang is an established writer – despite the fact that Zhou is much younger and presumably better looking. ‘In front of him Zhou Min can at his best manage to be moderately clever!’ (31), Tang claims of her admiration for Zhuang. From this moment on, Tang is sexually prepared for Zhuang, who has also begun fantasizing about her. Soon Tang initiates Zhuang into the realm of pleasurable sex. For the ﬁrst time, Zhuang feels overwhelmed by his own masculine power, as he has been suffering from impotence for some time. Zhuang’s need to recover his male ego is in no time satisﬁed through Tang’s beauty, her body and more importantly her complete devotion and total submission to his desires. Zhuang Zhidie’s seduction of his housemaid Liu Yue operates in a similar manner. Liu Yue is from the country and works as a nanny for a household in Xijing. She is attracted to Zhuang because he is a famous writer and she likes his books. As soon as she discovers who Zhuang is in their accidental encounter she makes advances by boldly demanding some of his calligraphy for herself. As a special favour to the good-looking country girl, Zhuang composes a couplet. The poem contains a pun on her name by referring to willows and the moon in clever similes, which incorporate a play on the two characters of liu and yue. Like Tang Wanr, Liu Yue does not ﬁnd Zhuang physically striking. However, before long, she arrives at Zhuang’s place to become his housemaid. As is expected, she is amazed that ‘the writer is indeed extraordinary’ (91), and in no time the two start ﬂirting and Liu Yue becomes his mistress. Zhuang’s involvement with Ah Can only a few moments after they meet is even faster and again directly connected with Zhuang’s writing activities: all it takes is for Ah Can to watch Zhuang writing a love letter to someone else. The extremely beautiful Ah Can has married for convenience owing to her politically disadvantaged family background during the Cultural Revolution. She is ﬁlled with gratitude to Zhuang, for his making love to her satisﬁes not only her body but also her soul (244). Although there has not been much verbal communication, she ‘knows’ that Zhuang understands her feelings, because he is a writer. She feels deeply indebted to him as she has been fulﬁlled by their physical connection and mental intercourse. She later even disﬁgures herself to eliminate any chance of being unfaithful to Zhuang. At the time, she is apparently carrying his child and knows that they will not see each other again. Wang Ximian is one of Zhuang Zhidie’s literati friends, but his goodlooking wife (who is not given a name in the narrative) has been secretly in love with Zhuang for years, again because he is a writer. Unknown to Zhuang or her husband, this woman had once resolved to marry Zhuang

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Zhidie after hearing him giving a talk on writing skills (195). She eventually married Zhuang’s friend Wang instead, disheartened by the news of Zhuang’s marriage to Niu Yueqing. However, she has been cherishing her passion for Zhuang in the hope that one day they will be together. Years later she eventually tells Zhuang of her feelings but insists that they maintain a platonic relationship. Indeed, she is the only woman who accompanies him to the end: her face mysteriously appears in the railway station waiting-room window beside Zhuang’s seat where he has a stroke and becomes unconscious. Her presence as his eternal lover shows the strength of his attraction as the ‘scholar’. Again, without doubt, it is his writing that is seductive and masculine. That linguistic power is essential to Zhuang’s sexual involvement is, paradoxically, proved by his wife Niu Yueqing’s distrust of his language. In sharp contrast to Zhuang’s success with other women, Niu regrets having married a writer. Zhuang, therefore, becomes impotent and loses his dominance over his wife, since she does not admire his power to manipulate language at all. Niu Yueqing, however, pays a high price for her reluctance to adjust to Zhuang’s needs for dominance in language and sex. She wants to have a child but, despite her desperate longing, she is unable to become pregnant owing to her husband’s lack of sexual interest in her, and the family in time disintegrates. In many ways, Niu’s role and image resemble those of the ﬁrst wife in a Chinese polygamous household. Among the husband’s numerous wives, the ﬁrst wife is portrayed usually in literature as the most virtuous but unable to satisfy her husband’s sexual needs or to produce family heirs, and Niu Yueqing fails in both accounts. Zhuang Zhidie relates to his wife and mistresses very much along these lines. In addition, between Zhuang and Niu, language is a silent but active agent. Niu’s lack of interest in language results in a lack of communication between the couple, and eventually brings about Zhuang’s lack of sexual interest in her. In other words, language works in its absence – Niu’s lack of interest in Zhuang’s language is a denial of his masculinity and his identity. Hence, the denial of their sexual link and the marriage’s failure is unavoidable. Defunct Capital seems to have turned back the clock to an era in which only Zhuang Zhidie and his literati friends are able to write and paint, and women are reduced to being mere admirers of male creativity. Zhuang’s pen and brush are instruments through which he acquires his sexual empowerment. To some extent, his pen becomes his only effective gender indicator. It gives him ownership of the language, which he uses to his advantage – politically, ﬁnancially and sexually. His pen leads him to become the famous writer of Xijing, which, in turn, becomes Zhuang’s capital in politics, business and sexual relationships. His sexual seductions work invariably from pen to poetry to penis. The pen, especially the traditional Chinese brush, enables him to practise the protocols of Chinese culture, add substance to his cultural cultivation and exert dominance. In Zhuang’s situation ‘penis envy’ does indeed become the ‘Pen is Envy’, for the pen is the weapon with

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which he conquers Xijing city and the hearts and bodies of women. Zhuang’s masculinity is from the very beginning intimately connected with his writing career and, in due course, his disenchantment with his career success is complicated and reinforced by his crisis of sexuality.9 Linguistically, the Chinese language links male potency with masculinity and admirable male qualities through the word yingxiong , ‘hero’ or ‘heroic’, which literally means an outstanding male being. In modern Chinese, the meaning of the word has been extended to include anyone with extraordinary courage and outstanding achievements, especially in activities associated with war or ﬁghting. Interestingly, ‘satisfying’ male sexual potency and performance can also be praised as ‘yingxiong’. Although it may have been purely coincidental, for years yingxiong was the best-known brand of pens and ink produced in China. Indeed, the hero is related to both the pen and the penis. Zhuang’s egotistical sexual adventures with his mistresses easily qualify him as yingxiong. Yingxiong again highlights the masculine quality of the pen, and for Zhuang the pen and the brush are both substitutes for and a reinforcement of the penis. In short, the pen is both fundamental and instrumental in representing Zhuang’s ‘soft’ masculinity. Defunct Capital has been linked to a number of traditional vernacular novels (Lu, Sheldon 2001: 244–8). In particular, it has been likened to the Ming novel Golden Lotus , as many critics perceive a similarity in their preoccupation with sex, their narrative styles and the manner in which the male protagonists seduce and dominate women (Barmé, G. R. 1999: 181–7; Zha Jianying 1995: 136). There is, however, an important difference between Zhuang Zhidie and Ximen Qing , the major male character in Golden Lotus. Ximen Qing is a businessman without any social conscience who attracts women with his sexual prowess and wealth. Ximen Qing may sing vulgar songs to entertain his mistresses, but he never composes elegant poems. With its major male character clearly not a scholar, Golden Lotus cannot belong to the genre of the scholar–beauty tales. In contrast, as a literatus, Zhuang’s sexual empowerment derives from his status as a writer/poet/scholar and his mistresses admire him for his literary talent. When Zhuang stops being a famous writer, his sexual attraction also disappears in no time. Unlike Ximen Qing, for whom sex is for the sake of sexual pleasure, Zhuang’s sexual engagement is shown primarily as an escape from his social awareness. Ultimately, Zhuang is burdened with guilt in his belief that he has failed his social responsibilities.

Mr Butterﬂy’s negative Bildungsroman The narrative expresses Zhuang Zhidie’s association with Taoism explicitly in his name. Zhuang Zhidie, ‘the Butterﬂy of Zhuang Zhou’, carries allegorical reference to the fable by the Taoist master Zhuangzi, ‘the Butterﬂy in Zhuangzi’s Dream’. As the story goes, a man named Zhuang Zhou (Zhuangzi himself ) dreamt that he had become a butterﬂy ﬂying around

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freely. Sometimes Zhou felt he was the butterﬂy himself, sometimes vice versa. In the end he was confused as to whether the butterﬂy was dreaming about being a person named Zhou or he himself was the person by the name of Zhou dreaming about being a butterﬂy. The story concludes by saying that, although the person named Zhou and the butterﬂy are different entities, the transformation from one to the other is a natural process. The story is about the multiplicity of the self and it shows how personal boundaries can be obscured so that it is possible, psychologically, the self is also the other at the same time. By so naming the protagonist, Taoist values are invested in Zhuang’s personality, which prescribe Zhuang’s conduct and destiny, and explain why his personal journey becomes a negative Bildungsroman.10 As a result the narrative underpins Zhuang’s bewilderment about his selfhood and identity, and the perception of life as a ‘dream’. That the nature of Zhuang’s journey is a negative Bildungsroman is illustrated through Zhuang’s ‘fall’ from the peak of his career’s success to disgrace, decadence and silence. From an assistant magazine editor, Zhuang works his way up to political and social prominence, and ﬁnancial success. Zhuang’s disenchantment with society does not evolve until after he becomes a successful writer: his fame as the writer of Xijing fails to bring him the desired sense of self-fulﬁlment. Zhuang’s fame gives his name a market value and becomes a commodity. Consequently Zhuang feels a profound alienation towards his professional achievement and social adaptation. He confesses this to his mistress Tang Wanr: !"#$%&'()"*+%,-./01234"#567 !"#$%&'()**++,-.$/0123456 7 !"#$%&''() !*+,-.)/&012!34 !"#$%&'()*"+,-./ 01234562' !"#$%&'()*+,- &.(,/0 ,12 !"#$%&'()*+,-./0!0,123'/4 !"#$%&'()*+&, '-./01+2#34# !"#$%&'()'*+%,-&.'/01)234& !"#$%#$&'()* +,-. ,-/01234 !"#$%&%' ($!)*+, I came to this city more than ten years ago and I vowed to myself that I would have to become somebody here when I ﬁrst set eyes on the golden Clock Tower. Now that I seem to have achieved what I wanted through hard work and difﬁculty, my life is getting even harder! I often think to myself what does this big Xijing city have to do with me? What is here that really belongs to me? Probably the three characters in my name: Zhuang Zhi Die. However, even if the name is mine, it is mostly used by others! Indeed when I go out, people show their respect and reverence. I can’t understand why they do. Maybe something has gone wrong somewhere? How could all this be associated with the stuff I

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write? How could my writing be of any interest and value?! I know that I have fame but not success. I want to write better things to satisfy myself, but I can’t achieve that at the moment. Therefore I feel ashamed but my shame is taken as modesty by others. Modest about what? Such pain torments me constantly but to whom can I tell it? Even if I do tell it, who is going to understand? (124 –5) The sense of self-denial, paradoxically, comes after Zhuang has fulﬁlled his earlier resolution. He repeatedly emphasizes that he is ‘famous’ but not ‘successful’ and he is unable to substantiate his fame. To his disappointment, Zhuang ﬁnds no genuine empathy from either his family or his circle of friends or his readers. That is the reason that he speaks from his heart to Tang Wanr, who supposedly does not have enough education to understand the dilemma at all. Such mental and emotional isolation eventually drives him away from all his previous associations to the extent that he even forms a distance from his previous self. Hence at the peak of his ﬂourishing career, Zhuang experiences not the joy of success but mental and emotional crises. In order to regain his lost self, he undertakes a journey of self-discovery in a number of directions. He explores his sexuality, cultivates Chinese culture and tradition, communicates with unseen forces in an attempt to return to his own nature. Hence, his journey is a return to the beginning of the self rather than an advance into the social hierarchy. Zhuang Zhidie’s last destination on a bench in the waiting room of a railway station presents itself as a sarcastic modern parody of the cosmic ‘chaos’: there is probably no place that could be more ‘chaotic’ than a Chinese railway station. Amongst the masses of people and as a result of his loss of language and consciousness, Zhuang accomplishes his return to the beginning of ‘non-being, no being and no name’. Historically Chinese literati needed to reposition themselves in relation to power politics from time to time. The return to nature or anonymity was not unlike a retreat from political battles, and it was a practice frequently adopted by literati or scholar-ofﬁcials in their political disillusionment. The choice between disengagement and ofﬁcialdom was manifested alternatively as being a hermit (chushi ) or joining the bureaucracy (rushi ). The alternation reﬂected their political attitudes towards the government in power and also their pragmatic attitudes towards Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism. In the PRC era intellectuals have often been the objects of either repression or rehabilitation and the traditional voluntary alternation between the choices is not available any more. However, in recent years another viable option has emerged as a very tempting alternative for many: the possibility of becoming entrepreneurs. Zhuang and his literati friends actually opt for the new opportunities and help to contribute to the cultural industry. However, he is too set in his literatus mentality to adapt to the recent social changes geared towards commercialization and ﬁnds it

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extremely hard to cope with the transition ideologically and psychologically. Zhuang then ‘falls’ from successful writer to self-indulgent paramour, then in the end to an unconscious being. Although this process is a kind of selfinﬂicted transformation of the self from the scholar into the butterﬂy, it is probably the ultimate retreat allowed to a literatus in contemporary China, since the chance to become a hermit hardly exists. Zhuang’s negative Bildungsroman also implies a journey for self-discovery of a Buddhist nature. His sexual encounters recall the usual sexual deviation on the journey of male self-discovery in Chinese novels with Buddhist themes. Examples can be found in the cases of Jia Baoyu in The Dream of the Red Chamber and Weiyangsheng in The Before Midnight Scholar (Rouputuan ) by Li Yu . The Before Midnight Scholar uses the Buddhist male-journey motif as an excuse to justify its sexual themes and sensual engagements. Zhuang bears a strong resemblance especially to Weiyangsheng, the male protagonist, in that the excessive sexual pleasure serves as a necessary deviation on a male journey to ‘true’ manhood. The men are led to explore sexuality in order to understand their own desires and thereby are empowered by overcoming their bodily needs. Both men are ‘talented scholars’ and attract very good-looking women one after another as their sexual partners. Both men engage in sexual experimentation according to ancient Chinese sex manuals and both are strongly motivated by philosophical and religious beliefs. Both are overwhelmed initially by sexual pleasure and their own sexual power, but later are able to transcend bodily needs and are consequently transformed into the ‘higher’ state of being of ‘inaction’. Towards the end, like Weiyangsheng, Zhuang Zhidie succeeds in removing sexual cravings from within themselves and the ‘true’ self, and higher manhood is thus attained. Weiyangsheng becomes a monk enlightened by his wife’s suicide after their accidental encounter in a brothel. It turns out that after Weiyangsheng embarks on his journey his wife also leaves home and becomes a prostitute. Although the possibility of becoming a monk is also explored by Zhuang Zhidie, it is not possible any more. Temples in Xijing are now too corrupt and engage in not only secular but also licentious activities. Zhuang completely withdraws from social activities and stops interacting with other people. He ﬁrstly encloses himself in his own ﬂat and later loses consciousness after he decides to run away from his conﬁnement. It is important to note that Zhuang Zhidie does not die in the end but simply falls unconscious. It is not death but transcendence of desires that is the destination of the Buddhist male journey. The manner of his selfdiscovery and the subsequent void of self-perception are associated with the effort of freeing the mind of the boundaries of one’s own thoughts and desires for physical pleasure, in particular sexual pleasure. Zhuang’s ‘fall’ is his transformation to reach the stage of ‘inaction’ eventually, when earthly desires no longer occupy his mind. Zhuang Zhidie seems to have followed Jia Baoyu in terms of the transformation of desire resulting from alienation

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in both domestic life and political relevance. Although Jia Baoyu becomes a monk without ever being interested in ofﬁcialdom, his domestic position is politically signiﬁcant for the families involved and his walking out on them into a Buddhist temple is his only attainable rebellion and legitimate means of rejection. In the same way Zhuang Zhidie opts out of ofﬁcialdom by trying to ﬁnd his ‘true’ self. In doing so, he transforms the desire for career success into an existence of ‘active-inaction’ (wuwei ).

Masculinity, self-denial and self-contradiction Zhuang Zhidie has dramatically contradictory public and private images and yet the narrator insists that his succumbing to corruption is reluctant and his involvement with women is for both lust and love. Responding to hostile criticisms about his exploitation of sex in the novel, Jia Pingwa asserts that Zhuang’s sexual indulgence is inevitable: ‘With no power, no money, no inﬂuence, sex is the only thing he can escape to from this hollow life. So he sinks into it, can’t pull himself out. He destroys others as well as himself ’ (Zha Jianying 1995: 150). However, the text offers a contradictory reading: Zhuang Zhidie is professionally, ﬁnancially and politically successful when the narrative begins. He is the writer of Xijing. His name is used by many others as an access to material gains. He owns a proﬁtable bookshop and later opens a gallery. He is a collector of antiques with a valuable collection. He is a representative of the People’s Congress of the Municipality. His contacts in the media help the mayor’s re-election to ofﬁce. He has several residences and is certainly more comfortable than most Xijing residents. Although Zhuang does not necessarily fully enjoy all aspects of his life and work, he has both money and power. He is far from being helpless and isolated. Material comfort notwithstanding, Zhuang does have problems and they are problems more serious and harder to resolve. He aspires to produce writings for pure aesthetic appreciation but in a consumerist society his writing and his name confront complete reiﬁcation. His situation is complicated by his sexual impotence and his wife’s craving for a child. Unable either to produce aesthetically or to reproduce sexually, Zhuang’s male ego is under serious threat. Zhuang is a complex person with conﬂicting desires, contradictory thoughts and sometimes even ridiculous behaviour. He wants to produce grand works of literature but often engages in other kinds of activities. He raves about love and compassion but is involved in several extra-marital affairs. He is so admired, respected and privileged and yet he is dragged into an ugly court case and fails to survive the humiliation. He seems sympathetic and helpful to most people but he also manipulates even his best friends ruthlessly in his own interest. He swings between involvement in politics and distancing himself from the bureaucracy. On the one hand he gravitates around politicians and businessmen. On the other, he seeks places to escape from social involvement. He does not seem to be innocent and clean as his best friend

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Meng Yunfang claims or as he wants his readers to believe him to be. Indeed Zhuang personiﬁes the entanglement of the powerful and the powerless, the victimizer and the victim, the speaker and the voiceless, the seducer and the seduced. Ironically, Zhuang’s self-rediscovery through sexual exploration is also the loss of his self and his integrity. His reclaimed masculinity in turn violates his self-assumed innocence and contradicts his public image. His gender identity is reasserted at the moment when he resumes the role of patriarch. His sexual indulgence, including a visit by a prostitute who threatens his innocence with serious sexually transmitted diseases contradicts his own claim of sex for love. After all he still fails to regain creativity for meaningful and aesthetic writing. As soon as he realizes that sex is not going to bring his desperately needed self-assurance, he becomes impotent again. Becoming uninterested in sex and writing, Zhuang ﬂees from his family, from his mistresses, from his acquaintances, from his apartment and from the cultural capital of Xijing. Ultimately he needs an escape from himself and from his desires in order to retain selfhood as a subject in control of his own destiny. In this sense, his stroke is deliberate and fulﬁls his wish to remove his desires. Zhuang is a conscientious and sensitive person. He judges himself with high standards professionally and he retains a spiritual life against the grain of social trends in a rapidly commercializing society. His quest for the peace of his soul urges him to conduct self-denial constantly, which in turn plays an important part in shaping up Zhuang Zhidie as an introvert desperately seeking empathy. He confesses to Tang Wanr about his lack of talent to produce good writing, and to his best friend Meng Yunfang he unloads his guilt. Although self-criticism and self-negation in public were expected of intellectuals by CCP ideologues, voluntary self-denial is also part of the male culture, as both a source of men’s existential alienation and part of the infrastructure of men’s power. Self-denial is considered a mode of existence, part of masculine identity and a signiﬁcant paradox that men live through in general (Seidler 1991: 48). In this sense, Zhuang’s self-denial expresses his cultural belonging but more signiﬁcantly it reinforces his masculinity. His self-denial is both a sentiment and a practice and it places him into the mindset of ‘necessary solitude’, a rather ‘endearing’ companion in his quest for the self. For Zhuang Zhidie, sadly, the lost self is not to be regained, considering the conditions of the self: sex becomes a form of solace, he has to scheme politically to win the court case and he realizes that he is instrumental politically and ﬁnancially for others beyond his control. Zhuang’s self-denial is also reﬂected in his alternative ego: Zhou Min.11 While Zhuang Zhidie has the family name of Zhuang Zhou, Zhou Min has the given name. Zhuang and Zhou thus complement each other and exist as the self and the other. Zhuang and Zhou come from the same county, Tongguan. Both are attracted to and have a relationship with Tang Wanr but neither is to replace the other or her husband. They are both writers

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with similar ambitions. The libel case ties them together like conjoined twins in Xijing’s politics until after their joint defeat. In the end both feel the need to escape from Xijing but unexpectedly run into each other at the railway station. They become travelling companions, or perhaps they have always been. In contrast to a timid, sympathetic and essentially confused Zhuang Zhidie, Zhou Min is blatantly selﬁsh, aggressive and ready to protect his own interests at anyone else’s expense. Although Zhuang Zhidie apparently lacks Zhou Min’s vitality and aggression, both are sentimental about their alienation and solitude in the times of rapid social changes. Zhou Min’s sombre xun music is highly expressive of the feelings of alienation and duly appreciated by Zhuang Zhidie. In fact Zhuang Zhidie and Zhou Min are the only listeners to one another who are able to appreciate the music of xun as the sound of earth and as the echoes of their souls. In this sense, they are indeed the ‘intimate mental companion’ (zhiyin ) of each other, although they do not have intimacy. As a young writer from a country town, Zhou Min wishes to follow Zhuang Zhidie’s career path, but his bravado and recklessness set everything back. However, as Zhou Min easily dismisses respect, courtesy or loyalty to friends for his own beneﬁt, his image is negative and does not encourage sympathy from either the reader or his friends, or even his partner Tang Wanr. As Zhuang’s alter ego, Zhou Min is also an obvious degeneration of Zhuang Zhidie: not only is the quality of his writing inferior, so is his integrity. In the end, their destiny is implied through the arrival of another character, Meng Jin , son of Meng Yunfang. Put together, the names Zhuang Zhidie, Zhou Min, Meng Yunfang and Meng Jin form a subtext: Zhuangzhou mengjin !, ‘the dream of Zhuangzi ends’. Indeed, Meng Jin is indoctrinated by his father and leaves Xijing for the west in search of Buddhism.

Mr Butterﬂy and (mis)engendering China The issue of Chinese national identity has been central in China’s cultural politics for more than a century. Gender identity remains an important aspect in the symbolism of the Chinese nation. ‘A ﬁgure of a woman, often a mother, symbolises in many cultures the spirit of the collectivity, whether it is Mother Russia, Mother Ireland or Mother India’, states Yuval-Davis in her discussion of the role of women in national symbolism (Yuval-Davis, N. 1997: 45). Indeed, the female ﬁgure has been conspicuous in the Chinese national narration. However, gender representation of national identity also shifts according to historical contingencies. Especially at times of national crisis, images of masculine power are often called upon. In the Chinese case, one obvious example is the lyrics of The Yellow River Cantata (Huanghe dahechang !"), which was composed by the poet Guang Weiran =in the mid-1930s to arouse the Chinese national spirit in resistance to Japanese invasion. In Guang Weiran’s images, the Yellow River is the embodiment of the Chinese nation and it takes on very macho masculinity

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– it roars its anger, unleashes its power and vows revenge. The connection between a macho masculinity and Chinese national identity in recent decades again derives from intellectual anxiety over China’s national identity. It has been argued that, because China’s modernity has been largely a project of Chinese male intellectuals, delays in achieving modernization entail a ‘besiegedness’ of Chinese masculinity. In the 1980s and the 1990s, Chinese society was overwhelmingly perceived as yinsheng yangshui !, or as being inﬂuenced by the ‘abnormal’ rise of the feminine and decline of the masculine. In literature, the search for ‘real men’ and concern for the degeneration of manhood and the Chinese race ushered in representations of macho male ﬁgures as the embodiment of Chinese nationhood, such as the male characters in many of the root-searching works (Zhong, X. 2000: 15–51). In comparison with the potent peasants in Jia Pingwa’s own earlier writing, for instance, Zhuang appears at best ‘softly’ masculine and at worst even genderless. In between these extremes, he either indulges his inﬂated ego or suffers from impotence and self-loathing to the extent that he even wants to castrate himself. Zhuang’s ambiguous sexuality and dubious social status generate confusion in his self-perception and result in his fatal identity crisis. With women admiring his literary talent, Zhuang is able to satisfy temporarily his thirst for a positive self. Zhuang’s sexual activities are as important as a means of afﬁrming his manhood and masculinity. Time spent with beautiful women temporarily distracts him from his anxiety in society and at home. After playing the ‘talented scholar’, Zhuang at times effectively resumes his masculinity and even regains his ability to father children. Zhuang’s character is seen as highly problematic in light of the preference for the macho male in literary representations since the mid-1980s. 12 Although sexuality has been a major theme in many of Jia Pingwa’s previous works (see for instance, Louie 1991) sexual description is a problem for Jia Pingwa only in Defunct Capital, when the literatus Zhuang, disguised as a modern intellectual, illustrates a kind of masculinity very different from the macho maleness of his country fellows. Impotent at times, a sissy at others, sex as demonstrated by Zhuang ceases to be a demonstration of potency. On the whole, the masculinity represented by Zhuang Zhidie is ultimately ‘soft’ and ambiguous in the social context. His impotence means that he can never be the ‘real man’ in the national search for China’s potency. Although Zhuang may appear to be the ideal male in a traditional Chinese cultural environment and is still able to attract women who admire his fame and writing, his ‘talented-but-failed-scholar’ image confronts expectations of a ‘true hero’ with the desired masculinity. Zhuang’s sexuality is an essential part of Jia Pingwa’s cultural construction of a China that is urbanized, devastated and profoundly disturbed by the transition to modernity. Zhuang Zhidie embodies the dilemmas China faces in the globalization of the 1990s and beyond. Indeed, negotiation between tradition and modernity leads to the more acute questioning of

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both individual and national identity. Chinese writers have been perplexed in the transition between modernization and tradition, and are also faced with the overwhelming tides of commercialization that have swept China since the 1980s. In other words, writers face the challenge of the market, a force they had not previously encountered. Free-market commodiﬁcation has ‘demoted’ writers from their previously privileged position as ‘the architects of the soul’ of society to being just ‘common’ members, who are left to ﬂoat or sink in the market economy. Critics perceived a crisis in quality and morality in literary production in the early 1990s. Literature depicting sex and developing sexual themes is regarded as a symptom of the deterioration of the Chinese literary tradition, and Defunct Capital is seen as a sign of a complete decline in the ethics of writing (Duowei 1993; Xu Zidong 1996; Lu Sheldon, 2001: 239–59). However, arguably, Jia Pingwa may have intended to write about Zhuang’s sexual engagements not to entice readers but to reveal the depth of the protagonist’s alienation and frustration. Zhuang’s personal experience illustrates the corrosion and degradation of traditional Chinese culture by rapid commercialization in recent decades. At the same time, Zhuang also embodies the aspirations, confusion and disillusionment of Chinese writers, whose works are now increasingly seen as commodities. The urbanization of personal space and lifestyle for both the author and the protagonist means drastic and traumatic cultural changes, which entail necessary estrangement from their familiar community and the sense of self. The shift from nature as represented by rural Shaanxi into culture as represented by Xijing in Defunct Capital reﬂects a process in which male potency has been gradually reduced, tamed, eroded and diminished. Sexuality, male desire and individual identity are presented in a ‘talented scholar’ to expose the irreversible decline of Chinese traditional high culture. Defunct Capital presents an antithesis to the ‘real man’ that had been sought after in contemporary Chinese society. Zhuang Zhidie’s ‘soft masculinity’ and his sexual indulgence have been construed as negative and derogatory symbolism of the current status of Chinese civilization. More importantly, it does not respond to the quest for the macho national spirit by both individuals and the Chinese authorities in recent decades. Zhuang Zhidie’s ‘soft’ masculinity, therefore, qualiﬁes him as a ‘sexual’ dissident against contemporary Chinese cultural nationalism. The association of Chinese cultural tradition with ‘soft’ masculinity and with China’s social reality has inevitable political implications. Many critics and readers have responded in indignation to Defunct Capital and made demands for the authorities to take action (Xiao Xialin 1993; Zha, Jianying 1995: 129–64). Despite the nostalgia of Chinese culture displayed in the narrative, Mr Butterﬂy in the ruins of Chinese civilization indeed ‘misengenders’ China. The ‘butterﬂy’ symbolism is too soft in the trend in search of China’s national potency.

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5

Defunct Capital and female domesticity

Defunct Capital is a return to Chinese cultural traditions in many ways, and the centrality of a Confucian, ‘soft’ masculinity in the context of a historically ‘defunct capital’ makes it imperative for Jia Pingwa to cast women in ‘traditional’ and subordinate roles. To trace and gather traditional protocols to conﬁgure the traditional discourse of sexuality is thus an important and integral part of Jia Pingwa’s goal to represent sexual politics beﬁtting the protagonist’s identity more as a traditional literatus. Female subjectivity in Defunct Capital has to be, regretfully, regressive and removed from the social reality as most people experience in contemporary Chinese cities. Defunct Capital is categorically not a novel of standard socialist realism but a narrative intended to recapture the status of mind of Zhuang Zhidie as a quasi-intellectual lamenting over a rapidly vanishing past. Hence, the narrative ‘needs’ to deﬁne women according to premodern criteria: such a task necessarily leads to the conﬁnement of women to domestic circles and women’s fulﬁlment is therefore measured in relation to men and family only. If Defunct Capital were presented as historical ﬁction with a vague sense of time, such characterization would most likely be considered as historically true. Defunct Capital, however, examines, the past from the present and insists that the past is within the present: part of the narrative strategy is to reduce women’s subjectivity to their sexuality only and conﬁne them to their traditional place: domesticity. For decades, women have been heroines in the PRC literature, playing many signiﬁcant social roles, sometimes even heroic roles as ﬁghters, leaders or intellectuals with national or international awareness. The CCP’s ofﬁcial feminism has effectively encouraged women to take part in social activities and social achievements have been important for their sense of self and identity, although family remains an important part of their life and responsibilities. Since the mid-1980s, women characters are increasingly assigned traditional roles as domestic beings, particularly by writers whose agenda is to reinvent a premodern China. Initially with the root-searching school and later with ‘experimentalists’ or the ‘neo-historicists’, women have been returned to their domestic duties or men’s sexual partners, mostly as mothers, wives, carers, lovers, concubines, mistresses, or daughters sold to despicable

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men by their fathers.1 Domesticity of women has been the major indicator of Chinese cultural traditions in literary representation. While arguing against the devaluation of women’s writing in terms of domesticity, Rey Chow points out: ‘One of the functions of the patriarchal organisation of society – in particular traditional Chinese society – is the consignment of women to domesticity. Domesticity should therefore be seen as a predominant, if not the only, paradigm under which many Chinese women’s thinking operates’ (Chow, Rey 1993: 91). Rey Chow’s remark pinpoints the relevance and the centrality of domesticity to tradition and to patriarchy. Post-Mao Chinese literature has seen a return of women to domesticity and female characters being placed back into a family surrounding under male domination.

Domesticity and village women Jia Pingwa is one of the major root-searchers, and the roles and images of women assuming responsibilities within the family arena are very important in his representation of ways of life in rural China. In his writing until the mid-1990s Jia Pingwa’s female characters mostly remain in the family with the village they were born in or married into as their social environment. Moreover, Jia Pingwa has focused more on cultural traditions than on social realities, and village life as portrayed in Shangzhou stories is about the basics of human existence. He has managed to create rural environments devoid of explicit political agendas, although the CCP’s ideology and other political realities are still present. In other words, the world of Jia’s stories is essentially daily family life, and women at home have been one of his focuses. In general, domestic women and domesticity have dominated characterisations of women in Jia Pingwa’s writings until after the publication of Defunct Capital. Defunct Capital brings many village women out to the city but they are still primarily ‘domestic’ and their activity zone does not go beyond contacts through their male associates. The domesticity for Jia Pingwa’s village women means the daily business of the household – their concerns with food, clothing, children, marriage, dogs and cats, ensuring life rituals are properly followed, with occasional distractions from the village community. Like the landscape of southern Shaanxi, Jia Pingwa’s village women are attractive and enchanting, although their families are still haunted by hardship, poverty and beliefs in supernatural forces. In contrast to women living in relative comfort in Defunct Capital, Jia Pingwa’s village women go through extreme difﬁculties but they cope with family crises and difﬁcult living conditions with perseverance, love and grace. The process enables them to demonstrate immense inner beauty and warmth. Devoting enormous passion to his village women, Jia Pingwa frequently uses the term ‘Buddha’ to describe their kindness, a colloquial metaphor normally used for compassionate personalities among Shaanxi villagers. Darkie in the novella named after her, ‘Darkie’ (Heishi ), is a village woman who best illustrates qualities and characteristics of Jia Pingwa’s

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rural female. Dark-skinned, she can hardly be the village beauty, as fair complexions are generally more highly rated. She is called Darkie, because nobody knows or cares about her original name. To add to her disadvantage, she also comes from a village farther into the mountains, even more isolated than the one where she now lives. Married to a man of small build with an even smaller mind, Darkie is in fact a housemaid and a labourer for the family during the day and a sex slave to her husband at night. She is abused and exploited cruelly by her in-laws. She is in a helpless situation because her father-in-law is well connected and highly powerful as the accountant in charge of the local credit union. Her husband’s frequent adultery eventually leads to their divorce and she wins the love and respect of two village men almost at the same time. She chooses to marry the one who has always helped her. Her second marriage is happy for a while when they both work hard to keep going. Darkie manages to save enough money and starts a successful restaurant. When she hears about the misfortune of her ex-husband, instead of taking revenge, Darkie rescues the disgraced family ﬁnancially despite their previous mistreatment of her. In the meantime, her second marriage begins to fail, as her second husband becomes increasingly negligent of her and their relationship. Darkie arranges for a woman helper to accompany her second husband in the restaurant and then elopes with the lover she did not marry. Her mental and physical strength, her wisdom and passion, shine through despite her plain features. Like most village women, she is not crushed by hardship and indeed grows with it. From a passive, obedient wife accepting ill fortune and abuse, Darkie becomes a courageous woman, capable of taking control of her own life. Her persistent pursuit of a better life and her consideration of others defy conventional moral judgements. In the end it is her inner beauty that wins her love, admiration and wealth. Like Darkie, Water Girl in Turbulence is also one of Jia Pingwa’s most admired female characters, nurtured and shaped by the native land of Shaanxi. Tough, tenacious and resilient, she pulls through extraordinary hardships throughout her life: poverty, hunger, loss of parents, death of her husband and imprisonment of her loved ones. Her name best describes her personal qualities as speciﬁed in the narrative: water is the strongest substance since nothing can stop its persistent ﬂow or break its consistency. The multiple layers of river ﬂow are also symbolic of her inner world as the river can be calm on the surface and yet turbulent underneath. Her positive attitude towards life and the freshness of her personality reveal a beautiful inner self that matches her ﬁne appearance. There are numerous village women like Darkie and Water Girl in Jia Pingwa’s writing. Although they are conﬁned within the boundaries of home and village, domesticity does not undermine their integrity and independent spirit. On the contrary, domestic surroundings show their conﬁdence and courage. In turn they demand respect from other villagers as well as the reader. By comparison, although Jia Pingwa’s earlier women characters in the village do not perform

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active social roles either, they are given sufﬁcient space to develop their personalities and individual growth. Also, when in close contact with their ‘natural habitat’, namely their land, village and customs, they are most admirable in courage, integrity and passion. The harshness of village life also provides opportunities for self-sacriﬁce and hence to best play the designated self-sacriﬁcing role of women. Women characters in Jia Pingwa’s ﬁction after Defunct Capital are drastically different, especially in their subjectivity in relation to their social role and domesticity. Their horizons are much more broadened and they are far more proactive in society and community life.

Domesticity and femininity in Defunct Capital Women characters in Defunct Capital are the most regressive in their total submission and subservience to men. Moving into the urban environment in the contaminated defunct capital, Jia Pingwa’s women characters lose their positive qualities, although they retain their physical beauty. Material comfort and urban alienation also lead to their loss of decisiveness they had in running the household in the village. Their sexuality has been transformed from ‘primitive passions’ to ‘decadent indulgence’. Their focus in life is narrowed down to men and their men’s sexual gratiﬁcation. Understandably, the characterization of women in Defunct Capital has been subjected to severe criticism for its ‘degradation’ of women. The images of women are found to be passive, negative, humiliating and infuriating, at odds with the images of Chinese women commonly perceived today. Commenting on Defunct Capital ’s handling of women, Jiang Fan complains: !"#$%&'()*+,-./0122#!3#45 !"#$%&'() !"#$%&'()* !"#$%&'"()(*+,-./012345%* !"#$%& The behaviour of the women in Defunct Capital reveals no thinking of their own as active women and demonstrates only their sexual instincts . . . Women in Defunct Capital fail to show any social awareness. Consequently only their animal nature and animal desires are sustained. Who wouldn’t agree that such women as Tang Wanr are simply female animals with excessive sexual desires! (Xiao Xialin 1993: 268) Although it is disputable whether women with excessive sexual desires are not honourable and therefore reduced to ‘animals’ because of their sexuality, the comment underpins the regression in women’s images in the narrative. Mostly as the sexual partners of the ‘cultural idlers’ conﬁned to domestic surroundings, women characters in Defunct Capital are to ‘match’ their

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literati lovers or husbands with their ignorance and beauty. The overwhelming domesticity, passivity and lack of aspirations on the part of the women characters in a provincial capital city appear to contradict the general perception of women’s positions in China in the 1990s. The representation of women in Defunct Capital has consequently caused an outcry of complaints that either Jia Pingwa remains a peasant and only knows about rural women or he simply has no idea what modernity is. Few critics or commentators see the prevailing domesticity as Jia Pingwa’s narrative strategy or the possibility that he conﬁnes women to domesticity in order to locate the practice of Chinese traditions. Indeed, Defunct Capital maintains abundant ‘female’ personal connections with the countryside, despite the shift of the narrative setting from country to town. It is possible that Jia Pingwa feels more familiar with country environment and likes writing about it. It is also possible that he feels strongly that being domestic is equivalent to being traditional, which in turn means being rural. In any case, Liu Yue and Tang Wanr, the two women important in Zhuang’s life, come from the village and the country town respectively. Niu Yueqing, although a city dweller from a family with generations of urban residence, has far more close relatives from the village nearby and they also frequently visit the Niu family in the city. Other country women include the cowherd Liu Sao and the vulgar wife of the village insecticide factory owner, each of whom has the honour of entertaining Zhuang Zhidie as her guest in her country house when Zhuang desires retreats from the city. Even though there are also many women in the story who do not have a rural origin or connection, they are invariably ‘domestic’ and their domesticity is circumscribed not only by what they are but also by what they do. Most of the women in Defunct Capital do not have extended circles of friends or social contacts and their lives are conﬁned to domestic matters and household business. Topics of conversation among these women are generally about cooking, shopping, marriage, relationships, fashion and makeup – all for the purpose of better serving the men in their life. Zhuang Zhidie’s women, wife Niu Yueqing and his mistresses, all have him as the centre of the world. The only two urban women with more social contacts with a profession are the bureaucrat Jing Xueyin and the Buddhist nun Huiming. Neither is admirable and both are shown to be more skilled in conspiracy than in their professions. Both are targets and victims of male aggression professionally and sexually. Because women characters are basically subsidiary to male characters, they cannot and do not have their own growth, inner depth and sense of self-worth. If the ‘four selfs’ promoted by the Chinese authorities are indications of the modern Chinese woman, namely self-respect, self-conﬁdence, self-reliance and self-improvement, none of the women characters in the narrative comes close to the prescription (Croll 1995: 150).2 The images of women in Defunct Capital are regressive both in terms of the CCP’s

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promotion of female social beings and Jia Pingwa’s previous independent village women. Demeaned, belittled and reduced to basic domestic beings and objects of male sexual desire, these women serve as the convenient Other to show Zhuang Zhidie’s male egocentric subjectivity. Nevertheless, the text is meaningful precisely as a reﬂection of a culture with a history of appreciation for bound feet and polygamy.

Women as furen, mothers, and femmes fatales The gender relations presented in Defunct Capital are more in line with the values of traditional literati, in particular their ideal of male dominance and female subordination. Under this scheme, women are designated domestic roles of perpetuating the family line and taking care of the family. The framework of cultural tradition set out in Defunct Capital determines that women characters cannot be independent, fully capacitated individuals with aspirations beyond domesticity. In other words, they are not written as funü or women in the CCP’s version of mass production, or as nüxing , individualistic and independent women as the May Fourth intellectuals preferred to see.3 They are written outside these paradigms primarily as nüren (female person) or furen (married female person). The male narrator categorically prefers to address his female characters as nüren or furen, and these titles conﬁne them in their capacity of sexuality and domesticity. Women addressed as furen or nüren are immediately placed in the past away from independent subjectivity, as they refer to women simply as secondary beings deﬁned by their secondary sexual identity. Again, furen and nüren are used more often in the domestic setting where they are deﬁned by their sexuality and relegated to lower social and family status. Within the context of literati tradition and Zhuang’s quest for identity, women characters are given very limited roles in order that there is enough space to display the complexities of Zhuang’s male ego and the power politics of the male world. The domesticity of Zhuang’s women ensures that the focus of the narrative remains on Zhuang. Suffering from deep social alienation, Zhuang is reluctant to show up in public places and prefers to remove himself from the public gaze. Situating himself in his domestic environment, he is able to interact with his women more intimately as ‘master of the house’. To some extent, Zhuang ﬁnds temporary shelter in the embraces of women, which is inﬁnitely more self-reassuring than his public role as the city’s famous writer. Hence, for the purpose of Zhuang’s literati pursuit, women in Defunct Capital can never be funü or nüxing. They are destined to play traditional, domestic roles. In terms of women’s subjectivity, modernity and social change are either irrelevant or too distant. Zhuang’s literati world is reassured by the distance between modernity and tradition inserted by placing women in domesticity. Women’s sexuality is presented as a double-edged sword in Defunct Capital. On the one hand there is the warmth and care of femininity that the male

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desires. On the other, there is also the fear for the power of women, especially the power of female sexuality. This mixture of male needs and fear is related to two different ways in which women in Defunct Capital relate to the male protagonist Zhuang Zhidie: there are the women who care and nurture him as mother, and others who allure and destroy him in the role of the femme fatale. Occasionally the two roles merge as they are not always mutually exclusive. His wife Niu Yueqing obviously takes upon herself the role of the caring mother. Belonging to the motherly group are also the housemaid Liu Yue, the cowherd Liu Sao and the cow herself, niu. The maternal ﬁgures in Zhuang’s life and are somehow connected to the cow. When Shaanxi pronunciation, which does not rigidly distinguish ‘l’ and ‘n’, is taken into consideration, niu bears no difference from liu. Hence, through phonetic connections, all these women and the cow are grouped by the narrative as the mother and the niu (cow). The linking of all these women with the cow and with the mother ﬁgure helps to reinforce the women’s nurturing role and hence their docile subjectivity and domesticity. In turn, their domesticity limits the narrative focus on the tradition that keeps women at home in the kitchen. The mother/cow connection provides a structure for Zhuang Zhidie to deﬁne his subjectivity against the nurturing function of women. Niu Yueqing recognizes that ‘to be a wife to a man like him means to be his wife as well as his mother’ (205). Interestingly, since none of these women has children of her own, Zhuang Zhidie is the only person for them to attend to and their attention is constantly on him and on his well-being. To mother and to take care of him seem to preoccupy them, especially in their provision of food to Zhuang, and food prepared by them in turn reinforces their mothering role to him. Even the cow behaves similarly as she allows Zhuang, and only Zhuang, to suck her milk. Liu Yue tries her best to prepare Zhuang’s favourite pasta dish and Tang Wanr even goes to the trouble of climbing the city wall to catch baby cicadas, supposedly a Shaanxi delicacy, to cook a special dish for Zhuang. As a result of their and his childless state, Zhuang Zhidie is infantilized by this mother/cow group of women and the infantilization allows him to behave irresponsibly, especially towards his wife and family. Conscious of their nurturing duty to Zhuang, Niu Yueqing, Liu Yue and the cow all pay heavily for Zhuang’s eccentricity, irresponsibility and selﬁsh decisions. The other kind of women in close association with Zhuang Zhidie is the femme fatale, and the way women are categorized into this stereotype goes hand in hand with Jia Pingwa’s aim at creating a traditional discourse of sexual politics. Among the many afﬁnities between Defunct Capital and The Golden Lotus, the closest is the characterization of the femme fatale and the manner in which an ‘idler’ focuses his life on seducing women. The male protagonist Ximen Qing in The Golden Lotus is a social idler: his death and the death of the ﬁrst husband of Pan Jinlian, the femme fatale case in point, are both due to their involvement with the woman. The characterization of

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women in Defunct Capital bears strong resemblance to The Golden Lotus, for the motif of the femme fatale is vital to the plot of both novels. Defunct Capital treats female sexuality as a threat in the same way with fear, revenge and retribution. Many of its female ﬁgures are femmes fatales, who, with enormous sexual appeal, complicate their male partners’ lives with danger and moral dilemmas. Through the body and fate of the femme fatale, the author is able to locate cultural and narrative traditions relevant to his cultural construct. Historically gendered roles of men and women in Chinese society provide the author with powerful signiﬁers of ‘cultural traditions’. Zhuang Zhidie’s mistress Liu Yue is predestined to be and speciﬁcally identiﬁed as a femme fatale. With little pubic hair, she is said to belong to the type that the Taoist mythologies call ‘the star of the white tigress’ (baihuxing ). Such stars are deadly, according to the myth as interpreted by Tang Wanr (329). Despite her own part in Zhuang’s life as a fatal attraction, Tang Wanr insists that Liu Yue is the absolute femme fatale, for Liu Yue’s arrival at the Zhuang household coincides with the beginning of the libel case and Liu Yue’s sexual relationship with Zhuang noticeably triggers other crises in Zhuang’s life. To stress the historicity of Liu Yue’s part as handmaid, she is compared to a Tang dynasty statue of a servant girl that sits on the master’s desk. Narcissistically, Liu Yue also identiﬁes with the statue, assuming the role of the beauty meeting the scholar. She sits and reads in Zhuang’s study beside the statue, as if she had always, albeit marginally, belonged to the ‘high’ culture represented by Zhuang. As a virgin fresh from a remote mountain village, both Liu Yue’s mind and body are supposedly pure and uncontaminated. The city instantly spoils her innocence with material temptations, and decadence in Zhuang Zhidie’s home unleashes her destructive sexual desire as well as calculating selﬁshness. Being from the countryside, Liu Yue has to make extra efforts to do well in the city and yet, in her efforts to build a better life and obtain better social status, her innocence is further destroyed. Step by step, Zhuang’s misfortunes ‘prove’ that she is a ‘star of disaster’ (zaixing ), a typical femme fatale. Liu Yue and Tang Wanr are, of course, not the only femmes fatales in Defunct Capital. Others include Jing Xueyin, Huiming, Ah Can and Ah Can’s sister, each of whom brings misadventure to herself and to the men sexually associated with her. Many of them are active seducers and skilful schemers in their sexual advances to win favours from men. Their sexual assertiveness and manipulative techniques are among the most common characteristics of Chinese femme fatale stories. These sexually active females sharply contrast with the general impression of prudish Chinese women bound by Confucian precepts or controlled by CCP ideologies. Tang Wanr, Liu Yue and Ah Can all manage to be successfully seduced by Zhuang Zhidie. Huiming, a Buddhist nun, who is supposed to lead an ascetic life, successfully uses sex to gain approval for the reconstruction of the Buddhist temple. Although most of the women in Defunct Capital appear strong and capable as femmes fatales, it would be a mistake to think that they are in control of

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their own lives. They do not ‘desire to desire’ but ‘desire to be desired’. They accept whatever destinies are allocated to them by male authorities and are content to be the beauty coupling with the scholar. The aspirations of women in Defunct Capital are limited to being attractive to men and their ‘modernity’ goes only as far as trendy dresses and hairstyles. They do not conceive of themselves as individuals independent of men, and their concern is more to be the object of male sexual desire than their own self-fulﬁlment. Huiming categorically states her understanding of the male-dominated society and is prepared to conform to it as much as she can to achieve her goals. Huiming seduces to succeed, although at the price of her own welfare and integrity, as she has to terminate her pregnancy by the mayor’s secretary. Huiming confesses to Niu Yueqing that she has just had an abortion, when Niu Yueqing visits the temple seeking spiritual guidance in her desperate situation with Zhuang Zhidie. Huiming thus ‘enlightens’ Niu Yueqing with the understanding that society is male-dominated and that women have to adapt to male needs. Huming’s lecture helps Niu Yueqing come to terms with her husband’s affairs and their relationship. Niu Yueqing soon starts wearing makeup, which she found objectionable before, and determines to divorce Zhuang Zhidie (484–5). ‘Women with abundant beauty are thin in good fortune’ (hongyan baoming !), another piece of old-fashioned Chinese wisdom on the destiny of women, well summarizes women’s misfortune in Defunct Capital. The perception of women’s physical attractiveness as the omen of misfortune appears to be the basis on which Defunct Capital frames the stories of the femmes fatales. The omen is implied at the very beginning of the narrative, when Zhuang takes home soil from the tomb of Yang Guifei, the imperial concubine of the Tang and the archetype of the femme fatale in Chinese literary history. The sudden death of the four beautiful ﬂowers, which grow out of the soil, at the hands of Zhuang by accident, is indicative of the destiny of Zhuang’s women. Jia Pingwa deliberately uses the number 4 to imply connections between Zhuang and the four women he has sexual relations with: Niu Yueqing, Tang Wanr, Liu Yue and Ah Can.4 Given the close association between the ﬂowers, women and female sexuality, these ﬂowers connect the stories of Zhuang’s women to the cosmological order. In this sense, to portray the women as the femme fatale is to reinforce the message that female sexuality is threatening to male dominance. The narrative also places the women in cosmology by illustrating prescriptions of their destinies from The Numinous Number of Master Shao.5 In order to emphasize their roles as femmes fatales, these women are at the same time condemned as ‘bad’ mothers: Niu Yueqing is childless after a previous abortion to suit Zhuang’s career needs; Liu Yue does not seem to get pregnant; Tang Wanr abandons her two-year-old boy to elope with Zhou Min and later terminates her pregnancy by Zhuang to protect his reputation; Huiming administers her own abortion and Zhuang’s estranged lover Jing Xueyin remains childless. However, condemnation of women

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actually goes further, when the narrative also takes on the strategies of retribution common in the traditional Chinese vernacular novels, especially those in the Ming and Qing dynasties.6 According to Robert Hegel, a woman’s sexual behaviour is judged in a kind of ‘popular’ Confucianism against her fulﬁlment of domestic duties in being a good daughter, responsible wife and caring mother, and she is held primarily responsible for any sexual liaisons. In the ﬁctional world of that period, karmic justice prevails despite the complexities of journeys of different individual characters. The cosmology of the universe not only predetermines the path of individual life but more importantly rewards or punishes moral or immoral deeds. The narrative of Defunct Capital observes this principle in general and women are rewarded or punished depending on their degree of conformity to Confucian precepts. Consequently, ‘immoral’ women in Defunct Capital are punished in due course. Ah Can’s good-looking sister becomes schizophrenic and is permanently hospitalized after her rape by the local council ofﬁcer. Ah Can takes revenge on her sister’s behalf and she has to ﬂee and leave her family. Tang Wanr elopes with her lover, the worst ‘sin’ of a woman in a Confucian society, and her involvement with Zhuang is considered a double betrayal of two men. Hence her punishment is the most severe – she is virtually prisoner of her violent husband and is constantly tortured. Liu Yue seems to be ﬁnancially successful but will have to stay in an unhappy marriage. Although such plotting does not mean that the author necessarily shares the values of the Neo-Confucianism of the Ming and Qing periods, it shows the importance of women’s traditional roles as signiﬁers of cultural traditions. Since Jia Pingwa’s focus is on cultivating Zhuang’s role as a traditional literatus, his women need to be traditional in the sense that they conform to his needs and his mentality as the self-important and self-indulgent writer. By adopting the recurrent theme of the femme fatale Jia Pingwa is able to reinforce a nativist, indigenous narrative identity for Defunct Capital in the Chinese narrative tradition.

Double objectiﬁcation of women The characterization of women in Defunct Capital is a result of objectiﬁcation from the male gaze on female subjectivity and sexuality. In the textual and contextual settings of Defunct Capital, women characters suffer from double objectiﬁcation – from a Confucian social family order and from the language devices reinforcing values of that tradition. Male desires expressed in male language conﬁne women within the paradigms of Confucian conventions, whether poems by Jia Pingwa or in The Numinous Number of Master Shao or in the historical inscriptions on the steles in the temples. The ‘soft’ masculinity of Xijing’s literati is constructed on the basis of a female subjectivity in the arena of domesticity and at the expense of modern womanhood. The nature of male language adopted by the narrator and by the characters

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in the novel help to portray the passive female subjectivity desired by both the political and cultural establishments of Xijing. As traditionally his counterparts would have done in their political disillusionment, Zhuang Zhidie ﬁnds sexual engagements as temporary substitutes for aesthetic achievement, career advancement or political success. Women around Zhuang are mere objects of desire of literati taste and their physical features are invariably paragons of beauty in the traditional Chinese eye: small feet, fair complexion and fair, fragrant skin. Tang Wanr is said to have the perfect skin, fair and ﬁne. She and the wife of Wang Ximian both arouse Zhuang Zhidie with their small, delicate feet on different occasions (53, 296). Liu Yue is advised by Zhuang to pay attention to her feet, shoes and hair to enhance her natural beauty. In other words, Liu Yue should model herself on Tang Wanr, the woman who claims that she knows how to adjust herself to excite men (151). Ah Can is known for her fragrant skin and her body seems to be able to ooze an attractive odour which her sexual partners ﬁnd irresistible (244). The women also make excessive efforts to dress themselves in such a way as to ensure admiration from their male partners. Mentally, they are aware that they are the objects of male sexual desire and need to be attractive all the time. There are plenty of examples in the text when women, especially Tang Wanr and Liu Yue, make every effort to ensure that they are attractive to Zhuang Zhidie (23, 26, 86, 144, 246 and 303). Their constant attention to their appearance reduces them to characters of extreme superﬁciality. In their common desire to please the male partner or male authorities, there can be no independent, competent desiring woman. Hence it is no surprise that depiction of female sexuality in Defunct Capital has been most severely criticised by critics looking for the new woman who is a ‘social being’. Disappointed critics hold Zhuang guilty of several charges of moral corruption, for instance forcing working-class and peasant women to worship literary culture while corrupting their virtue and condemning innocent women to vulgar sexual experiences.7 Although the moral judgement demonstrates a depreciation of the narrative framework and its cultural implications, indeed Zhuang’s desire for empathy from these women is pure fantasy, if not being entirely pathetic, since the women do not seem to have enough education to achieve a genuine understanding of Zhuang’s inner struggle. The mentality of an antagonistic and discontented literatus comes to life through the irrelevance of the women’s roles to the process and effects of social modernization. Those women’s sexual, familial and social relationships amount to no growth or development on their part but qualify them as the objects of male fantasy. As a literatus, Zhuang remains a disgruntled anti-hero by default, whose disillusionment at failing to produce the best piece of writing is almost impossible for these domestic women to comprehend. However, where mutual understanding and empathy are out of the question, Zhuang Zhidie is actually after release of his frustration and the women are his detour to cope with social disillusionment. He feels comforted

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when the women articulate their desire to be desired by him and they are always more ready to admire than to challenge him. Apart from the beauty– scholar connection, which requires little literacy of the female but her appreciation of his talent, Zhuang has no need for the women to share his intellectual quest – they need only to satisfy him sexually and to worship him mentally. He enjoys the company and the sex so that he can forget about his troubles temporarily. He uses women’s bodies and their devotion to him to compensate for his sense of self-loss in his social battles. Hence Tang Wanr’s body becomes Zhuang’s ‘Worry-Free Hall’. In short, it is the women’s bodies rather than their minds in which Zhuang is interested and his interest is purely instrumental and temporary. Paradoxically, it is precisely in this unbalanced representation that the male-centred literati tradition is re-invented and its masculinity restaged and mocked. Women in Defunct Capital spare no efforts to make themselves available to men. The widely different backgrounds and aspirations of Tang Wanr and Huiming do not prevent them from speaking very similarly of the importance of women making themselves attractive to men.8 Tang Wanr and other women’s devotion to men recalls what Kate Millett pointed out nearly three decades ago: ‘what many women wanted was full of contradictions and confusions, still entangled in what patriarchy wanted them to be or wanted for them’ (Millett 1985: 10). As products of double masculine imagination (of male characters and of the author), the women characters are not capable of desire for their own sake: their textual presence is to demonstrate typical male desires and fantasies of the Chinese literati. They comply with male needs with enormous self-sacriﬁce. Liu Yue, for example, even accepts that Zhuang Zhidie arranges her marriage to suit his needs, initially to his mate Zhao Jingwu and then changes the arrangement to the crippled son of the mayor, even though she secretly longs to be Zhuang’s wife. In relation to Zhuang as the master of the house, Liu Yue is the perfect concubine: beautiful, clever, loyal and obedient, politically and sexually. Liu Yue even looks after Zhuang Zhidie ﬁnancially after his fall from grace. Tang Wanr and Ah Can on various occasions express envy for Zhuang’s wife but both immediately show a willingness to accept their relationship on his terms, because they understand his situation. Ah Can walks out of his life willingly, knowing she is pregnant by him. Tang Wanr has an abortion so that no scandal is caused to damage his reputation. Even when Niu Yueqing ﬁnds out about his affair with Tang Wanr, she still tries to ensure that the word does not get around to tarnish his name. Such total concern for his needs contributes enormously to Zhuang’s sense of power and provides him with an inﬂated ego. Niu Yueqing and the ‘other’ women constitute a traditional Chinese platform on which Zhuang runs a household of polygamy.9 The male/female correlation in Defunct Capital conﬁgures a sample of a traditional Chinese patriarchal value system and shows how it exploits female sexuality for its own ends. In the process, the narrative effectively displays a gendered manifestation of the traditional culture.

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Jing Xueyin serves as Zhuang Zhidie’s most desired and yet unattainable object. She therefore remains the subject of his fantasy till the end. Politically she is more powerful and is out of his reach, despite a platonic relationship in their youth. Zhuang still regrets that he was too prudish and inexperienced at the time to consummate their passion which he cherishes until the court hearing when he reads Jing’s written accusation. In his dream after his defeat at the provincial district court, he marries her, sexually arouses her, then deserts and publicly humiliates her (516). Zhuang’s subconscious still desires Jing to remain in love with him and under his control. His failure with her is initially sexual when their relationship fails to develop into marriage and afterwards it is also a political failure, for Zhuang loses vital powerful political connections he could have gained through such a marriage. His earlier sexual restraint eventually contributes to his political downfall. On the other hand, Zhuang’s fantasy of Jing does not demean her more than it humiliates himself, as his subconscious betrays his fragile ego as well as his anxiety over his identity. None the less, the narrative shows no sympathy towards Jing Xueyin. She is a femme fatale by virtue of her beauty. Her powerful social associations only make her scenario worse: the typical good-looking bad woman who spells trouble. Hers is an evil existence conﬁrmed by the misery she causes Zhuang with the libel case and therefore she has to be belittled and humiliated, even if only in the male subconsciousness. Zhuang Zhidie’s interactions with women constitute a large part of his quest for selfhood and he is seen frequently and conspicuously in the company of women with whom he engages in conversations that reveal his despair and frustration. His inner search is demonstrated through frequent dialogues with his female partners, although Zhuang’s confession should not be considered as expectation of empathy from the women. Women are conveniently written as the female Other(s) for the male protagonist in order to illustrate his inner world together with his power, talent, charm, eccentricity and superiority. Zhuang by no means ﬁnds soulmates in women as he does with his male literati friends, such as Meng Yunfang. Women are distractions, objects of fantasy and temporary refuges.

Domesticity as female destination Defunct Capital shows no concept of a woman’s career development. Women’s place as designed by the narrative and desired by the literati is hence domestic or semi-domestic environments. Women are wives or partners before they are individuals and they are housewives before they are workers. Although some of them have jobs, their focus remains on their family life or their male partners. Jing Xueyin is portrayed as a bureaucrat of some considerable power but there are no details of her work, except that she gets there only as a result of her father’s nepotism. The reason that Jing Xueyin goes through all the stress, taking her former lover to court, is allegedly to save her husband’s face. As a responsible wife, she has to defend

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her ‘virginity’ before marriage. Niu Yueqing’s case is even more revealing. Her occupation is never speciﬁed, whereas her responsibilities as a housewife certainly take priority. She is constantly shopping, arranging parties or sulking over household matters: her shopping list can be as long as a full page (80); the trouble she goes through to organize Zhuang’s birthday party is immense (222–3) and she certainly prioritizes good management of the household in order for him to be able to further his career (434–5). None of the women seems to have the restraint of working hours, and they are available to party or to cook for their male partners any time, a lifestyle best suited to the literati and the leisure group in society. As a result of these women’s domesticity the good old days for the literati seem to have temporarily returned, when they are able to spend day and night enjoying the pleasures of ﬂesh, wine and literary creation. These women’s lack of education and career motivation means they possess little knowledge, skill, insight or ambition to function as social beings. They are not able to, or meant to, relate to society as signiﬁcant contributing individuals. They remain domestic creatures, warm, caring, motherly, subservient and submissive to their male masters. Psychologically, they are stable, sound and strong, able to accommodate the insecurities of the literatus male. Although being the providers of love, care, sex and food, they are also the perfect emotional stepping stones on the male’s path to manhood. Their domesticity means their social status is reduced to a minimum to suit the needs of their male partners. They are to cater for Zhuang’s displaced aspirations so that he can form sexual relationships with them and apply his literary talents by naming and writing about them. That Zhuang is aware of his compatibility with domesticated women is betrayed by his distant admiration for Jing Xueyin and the Buddhist nun Huiming , the two women who to some extent have extended their footing in society. Although Zhuang ﬁnds them both alluring and attractive, his attitude towards them is one of awe, lust and apprehension,10 very different from the bravado he demonstrates with the others, such as the aggressive manner in which he forces himself on to Liu Yue in the presence of Tang Wanr (328). Because Jing Xueyin and Huiming are able to counteract male power to some extent, Zhuang shies away from them sexually. As such, Jing Xueyin is also portrayed as ruthless and evil, and Huiming as cunning and manipulative. However, Jing Xueyin and Huiming are not the embodiment of the ‘modern new woman’ by any means. Rather, they are reﬂections of the Confucian fear for women with power and intelligence. In effect they are simply subjugated to other forms of male manipulation. As a result, their social interactions and higher education turn out to be curses rather than blessings in their personal lives. Huiming is a social outcast for a number of reasons. She is different from the rest of the female characters in that she demonstrates an intellectual capacity and an understanding of the patriarchal nature of society, although she decides to conform to the establishment rather than challenge it. She is

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an educated woman with medical knowledge, Buddhist grounding and physical beauty. She is an adventuress, able and ready to use her physical beauty as capital for the betterment of her life in an increasingly commercialized society. Despite all these, her choice is still extremely limited: she has to become a nun, for some peculiar disease has caused her hair to fall out. To avoid humiliation and embarrassment she takes refuge in the Buddhist temple, where she assumes there exists the possibility of a decent life for a woman without hair. In time she learns that the temple is not a sheltered place at all. Under the control of monks and the administrative power of Xijing city council, it is very difﬁcult to run a nunnery. Her attempts to refurbish the temple damaged during the Cultural Revolution are successful because she paves the way with sex. Despite misfortunes on her part, Huiming is depicted as an adventurous, cunning and calculating woman for whom the narrator offers little sympathy, because she is a victim of her own ambitions. However, precisely because of her manipulative tendency towards society and men, Zhuang is not prepared to take his sexual fantasies for her any further. Huiming has situated herself as the permanent Other to men in more than one way: her education and intelligence are threatening, her religious practice denies her physical beauty, and her shameless sexual strategy is overwhelming. In short, she is primarily expelled from the world of domesticity because she disqualiﬁes herself with her social ambitions and intelligence. Huiming, as a dissident in women’s domesticity, continues on the other hand the tradition of literati associating themselves with monks and nuns. Historically, there has been a tradition in which literati express their admiration for and establish contacts with attractive women of creative talents in nunneries. Retreat into a monastery is an alternative to ofﬁcialdom for male literati and an alternative for women to escape unwanted marriages or other misfortunes in life. Temples and nunneries have been refuges for those who share disillusionment with society. In terms of literati tradition, the nunnery is an important site for male–female interaction outside of domestic settings.11 Willingly or unwillingly, Huiming has to use her sexuality to achieve her goals. The conduct and attractiveness of Huiming recall the charm of Miaoyu in The Dream of the Red Chamber and Miaoyu’s ambiguous sexual relationship with Baoyu. Both Huiming and Miaoyu are good ﬂirts and in the end lose their dignity, when Huiming gets pregnant and has to terminate the pregnancy and when Miaoyu is said to have been kidnapped and raped. In a sense they have failed to keep to the celibacy prescribed by the Buddhist orders and have therefore ‘sinned’ morally and religiously. The nunnery motif is effective in promoting the message that it is not possible to escape social and moral contamination, even in Buddhist temples. Huiming’s success with the temple’s refurbishment through denying her vows speaks of the decay of the religion, and her cynicism towards society and religion implies a sense of crisis in the moral values of the defunct capital. In Huiming’s rejection of domesticity, her destiny is thus corruption and

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condemnation. As a result, Huiming’s advice to the disillusioned Niu Yueqing seeking refuge is not to enter the monastery. In addition, she uses herself as an example to show how the temple is no place to be as it is still dominated by men. Nevertheless, Huiming and her temple are convenient cultural locations for the narrator to travel through and elaborate on his knowledge of classical poems, Buddhist rituals, ceremonies and concepts. The temple is ultimately necessary as one of the symbols of traditional culture and literati practice. On the one hand, women’s domesticity in Defunct Capital is emphasized by a lack of urban sophistication in their behaviour and dress codes. On the other, their domesticity effectively asserts Shaanxi’s local traditions. In the same way that Jia culturally landscapes Xijing City, he sketches the women as cultural landmarks with their customs, their singing, their looks and their food. There are plenty of traces of the author’s native village upbringing and his limited experience of modern, cosmopolitan lifestyles. In many ways the women of Xijing seem to come from Jia’s villages and they cook, talk, sing and dress themselves like village women. Like Jia himself, Zhuang does not like modern banquets and is fond of village-type dishes. The spicy mashi, a pasta soup of the local Shaanxi cuisine, is his frequent choice for dinner. Zhuang is also fond of his home town specialty, the stir-fry shredded beancurd with pork cooked by Tang Wanr. The dish links Zhuang and Tang immediately with shared memories of their home town and he becomes very fond of her straight away. Both Tang Wanr and Liu Yue sing Shaanxi folk-songs beautifully and Zhuang is highly appreciative of their local and domestic orientation. That the local is the beautiful is signiﬁcant in Jia’s nativist narration of China and his representation of Shaanxi as China. Lack of modernity in women’s roles in Defunct Capital reinforces their domesticity and it suits Zhuang to use domestic women as the substitute for his lost aspirations. Women’s traditional roles in domesticity provide his sexual indulgence with cultural codes that locate his subjectivity not in modern times but in a local Shaanxi space somehow distanced from the present.

The object of language Many literati linguistic devices are used to achieve a predominantly traditional narrative atmosphere in Defunct Capital. The relation between women and the narrative language speaks of the socio-linguistic aspects of the literati tradition articulated in the book. In Defunct Capital men write and women are written. The different linguistic positions of men and women not only reﬂect women’s inferior place in relation to language but also effectively contribute to the representation of the literati dominance. This linguistic dominance is necessary for their ego and identity, as language skills constitute the fundamentals of being a literatus. Men in Defunct Capital are mostly ‘masters’ of language as poets, writers, calligraphers, editors and literary critics. By contrast, women at their best are admirers of language or simply

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objects of linguistic exercises. Mastered and overwhelmed by language, women are dominated by the linguistic power of men and left with no place for their own voices and aspirations. Conveniently, their roles are also compatible with their places in the literati tradition and they themselves are content with where they are placed. In Defunct Capital women’s subordination is inscribed in their linguistic identity, which at the same time shows the linguistic gifts of the male characters. Women’s destinies are predetermined in poems or in Taoist scripts, with their meanings accessible only to male scholars such as Zhuang and his literati friends. For instance, the outcome of Niu Yueqing’s marriage is predicted in a couplet by her husband early in the narrative:

!" !"

The wind dances gracefully when the butterﬂy comes The dear one departs and the moon is left to lament (48)

Apparently Zhuang as Mr Butterﬂy has maximum autonomy and his arrival gives meaning to the life of his wife, the moon. His departure means the end of her meaningful existence so that the moon is left in misery. She, of course, can only wait passively for things to happen to her. In the same linguistic manner, Zhuang appropriates Liu Yue’s life:

!" !"

In the wilderness the sky bends towards the tree By the clear river the moon comes to the poet (50)

Because this couplet is dedicated to Liu Yue, the moon here refers to Liu, his housemaid and mistress, rather than Niu, his wife. The ﬁrst line describes Zhuang’s fondness of Liu Yue by referring to her refreshing quality of being like a tree in the wilderness. The hint derives from Liu Yue’s family name, as liu means the willow, a tree. The ‘wilderness’ is a reference to both her country background and her personality. The second line implies her coming to him as the endearing moon when the river is clear – putting down his wife as too rigid to have fun with. The two couplets are by no means brilliant in terms of poetic quality. However, they have important narrative signiﬁcance as a traditional Chinese narrative technique that provides hints to plot development. They are also a means of illustrating Zhuang’s ‘talent’ as a literatus. The couplets link the two women with Zhuang as his frigid wife and his pleasant mistress. Zhuang, of course, as the composer and the calligrapher of the poems, identiﬁes himself as the sky, the poet, the free-will butterﬂy and the meaning in the women’s life. Women’s life path is decided by the literati language inaccessible to the women themselves, and the decision is made in accordance with Zhuang’s perception of them as his wife and concubine in the traditional Confucian order.

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The naming of characters is also an effective device for positioning women in terms of their relevance to the men in their life; their personalities are also written in their names. As the word ‘niu’ can also mean ‘stubbornness’, Niu Yueqing matches the character of her surname and is inﬂexible and righteous. Liu Yue’s ﬁckleness and lasciviousness are suggested by her family name Liu, a homophone for the willow, often a metaphor for easy virtue in Chinese.12 Almost all the male characters are properly named and their names interestingly and intricately reﬂect their professional or cultural orientations. Women, however, are named according to different principles and tend to emphasize on their personal characteristics. To reﬂect their places in relation to Zhuang or other males, they either have or do not have a proper name and their names either carry or do not carry interpersonal and historical connotations. In order to highlight Zhuang and Tang’s relationship as a literatus and a concubine, Tang Wanr’s name is connected with Dong Xiaowan , the favourite concubine of an early Qing literatus, Mao Bijiang . Dong Xiaowan is the subject of Mao Bijiang’s memoir ‘My Memory in the Hut of the Plum Flower Shadow’.13 Tang Wanr discovers this link accidentally herself. Her self-identiﬁcation with the Qing concubine naturally extends to her recognition of Zhuang as the talented scholar and their relationship as the traditional couple of the scholar and the beauty. The wife of Wang Ximian remains nameless and is referred to as the woman of Wang Ximian (Wang Ximian de nüren) throughout the narrative. Her namelessness reveals her subsidiary status with an emphasis on her belonging to Wang like a property. Also, because of her husband’s friendship with Zhuang, such a designation highlights the impropriety of her fantasy concerning Zhuang and their platonic relationship. Through the intertextual link between the names, the characters and the women’s destinies, the literati tradition is once again reinforced. Apart from being the subjects of writing and naming, women characters are also reduced to being merely admirers of language. They do not demonstrate writing skills or even desires for the skills but they remain constantly amazed at the literati’s language power. Most of the men in Defunct Capital remain masters of the house and masters of the discourse. Meaningful articulations on society, individual destiny or politics are invariably made by men. The lack of voice and speaking power on women’s part is more conspicuous in various public arenas. As the victim of their writing scandal at the district court Jing Xueyin should have been able to confront Zhuang and his mates, but she is totally subdued and silenced, and later reduced to tears in the lavatory. In defence of Zhuang Zhidie, Tang Wanr does not desire to speak in court but uses the court appearance as a beauty competition. She urges Zhuang’s women to come along in their best clothes in order to stun Jing Xueyin with their collective good looks. At the opening ceremony of Huiming’s renovated temple, all speeches are made by men: the chief monk, the mayor and representatives from other temples. Huiming, apparently bright and educated, does not have her own voice but is willing

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to let the male language speak ‘her’. As she walks on to the stage in her nun’s robe, the audience is spellbound by her beauty as if she were on a catwalk. She does not defend either herself or the dignity of the religion. On the same occasion, Zhuang also discovers a stele inscribed with a eulogy for a nun in the Tang dynasty. He is overwhelmed by the elegance and the artistic talent of the nun and begins to feel deeply attracted to Huiming. Nevertheless, the denial of speech opportunity ultimately deprives Huiming of her status as an independent social being. If an educated woman like Huiming can be denied the chance to speak in public, other women would have no chance at all. Women in Defunct Capital invariably suffer from this male-imposed lack of right and ability to speak. This explains why Zhuang instantly realizes that the script of Jing Xueyin’s accusation has been written by a male hand: its expressive power and the malicious language do not belong to the woman he knows (309–10). This also gives the answer to Tang Wanr’s urging that all Zhuang’s women should dress in their best clothes to attend the court – they do not wish to speak on the occasion, but it is important to demonstrate their beauty in front of the judge as if they are on a catwalk and to reduce the attraction of Jing Xueyin (344). Because women do not have equal access to language, their exposure to social issues is limited and involvement in social activities is restricted. Their reliance on men for their social placement in turn assigns their place at home and dictates their focus on domesticity. In short, women’s linguistic deprivation in Defunct Capital underpins their domesticity and their dependence on men. Jia ﬁnds the Chinese tradition he wants in women’s silence and passivity. Women’s conﬁnement to domesticity in Defunct Capital is by no means accidental or simply a result of the author expressing his misogynist views. Nor is Jia Pingwa blind to the progress of women’s situation in China, as his other novels and short stories have portrayed highly capable and independent women. Domesticity of women is fundamental in ‘Chinese’ traditions and therefore essential for the construction of a defunct capital of China. Women, their linguistic deprivation, female sexuality and domesticity are cultural signs to embody a traditional cultural order. Jia Pingwa may be resentful of industrialization and commercialization and regard them as the major consequences of modernization. Characterizations of domestic women do not necessarily reﬂect the author’s attitudes towards women and he is not alone in using women’s domesticity in such a way. The images of many women in Chinese literature have been shaped by means of the lack of any deep sense of personal direction of life or social awareness. Again and again, representations of domestic women have been used to reﬂect traditional and, in Jia Pingwa’s representation as well, mostly Confucian values.14 Domestic women are part of Jia Pingwa’s cultural landscaping of the traditional and therefore ‘authentic’ China. Women’s characterizations in domesticity as the femme fatale, or as furen, or as the mother, or as the obedient objects of male desire, are the result of double male objectiﬁcation through language and representation.

White Nights and sleepless in Xijing

6

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White Nights was published in 1995, less than two years after the publication of Defunct Capital. In sharp contrast to Defunct Capital ’s publicity bombardment, the publication of White Nights was a non-event – there were no public launches, no media interviews, no advertisements and no responses from critics until a few years later. After Defunct Capital, many Chinese readers simply stopped reading Jia Pingwa’s ﬁction and critics also deserted him. Although it may not be possible to generalize about the effects that the banning of and attacks on Defunct Capital have had on Jia Pingwa, it was no doubt enormous and long-lasting. Jia Pingwa wrote White Nights in the heat of the critical attacks on Defunct Capital, when he was burdened with the feeling that he had been cruciﬁed both by the authorities and by the unrelenting critics in Beijing.1 According to the research I have conducted, to date there has been no critical assessment of White Nights in the English language and only a few substantial articles in Chinese journals. Chinese critics tend to consider White Nights in the context of Defunct Capital. Lai Daren , for instance, speciﬁcally regards the works as ‘sister’ publications and says that White Nights is a continuation of Defunct Capital from subject matter to narrative devices (Lai Daren 2000: 135). Clearly, White Nights continues Jia Pingwa’s urban cultural mapping which he began with Defunct Capital, but in White Nights he broadens the narrative scheme to the extent that the information amounts to almost a cultural ethnography of Xijing city. Like Defunct Capital, White Nights is a story of personal quest and cultural discovery in the city by a protagonist from the countryside. A divorced man in his thirties, Ye Lang resides in Xijing without a ﬁxed occupation, and yet he is determined to remain in the city despite the difﬁculties.2 The narrative does not explain why it is imperative for him to be in Xijing, even if it is understandable that someone would prefer the city to the country. Nor does it provide any information about his ex-wife, or the reason for his divorce, or his family. On the whole his life before coming to Xijing remains vague. His deceased, hunchback father appears now and then in his memory but details are also scarce, either about the father’s life or the cause of his death, or about their relationship. Instead, White Nights concentrates

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on Ye Lang’s daily life in the city, especially on how he struggles to make a living to establish himself, and how he makes contacts as an outsider to the city. The urban environment foregrounds his identity complex and, in the short space of less than a year, he has to come to terms with very complicated questions about himself, such as who he is, who he wants to be, and who he wants to be with. Moreover, and more signiﬁcantly, between Ye Lang’s being and his doing, the narrative presents an inclusive cultural exploration of the Xijing city – the subjectivity of Ye Lang is so much, and so closely, connected with the city’s social and cultural fabric that, without a comprehensive portrayal of the city’s landscape, Ye Lang’s inner world is unfathomable. The interconnectedness between the inner world of Ye Lang and the city as his external environment is determined by the author’s experience of the city as a rural migrant himself. At the beginning of the 1990s, the city, speciﬁcally Xi’an (Xijing in its ﬁctional guise) has two special meanings for Jia Pingwa. Personally, he had lived in the city longer than he had in the country. Socially, enormous changes were happening to the city and to people living there. Some anthropologists have observed that in the 1990s ‘urbanization, large-scale migration, extensive township and village development, and the increasing presence of transnational cultural forms in China have ruptured boundaries and altered former physical and social distinctions between city and country’ (Chen, N. 2001: 9). Likewise, Jia Pingwa’s interest in Chinese urban life is very much anthropological and White Nights is a cultural ethnography of Xijing. Like a cultural anthropologist, Jia Pingwa ﬁnds signiﬁcance in ordinary people’s everyday life, although the outcome of his ﬁeld work is a ﬁctive account of the Xijing quotidian open to interpretation, instead of being an anthropological monograph with scientiﬁc conclusions. For instance, White Nights demonstrates a remarkable similarity in its approach and in its selection of highlights of Chinese life to the collection of anthropological essays China Urban: Ethnographies of Contemporary Culture, which examines urban changes in China in roughly the same period (Chen, N. 2001). In summary, White Nights is an effective reassessment and representation of the everyday life of ordinary people. It demonstrates an understanding that there were as many changes as continuations from the past in contemporary Chinese life, from values to food, and in manners of personal and social interactions. It also shows that the city harbours traditions but also nurtures transformations. It emphasizes that the city is a space shared by urban and non-urban residents and that the increasingly ﬂuid boundaries have a far-reaching signiﬁcance beyond demographic statistics.

The country man as Dostoevskian hero The urban–rural divide in contemporary China entails that migration from the countryside to the city is no easy journey for anyone. Without any particular qualiﬁcations, connections or ﬁnancial support, Ye Lang’s initial

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difﬁculties in landing a decent job are considerable, although he is talented and a quick learner with reasonable skills in writing and in music, in addition to a sound knowledge and a solid grasp of classical Chinese literature and Chinese history. By sheer chance, he brieﬂy sustains a position as secretary of the city librarian, but he basically makes his living by playing a variety of minor roles in an opera troupe led by his mate Nan Dingshan . Discontented with the corrupt system, Ye Lang attempts to stir up some trouble but his political plot is ﬂawed and illegal and its failure leads to him being arrested by the police towards the end of the book. As usual, the naming of Jia Pingwa’s major ﬁctional characters has additional signiﬁcances. In this case, the name of Ye Lang is a double mockery. It hints at his possible self-conceit and self-complacency, because ‘Yelang’ is part of a proverb, ‘Yelang zida !’ (the young man by the surname of Ye thinks too much of himself ), usually used to mock parochial arrogance. The satire is also directed at conventional Chinese urban snobbery, which looks down upon country fellows but betrays the ignorance of city folk. Ye Lang’s life consists of two basic aspects – his interactions with mates and his love life. Without a profession, he is cast as an ‘idler’, which means, as discussed previously, that he has wide contacts with people of all classes and status, including policemen, ofﬁcials of different ranks and positions, visual and performing artists, Taoists, bankers, hooligans, greengrocery vendors, butchers and many more. He retains a distance from, if not deﬁance towards, mainstream society and has courage or sometimes bravado when faced with danger. Ye Lang and his mates are each other’s social security against the odds and against their sometimes formidable enemies. Going to the extreme to help each other is normal for idlers and Ye Lang’s life in Xijing is an existence in endless entanglements with his mates and his enemies. Ye Lang has sexual relationships with two women and, for many reasons, he reluctantly marries Yan Ming , despite his being deeply in love with Yu Bai . An elegant woman in her thirties, Yu Bai comes from a scholarly family of great wealth, Xijing’s most successful merchant family a few generations ago, whose family home is now the site of Xijing’s Museum of Folk Art. Yu Bai’s father was not interested in commerce but a devoted player of guqin , or qin , the Chinese zither.3 From her father Yu Bai learned to play the instrument and had inherited an ancient qin. With both of her parents dead and without any siblings, she was the sole heir of the family fortune, or whatever proportion the authorities returned to her in the late 1980s of what had been conﬁscated at the establishment of the People’s Republic. She was given half of the garden and a corner of the family house to live in, and hence she is the close neighbour of the museum. She lives alone, although her only cousin, Wu Qingpu , and friends often visit her. Not having to work, she stays home reading, writing poems, playing the guqin and being ill. She is a historical and cultural fossil of the stereotypical daughter from a gentry family: beautiful, educated, sickly and desolate. She

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is in love with Ye Lang because of his intelligence and his ability to appreciate her cultural standing, a rare quality of men nowadays, in her experience. She is fond of Ye Lang and makes a genuine effort to induct him into literati cultural practices, in addition to giving him the taste of a poetic romance with a woman of higher intellectual and spiritual standing. The narrative deliberately reinforces a close link between Yu Bai and Ye Lang by having the book title made up from two characters from their names. ‘White’ is Yu Bai’s given name, bai, and ‘night’ is Ye Lang’s surname ‘ye’. White Nights apparently sets out to be a story about Yu Bai and Ye Lang. Ye Lang’s other lover, Yan Ming, seems to be successful in terms of both love life and career, but hers is a typically tragic success. As a fashion model, she is extremely good looking but for Ye Lang her beauty is purely physical. Her attraction for him is, therefore, only sexual, despite her total devotion to him and their similar backgrounds. From a remote village in Shaanxi, Yan Ming was born ugly with a cleft lip, and she suffered public humiliation and family rejection. Determined to change her destiny, in her late teens, she stole her parents’ entire savings and went to Shanghai for cosmetic surgery, which successfully transformed her into a beauty. She subsequently changed her name to ‘Yan Ming’, meaning ‘beauty inscribed’, and decided to conceal her past for ever. As the most glamorous model in Xijing city, she dismissed many suitors but chose to marry Ye Lang, believing that he was the most reliable. Ye Lang, somehow, doubted Yan Ming’s ﬁdelity and found their daughter’s ugly face concrete evidence of her promiscuity. She, however, kept him in the dark about her past until after their divorce and disappeared completely from Ye Lang’s life with the newly born baby, vowing that her daughter should never have to repeat her fate. It is a pure coincidence that White Nights shares its title with a short story by the Russian writer Dostoevsky, and yet the two narratives have a number of similarities.4 Both have a self-centred young man as the protagonist and both establish the young man’s subjectivity through his familiarity with and distance from the city – the young man observes the city from his own vantage point from within, and, while retaining an inner distance, he also tries his best to settle there. Ye Lang has many traces of a Dostoevskian hero, which has been outlined in Bakhtin’s observation: The hero interests Dostoevsky not as some manifestation of reality that possesses ﬁxed and speciﬁc socially typical or individually characteristic traits, nor as a speciﬁc proﬁle assembled out of unambiguous and objective features which, taken together, answer the question ‘who is he?’ No, the hero interests Dostoevsky as a particular point of view on the world and on oneself, as the position enabling a person to interpret and evaluate his own self and his surrounding reality. What is important to Dostoevsky is not how his hero appears to the world but ﬁrst and foremost how the world appears to his hero, and how the hero appears to himself. (Bakhtin 1984: 47, his emphasis)

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Like a Dostoevskian hero, the characterization of Ye Lang shows the conceptualization that the hero represents ‘a particular point of view on the world and on oneself ’. Because of this narrative stance, what matters is how the world appears to the hero in its responses to his calling and his needs, and how he appears to himself in his perception of his position in that world. As a Dostoevskian hero, who assesses the world in relation to his self, Ye Lang obtains his subjectivity from his love-hate relationship with the city and the various denizens of the city. Furthermore, like a Dostoevskian narrative, in which the ‘mode of artistic visualizing was not evolution but coexistence and interaction’ (Bakhtin 1984: 28), Ye Lang’s journey through White Nights is not about his growth but displays a chain of coexistences, of mutual destruction, and interaction with the people and the human condition of Xijing. The city remains a problematic environment for Ye Lang, because his control of observation and his gaze into the city do not translate into legitimacy for him to claim a place there. Neither does the city allow for his growth so that his ambition and his plight turn into despair and anger. It is in White Nights, and from White Nights in Jia Pingwa’s writing, that the centrality of Chinese nationhood begins to give way to the individual and the community, and on occasions, to the individual within the community. The project of White Nights, however, goes beyond the portrayal of Dostoevskian subjectivity. It is true that Ye Lang enters the city to discover the world in order to discover himself, but it is also true, if not more so, that discovering the city, however alien it is to him, is also important for him in order to understand himself. He needs to understand the city as a place in order to locate the self mentally, culturally and physically. It is, therefore, essential that Ye Lang explores the wide urban horizons unknown to him in his previous experience and he has enough bravado to immerse himself in previously unchartered waters. It is in Ye Lang’s active engagement with the city and in his ‘objective’ exploration of Xijing’s cultural landscape that Jia Pingwa’s White Nights differs from that of Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky’s hero simply informs the reader that he ‘knows’ the city and its people like the palm of his hand, but he retains his distance and remains a stranger to them. On the part of Ye Lang, although he is a lonely wanderer with a tormented soul on sleepless nights, his cultural expeditions encompass a wide range of Xijing’s social and cultural environment, including traditional Chinese high culture, popular art forms and urban myths. The list covers the music and culture of guqin, classical Chinese poetry, brush painting, Taoist practices, the art of paper cutting, local entertainment, architecture, and especially the performances of Mulianxi , a genre of drama that takes in all sorts of folklores, popular beliefs and local craftsmanship in its costumes and settings, local music forms, and draws audiences from all strata of society.5 The narrative’s open interpretation of culture extends also to the incorporation into Xijing’s cultural cityscape of political deals, business transactions, prostitution, gambling, stealing and much more, as long as they are a part of Xijing’s daily activities in which Xijing’s residents are participants. Hence,

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there are no clear distinctions between justice and crime, generosity and corruption, or good and evil. What is more important for the author of White Nights is the anthropological and existential meanings of these phenomena in ordinary people’s lives.

Between urban myths and traditional elite cultural practice ‘White Nights’, if linked with the French phrase ‘une nuit blanche’ (the French call a sleepless night a ‘white night’), can be interpreted as sleepless nights – both Ye Lang and Yu Bai suffer from insomnia. Especially in the case of Ye Lang, he is often kept awake by his anxiety over his personal destiny, his emotional complications, his dreams and sorrows, and eventually he is sleepwalking every night. While still in a state of sleep, he will get up around four o’clock in the morning and walk a few miles to the house of a reincarnated man who has recently committed self-immolation. Ye Lang will try to open the door with the key belonging to the reincarnated man found on the site of the immolation. It is believed that Ye Lang’s sleeping disorder resulted from his keeping the key, which relates his sleepless nights directly to the recent urban myth of reincarnation, the centre of Xijing’s local life for a few months. The reincarnated man is a key ﬁgure in the narrative, although he is not even given a proper name. The narrative begins with him happily returning home in his prime to unite with his ageing wife, holding the bronze key in his hand and proving to his wife who he was with intimate details of their shared life. She is thrilled to see him back but their children refuse to believe him and throw him out. Their rejection shames the wife and she hangs herself and the saddened reincarnated man loses his desire to live another life. He goes around for three days, telling his tale and playing the guqin. Ye Lang was on his way to pay him a visit with his mate, the policeman Kuange , when the immolation takes place. While the reincarnated man sets ﬁre to himself, he is playing the guqin and singing in tune with it. Ye Lang and Kuange are not able to save him but ﬁnd the key and note down the last line of the tune. The tune resembles a classical seven-character couplet: pingping zeze pingping ze / Zeze pingping zeze ping (= / ) (4), and this music is to resonate repeatedly in Ye Lang’s life. Thus begins the foreshadowing of Ye Lang’s life by the reincarnated man. Primarily, the myth is a metaphor implying Ye Lang’s destiny: the city has no place for him and self-destruction is his ultimate destiny. Indeed, instead of burning himself into ashes, Ye Lang initiates a number of illegal activities, which are utterly self-destructive, although not necessarily immoral. Even his marriage is self-destructive and is shadowed by the reincarnated man’s swan song, for Yu Bai somehow had copied the tune as a wedding gift for Ye Lang. Metaphysically, the reincarnated man continues to play a ‘key’ role in Ye Lang’s life: he cherishes the key dearly, wears it on his neck, and remains guided by the key in his subconsciousness. Yu Bai is also fond of the key

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and, as the token of their affections, the key is passed back and forth between them. Signiﬁcantly, it turns out that the qin Yu Bai has inherited had come from the family of the reincarnated man. The monk who had been Yu Bai’s father’s teacher and given him the qin was a relative of the reincarnated man. Ye Lang’s relationship with Yu Bai is developed mainly through the qin. Before he was captured emotionally by Yu Bai, he was seized by the music of the qin and his process of befriending Yu Bai is also the process of his learning about the history, structure and musicality of the ancient instrument and about musicology, especially the qin’s connections with the literati elite and its ideology. The ﬁrst time Ye Lang hears the qin played is at the site of the self-immolation: although the impression is strong he is not able to appreciate its special musicality. The second time he encounters it, he is immediately struck by it, even though he is talking to people on a noisy street at the time. The music stands out clearly, drifting towards him like ﬂoating clouds and making him feel ancient and alone (39). It turns out that it was Yu Bai playing a piece of music called ‘the second preface to the Dancer in Colourful Costume’ (nishang zhongxu !) by the Song dynasty poet and composer Jiang Baishi (ca. 1155– ca. 1235). With his knowledge of literary history, Ye Lang recognizes the lyrics, and the music intensiﬁes the desolate mood of the piece. He stops talking in the middle of his conversation and is stunned by the austere solitude of the music so uncommon in this bustling city. The solitariness of qin is the bond between Yu Bai and Ye Lang even before they meet, just as described in the Chinese phrase for soulmates, zhiyin , or knowing the music, which is derivative of the ideal relationship between a qin player and his or her empathetic listener. Yu Bai, with her elegance, beauty and cultivation, fully captures the aura of qin and personiﬁes the mythical music. Her demonstration shows that Chinese elite musical culture, what van Gulik calls ‘the ideology of qin’, is manifested through close connections between qin music, classical Chinese poetry and painting (van Gulik, R. H. 1969). Following that tradition, Yu Bai insists that one must be literary, poetic, artistic and spiritually enlightened to qualify as a listener, let alone a player. She claims that !"#!$%&'"()*+',-."/01"23+1 !"#$%&'( Scholars in ancient times referred to the qin as prohibition, meaning that playing the qin is to stop going astray in one’s thinking and help channel the right thoughts. How can someone who does not have virtue in his heart and learning in his head play the qin? (148) Inspired, instead of being intimated, by Yu Bai and her qin music, Ye Lang proves to be no ordinary country fellow. He starts a music group to create

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opportunities for him to meet Yu Bai more often and to enjoy music with other close friends. His knowledge of Chinese literature and history enhances his ability to achieve artistic and philosophical enlightenment, which in turn, help him to narrow the gap between his limited upbringing from the country and that of the elite in the city. He is also highly musical and an elitist in his own way – he plays a ceramic Chinese wind instrument called the xun, and even composes a piece of xun music entitled ‘Bamboo in the Wind’. To express the overwhelming darkness in his life, the music is chilly and haunting, especially when played at night in the dark. Ye Lang’s friend Kuange and others do not like his composition. Yu Bai, however, not only likes it but understands perfectly its expressions of inner bleakness and helplessness of the imagery of bamboo struggling against the wind, proving the depth of her emotional and mental empathy with Ye Lang.

Popular art, popular culture and popular beliefs Ye Lang as an idler from the country possesses a necessary rootlessness, which the narrative turns into a device to make possible the hero’s free movement among various social groups and classes, and from location to location without the constraints of a regular job. Apart from being involved with Yu Bai and associated with lofty cultural ideals and elitest cultural scenes, Ye Lang still needs to make a living. In his rather impoverished life he mixes with a large range of people. One of the most important contacts Ye Lang has developed is an actor by the name of Nan Dingshan, through whom Ye Lang becomes involved with Mulianxi. Nan Dingshan was a performer in Shaanxi’s local opera, Qinqiang , and famous for his role as a comedian. Since the economic reforms have put opera troupes to the test of the market, actors now need to ﬁnd their own ways of earning an income. Seeing that the state policy regarding folk cultural practices has changed from condemnation to encouragement and that there should be money in performing the traditional ‘ghost opera’ after almost ﬁfty years of state prohibition, Nan Dingshan organizes a troupe to resurrect the performances of Mulianxi. The market soon proves him right and he is able to recruit a number of well-trained actors and actresses and to employ an expert on Mulianxi scripts to revive damaged written scripts and to create more for local performances. Nan Dingshan and Ye Lang like each other at ﬁrst sight, and Nan immediately offers Ye Lang a position in his troupe – their friendship is an example of how men bond and become friends for life within minutes of their initial contact, as often portrayed in Chinese literature. In time Ye Lang acquires a comprehensive knowledge of Mulianxi and its associated cultures in Xijing city. Mulianxi amounts to the most comprehensive demonstration of Chinese popular belief systems and their manifestation in the populace. The basic storyline of Mulian rescuing his mother from Hell is rather simple. In his absence, Mulian’s mother, Madam Liu, is talked into giving up on being a vegetarian after her husband, a devout Buddhist,

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has passed away. She thus breaks her vow against killing or eating animals. Under higher orders, the King of Hell apprehends and condemns her to Hell. With the greatest courage and devotion, Mulian goes to all lengths and eventually succeeds in redeeming his mother, but only after she has been taken to Hell and witnessed extremes of horrors. Mulianxi basically comprises very colourful and dramatic renditions of different stages of the mother and the son’s experiences. The drama can create endless episodes to elaborate events in Heaven, Hell, human society, community or family and to personify all types of gods, goddesses, ghosts, demons, devils, warriors, sinners or sufferers. In short, one’s imagination is the only limit. The performers can choose to play any episodes in any given situation before, during and/or after the rescue, thus the differing lengths of performance from one night, or three days and three nights, to an entire week, both day and night. The length and scale of the performance of a local production is also dependent upon the sponsor’s ﬁnancial capability as well as the capability of the performers of individual troupes (de Bary, W. and Lufrano, R. 2000, v.2: 93–104). Although the story itself is of Indian Buddhist origin, its ‘dramatic’ Chinese transformation has incorporated local colour to the extent that many Chinese mistake it for a Chinese story, including Jia Pingwa himself (Jia Pingwa 1995a: 387). Having been localized over the centuries, Mulianxi also has regional varieties when it is performed with local language and music. The scripts of performances also vary from place to place corresponding to the demands of the sponsors and the audiences. Local troupes may create speciﬁc episodes to suit the needs for special occasions or for a taste of novelty. Mulianxi is an important aspect of Chinese popular culture, as Jia Pingwa notes in his postscript to White Nights: !"#$%&'()*+,-./"0123)45676 !"#$ %&'( )*)+ ,-./0( !"#$%&'#()*+,-./012345678 !"#$%&'()* In the history of the Chinese civilization of nearly a thousand years, Mulianxi has been a special phenomenon. It has its distinctive performance style, namely it does not distinguish between the world of yin and the world of yang, between history and reality, between actors and audience, or between the inside or the outside of the theatre. It has become a carnival for the masses when it is performed for everyone to rejoice in festivals, to worship gods for rain, to chase away the evil and to receive blessings, or celebrate marriages. It is the live history of Chinese drama. (Jia Pingwa 1995a: 387) Although Jia Pingwa does not openly declare the purpose of his incorporation of Mulianxi in his text, the above quotation shows an obvious anthropological

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intention behind the narrative and the reason why White Nights devotes a great deal of space to documenting this ancient genre of Chinese drama. Ye Lang’s involvement makes possible a full display of the drama: the rehearsals, performances, traditions, preparations for the settings with houses and furniture made with coloured paper by local craftsmen, the music and musical instruments supporting the performances, the lighting, the backdrops, the costumes etc. There has been the custom of ‘going through the yin stage’ (zou yin tai ) – before any performances, the actors and the support crew should go on the stage to worship local gods and ask for protection. It is known that Mulianxi has about forty-eight episodes, and a number of them are presented in detail, such as the wedding of Madam Liu, the scenes when ghosts come to apprehend her, Mulian’s negotiations with the gods and Madam Liu’s reincarnation as a dog. There are also interactions between the personages, ghosts, and the gods on the stage, the natural elements, such as winds, clouds, the sky and the darkness of the night, off the stage, and the audience below the stage. Since Mulianxi also allows eating, drinking and talking in addition to the free movement of the audience, the entire drama is a carnival of the masses. Also, just in any mass activities, accidents may occur and this is what happens during one of the performances, which in turn reinforces the popular belief in the supernatural. Especially when Mulianxi is frequently performed during the Ghost Festivals, ghosts may trigger off accidents no matter how careful people are.6 The metaphor of ‘white night’ acquires additional meanings with the overnight performances of Mulianxi. While Ye Lang’s need to make a living takes him to the discovery of Mulianxi, Yu Bai’s idling at home enables her to befriend Madam Ku , an elderly woman from a village in western Shaanxi with an extraordinary talent for making paper-cuts. Madam Ku’s works have recently been discovered by researchers at the Folk Art Museum and they have invited her to do paper-cutting on site so that the museum can collect her works. The subjects of Madam Ku’s paper-cuts are mostly related to her immediate environment as a rural woman, such as domestic animals, the sun, the moon and the stars, plants, ﬂowers and village personages. Despite the simplicity of her subjects, remarkably, she is able to project her emotions, her dreams and her interpretation of events on to the images of the objects through the interconnections and compositions of her imagination. Like the ‘primitive’ arts in general, her renderings of daily, domestic subjects have a spiritual and intimate connection with the environment and the place. Illiterate as she is, the elderly lady is also familiar with a wealth of folklore and local folksongs, which also bear intertextual links with her paper-cut images. Inspired by Madam Ku’s creative spirit, Yu Bai also seeks to express herself through visual images. She picks up the technique but changes the medium from paper to cloth, thus inventing a new art genre – cloth-cutting. From paper-cuts to cloth-cuts, the art form migrates from the village into the city and the boundaries of the locale for the art also expand. The typical use of

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primary colours, rural motifs and folk themes plays a signiﬁcant role in forging the atmosphere of the local place. Jia Pingwa remains interested in the art form so much that seven years later in 2002 Madam Ku reappears in a short story under the title of ‘Ku Mairong ’ (Jia Pingwa 2002e: 106–18). The short story is an organic extension of relative parts in White Nights and the author achieves two purposes with this addition. The ﬁrst is to explore further Madam Ku’s personality and biography as a local folk artist and the association of her art with her native environment. The second is to elaborate in detail the artistic process of her paper-cutting. Easy-going, extremely talented and generous with her art, Ku Mairong clearly is Madam Ku prior to her going to the Folk Art Museum. She was paper-cutting all the time, to the dismay of her chauvinistic husband. Obsessed with her art, she would spend the little money she had on buying paper to do the cutting. She took a lover for he appreciated her art and brought her paper each time he came to visit her. Her lover knew the commercial value of her art and took her work to town to sell. The cutting attracted much interest and soon led to her being ‘discovered’ by the museum. Art and the process of art production are equally important for the ethnographical account of the narrative. White Nights does not write about art for ‘art’s sake’. Rather, it depicts art as rooted in the location, as belonging to a place. As a result of its ethnographical interest, the narrative’s engagement with each of the art forms is not as substantial as one might like it to be, for the narrative is spread out to cover as many aspects of Xijing’s city life as possible. The narrative does not limit itself to representations of the artistic or creative cultures of Xijing but demonstrates an open understanding of culture that emphasizes the manner in which a community exists and groups of people live. Residences of the characters, therefore, are an essential and integral part of the author’s narrative of local cultural anthropology. As in Defunct Capital, White Nights also presents a spectrum of residential spaces as the sites of local cultural practices, where the division and grouping of people under certain spatial conditions reﬂect their speciﬁc socio-economic status and generate very different cultural orientations. Xijing’s high brow life style is illustrated through Yu Bai’s residence, where her friends gather to appreciate qin music and hold lofty talks about art. Yu Bai in fact conducts a virtual tour to guide Ye Lang through her old family house to show him the splendour of its traditional architecture and the cultural objects on site – poetic couplets, mythical creatures on the rooftops and the design of the garden – as well as their intended metaphorical meanings. However, the most culturally signiﬁcant element in terms of Yu Bai’s residence is not the architectural artefacts but its history, especially the arbitrary division of her family home into the smaller space that is now her private home and the larger space that is now the Folk Art Museum. The narrative does not demonstrate any political tension, painful memories or resentment on the part of Yu Bai, or that of anyone else, for the loss of

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her family home. The conﬁscation of private property by the state is accepted as a matter of fact, as part of a social and historical process, a ‘genetic’ part of Chinese social history. Yu Bai even goes as far as providing a ‘sociological’ explanation for it: !"#$%&'(')*+,-./0123#$%456 !"#$"%&'(&)*+, My ancestors naturally intended to leave this house to generations of their descents for hundreds of years to come. What they did not know is that properties are just like money: it won’t do if you don’t have any, but if you have too much, it belongs to society. (123) Another home is that of Lu Tianying , the artist famous for his paintings of tigers. It is a place where people come to view his performance of speedy Chinese brush painting that is powered by years of practice of both the art and the breathing exercise known as qigong. In his house, people are also likely to ﬁnd his close friend, a Taoist practitioner, Liu Yishan . Liu Yishan draws Taoist diagrams to prevent evil from harming people, and the diagrams can help cure people of complicated illnesses. He also tells fortunes through reading selected Chinese characters combined with assessing people’s birthdates and their facial features, or by viewing the celestial bodies. The magical power of Liu Yishan is widely respected in the community and many local residents will turn to him for advice if they have important decisions to make, such as marriage or business deals. Obviously tolerated by the authorities, Liu Yishan earns a rather handsome income. However, the authorities arrest him when he makes predictions about local drought and disasters, because his persuasive power in the community is seen as a threat to social stability. Again, the narrative treats these kinds of events, including Ye Lang’s problems with the authorities later on, as a matter of fact – there is no popular indignation, no protest or strong sense of injustice. It seems that the authorities and the local residents have reached some kind of mutual understanding in the sense that the authorities will tolerate certain things to some extent but, if the limit is surpassed, everyone then accepts the consequences. The narrative demonstrates a deliberate distance from ideological politics so that it can get on with its ethnographic expeditions. Another type of Xijing residence is in the form of a chaotic courtyard for urban residents of the lower economic sector, or xiao shimin . Until the late 1990s, before China’s economic successes brought about the construction of many concrete high-rise buildings, the courtyards were common places for those who did not belong to a state-run ‘work unit’ (danwei ) to take care of them. In such a courtyard, residents live a communal life: they share toilets, water taps, sometimes even power meters, and the limited open space for laundry and other purposes. They have to put up with one

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another’s noise, and privacy is non-existent. Coming from all walks of life, they are waiters, nannies, housekeepers, butchers, grocery vendors, garbage collectors, prostitutes and labourers. They do not have strong political convictions but hold more conventional beliefs, such as popular justice, retribution for good or evil and one’s responsibility towards one’s mates. For rural migrants like Ye Lang, this courtyard life is ideal because it allows him to mingle easily with people similar to his own social standing, and they help each other ﬁnd jobs. They have no political or economic inﬂuence and they live their insigniﬁcant, albeit eventful, lives within the conﬁnes of their limited opportunities. They work to sustain themselves and are happy if they make a bit of money and encounter no disasters. From day to day, they carry on with their daily chores and honour their commitments without asking hard questions about their existence or the meaning of life. Ye Lang rents a room from such a courtyard where people do not seem to have televisions, and playing mah-jong is their major entertainment, if not obsession. In this environment, Ye Lang shows traces of his hooligan character. He plays mah-jong when he is depressed and puts up a serious ﬁght if anyone dares to challenge him. The ruptures in these different spaces are enormous but not unbridgeable, especially for someone like Ye Lang. Having associations with all, he unconsciously adapts his persona to suit each environment, although he is most at home in the courtyard where he has control of his own personal space among his mates and other social equals. Yu Bai and her girlfriend, the journalist Ding Lin , pay him a visit in the courtyard once and it is such an event, because their presence is totally out of place. In contrast, when Yan Ming comes, people are simply nosy about her sexual relationship with Ye Lang – there is no question about where she belongs. The residential spaces are tied up with class-consciousness, not in the Marxian sense of social oppression and exploitation but in the Chinese sense of ‘mendi ’ or social compatibility. Social identiﬁcation plays a key role in the structure of people’s emotions and in Ye Lang’s ﬁnal decision to marry Yan Ming instead of Yu Bai. Kuange’s advice against Ye Lang’s attachment to Yu Bai illustrates the social gap between Ye Lang and his true love: !"#$%&'( !)*+,-./ !012345!3 !"#$%&'()#*+*,-./0123456%27 !"#$%&$'( Ye Lang, don’t take offence if I say something unpleasant. If you really want to marry Yu Bai in the future, you should ﬁrst return to your native place to build an extension on top of your family gate and have a careful look at your ancestral graveyard to see if it has such formidable energy. We should never forget who we are. You should never think about what’s in the pot while you’ve already got food on your plate. (266)

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In Kuange’s mind, clearly Ye Lang cannot match Yu Bai because of their class difference. This class distinction, however, has a geographical connotation as a result of the divide between the rural and the urban in addition to their differences in social status. For the ﬁrst generation of rural migrants to the city there is another space that is important for their sense of the self – the native place, their ancestral home. The native place in their cases is just an abstract notion of a rural village, for the narrative attaches no signiﬁcance to the exact location of their native villages. Ye Lang demonstrates no attachment to his native place at all and never expresses any intention to return for a visit. Kuange does return but ﬁnds himself a stranger to the place and to his relatives. The geographical distance, for both Ye Lang and Kuange, does not translate into cultural gaps but into class division. Kuange, although a policeman by profession, is a good musician and plays a number of instruments skilfully. Both of them are highly respected by Yu Bai and they have good times when they play music together. Ye Lang in particular identiﬁes with the solitary mood in Yu Bai, in Yu Bai’s qin music and in her choice of Jiang Baishi’s poems with sorrowful themes. Class status, nevertheless, can still be in the way and is considered as a priority on the part of the rural migrants. In contrast, Ye Lang’s class background does not bother Yu Bai in the least and her reservation about Ye Lang, if anything, is about his personality.

The idler’s encounter with business culture and political corruption The novel’s interpretation of culture also extends to Xijing’s business and political spheres. Again, the narrative views Xijing’s transactions in these spheres as parts of the urban culture so that there are no deﬁnitive villains or heroes of any speciﬁc political persuasions. In Xijing social and economic life, transactions govern many social interactions. Although people in the city retain some conventional sense of justice, there is no clear distinction between right and wrong, either in personal matters or in public affairs. As a social idler, Ye Lang has the privilege of moving freely among all kinds of social spaces and his social contacts conveniently expose Xijing city’s business and political conventions. Ye Lang’s ﬁrst and only decent job – as the executive secretary to the city chief librarian, Gong Changxing – is the result of a telephone call by his mentor Zhu Yihe , the then secretary of the mayor. Unfortunately, Ye Lang also loses his job as quickly, as soon as Zhu Yihe is out of power. The narrative in a way shows some sympathy towards Ye Lang but it does not make any attempt to justify his hostility and subsequent political campaign against Gong Changxing. More importantly, during the brief period when he works as Gong Changxing’s secretary, Ye Lang is able to accumulate enough social capital, which, combined with his other connections, gives him the capacity

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to ﬁx many deals for his friends and for himself. In fact, he spends a large amount of his time running around ﬁxing deals, which offers a general idea of how things are done in Xijing: Ye Lang manages to get the permit for Yu Bai’s cousin to open a restaurant by arranging a bank loan for the son of the person in charge of issuing restaurant licences; to ﬁnance the restaurant, Ye Lang helps them to exchange US dollars illegally into local currency at a higher rate than the China Bank offers. In return, when the restaurant is up and running, Ye Lang introduces two of his mates to work as waiters. When Kuange is punished for the theft of a new bike under his police patrol jurisdiction, Ye Lang simply steals one as a replacement to help Kuange. Again, when Kuange misses out on his housing allocation, Ye Lang ﬁnds the opportunity at a dining table to talk to the deputy mayor so that Kuange’s domestic crisis is resolved. In the same way, when he is in trouble, Ye Lang can rely on his mates to ﬁx things up for him. For instance, when he is handcuffed and chained to a pillar in police custody after a brutal ﬁght with a gangster, Kuange is able to use his privilege as a policeman to arrest the gangster in exchange for Ye Lang’s release. Ye Lang’s connection with Mulianxi and Nan Dingshan has a business aspect and it shows how Xijing’s business culture functions. Like many others in the entertainment industry, they pretend to perform for charity but make more money through tax beneﬁts and patronage. Because most people can get away with such relatively minor acts of corruption, they do not give it too much thought. It is only due to bad luck that their formidable political enemy Gong Changxing has recently been promoted to take charge of the entertainment industry and he does not let them get away with it. The troupe is ﬁned heavily and it takes them much more bribery before they are able to get their permit back. Gong Changxing, like most of the ofﬁcials, is no angel but he is better at hiding his corruption. Ye Lang, in a desperate attempt to bring down Gong Changxing, asks a burglar to break into Gong Changxing’s home to obtain evidence of his corruption in order to pass on to the higher authorities. Although successful up to a point, the burglar is later caught and under torture he betrays Ye Lang. The narrative ﬁnishes with the policemen waiting to arrest Ye Lang at the end of a Mulianxi performance in which Ye Lang is playing a ghost. In Xijing, the hero, communist or otherwise, no longer exists. Nor does the victim of the system – the roles for the individual are complex and the distinction between good and bad is totally blurred. It may be arguable that Kuange retains the qualities of a communist hero: he has the most admirable selﬂess intentions when it comes to helping others and his devotion as a policeman can perhaps match up to that of the communist model Lei Feng .7 However, against the changed social and cultural context in which ‘getting rich is glorious’, Kuange’s best intentions to help others often turn out as jokes against him, as more often than not he gives assistance to the wrong people, if not actually helping the criminals. It is therefore no surprise that he is constantly at odds with his wife and his colleagues. The police

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force eventually purges him when he again, by mistake, helps a criminal disguised as a victim. Out of a job, he decides to walk to the source of the Yellow River to attract sponsorship for the construction of a temple for Lei Feng, who remains his hero, and his only hero. Kuange’s irony shows that the spirit of self-sacriﬁce so central to the ideology of the CCP prior to the onset of commercialism in the 1980s is totally out of place in China now, and this, in the depiction of the narrative, accounts for the most profound change in the Chinese social and political life of the past decades. In case Kuange might be mistaken for a genuine communist hero like Lei Feng, the narrative actually tarnishes his image with a horrible skin disease. His body becomes so itchy that he has to come down from his lofty devotion to others to attend to his own personal reality, at least to scratch himself now and then.

Intertextuality in White Nights Apart from Defunct Capital, two prose essays, ‘Red Fox’ (Honghu ) (Jia Pingwa 1996d: 8–12) and ‘Idlers’ (Xianren ) (Jia Pingwa 1996d: 13– 17), are important to the conceptualization of White Nights, in particular its motives, themes, characterization and even plot development. ‘Idlers’, written in the early 1990s, outlines the characteristics of idlers and it was already present as an important benchmark in the male characterizations of Defunct Capital, although, as mentioned earlier, Defunct Capital focuses on ‘cultural idlers’, whereas White Nights explores the role and behaviour patterns of social idlers. The character of Ye Lang is illustrative of the generalization in the essay ‘Idlers’. The essay ‘Red Fox’ bears the closest textual link to White Nights, and the degree of textual afﬁnities may even qualify it as its prelude. ‘Red Fox’ is narrated in a ﬁrst-person male voice, telling the story of his loneliness and solitude in a single room that he calls a ‘desolate garden’ (huangyuan ), alluding to the garden imagery in the Qing dynasty work Strange Tales from the Leisure Studio (Pu Songling 1962), in which fox spirits appear frequently as beautiful women to seduce handsome young men. In ‘Red Fox’, in the narrator’s desolation, his male friend Kuange, who has the same name as in White Nights, comes to visit and gives him a qin. In the process of getting to know the qin, he realizes that a fox spirit has arrived and it is the qin, which is in the shape of a woman’s body, with delicate, dark skin and beautiful silky hair. Facing the qin as the most beautiful woman in his life, he tells her everything about himself. When he touches her, ﬁne music sounds emerge and he is much comforted by this exquisite companion. ‘Red Fox’ elaborates on Jia Pingwa’s adoration of the qin as an art object in itself and his feminization of the beauty of the qin in the metaphor of ‘red fox’. ‘Fox’, in Jia Pingwa’s literary language, can be both a noun and an adjective for feminine qualities. As a noun, when a woman is called a ‘fox’, she must be very charming and beautiful. As an adjective, it highlights her

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attractiveness and cleverness. In White Nights, Ye Lang is so intoxicated by both Yu Bai and the qin that he takes the qin for Yu Bai and believes that both are reincarnations of the fox spirit. The association of women with the fox spirit is common in Chinese folktales, although it is not clear whether it began before or after the inﬂuential Strange Tales from the Leisure Studio (Pu Songling 1962). In Chinese popular belief the fox spirit can be evil because its transformation into a beautiful woman is intended to seduce young men so that she can suck their blood. Jia Pingwa’s adaptation of the fox imagery, however, does not have any negative connotations. According to the colophon at the end of the piece, ‘Red Fox’ was written in a hospital ward on 20 November 1993, which was during the bleakest period in Jia Pingwa’s life; the ‘I’ in the narrative who is facing a deserted garden could well be the author himself, or at least shares similar feelings of desolation with the author. Although it is difﬁcult and unnecessary to conﬁrm that the ‘I’ in ‘Red Fox’ must be Ye Lang in White Nights or the author himself, ‘Red Fox’ is no doubt connected with the conceptualization of the storyline of White Nights. Ye Lang also lives in a room called a ‘desolate garden’, in which he has visits from both the qin and Yu Bai. The episode in which he mistakes the qin for Yu Bai and listens to the sounds of the qin is similar to an experience of the ‘I’ in ‘Red Fox’. The point here, of course, is not how much the author can be identiﬁed in his characters, but rather to understand that such intertextuality enhances the appreciation of the theme of solitude and companionship in common in these pieces. Very likely, Jia Pingwa has learnt a lesson from the controversy over Defunct Capital in which many critics and readers identiﬁed the character Zhuang Zhidie with the author Jia Pingwa since both are middle-aged successful writers. From White Nights onwards in Jia Pingwa’s ﬁction, the author and his protagonist show increasingly greater distance, at least biographically. Ye Lang, however, still retains a mental afﬁnity with Zhuang Zhidie, especially in his rootlessness – both characters come from the country and their parents have passed away. Their loneliness in the city (both have many friends but they are totally alone in their quest for self ); their personal survival stories in the city, none the less, show a country fellow’s characteristic toughness and tenacity, at least in Jia Pingwa’s writing. Ye Lang is the alter ego of Zhuang Zhidie and White Nights is very much a story of emotional and mental survival in a totally alien and isolating environment. The connection between Defunct Capital and White Nights is further underlined through the afﬁnities between Ye Lang and Zhou Min. Although Ye Lang continues the journey of social and urban discovery in Xijing begun by Zhuang Zhidie, Ye Lang’s journey of self-discovery as a younger man beginning to establish himself is different from that of Zhuang Zhidie as a middle-aged famous writer. In this respect, Ye Lang bears more traces of Zhou Min as they both are typical idlers from the country and in their thirties. Both have literary talents and have to start from zero, have a similar

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love-hate relationship with the city, resort to violence when it comes to resolving political conﬂicts, and both end up in limbo in terms of their ambitions to succeed. Jia Pingwa’s writings at the beginning of the 1990s have a special relationship with his biography and there is a correspondence between transitions in his life and the plots as well as the characterization of his writing. The quest for the self, central in White Nights and Defunct Capital, may have been the result of a number of factors. The departure of youth and the arrival of the middle age prompts the question of ‘who am I?’. After living in Xi’an over two decades, more than the time he had spent in the village, as a rural migrant to the city, the identity issue had become increasingly acute, because, on the one hand, Jia Pingwa knew he was losing touch with his native village and yet, on the other hand, he was still treated as an outsider in the city. Careerwise, his professional success makes him more aware of his inadequacy and yet he has to solve the questions of what and how to write. Jia Pingwa answered the last question in 1992 with his essay ‘On Turning Forty’ (Sishisui shuo !) (Jia Pingwa 1996d: 4–7). With this essay he cleared his thoughts on writing and it has been the guideline for his literary endeavours ever since. It is an important document for understanding Jia Pingwa’s literary thinking, and he would refer to it many times in his future interviews with critics and journalists. The gist is that Chinese writers should write locally for Chinese readers and that the story must be local in style and in content. However, in terms of the inner world and the spiritual quest, a Chinese writer has a lot to learn from foreigners.8 With the question ‘who am I’ as a central motif, Jia Pingwa explores the issue with Defunct Capital and White Nights. These two novels are by no means about his personal life, however, they are the result of his quest for an understanding of his bewilderment concerning issues relating to the self. White Nights signals the conclusion of this puzzling phase in Jia Pingwa’s creative life and he was ready for the beginning of the next one.

Earth Gate and loss of native place 131

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Earth Gate and loss of native place

Earth Gate is set on the outskirts of Xijing between 1995 and 1996 against the background of China’s rapid urbanization and industrialization. By this time Jia Pingwa’s Xijing is no longer the place of historical and cultural signiﬁcance that it is in Defunct Capital and White Nights, where culture and tradition are discovered, recollected or even invented on its site. The city in Earth Gate is now an urban monster that expands itself horrendously at a bewildering speed, and the expansion ruthlessly wipes out the nearby villages. Earth Gate tells the story of a village called Benevolence (Renhoucun ) and its struggle against its eventual demolition in opposition to its formidable enemy, the city of Xijing. The narrative has twenty-six untitled sections, each of ten to twenty pages, mainly chronological. It begins when, all of a sudden, the village ﬁnds itself an island surrounded by high-rise concrete buildings, highways, construction sites and the noise of heavy building equipment. It has lost all of its neighbouring villages and is thus under the immediate threat of further urban development. Instead of surrendering to the inevitable like their neighbours, the villagers decide to ﬁght back to protect their homes and community. Faced with the greed and power of Xijing’s industrialization and commercialization, the community strives heroically but the villagers’ efforts serve only to prolong the time before the village’s total destruction. Their leader Chengyi ends up being executed by the authorities and, within a matter of weeks of his death, the villagers are removed and dispersed into high rises, bulldozers come in and the village disappears in no time. The major narrative thread is the documentation of the daily activities, experiences and emotions of the villagers and of the female narrator Meimei herself during the year of the villagers’ bitter struggle to preserve their homes. Her observations and reﬂections function as annotations on the village’s fruitless ﬁght for survival as a community on its ancestral land.

Simpliﬁed characters: the village personalities Among the villagers, four characters stand out as central ﬁgures, around whom the narrative events take place and evolve. These four are two women

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in their early twenties, Meimei and Meizi , plus Grandpa Yunlin , in his seventies, and the young, male village head Chengyi. Meimei lives by herself in the family house, since she has no siblings and her parents have passed away. Before her grandfather’s generation, her family were the village gentry, her grandfather being a locally famous Confucian scholar. Although she has failed to gain entrance to a regular university, Meimei remains the most educated in the village, for she has been studying classical Chinese literature by correspondence at the Open University, hence continuing the scholarly tradition of her family. Her hobby is to collect Ming and Qing dynasty furniture, a common interest with her boyfriend Lao Ran , a researcher at the Institute for Agricultural Science in Xijing. Lao Ran is from Benevolence Village but has relocated to the city and he frequently returns to visit his family and Meimei. Apart from Lao Ran, Meimei has another two suitors, Chengyi and Fan Jingquan , but these two do not make their interest so obvious, knowing of Meimei’s relationship with their mutual friend Lao Ran. Fan Jingquan is Lao Ran’s colleague but more importantly he is Meimei’s tutor for classical Chinese at the Open University. Fan Jingquan is well known for his ambition to become a novelist and a journalist in spite of his training as an agricultural scientist. Meimei is ambivalent about all three men. She hardly spends any time with Lao Ran and is much closer to Chengyi, whom she cares about and with whose cause of saving the village she identiﬁes. She eventually breaks off with Lao Ran and begins a close relationship with Fan Jingquan towards the end, after Chengyi’s death. Meimei shares an idealism for village life with Chengyi. Wholeheartedly devoted to the village she is instrumental in the village’s campaign to preserve the community. Although a woman, she is a prominent ﬁgure in the village community and politics. The villagers respect her for a number of reasons: her family belonged to the village gentry, she is the most educated in her generation and in the village, she gets on well with others and performs her tasks well. In the narrative she is most signiﬁcant – as the ﬁrst-person narrator, it is through her eyes and experiences that the story of Benevolence Village is told. This is the ﬁrst of Jia Pingwa’s novels to use a female, ﬁrst-person narrative perspective. Meizi is like a twin sister to Meimei, or indeed her alter ego. Born only six months apart and each being the only child in her family, the two grew up together and have been very close friends. Meizi used to spend most of her days at Meimei’s place and they even slept in the same bed for most their childhood and teen years. Their names sound similar but the written characters have different meanings. ‘Meimei’ refers to plum blossoms and ‘Meizi’ points to the pretty facial features of a girl or a woman. Meizi is indeed the prettiest girl in the village and until recently her beauty was the pride of the villagers. The villagers changed their attitude towards her when she started going out with Lao Shao , a salesman from the city, who helped her land a job working as a secretary for a real estate developer – the enemy of the village by default. Whereas Meimei values her roots in the village and

Earth Gate and loss of native place 133 her plan is to stay in the village and contribute to the community, Meizi is determined to have her own business in the city and to be a city person, or chengliren , on her own terms. While Meimei plays a central role in protecting the village from the developers, Meizi works for them and believes that the city promises a better life for herself and for her fellow villagers. Their compassion for the village still binds them together but their ideological differences set them on very different paths. Meizi’s daily life is only vaguely presented and yet her symbolic role is sharply outlined. Projected through her life story is the image of a new generation of rural women and the effect of urbanization upon them: her fascination with a city ofﬁce job, her adaptation to the city fashion of dressing and interior design, and her living together with her boyfriend before marriage. Her dream of modern city living and being a city person is fulﬁlled when she successfully establishes her own business, family and a new home in the city. However, although Meizi no doubt exempliﬁes the possibility of successful relocation of country people to the city, her experience also shows that the process is by no means easy. Still deeply attached to her native village, she wants to have both the city and the village as home. Unfortunately, her presence in the village makes her an easy target for the hostility of the villagers, who see her as a traitor to village solidarity and direct their hatred of the city on to her. Her friendship with a policeman, nicknamed Fatty, makes things worse, as it is taken as further proof of her liaison with the evil city. Meizi is deeply caught between her double longing and double belonging. On the one hand, the self-transformation into a city person entails a great deal of effort in physical adaptation and cultural adjustment. On the other hand, rejection from fellow villagers inﬂicts enormous psychological damage, since she tries to help the village whenever she can. Unable to stay away from the native place and determined to succeed in the city, she is torn and disturbed to the extent that she loses her mind. There is some similarity between the sisterhood of Meimei/Meizi and that of Man’r /Yue’r in Jia Pingwa’s 1977 debut prize-winning short story ‘Full Moon’ (Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.1: 310–21). Both stories elaborate the bond of sisterhood in a village and the sisters have hardly any family life: they exist almost entirely in the public sphere. The sisters have contrasting and yet complementing personalities – the elder sister is committed to grand goals and high achievements, whereas the younger sister is interested in lesser aims. However, the different paths chosen eventually converge. There still remains Jia Pingwa’s tendency to idealize young, good-looking women, perhaps especially good-looking rural women. He praises their determination, kindness, and characteristic practicality in dealing with the daily demands of life. However, Meimei, Meizi and their native village in China of the 1990s are far more unstable, insecure and complex than their counterparts in ‘Full Moon’ of the late 1970s. Grandpa Yunlin is the village ‘saint’, both metaphorically and practically. He is entirely devoted to the well-being of the village, which also relies on

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him for their sustenance. He has never married, has no immediate family and lives alone in the side rooms of the Jia family clan hall. He has always been a vegetarian, and his daily diet is boiled rice ﬂavoured with chilli and salt. He is disabled, and walks by crawling on his hands and knees. He used to be a pig breeder but, after a three-month illness during which he also lost his mind, he acquired magical skills of diagnosing and curing liver disease. He could be very well-off but he has no interest in accumulating personal wealth and lets the entire village beneﬁt from his medical knowledge while he himself lives a very simple life. Grandpa Yunlin also has other magical talents, such as foreseeing future events and reading people’s minds. Young people in the village like to gather at his place and the villagers all look to him for guidance when they make decisions, although Grandpa Yunlin is habitually quiet and says little. In the eyes of the villagers, he is god-like and his handicap not only enhances him spiritually but also bestows on him a solid connection with the earth. Chengyi is an equally mythical ﬁgure. When an infant, he was delivered to the village by a wolf and picked up by an old, single man who used to be an executioner in the last years of the Qing dynasty, but is now the keeper of the village graveyard. The Executioner, as the narrative names him, raises Chengyi and Chengyi addresses him as Grandpa. Thirty years old and unmarried, Chengyi continues to live with his executioner foster grandfather, having miraculously mastered extraordinary martial-art skills and become embroiled in various clandestine businesses. For a few years after the villagers had lost their farming land, Chengyi disappeared entirely from the village and nobody knew his whereabouts. The villagers found out later that he had gone to Tibet and joined a group of smugglers to steal precious historical and religious objects. He made some money that way but was caught. One of his hands was cut off and the surgeon sewed on a woman’s hand instead for him. The female hand on Chengyi’s masculine body becomes a constant source of speculation, gossip and jokes among the villagers, thus earning him the nickname of ‘yin–yang hands’. In times of crisis, however, the villagers believe in Chengyi’s courage and ability to the extent that they elect him village head, even in his absence, to replace the old village head who had served for the past thirty years. Chengyi’s predecessor was deserted by his constituency, because he had recently buckled to the authorities’ proposal to dismantle the village to build a grand hotel. Chengyi jumps at the opportunity when he hears the news and subsequently leads the villagers in a succession of successful attempts to safeguard the village. Although Chengyi does not succeed in the end, he has courage, determination and a grand vision for the village. He is another of Jia Pingwa’s young male villain-heroes, who is persecuted by the authorities but loved and respected by his own people, and his heroic spirit prevails among the villagers. His two obvious predecessors in the author’s work are Liu Cheng in Shangzhou (Jia Pingwa 1998, v.8: 1–255) and Jingou in Turbulence (Jia Pingwa 1998, v.9).

Earth Gate and loss of native place 135 On the whole, the characterization in Earth Gate is highly symbolic, although social realism is predominant in the conceptualization of the novel and in its development of plot.1 Each of these four major characters is sketched as an archetype, if not a stereotype, of a particular village personage, without family ties or the complications of a full family life. Hence, to a large extent, these are ‘simpliﬁed characters’ with clear proﬁles and a lack of irrelevant detail. This is very different from Jia Pingwa’s previous novels, or even his most recent work, before or after the publication of Earth Gate. The fading away of the quotidian creates space for portraying the tensions the community faces, and is very effective in highlighting the important political issues on which the author intends to focus: this is where Jia Pingwa’s social realism comes in, for better or worse. However, unlike socialist realism in the Maoist years, during which the reﬂection of class struggles was mandatory and from which a super proletarian hero would surely emerge, Earth Gate is deeply concerned about the urban–rural divide that has been institutionalized and popularized in contemporary Chinese society. Its focus is on how, in recent decades, urban expansion has displaced millions of peasants and also on systematic discrimination against them for more than half a century. Earth Gate’s symbolism also includes another major character, the dog Abing , who is on centre stage both at the beginning and towards the end. On both occasions he has just lost his home and is about to be executed by the policemen responsible for neighbourhood security. On the ﬁrst occasion, Abing is saved by Meizi, at the crucial moment of her policeman friend Fatty’s hesitation, after more than a hundred ‘illegal’ dogs have been hanged. These dogs were to die because they were deemed illegitimate residents in the city, for their owners had failed to register them with the authorities – a situation similar to rural migrants to the city without residence permits, and intended as an irony to mock the urban residence regulations. Abing had become ‘illegal’ after his owners had been murdered. Benevolence Village became Abing’s new home only to be destroyed in less than a year and Abing was to repeat his experience of extreme horror by being hanged once again. The ruthlessness of the police as representative of the city is shown in sharp contrast to the helplessness of a traumatized dog, and the contrast in turn draws a parallel of the asymmetrical power relationship between the villagers and the authorities and commercial powermongers in the city. As a metaphor of the fate overhanging the Benevolence villagers, Abing’s image is a standard sangjiaquan – a dog that has lost his home, wandering aimlessly with its tail down, or in other words a typical loser. Abing’s trauma left him with a psychological disturbance and he becomes terriﬁed at the sight of any policeman. As the narrator Meimei recalls, Abing has paid too high a price for less than a year’s extra life for he has to experience another horrifying death. The same conclusion can also be reached about the villagers’ effort at saving the village. For prolonging the existence of Benevolence Village for less than one year, Chengyi pays with

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his life, Meizi loses her sanity and all the villagers, including Meimei herself, are traumatized.

War of resistance: between benevolence and tyranny Most residents of the Benevolence have the family name of Jia , the same as the author.2 They did not know that they were the descendants of the most successful Ming dynasty merchant Jia Wansan of Jiangsu province, who was exiled by the founding Ming emperor to Shaanxi for political reasons. Ironically, the villagers did not discover their ancestral heritage until they started digging the foundation to build another more splendid village gate of ‘traditional’ architecture. No one knows exactly why their formidable ancestor had buried his true identity so effectively, but it may be inferred that it had to do with safeguarding the well-being of his descendants from further political persecution. Nevertheless, revelation of such an ancestral link with the rich and powerful from south of the Yangtze River effectively connects Benevolence Village with China’s past cultural and political centre. This connection reasserts the relevance of peasants as the authentic heirs of Chinese civilization – a point of view that Jia Pingwa reiterates frequently in his writing. Contributions by peasants are often forgotten by Chinese society at large, a phenomenon sharply criticized by Kate Zhou in How the Farmers Changed China (Zhou, K. 1996). Zhou forcefully argues against the popular perception that the city is the only site of modernization and that the peasants are largely beneﬁciaries of the rapid urbanization of the reform era. She points out that many Chinese peasants are no longer peasants, having moved on to other trades, and by doing so they have been one of the major forces for bringing about the transformation of Chinese society since the late 1980s.3 Earth Gate depicts such a process from a particular angle – that which is the experience of the Benevolence villagers, or rural transients, to borrow Dorothy Solinger’s term in this instance (Solinger, D. 1999: 1). At the moment when Chengyi assumes his position of leadership, the villagers of Benevolence have already lost their farmland and have been making their living by catering for Grandpa Yunlin’s patients. For some extra income, many also rent rooms out to people from elsewhere who work in the city. Indeed the villagers are no longer peasants in the sense that they do not work on the land any more. Nor have they too much daily physical work, as Meimei observes: !"#$%&'(%&)*+,-./012 345678 !"#$%&'()"*+ !"#$%&'()*+ !"#$%&'()*+,-./0&)1+23.45 !"#$%&'()*+,-./01234-566789 !"#$%&'()*+,-./012345678$9 !"#$%&'()*+,-.%/01234567819

Earth Gate and loss of native place 137 All the people are still asleep comfortably and soundly. What else can they do but sleep? The villagers lost their land, so they also lost their livelihoods. It is not feasible for them to seek work in the south or in Xijing city like the southerners who repair shoes, umbrellas or saucepans, or become dressmakers. Their normal diet has lots of noodles and chillies so that they cannot handle rice or fresh seafood. They also look down upon those odd repair jobs as insigniﬁcant chores. Benevolence Village has plenty of big houses with vacant rooms which they rent out to the employees working in nearby institutions. Also, Grandpa Yunlin has turned the village into a hospital and our life is quite prosperous. (96) Clearly, for the villagers losing their land means a change in their lifestyle, a new outlook and new relationships in society and to one another. Young people have to look elsewhere for a future or a career – Chengyi, Meimei and Meizi are examples of those who do not want to wait passively for things to happen to them but wish somehow to control their own destiny, one way or another. However, the villagers do not stop being peasants, despite the drastic changes in their trades, because for most of them their social status does not change at the same speed as they lose their land. Popular prejudices and unfavourable social policies continue to label them as ‘peasants’ and they themselves also carry their past with them into the city. For the majority of the villagers, their village is the last threshold of what they can call home. Its destruction means the irretrievable loss of their community and their native place of shared history and culture. The villagers’ worst nightmare is to be isolated in the concrete high rises with no one to talk to. Indeed, the loss of the village is so traumatic that an old woman commits suicide at the site of her old home when returning to pay last tribute. Chengyi, in his inaugural speech as village head, is most eloquent on the villagers’ despair and dilemma: !"#$%&'()*+,-./$.01*.0$234 !"#$%&'($)*+,-./01234567 !"#$%!"&'()!"#$*+,-.% I have been everywhere in China, but I cannot shake off my peasant skin. Once a peasant, forever a peasant. In the entire country, where is a place more willing to keep me than my native place? But our land has been devoured by the city and what we have been left with is only our village. We can no longer afford to lose our village. (85) Here Chengyi identiﬁes three critical issues for the livelihood of the peasants: their identity and status in the Chinese social structure, their right to their land and their roots in their native village. The importance of the

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village and the community to the villagers was never allowed for in the city development plans. Chengyi knows that they cannot wait for anyone’s mercy and that they have to ﬁght for the survival of the village. Chengyi’s political wisdom tells him that the survival of the village needs the achievement of two initial goals: ﬁrst, the authorities should be convinced of the importance of Benevolence Village to Xijing as a modern city and trust that the Benevolence villagers are true custodians of traditional ‘Chinese’ lifestyle and cultural values; second, the villagers should be united unconditionally in belief and in action towards the goal of self-preservation. Chengyi resolves to realize the second goal ﬁrst, and ‘inventing traditions’ is precisely what his strategies of cultural intervention aim to achieve.4 Fortifying the village mentally and physically against the erosion and invasion of the city is his primary aim, which he achieves by inventing a common ethnicity. For Benevolence villagers to have a collective identify, he calls them the ‘Ming Drum Clan’ (Mingguzu ) (85), based on their shared heritage of percussion music which their ancestor Jia Wansan produced in the army when he was a soldier after he had fallen from grace with the emperor. This music has been handed down through the generations and many villagers can still play it well. It is highly ironic that Chengyi uniﬁes the villagers through blood and family linkage, despite the irony that he himself is, strictly speaking, not related to the villagers. Under the banner of the Ming Drum Clan, Chengyi designs and implements a number of further measures, and more concrete traditions are invented in order to strengthen the idea of a uniﬁed community. First, Benevolence Village should renovate its houses and streets and cultivate the image of an archetypal Chinese rural village to evoke nostalgia in city dwellers and to convince the authorities that it should be preserved as an essential element of Xijing’s identity and as a tourist attraction. Second, the village clinic should expand its pharmacy to make bigger proﬁts so as to ﬁnance collective projects. Third, all the houses should take more tenants to bring in more income and to extend the village’s reputation and inﬂuence. Fourth, the village graveyard should be cleaned and each household should have a designated spot so that the bond among the villagers will be strengthened. Fifth, young men should keep up with martial arts practice so that they can protect the village militarily if need be. Sixth, performances of the local percussion music should be resumed, partly as evidence of the village’s valuable cultural heritage and partly as a manifestation of the determination and prowess of the villagers. Seventh, copies of the village etiquettes and codes of conduct, which Chengyi has recently written down, should be distributed to ensure that all villagers live in harmony and order. In short, Chengyi envisages a traditional, agrarian space in which the villagers are able to retain as their ancestral homes and have a self-sufﬁcient and sustainable lifestyle. He wants Benevolence Village to become a community and a place that is economically, culturally and physically self-contained and yet indispensable to the modern city, or, in other words, a peasantry utopia.

Earth Gate and loss of native place 139 Moreover, this utopian village should be exemplary in China as a model for rural self-salvation and as a cure for urban malaise. Most villagers are supportive of Chengyi’s ideas and willing to follow him for a good ﬁght. Chengyi’s proactive approach ensures that Benevolence villagers are soon engaged in a number of actions against the city. Their ﬁrst battle is to negotiate boundaries between themselves and their new neighbours: the residential compounds that have recently replaced the neighbouring villages have been using Benevolence Village land as a garbage dump. The united front of the villagers organized by Chengyi quickly brings the city folk to the negotiation table and the problem is solved in no time. On another occasion, the villagers, in a matter of minutes, chase away surveyors sent by the developers to measure the village site. Most morale-boosting for the villagers is their drum parade, which they take to the city and deliberately to the street where the developer’s company is located as a show of strength. As head of the village, Chengyi himself also goes around lobbying key members of the city council and persuading the media to spread the news of his rural utopia. The war of resistance of Benevolence Village against the city also includes battles against the seduction of a modern life on offer in the city. For some villagers, it is an exciting life full of glamour. To begin with, it is extremely hard for the villagers to resist the football stadium, even Chengyi himself. The villagers could say ‘no’ to many urban attractions but not to football matches, although they conveniently forget that the stadium was built on their ancestral land and football matches are part and parcel of the modern city. In this regard, the village has two ‘dissidents’, the old village head and Meizi, both believing that it is no use to prolong the life of the village against the tides of urbanization and that it is better for the villagers to grasp opportunities in the city as soon as possible. Chengyi, his ﬁrm conviction of the evils of the city notwithstanding, does not tolerate any dissenting opinions. Under the slogan of political unity, Chengyi also expects obedience and conformity. He goes a long way to make sure that both the old village head and Meizi are isolated and ostracized. The old village head has to hide in hospital to avoid being publicly humiliated. Denouncing Meizi as a traitor, Chengyi takes her off the list of those to receive a bonus from the village clinic and pharmacy, cuts off the electricity supply to her house and later even seals it off to prevent entry. The villagers also spread gossip about Meizi’s sexual conduct and nobody, except Meimei, remains on speaking terms with her. Despite her residence in the city, Meizi constantly comes back, unable to sever her attachment immediately. However, the pressure of being an outcast, the weight of the village on her mind and the burden of the emotional pain in the process of a peasant’s transformation all combine to drive Meizi eventually to a mental breakdown and she becomes schizophrenic. Despite Chengyi’s leadership and the collective efforts of the villagers, they ﬁnd themselves unable to divert the attention of the developers, or to

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persuade the authorities to alter Xijing’s urban planning so as to preserve their village. The campaigns staged by the villagers are intense and vigorous but quite insigniﬁcant in the larger scheme of things as far as the city municipality is concerned. Their victories, in general, are only in small battles and can in no way lead to serious resistance to the authorities. They achieve no more than a delay of the taking over of the village by the developers. The ﬁrst signal of failure comes quickly and unexpectedly, when the police raid some of the premises. A number of the tenants have been using Benevolence Village as a safe haven for illegal activities, such as producing fake wines, hiding pregnant women to escape forced abortion or storing illegal goods. Soon, funding construction work to improve the village’s image runs out. Desperate, Chengyi tries to generate funds by stealing from the provincial museum. He is caught and executed without an open trial within a few weeks of his arrest and in spite of the effort mounted by the villagers to save him. His death means the end of the villagers’ resistance and the end of the village. Chengyi’s belief in a rural commonwealth as the grand vision for a better China and for Benevolence Village is, ironically, based on and limited by his experience and background as a peasant and it is reminiscent of the utopian ideals of Chinese peasant leaders of the past. Through the character, conduct and ideology of Chengyi, especially his authoritarian leadership style, Earth Gate effectively explores the social category of ‘peasants’. It probes the layers of meanings of ‘peasanthood’: from the villagers’ anger and helplessness against the city’s continuous, detrimental bias to their current transitional limbo and possible transformation into being part of the city’s constituency if China continues to evolve into a fully industrialized nation, and to the very basics of their social, political and cultural citizenship. Taking all these aspects into consideration, the narrative not only conducts soulsearching on the part of ‘peasants’ but also creates an introspective framework of cultural longing and belonging, thus showing a village community from within and without, including the emotions, behaviour, ideology, relationships to each other and to society, and the common practice of belief systems in Shaanxi’s rural areas. If seen from this perspective, it becomes obvious that the conﬂicts between Benevolence Village and Xijing city are staged also with the defects of peasantry in sight, although urban or state cruelty is also highlighted. Hence, the quality of Chengyi as a ‘peasant’ leader is an important aspect of this discourse of dichotomy between the rural and the urban, between the village and the city, and between self and Other.

Urban hostility and rural confusion Anthropologists and political scientists have conducted a signiﬁcant number of studies on the conditions of rural migrants in Chinese cities. Since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, Chinese cities have not been particularly welcoming to peasants, as a result of the state’s policy of residential registration that reduces the status of peasants to ‘non-citizens’

Earth Gate and loss of native place 141 (Solinger, D. 1999: 1). In recent decades, while the state has continued its discriminatory policies against peasants, China’s process of marketization and industrialization is pushing more and more rural migrants into the city at a speed that the city is neither prepared for nor willing to accommodate. Consequently, urban discrimination against people of rural origins has been phenomenally widened. Although the city depends on labour, services and products supplied by rural people, it provides little support or services for them. Urban residents see rural migrants as squatters on ‘their’ city space and polluters of ‘their’ city streets and complain about the ‘lower quality’ and unhygienic habits of ‘peasants’. In response to the increasing numbers of the ﬂoating population, urban policemen and security guards also target rural migrants to stamp out illegal activities. This state policy of dividing the people has caused major problems for rural people living and working in the city. Li Zhang in ‘Contesting Crime, Order and Migrant Spaces in Beijing’ documents an example of how the state and the market have created incentives for rural migrants to enter China’s cities, how Beijing city residents have manifested anxieties over their place and space because of the presence of rural communities in the city and how the state has taken drastic measures to control the movement of people (Chen, N. 2001: 201–22). The case of Benevolence Village is different in showing how the villagers end up in the city, but the state functions similarly in its exercise of control over place and space at the expense of the rural community as in Zhang’s example of Beijing. Dorothy Solinger’s book Contesting Citizenship in Urban China: Peasant Migrants, the State, and the Logic of the Market (1999) offers a comprehensive study of the conditions under which rural migrants live and work in China’s metropolitan centres. She ‘charts the complex clash in Chinese cities between incoming non-citizens, the markets that bore them, city residents, and the ofﬁcials and changing institutions of the old Communist urban political community’ (Solinger 1999: 1). Solinger’s analysis establishes the case that peasant migrants in the city are in effect ‘foreigners’ in their own country and that as the result of the PRC’s policy of discrimination they suffer state and popular discrimination similar to that imposed upon noncitizens entering another country. Her study, however, does not look into the cases of ‘displaced peasants’, such as the case of Benevolence villagers, when the city expands and takes the land of the peasants on its outskirts, effectively forcing the peasants off their land. In these instances, the state generally offers peasants city residence registration and the developers give them ﬁnancial compensation, although the peasants who are displaced usually have limited power to negotiate terms and many of their needs are simply disregarded. The usual assumption is that, because of the high value of a city residence registration certiﬁcate, peasants will welcome the opportunity to obtain one. Although this is not always the case, the point here is not that the assumption is wrong but that the right of rural people to choose is denied. Earth Gate underscores, on the one hand, the continuous brutality

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of the Chinese state and the insensitivity of urban residents towards the villagers. On the other hand, the narrative demonstrates the ineffectiveness and lack of systematic organization in any peasant resistance to China’s rapid urbanization. Besides, the issue of social citizenship, although essential and extremely important, is only one aspect of the alien status of peasants in the Chinese city. Cultural citizenship, in other words the right of access to culture, language, education, community, lifestyle, means of communication and more, which are equally important, is also denied when peasants relocate to the city.5 Through the case study of Subei migrants to Shanghai, Emily Honig establishes that many regional or spatial differences in China can be translated into differences of ethnicity similar to those of migrants from less developed countries to the United States. She believes that such differences of ethnicity are, in effect, class differences (Honig 1992). There is a resemblance between Honig’s assertion of class difference and Solinger’s argument about the deprivation of social citizenship of Chinese rural migrants in that both deal with the underprivileged situation encountered by groups of people as a result of the geographic location of their ‘native place’. My intention here is to highlight the spatial dimension of the class difference between urban residents and rural migrants, especially stressing that the difference in social space is deduced from the hierarchy of place. The association of collective identity with place not only determines social rank and group identity but also gives unequal rights to claims over space with the state’s mandatory power on top. Earth Gate is very much a novel about space and the associated meanings of place in contemporary Chinese society. In particular, Earth Gate exempliﬁes the tension over space between the market forces supported by the state and the villagers as second-class citizens, despite their ownership of the land from ancient times. On the one hand, Benevolence villagers have only limited rights to their space and place. On the other hand, when they challenge the authorities and the developers from the city, the narrative equates the city with the state – a conceptualization that can be traced back into Chinese antiquity relating to the development of cities as walled areas in which state authorities resided and markets were housed. Earth Gate continues with such a notion of the city and outlines the urban space through brutal exercise of state power and the greed of city developers. As a result, the narrative avoids mapping the city in detail but lets policemen dominate the cityscape so that the spatial structure is presented as a power structure. The presence of the police intrudes into every place in the city, especially where rural people are likely to be. Consequently, the city has two kinds of victims – the villagers and the dogs – and both are under police control. The state also deliberately makes them illegitimate so that, when necessary, their elimination is a simple matter. In charge of the area where Benevolence Village is located, the police sergeant Fatty visits frequently to administer orders from above and to see his friend Meizi. Resented by most of the villagers, his presence is particularly

Earth Gate and loss of native place 143 conspicuous in the laneways of the village, particularly as he comes either on a police motorbike or in a police car. Fatty occupies the central stage three times – twice as the chief commander to carry out the death sentence on the dog Abing and once to execute Chengyi. The cruelty of Fatty or the police force is not so much what they do to the villagers and the dogs but the detached coldness in their implementation of the orders. To his credit, Fatty is the one who spots the fake wine delivery from Benevolence Village to the city and ﬁnds out about its production in the rooms rented out to outsiders by villagers. He is also the one who solves the tough murder case in which Abing’s owners were slaughtered. His presence is continuous throughout the battle scenes of Benevolence Village, and in the last moments of the village’s existence he arrives to ensure that its demolition goes without a hitch, just in case the villagers decide to have a last ﬁght.6 The narrative eventually manages to inﬂict some kind of injury on Fatty when he orders the execution of Chengyi. Fatty is holding a triangular ﬂag and a stray bullet bounces back towards him, hits his middle ﬁnger and blows the top off. Meimei, when she last sees Fatty after the demolition of the village, sarcastically tells him that his ﬁnger deserved martyrdom from the state. Cultural geographer Carolyn Cartier argues that ‘to understand place and what constitutes place-based meaning, we must ask how societies make place out of space. Contemporary conceptualisation of place depends on understanding that relationships and places are formed in the spatial reach of social relations’ (Cartier 2002: 126). Indeed, Xijing takes on a drastically different appearance and identity, when the narrative perceives and portrays the city from the vantage point of Benevolence Village. Xijing, seen from the other side, offers a view of desolation and devastation, a forest of concrete buildings that has no beauty and offers no comfort. The city, as an economic engine powered by the party state, continuously gulps down the villages on its edges. In this sense, it can only be a hungry, malicious beast. In short, Earth Gate is not about the city or its modernity, but about the process of displacement and the city’s total oblivion to the pain and sacriﬁces made by the peasants that it despises. The city is a place of hostility to Benevolence villagers in more than one sense, and it estranges them with a multitude of manners and fashions that they have to adapt to or risk making fools of themselves. Place culture, in addition to state policy, is another repressive measure the city takes against peasants and it functions to reinforce the class differences. Even for an educated young country woman like Meimei, it is still daunting when alone in the city – she can become so self-conscious about her own ‘village look’ (cunxiang ) that she loses her conﬁdence (169). Meizi has learnt how to dress and behave like a city person but she still cannot hide her rural accent so she is careful not to speak in public places (169). Villagers are more likely to be harassed and abused by police when they go to the city. The police often randomly ﬁne rural vendors of agricultural produce for violating urban regulations, as they ﬁne Chengyi and another villager when they deliver

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produce to a restaurant. The urban space intimidates the peasants and injures their dignity, which is another reason why the villagers do not wish to live in the city. There they are situated at the bottom of the spatial hierarchy and ﬁnd themselves permanently inadequate when measured against urbanity. Posing as an omnipresent threat, the physical city appears only on a few occasions, showing the most unpleasant scenery. Its initial appearance is when the city square is used by the police as the execution site for killing hundreds of ‘illegal’ dogs with dense crowds watching the scene. The city square was created ﬁve years earlier from the farmland of Benevolence Village. It has a lawn, a feature borrowed from the West as an indicator of ‘modernity’, but this is not properly taken care of. The lawn looks like diseased skin with a mixture of green and yellow patches around bare patches of brown soil where nothing grows. The city is presented as the result of degeneration of Chinese civilization as shown through the case of a place called One Tree. Only a few years ago the place was acres of cornﬁelds and it was named One Tree because there was a single tree standing among the corn plants. Now, in its place, Freeway No. 2 passes by a forest of hotels and department stores. Prostitutes are now kept there and made use of on the site of the former village: this alarms Meimei when she happens to visit, and it convinces her that the city is a place of moral corruption. The ugly city is also a place of extreme brutality. Hence, the most dominant image of the city is a murder scene which reduces the city to a site of execution and slaughter. Or it becomes the place of violence, when football fans go crazy to dispute a referee’s decision. While many invade the playing-ﬁeld to abuse the referee, others take advantage of the chaos to sexually assault a woman so badly that her nipples ‘fall off ’.7 Again, the police come and many arrests and heavy sentences follow. In Jia Pingwa’s previous two novels about Xijing city, Defunct Capital and White Nights, the narrative focus is on the subjectivity of the protagonists through their experiences in and social interactions with the city. Both protagonists, although from the countryside, have already moved to live in Xijing in order to reach their potential as talented young men. Their chosen transformation to urbanity is either already accomplished or half-way through. Representation of Xijing city in Earth Gate, like its characterization, is on a rather reduced scale – the narrative largely focuses on the power hierarchy and the tension between the two types of space. Hence in opposition to the city as the site of state power and its subsequent brutality, the village is home to the powerless and victims of the city. Two kinds of people live in the village: displaced villagers ﬁghting to retain their homes and community and patients suffering from liver diseases from the city. In contrast, three types of people live and thrive in the city: the policemen, the city ofﬁcials or their associates, and the salesmen for the developers. The city is an evil monster with a split personality in Earth Gate. On the one hand, it is masculine, aggressive, brutal and unrelenting. It harasses the peasants and bulldozes their houses and farmland, and kills off the animals.

Earth Gate and loss of native place 145 It also randomly executes minor criminals, such as Chengyi, whenever the authorities feel threatened or feel the need to make a political statement. On the other hand, the city is sick to its core. Dozens, if not hundreds, of patients with liver disease from the city come to visit Benevolence Village every day for treatment. As its hospital, the sick city needs Benevolence Village more than the village will ever need the city and yet the city does not understand its own needs and is determined to destroy it. In modern Chinese literature, the city has been a world totally or partially alien to peasants, farmers or rural migrants. Many villagers were victims of urban cruelty or objects of urban ridicule. The most obvious examples are Lao She’s Xiangzi, Lu Xun’s Ah Q, Gao Xiaosheng’s Chen Huansheng. By comparison, Jia Pingwa’s novels of Xijing city are very different in that they deal with the perceptions and emotions of the rural migrants and villagers in relation to the city. Earth Gate, in particular, voices the mixed feelings and confusion of the villagers about Xijing, which has ceased to be the site of modernity and civilization and is therefore in no position to denounce the village’s rural backwardness. More than once, the narrative even verges on political criticism, when it vents peasants’ anger against the party-state. The city is also a space where the peasants confront the state using the CCP’s old tactics of mass aggression, when they take the drum parade there as a show of strength and solidarity. Also, when refusing to be the victims of urban treachery, Benevolence villagers realize that they can retain their dignity collectively, be proud of their ‘village look’ and refuse to be intimidated by urban ‘superiority’. In Earth Gate, the peasants no longer passively accept victimization. Among them there are the heroic strategist Chengyi, the beauty Meizi, the scientiﬁc researcher Lao Ran, the village sage and magic doctor Grandpa Yunlin as well as the narrator herself, the scholar-student Meimei. At their doorstep, the city has been tangible and reachable for the rural elite and, if they wish to consume it, they can and some of them do choose to do so. Some happily relocate to the city but for others, however, the signiﬁcance of native place and identity weighs a great deal emotionally and they prefer to remain ‘country people’. This is a stance that is extremely difﬁcult for Chinese urbanites to comprehend.8 Earth Gate, being a novel with a focus on the effects of displacement from the villagers’ perspective, and, more importantly, written by a ‘peasant’ writer trying to give a unique voice to the suppressed, has a special place in presenting the case on the part of the displaced.

The peasants: between native place and urban modernity Yi-tsi Mei Feuerwerker’s study of the intellectual’s self-representation and the peasant’s ‘Other’ in modern Chinese literature outlines a dichotomy between the Chinese intellectuals and the peasants in its literary manifestation from the May Fourth period to the late 1980s. She demonstrates that in modern Chinese ﬁction the peasants are often portrayed as the representative of the masses in need of modern education and enlightenment. Images

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of peasants as the ‘Other’ to modernity permeate the ﬁctional imaginary, for rurality has been taken by intellectuals, especially during the May Fourth period, as ‘reservoirs’ of ‘backwardness’. This phenomenon is a continuation of what she calls the bifurcation between the scholar-gentry class (shi ) on the one hand and the people (min ) on the other (Feuerwerker, Y. M. 1998: 11). She argues, since it is the intellectual who does the writing, the peasant has been inevitably objectiﬁed and reduced to the ‘Other’. Feuerwerker’s case studies include two ‘peasant writers’, namely Zhao Shuli and Mo Yan, but her analysis, at the same time, effectively eliminates both from that category. Zhao Shuli turns out to be a ‘fake peasant’, for the CCP forced a fabricated peasant identity on to him and he performed the role of ‘peasant writer’ as expected. Feuerwerker discovered that he was well educated by the standard of the day and indisputably an intellectual (1998: 100–1). Although Mo Yan was born and raised in the countryside, as a writer, according to Feuerwerker, he no longer stays in his native place, intellectually or emotionally. In terms of Mo Yan’s writing, especially with regard to the narrative mode and the narrative voice, she sees a clear distance between the narrator as an intellectual and the subjects of the narrative as villagers and believes that the intellectual narrator has left the countryside with no intention of returning except for occasional visits. The peasants, although close relatives of the narrator, are objects being observed in memory and written into the text – which is precisely an activity of the intellectual. Feuerwerker also points out that Mo Yan’s engagement with his native village is to construct the site of Chinese tradition and a place for the Chinese racial vitality, both of which are clearly intellectual goals. I would also add that, precisely because it has not been contaminated by urbanity, the native place in Mo Yan’s writing retains its ‘authenticity’ as the site of tradition and vitality and the place for China’s racial rejuvenation. In my view, Mo Yan’s narrator deliberates on the distance between the intellectual self and the peasant ‘Other’ through an effective use of the narrative device of the ‘distant-ﬁrst-person narrator’ – the narrator tells the story he heard from his father about his grandparents and therefore his ‘retelling’ of family legends gains the desired emotional distance and intellectuality.9 It remains arguable, however, if one is really able to leave one’s formative years behind. In Mo Yan’s case, was he able to transcend his family and personal history so abruptly? The peasant issue probably has more to do with ‘us’ as critics and how we look at ‘peasanthood’. Jia Pingwa’s case at least urges us to reconsider the relationship between the peasant and the intellectual. Feuerwerker’s study does not consider works by Jia Pingwa, the quintessential ‘peasant writer’ in China for the past twenty years, although at least two novels under his name were nationally inﬂuential by 1998 when her study was published – the prize-winning Turbulence in 1987 and the 1993 bestseller Defunct Capital. Jia Pingwa may be extraordinary but his writing shows a number of issues overlooked in Feuerwerker’s assessment. First,

Earth Gate and loss of native place 147 there is the possible dissolution of the boundaries between the intellectual and the peasant when the peasant is the intellectual. In Jia Pingwa’s case, the two identities have effectively merged and thus the bifurcation may become the peasant’s self-representation versus the intellectual ‘Other’. Second, the dichotomy between the intellectuals and the peasants can also be seen from the angle of peasants, when the writer speaks as the Other. If one insists that the moment a peasant becomes a professional writer, he stops being a peasant, the next logical reasoning should be that the peasant can never speak or write or have a voice. Is this a continuation of the urban intellectual bias? Third, and most pertinent here in relation to the text of Earth Gate, is that the dichotomy between the intellectual and the peasant may be transformed into a spatial divergence between the city and the village. It is true that the conﬂict between Benevolence Village and Xijing city is between the villagers/peasants and the state/developers. The state, in my view, is largely carrying out the project of modernization envisaged by intellectuals since the end of the nineteenth century. The intellectuals, the state and the developers in some sense are partners in China’s modernization project, which attaches enormous weight to industrialization and urbanization.10 The bifurcation of the peasant and the intellectual requires us to rethink this peasant issue. Benevolence villagers no longer make their living on their land and therefore are no longer peasants, if by ‘peasants’ we refer only to those who work on the land and live in the country. In China’s national scale of economic development, the notion of ‘peasants’ is almost meaningless, for millions of people placed in this category no longer ﬁt the standard deﬁnition in English. However, in the Chinese popular imagination, anyone who is not born or raised in an urban environment may be a ‘peasant’ and may remain a peasant. ‘Once a peasant, forever a peasant’, if we choose to quote Chengyi (85). The Chinese urban prejudice against the peasantry can be found in all Chinese cities (see, for instance, Ballew, T. 2001) and rural migrants are commonly referred to as peasants, as discussed earlier regarding Chengyi’s self-identiﬁcation. Jia Pingwa himself has experienced such prejudices and in some ways continues to do so even after having lived in the city for nearly three decades, more than three-quarters of his adult life. In his postscript, he ridicules the complacency of the urbanites for however little time they have been in the city ahead of their country cousins: !"#$%&'($)*+,$-./0123456678 !"#$%&'()*+,!-. !"#$%&' !"#$%&'()!&'(*+)!,--'()./! !"#$%&'!(($)*+,-./0 People from the countryside have to work hard so that they have limited outside experiences and they look rough and unreﬁned. After being in the city for more than twenty years, I’m still often laughed at by city

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Earth Gate and loss of native place folk. They do not consider me as a city person, just as they have always regarded Mao Zedong as a peasant. They behave in a way as if the city belongs to them or to their ancestors but a closer look into their history will reveal that they have only been city people since their fathers’ generation, or at most, since their grandfathers’. (334–5)

Jia Pingwa mocks city folk for making the difference of a few decades such a big deal. Also, by aligning with Mao, metaphorically, he achieves the highest supremacy in the Chinese political hierarchy. Nevertheless, this by no means alters the cultural and social standing of peasants, or changes the distaste of the city folk towards them or eases the pain of his fellow peasant country folk, especially when faced with the loss of their native village and becoming homeless in the city. Clearly, Jia Pingwa’s self-identiﬁcation with peasants plays a considerable role in his conceptualization of such a narrative.11 As a result of the author’s deep concern for the injustice done to peasants in contemporary Chinese society and his commitment to speaking on their behalf, Earth Gate has an innate closeness with social reality and social realism. It is not that Jia Pingwa resorts to political activism to seek social justice for his people but that Earth Gate puts the experiences of Chinese peasants in this period on the literary map, if not exactly as historical records. Jia Pingwa reveals that ‘Earth Gate’, or Tumen , is the name of a bustling district outside the city of Xi’an and he borrows it as a metaphor to help delineate the meanings of place concerned in the narrative. Earth Gate, the gate down to earth and made of earth, symbolizes nature and its vulnerability in relation to modernity represented by concrete and machinery. Earth Gate also implies useless resistance: the gate made of earth cannot ward off an enemy with modern technology. Jia Pingwa admits that part of his inspiration to write the book came from seeing the place name in Xi’an, for he deeply admires its courage in daring to be ‘tu ’, meaning earthy, backward, conservative and traditional against the trend in which everyone wants to be ‘yang ’, the antonym of ‘tu’, namely ‘foreign’, posh, modern and progressive. ‘Earth Gate’ conveys the humour when villagers depreciate themselves for a good laugh. Ultimately, the ‘earth gate’ of Benevolence Village stands no chance in a society that is moving rapidly towards industrialization. The loss of one’s native place is the central theme of Earth Gate, and the narrative accentuates the native place physically and emotionally in village life. Meimei recalls a conversation when her father has just returned home after working for more than three decades on the railway and he expresses his appreciation of his native place, much to the delight of her grandfather: his son had at last come to value their native place. She laments that ‘my father is an old tree whose leaves fall to its roots whereas I am still a young shoot and will soon be pulled out of the soil with all the soil on the roots

Earth Gate and loss of native place 149 washed off! . . . nowadays, neither dogs or human beings deserve any native place!’ (3–4). Earth Gate describes Meimei and Meizi’s difference as essentially the gap in their attitude towards their native place. Although Meizi remains emotionally attached to it, she accepts the inevitability of its loss and takes it as an opportunity for self-development. For Meizi, the self is not ﬁrmly and deeply planted in the soil of the native place and she is able to relocate herself elsewhere, transform herself and reconstitute her subjectivity. However, for Meimei, the self can be identiﬁed only against the native place. Hence it is extremely painful for Meimei to lose the roots and her native village. Facing pillars of concrete and cement, Meimei sees the faceless, ruthless city. She reminisces on the long-gone pastoral beauty: waves of wheat shivering in the ﬁeld; persimmon trees standing as quietly and digniﬁed as the Buddha; crows crying on the tree to announce a death, magpies chirping good news; even the pain becomes sweet when she recalls her ﬁnger being stung by the thorns of the sour date tree . . . Meimei’s mourning for the loss of the village continues to grow, although she is equally able to ﬁnd a place for herself in the city. Five years later, Meimei’s collection of the Ming–Qing period furniture has another exhibition in Xijing’s Museum and obviously she is leading a rather middle-class life. Such romanticization of one’s native place automatically cancels the city as the ‘Other’ to the village. If in Defunct Capital there are few signs of modern society in Xijing, modernity in Earth Gate has become the curse of the rural community. If Defunct Capital is an elegy representing the incompatibility of literati life with modernity, Earth Gate is the swan song of peasants elsewhere in the process of being displaced from their native place and yet to acquire a place in the modern city. The city is not only pushing the village out of sight, it is demanding the transformation of peasants into entrepreneurs, salesmen, builders or restaurateurs. It asks the peasants to relinquish a way of life they have maintained for thousands of years. Whereas Defunct Capital is more an aesthetic endeavour to create a ‘modern’ Chinese novel, Earth Gate utilizes social realism, presenting a largely realistic account of the contemporary displacement of peasants in China with frequent employment of symbolism. In Jia Pingwa’s perception, the peasants and the villages retain the core of Chinese culture and tradition and their disposal, therefore, means necessarily the loss of valuable Chinese cultural traditions and eventually the death of fundamental Chinese values. Earth Gate voices a sympathetic tribute to the millions of the underprivileged people, called ‘peasants’, being uprooted from their communities. Considering Jia Pingwa’s insistent self-identiﬁcation as a peasant and his awareness of the limitation of villagers, the war of self-protection undertaken by Benevolence Village is a necessity rather than a foolhardy action. The loss of native place means cancellation of their established subjectivity, the disappearance of their community and the elimination of their culture. In this sense, Earth Gate is another peasant outlaw story that polarizes and positions the authorities against the villagers.

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Old Gao Village and native place dystopia

Old Gao Village and native place dystopia

In his study of the poetics and politics of native place, Duara argues that in the genre of Chinese nativist ﬁction the local becomes an authentic and enduring object to be investigated, restored, and/or reformed (Duara, P. 2000: 14). This observation may be said to apply to Jia Pingwa’s motive for presenting Shangzhou, except that Jia Pingwa’s institutionalization of the native place goes further than the creation of the native place per se as Duara sees in Liang Shanding’s nativist novel Green Valley (1942). Duara’s analysis focuses on how the construction and the interpretation of the locale help to legitimize the nation. However, Jia Pingwa’s literary nativism does not stop at a nativist theme; instead, and more poignantly, he continues to develop a nativist form for the modern Chinese novel. The poetics of the native place as displayed in the works of Jia Pingwa is twofold, in both content and form, and the form can sometimes be more signiﬁcant. In other words, Jia Pingwa is at his most innovative when it comes to narrative forms and styles. In Old Gao Village1 and Remembering Wolves Shangzhou’s symbolic meanings and abstract nature as native place are further developed with the view that the (authentic) native place is in the process of disappearing (Jia Pingwa 2004a).2 Hence, what has become increasingly a characteristic of Jia Pingwa’s Shangzhou stories is the quality of dystopia in the seemingly insigniﬁcant daily lives of the locals. Shangzhou folks are far away from and almost oblivious to the political, economic and cultural centres of contemporary China and yet their lives bear direct consequences of the decisions made there. As villagers, China’s rapid industrialization in the past two decades has had the most devastating impact on them. Hence, unlike Jia Pingwa’s previous novels about his native Shangzhou, these two recent Shangzhou stories demonstrate a relentless and irreversible degradation of the living environment of the villagers. Gao Zilu and his second wife Xixia return to Old Gao Village , his native place, to commemorate the third anniversary of his father’s death, and to visit his mother as well as his son, Stone , by his ex-wife, Jüwa . Gao Zilu is a professor of Chinese linguistics at a research institute in the provincial capital of Xijing. Xixia is an artist and a

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researcher into pre modern visual arts at the provincial museum. They have not been married very long and this is the ﬁrst time that Xixia has visited his family and his native village. As an urban resident, Xixia is curious about everything in Old Gao Village and the villagers are curious about her. Her delightful personality encourages quick involvement with the villagers and her curiosity guides the narrative’s exploration of the village. Old Gao Village is a community with a long history and a very troubled present. One of the major issues is the conﬂict of interest, and subsequent heated power politics, between the prosperous ﬂoorboard factory and the struggling vineyard. The ﬂoorboard factory is co-owned by Wang Wenlong , a man from the provincial capital, and Gao Suhong , a local woman, who has returned to the village after working in Xijing for a few years. Wang Wenlong is a widower and has been seriously pursuing Jüwa, which aggravates his clashes with the owner of the vineyard, Cai Laohei , who has been in love with Jüwa since their teen days but Jüwa somehow married Gao Zilu. Cai Laohei and Jüwa were involved again after her divorce but since he was not able to divorce his wife without his wife’s consent, so Jüwa has begun to favour Wang Wenlong. As a choice of lifestyle, Suhong is deﬁantly single with a very liberal attitude towards sex. It is believed that she made her fortune by working as a sex entertainer and she does raise a few eyebrows in the village with her promiscuity and city fashions. Gao Zilu tries to distance himself as much as possible from the entanglement of village politics but his family is implicated because of his connection with Jüwa. Although they have been divorced, the two are still involved emotionally, mentally and, on occasions, sexually, in addition to their link through their child Stone. Xixia and Zilu had intended to stay for a couple of weeks but circumstances prolong their visit: whereas Gao Zilu grows more and more weary of his native village, Xixia becomes increasingly fond of the place and the people. In the end, Gao Zilu decides to return to the capital city by himself with Xixia happily staying behind. Depending on one’s point of view, Cai Laohei can be the local politician or a trouble-maker in Old Gao Village. He is, nevertheless, the restless core of the community and a hero–villain character both respected and disdained by the villagers. He spends a great deal of energy on ﬁguring out how to defeat the business success of the ﬂoorboard factory or at least how to enable the locals to have a bigger share of the proﬁts. Although jealousy is part of his motivation, more importantly he is aware that the loss of the natural resources of Old Gao Village fails to beneﬁt the villagers sufﬁciently and he wants to change the situation. The factory proves to be a formidable opponent as it has the full support of the authorities of the township. Its business success has earned the authorities considerable political credit as efﬁcient leaders of rural economic reform and it has frequently sponsored the township’s activities, political or otherwise. Deeply rooted in the community, Cai Laohei, nevertheless, has the ability to mobilize the villagers, despite his ﬂawed personality and the poverty of his political strategies. He

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puts forward a number of serious challenges to the factory and the township authorities: he competes and wins the village election of people’s representative over the ofﬁcial candidate Suhong; his project of building the White Pagoda drags workers off work without permission from the factory; he causes serious political disruptions when he instigates rumours that provoke the villagers who log and destroy the village forest overnight; and last but not the least, he leads a riot that attacks the factory. When all these plots failed to defeat the factory, he abducts Stone to blackmail Wang Wenlong in order to force him to pay compensation for the death of a worker. The end of the book sees him being arrested by the police. Another serious problem for Old Gao Village is the continuous decline of public health. Too many people have contracted and died of vicious cancers in recent years and ill health has taken its toll on many households. Genetic degeneration is now a serious threat and over the generations villagers have become shorter and shorter, especially male villagers – Zilu only reaches his wife Xixia’s shoulder. Villagers blame the rupture of the village’s fengshui, for the White Pagoda had fallen down a few years before and now nothing stands in the way to ward off the evil forces from White Cloud Valley. It has been difﬁcult for young couples to conceive or to produce healthy babies and there have been many abnormal births. Zilu and Jüwa’s son, Stone, for instance, was born paralysed from the waist down. In other words, politically and physically, Old Gao Village is a community in crisis.

Narrative forms of community Jia Pingwa’s previous novels about Shangzhou tend to focus on one or more individuals as the hero or heroes who stand out in the village community. In Old Gao Village this is not the case. The narrative places the attention primarily on the fabric of the community in order to instigate ethnographical meanings of community life. The surface of the narrative is the daily village life that ﬂows within the boundaries of its own rites, traditions, ethics and codes of conduct. Beneath the surface runs a chain of events concerned with power politics and the economic interests of different sectors, and these events cause occasional ruptures in the smooth running of daily life. Under the events lies the structure of a tight, enclosed community, in which every household is connected or related in many ways to others and everyone knows everyone else. On another level, the narrative examines the relations between the community and its geographical location. It shows how the landscape shapes community life and identity through the dynamics of natural forces and supernatural forces, and how, in turn, the community changes the landscape in order to control its destiny. The location is not only the geographical base of the community but more signiﬁcantly it is a vital and active part of community life. The place speaks to the villagers through fengshui, landslides, UFOs or minor physical changes in various locations, such as the cracks on a wall or a hillside. On another level, the narrative

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inspects the meanings of the native place as an organic community by highlighting its connections with the personal and academic life of Gao Zilu and Xixia. Their homecoming inspires the couple to carry out research on the village: Gao Zilu on the etymology of the local language and Xixia on local cultural history. In turn their intellectual quest automatically locates the native place in the context of the cultural history of China and the historical development of the Chinese language. Hence, Old Gao Village as the native place is characterized both by its historiography and its geography, and the history of the community is closely related to that of Chinese civilization. Old Gao Village successfully mounts a full spectrum of a rural community in its own place and elements, including village personages, modes of rural family (dis)unions, its collective spirit, belief systems, ethics, economic structure, history, cultural practice, aesthetics and even its narrative forms. Jia Pingwa’s construction of community in Old Gao Village begins with building a sense of the place, which is achieved through the preparation for and the process of the commemoration of the third anniversary of the death of Zilu’s father. This is a signiﬁcant community event in terms of its scale, cultural meaning and narrative function. It involves almost the entire village from the authorities to the villagers, relatives and friends, prominent members of the community and even political opponents on all sides. Its organization shows the fabric of the community from its political and family hierarchy to the division of trades and labour. Its decoration displays the local arts and crafts. The ceremony stages local music and opera, and the banquet displays the local cuisine. The rituals are divided into two parts: the ﬁrst uses the colour white for mourning and the second uses red for rejoicing. The process is a series of coded performances that enable the family to grieve, commemorate and heal. At the conclusion the entire village joins together to celebrate the beginning of another life cycle, as it is believed that the dead are reincarnated after the third anniversary. The ceremony has so much local colour and ﬂavour that the community and its cultural traditions are very much alive and in tune with its geographic location. Old Gao Village as a community thus emerges from the ethnographic details of local cultural practice. Jia Pingwa’s narrative technique in Old Gao Village is a result of his contemplation on the relationship between the Chinese bifurcation of concrete (shi ) and abstract (xu ) from a Taoist point of view. Old Gao Village’s treatment of community life reﬂects Jia Pingwa’s understanding that the concrete is best illustrated through the abstract. In his postscript, he emphasizes this point:

! !"#$%&'()*+),- !..//) !"#$%&'()*&'(+,-./012345163 !"#$%&'()*+,-./()01,23'4567 !"#$%&'()%*+(,%--../0011%23 !"#$%&'(#!")*)+,-./012345#

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Old Gao Village and native place dystopia !"#$%&'(!)*+,-./0,1"23 4567 !"#$%&'()*+,-./01,23456789: !"#$%&' ()*+,-./01 2345 !"#$%&'()*+ ,-./0)12 34&5)6 !"# In Old Gao Village there is still a group of very ordinary, low and petty people and the book also deals with the trivial matters in those people’s lives. I am familiar with such people and such life, and it is very easy for me to write about them. But why do I write in such a plain way, without an eye-catching structure or any glittering techniques? Why did I lose the elegance and clarity, which were previously a dominant feature of my writing? The narrative arrives without a particular order and ﬁnishes without an ostentatious ending. It appears messy, random and unclear. All these have to do with the changes in my understanding of the notion of ‘ﬁction’. It is harder and harder to summarize in a few sentences what my writing is really about. My intention is to depict the movement and the ﬂow of life in its primary state. I want my writing as concrete as possible and yet in total it should enhance the totality of imagery I have in mind. Writings like this are easily misread. If one only pays attention to the concrete, one gets tired of the descriptions of tedious details of life. Hence one cannot see the meaning of my writing and I get to be criticized as not lofty enough. If one only reads the abstract side of my stories, those who haven’t read or experienced enough would fail to understand what I am trying to convey. (Jia Pingwa 1998a: 415, my emphases)

In short, what Jia Pingwa tries to achieve, technically speaking, is to convey his abstract literary imagery through concrete images and details in everyday life. Jia Pingwa has been considering the dyad between the abstract and the concrete for a long time from the Taoist approach and Old Gao Village is, in my view, his most successful attempt to date. Old Gao Village exempliﬁes Jia Pingwa’s handling of the relationship between the concrete and the abstract, whereas Old Gao Village as a community comes to life through local details. At the same time, the narrative on the whole effectively outlines an abstract idea of what constitutes Chinese peasantry at present. In her comment on the politics of viewing Zhang Yimou’s ﬁlms, Rey Chow remarks on how the Chinese bifurcation of shi versus xu has been used as ‘the ethnic paradigms of evaluation’. She offers a set of examples to show that the Chinese have mostly favoured shi over xu, except, of course, in Taoist or sino-Buddhist interpretations: shi full concrete

xu empty abstract

Old Gao Village and native place dystopia deep earnest authentic real worth content history male

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shallow superﬁcial fake cosmetics form ﬁction female

According to Rey Chow, many mainland critics object to Zhang Yimou’s ﬁlms as the products of self-orientalization to attract the favour of Western audiences. Such criticism sees Zhang’s portrayal of Chinese culture as bearing all the negative qualities as indicated by the terms in the right column under the category of ‘abstract’ and therefore no good (Chow, Rey 1995: 154–5). Jia Pingwa’s abstract–concrete narrative technique has not been subjected to similar negative criticism; at least to date I have not been aware of any criticism accusing him of self-orientalization. Many, however, have commented on his Taoist approach and ﬁnd the ‘concrete–abstract’ technique plausible. Zhong Benkang (1999), Yang Shenggang (1999) and Xie Youshun (Xie Youshun and Jia Pingwa 2003a: 76), for instance, have praised Jia Pingwa’s narrative strategies in Old Gao Village. However, not many critics have so far engaged in close readings of Jia Pingwa’s texts and it is therefore difﬁcult to judge how they read and assess Jia Pingwa’s abstract-versus-concrete narrating in Old Gao Village. They all seem to have accepted at face value Jia Pingwa’s confession in his postscript, except for Dai Jinhua , who comments on the book’s implication of schizophrenia in Chinese intellectuals since the 1990s. !"##= !"#$%&'()%&*+ ,-./%& !"#$%&'( !" !" !"#$%&$'()*+,-./* !"#$%&'()*+, -#./$012345D !"#$%"&'()*+,-./0*12345"678 !"#$% As a critic, one can certainly go into . . . Old Gao Village and produce a set of jargons that are clearly bipolar juxtapositions, such as ‘urban versus rural’; ‘civilization versus barbarity’; ‘environment versus human beings’, ‘men versus women’. I feel that there are so many ways the book may entice you to go, but you will ﬁnd that none of them works, that is, none of the bipolarities works as a pair. You will soon ﬁnd that every bifurcation is signiﬁcant and yet at the same time self-denial. I believe that we can read this book from a speciﬁc angle, which is: the schizophrenia of our time. (Sun Jianxi and Mu Tao 1999: 30–1)

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Jia Pingwa’s ethnography resembles the cinematography of Zhang Yimou in at least one aspect – the invention of folklore and traditions through the provision of concrete details of what they believe to be essential aspects of Chinese life. Zhang Yimou is known for not caring about the validity of the details per se as long as they are aesthetically convincing, and his invention of the tradition of ‘raising the red lantern’ is a typical example in this regard. Although Jia Pingwa claims to take a great deal of trouble to ensure that his narratives evoke authentic ‘local’ details, he also transfers cultural practice from one place to another – for instance, the stele inscriptions vital in the plots of Old Gao Village are not necessarily from Shangzhou, or even Shaanxi. That said, however, it is unusual for Jia Pingwa’s writing to fabricate details of cultural traditions. First of all, the geography and demography of Old Gao Village must be explained. In fact, ‘village’ here is a misnomer, because Old Gao Village is a municipality with urban and rural constituents as well as a municipal infrastructure and institutions. It has a small town with its streets full of shops, restaurants and workshops that serve the surrounding three villages. Institutionally, it has a municipal government with a head appointed by the county, a police station, a grain-collecting station, a bank and a school. It also has a factory and a vineyard. Hence the narrator also calls the place ‘Old Gao Village Town’. The community life of Old Gao Village includes activities both in the villages where most of the residents are peasants, and in the town where the residents are ofﬁcials, bureaucrats, shopkeepers and teachers. As in many other rural districts of China, the lives of the peasants in the villages are controlled and administered by the political centre of the township. Old Gao Village also reﬂects China’s recent social changes in that the boundaries between the rural and the urban are increasingly transferable. The ﬂoorboard factory, for instance, is managed by both city people and local villagers and its peasant workforce further erodes the urban–rural divide in the area. The distance between the provincial capital Xijing and Old Gao Village, however, is as great as ever; Old Gao Village has remained more or less a closed society, with centuries of its own history and traditions, a rigid relationship with the landscape, and a population now with serious genetic problems. And yet, from its historical, geographical and socio-political location Old Gao Village stands out and Old Gao Village offers a special kind of aesthetic and narrative form.

Historiography and community Hobsbawm’s observation of the practice and function of ‘invented traditions’ in modern societies is helpful in explaining the narrative construction of the identity of Old Gao Village. As he has noted, traditions are invented mainly for three purposes: to display social cohesion, to assert direct links with the national culture and to inculcate the beliefs, value systems and conventions of behaviour (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983: 9). In order to

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create the identity of the village as a community claiming to be the authentic heirs of the Han race and the Chinese civilization, the narrative of Old Gao Village produces a considerable amount of local historiography to demonstrate that Old Gao Village is closely intertwined with China’s national history, and that the village practises the major religious and cultural traditions of Chinese civilization. Most important of all, because Old Gao Village is located on China’s ancient north-western frontier, the villagers are conscious of their racial identity and are defensive about their Chineseness. The authentication of the village’s relation to the Chinese civilization is made, initially, through the naming of both the major character and the village. Zilu is certainly an odd name in contemporary Chinese society. It stands out from the names of the other villagers, whose names are identiﬁably ‘rural’, and it is also an unusual name for an urban resident. Zilu is one of the best-known disciples of Confucius and he has been regarded as one of the Sage’s most favoured students.3 While his original name is unknown, Gao Zilu has actually chosen this name himself at some stage of his education to alter his peasant identity and to assert his self-identiﬁcation within the Chinese learning tradition. His connection with Chinese higher learning and the ‘authentic’ cultural tradition is further strengthened by his profession. As a philologist, he collects local expressions and discovers their etymological links with the classical Chinese language, which is precisely the language used by his historical counterpart. As the best-educated person from the village, and with a position in the provincial capital, he is a prominent and well-respected member of Old Gao Village. His opinions carry weight in the village and are listened to by the authorities, although, like the historical Zilu, he has moved from his native place. The name for the town, Old Gao Village, provokes an immediate association with Pigsy, a god-monster persuaded by the Buddha to help safeguard the Tang Buddhist priest on his journey to India to obtain Buddhists scriptures, in the traditional vernacular Chinese novel Journey to the West (Wu Cheng’en 2003). The village of the same name in the novel has been mistaken as the native place of Pigsy by most Chinese readers, although, according to Journey to the West, Pigsy was only married into Old Gao Village as the reincarnation of a general in the Jade Emperor’s court. Pigsy was often homesick on the journey to India and wanted to return to Old Gao Village, not because it was his native place but because he missed his wife and secular life. In the Chinese popular imagination, Pigsy has come to be associated with gluttony and sexual lust, especially as portrayed in the ﬁlm adaptation of the episode ‘Three Defeats of the White-boned Demon’, when Pigsy is fooled more than once by a demon in the shape of a seductive young woman. Moreover, as a result of all of Pigsy’s misdeeds, Old Gao Village has come to be a generic name for a backwater Chinese village. Jia Pingwa has, apparently, created this negative intertextuality quite deliberately to serve a number of narrative purposes. Primarily it establishes an ironic association between the peasants of Shangzhou and the not-

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so-heroic personal qualities of Pigsy. It sets up an authentic cultural connection between Shangzhou as a generic native place and China, and it forms an irony to facilitate culture critiques. Hence, in a brief summary in which Gao Zilu grudgingly introduces his native place to Xixia, he spells out its shortcomings from the point of view of a native who is still emotionally attached to the place: ! ! !"#$%&'()* !" D ! D !"#$%&'()*+,"-. D !"#$%&'D !"#$%&'()*+# !"#$%& !'()*%+,- !./01%23 ! !"#$%&%'%()%*+$,%$-./012!3 !" Old Gao Village shares the same name as the native place of Pigsy in Journey to the West. It has the same short people like those of Yanggu county in Water Margin, with a county government that is only interested in power politics, a police station as vicious as the criminals, a gangster by the name of Cai Laohei, a woman called Suhong with a reputation of a whore, drunkards lying around on the street, too many street ﬁghts going on and on, plus stinking urine pots everywhere, restaurants with too many ﬂies hovering around, some pathetic person called Zilu, in addition to snakes, mosquitoes, rats and ﬂeas . . . and many more, including lunatics like Uncle Mihu. (311) While Zilu cannot help feeling defensive about his native place, Old Gao Village emerges as the cultural context in which Xixia, his eccentric and exotic wife, begins her exploration of such a community, equally exotic in her eyes. More than once, Xixia perceives Zilu as a pig (or the Pigsy) and the image intensiﬁes to the extent that she feels disgusted by him. Xixia is named by Zilu – he changed her name after they started dating because he wanted to highlight her racial difference from the Han Chinese. As in the case of Zilu, Xixia’s original name is also unknown to the reader. Deﬁned by the name Xixia, she is ‘foreign’ to Old Gao Village, to Han Chinese and to China as the Central Kingdom, for Xixia is the name of the extinguished country that existed to the west of China but was overtaken and destroyed by the Mongols in the thirteenth century. It is believed that the majority of Xixia belonged to the Tongut race with blue eyes and light brown hair. Although their country was destroyed, many of the Tongut people survived and moved to live in parts of China afterwards.4 Xixia as Zilu’s wife is here ‘imported’ into the ‘pure’ Han ethnic community of Old Gao Village to be the antithesis of her husband and as the contrasting alien to other villagers. She is tall – much taller than nearly all the men in the village – and has blue eyes and light brown hair. She comes from the

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provincial capital with a university education and a profession. She does not speak the local language but enjoys talking to the locals and quickly develops friendships with most of them. She is free of the emotional burden which Zilu cannot shake off and also free from the restraints of local conventions of behaviour. She visits markets, temples, houses and even the mysterious, forbidden place known as White Cloud Valley. She also openly declares that her project is to investigate how the villagers had migrated here and how the villagers have become so short (180). It is through her perceptions and observations that a full picture of Old Gao Village gradually emerges both as a community and as a place. Xixia uncovers most of the village’s history through cultural relics of the past around the village – ancient bricks, stelae, tombstones and carved stone stools. The stelae and epitaphs contain centuries of detailed records of signiﬁcant events and cultural practices in the village. The carved pictures on the bricks and other objects have sculpted visual images of the past. She even ﬁnds a record of the Gao family tree, dating back as far as the Song dynasty (926–1126 CE) (117). The bits and pieces of micro history that are scattered around the village and enthusiastically collected by Xixia provide a comprehensive panorama of centuries of village life. Together, these materials set the cultural boundaries of Old Gao Village and give concrete details of traditions and customs speciﬁc to Old Gao Village, and yet also organically Chinese. From the reliefs on the tomb bricks in Old Gao Village, Xixia ﬁnds out that, although migration of the Gao family had started as early as the Song dynasty, the settlement of Old Gao Village in Shaanxi began in the 1320s, during the Yuan dynasty, when the community migrated from Shanxi, as a result of the central administration’s internal migration policy.5 On occasions, some of the population of the village was forced to migrate to Shaanxi – they had their hands tied behind their backs and walked under the supervision of armed soldiers. Other times, families migrated willingly, carrying their belongings themselves and on donkeys. According to the historical records, as a result of their hard work and good community morality, Old Gao Village became a community that excelled economically, culturally and militarily. It had a self-contained and sustainable economy, produced scholars who passed the imperial examination and male villagers who knew martial arts and were courageous in safeguarding the village against intruders. Old Gao Village was on the frontier: to its north west were various normadic states and incursions from the north were frequent. The villagers were determined to retain their racial purity and guarded themselves vigilantly against outsiders. The men fought many hard battles and at times large sections of the population were lost. Hard measures were adopted to eliminate the consequences of improper sexual conduct. If raped by nonHan males, women were expected to commit suicide or be chased out of the village, never to return. Adultery could mean being buried alive and intercourse with an alien would lead to punishment by drowning (271). Sexual

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contact with non-Han people was strictly forbidden and, in cases of mixedblood pregnancy, those involved would be forced out of the community into permanent exile. The community managed to survive and triumph and the villagers were extremely proud of their closed community. What the population had failed to realize is that the pursuit of racial purity had cut off biological and intellectual stimulation and resulted in endemic cultural stagnation. Community rites are important in the village: many of them have been institutionalized and are practised in public buildings. Not all of the architecture has survived to the present but some signiﬁcant buildings have, including the Buddhist Taihu temple, the temple of the local god, the bell tower and the White Pagoda that had collapsed owing to disrepair but is soon to be reconstructed. There is a community school and even a stage for public entertainment. Some buildings had endured for centuries until the 1960s when they became victims of the Cultural Revolution, such as the temple of Confucius, the hall of the Gao family clan, the village pantheon and the gate of chastity. These buildings were both the physical and symbolic presence of the institutions that enforced a Confucian ideology as the ethos of the village. Old Gao Village has an admirable community spirit in terms of its social infrastructure. Inscriptions on the stelae state that the buildings had been erected and maintained by public donations. That those who have money contribute funds and those who do not contribute labour is a tradition that continues even today, and this is how the reconstruction of the White Pagoda is to be achieved. This is probably why most of the public buildings in Old Gao Village have survived the turbulent past. Taihu temple is even ﬂourishing and has quite a few resident masters and disciples. The building and the gates have recently been repaired and are in excellent condition, and the teaching of the masters also attracts sizeable audiences. What is even more incredible is that Taihu temple also houses the preserved corpse of a monk which Cai Laohei brought back from White Cloud Valley. In the garden of Taihu temple, Xixia discovers stelae which delineate the belief systems and community regulations of the village. One stele had been erected to commemorate the construction of a three-saint temple – the three saints being Laozi, Confucius, and Gantama Buddha, Sakyamuni, the historical founder of Buddhism. The temple no longer exists, probably another casualty of the Cultural Revolution, but the inscription clearly shows that the three very different religious traditions were all respected and practised in the community. According to the inscription, they were useful in ensuring the well-being of the community in the following ways: Confucianism reinforces political stability as it punishes anyone trying to subvert the authorities; Buddhism implants fear in the population and makes people avoid evil conduct and criminal activities, for in death they would have to report to the King of Hell and receive due punishment or reward; Taoist practices ensure equanimity, safeguarding the people of the community

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physically, mentally and emotionally. On another stele, community regulations are inscribed: no gaming, no opera performances in the evenings, no professional litigators and no private currency – everyone has to use the ofﬁcial currency. Anyone who commits suicide is to be buried with minimal burial clothing and is absolutely not to be placed in a pine wood cofﬁn. Marriage and family rules must be carefully observed. The wife goes to live with the husband’s family on marriage, no brother is to take in his widowed sister-in-law and no one is to take foster children from outside Old Gao Village. Clearly Old Gao Village was a self-contained society with Confucianism as its dominant ideology, and conﬂicts within the community were resolved within the community. The village also established its own role models and heroes, as shown in the village records. One epitaph inscribed the heroic deeds of ﬁve brothers who organized the villagers to ﬁght off bandits and protected the village. A tombstone had once been erected in praise of a grandmother’s chastity during her long widowhood: her grandchildren had erected it to seek her protection, believing that her virtue bestowed powers upon her. The local history has another dimension – its language. Jia Pingwa had a keen interest in Shaanxi local languages from the early 1990s, prior to his writing of Defunct Capital. In Old Gao Village, through Gao Zilu, the linguist, he articulates his ﬁndings in the form of a collection of vocabulary items in his mother tongue illustrating close etymological ties with the classical Chinese language. Gao Zilu makes three observations (180–1). First, the local language proves that Old Gao Village is an authentic Chinese place with a pure Han racial composition, for the local language has kept the most archaic expressions in the classical Chinese language when it comes to basic daily activities. Second, the heroic, military history of Old Gao Village means that the local language has a disproportionate number of expressions related to martial arts, warfare and bandits. Third, obsession with sexual behaviour has resulted in many local expressions being derived from ancient names for sexual organs. For Gao Zilu, the remnants of classical Chinese in local speech are concrete indications of Old Gao Village’s close connections with the Chinese cultural centre of the past. Gao Zilu’s interest in history sharply contrasts with that of his wife Xixia’s interest: his is to show the Chinese cultural authenticity of Old Gao Village whereas hers is to ascertain the reason for the racial degeneration of the villagers.

Location and community The location and fengshui of Old Gao Village are powerful agents in community life. They are not just sites where events take place but are community events themselves. Community life means constant communication between the villagers and their physical environment. Hence, the village is laid out as seen and experienced by the villagers, and, as such, the boundaries between reality and imaginations can be completely blurred. The author

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creates again a concrete–abstract binary when the landscape of Old Gao Village is shown as a kind of reality characterized by its ‘abstract’ quality when the supernatural forces are the most powerful as imagined through the minds of the villagers. The power of fengshui is the imagined reality of the locals. Old Gao Village has three types of landscapes that not only affect the quality of daily life but also inﬂuence power politics in the long run. First, there is the natural landscape, including White Cloud Valley, the Jijia Peak, the west-ﬂowing river and the lay out of the villages. Although they are ‘natural’, the villagers attach certain meanings to them. Second, there is the supernatural in the environment and its connection with human society – the UFOs and the UFO-induced landslides, the damage to Uncle Mihu’s mental faculties and to Cai Laohei’s destiny by their visits to the White Cloud Valley, and Xixia’s and Stone’s supernatural perception of future events and their non-verbal communications through images in the environment. Third, there are constructions designed and made to alter the landscape, as a means to communicate with the supernatural, such as choices of tomb sites, directions in which houses face and the construction of symbolic architecture like the White Pagoda. Since landscape and its changes have supremacy in village life, the narrative begins with an eventful landscape change – the landslide of Jijia Peak caused by the appearance of a UFO, how the UFO intensiﬁes Uncle Mihu’s insanity and how the landslide narrowly misses and thus avoids damaging the tomb of Zilu’s father. Old Gao Village has a special lay out – in the shape of a scorpion. It has three villages that branch out in three directions: two pincers stretching out to the north and the south, and a long tail pointing to the west. Hence the northern pincer village, the southern pincer village and the tail village. Most peasants live in the three villages. The body of the scorpion is the site of the township of Old Gao Village municipality, where the administrative institutions, shops and the school are located. Through the imagined body of a scorpion, the three villages and the town are organically connected. If one of them alters the landscape, the others may believe that their fengshui has been altered and this could be a source of conﬂict. Since the villages are all named after the body parts of a scorpion, Old Gao Village’s fengshui was strong in the male element of yang, which had helped the village to prosper in the past but this was no longer the case. Centuries ago, as shown in the bricks, male villagers were tall and strong. Nowadays they are short and mostly unhealthy. Take Zilu’s family as an example: his father died of cancer three years ago; his son was born disabled; he himself falls sick all the time. Besides, so many people, mostly men, die of cancer in the village. Zilu, like the villagers, believes that the misfortune has to do with the collapse of the White Pagoda and the changes in the environment (168). White Cloud Valley stands inauspiciously to the south of the village and it is believed that the valley is the habitat of some evil spirit so that the White Pagoda is essential for the village to ward off its harmful inﬂuences. Anyone who enters the valley falls victim to the valley’s evil energy. Two

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villagers, Uncle Mihu and Cai Laohei, have been there and both bear the damage and the consequences. As an intellectual with a modern education, Xixia refuses to believe the supernatural powers ascribed to the landscape by the locals and is determined to go there to ﬁnd out the truth. Accompanied by Uncle Mihu and Suhong, she approaches the valley but fails to reach it. She is lured to a pond by some ﬂowering plant on the way and ends up injuring herself. Xixia is forced to accept the presence of the supernatural and its power. The supernatural also has a human presence in the boy Stone. He is able to draw replicas of the cave paintings found in White Cloud Valley even though he has never seen these. He can forecast events and accurately predicts the death of his uncle. He also knows the causes of past events, and his painting allows Xixia to locate the missing brick that offers important clues to the migration history of Old Gao Village. Zilu fears that Stone may be the incarnation of the evil spirit of White Cloud Valley, for he sees that the family has not had a moment of peace since the birth of Stone. First, rocks from a landslide break the roof of the family house and this is followed by his father’s untimely death, and then his own divorce. ‘None of these should have happened!’ exclaims Zilu (174), and Xixia suspects that Stone might be an ‘extra-terrestrial being’ (174). The longer Xixia stays at Old Gao Village, the more extraordinary experiences she has. She gradually perceives connections between village events and Stone’s drawings, and she also sees supernatural objects and images in the surroundings of the village. Her dreams, like Stone’s drawings, are harbingers of future events. White Pagoda, a solid sign of the traditions and belief systems of Old Gao Village, becomes the major site of village politics. Because of its association with the popular belief that the pagoda safeguards the public health of the village and its connection with the local Taihu temple, Cai Laohei chooses to fund its reconstruction. He also hopes to gain maximum political credit as the popular leader of the villagers and to challenge the political authority of the township government. The beginning and the end of the pagoda’s construction is a series of community activities and performances. The construction site is community in action and literally stages rituals of community life:

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Many people were at the brick and tile kiln, busy loading bricks to move to the building site. Some were using carts, others were carrying baskets on their shoulders or backs. Still others were transporting the baskets on the backs of donkeys. People had dirty, grimy faces, and were sweating a great deal, but they were all very happy as if they were taking part in a festival. (215)

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During the entire period when the pagoda was being built, the villagers seemed to be celebrating an important festival. People came and went to the construction site, offering help, while also grabbing the chance to tease one another for a good laugh. Although the ﬂoorboard factory arranged counter activities to distract the villagers, the festival atmosphere continued, especially when the pagoda top was being sealed. Many went to offer incense and set off ﬁrecrackers (278). The opening ceremony of the pagoda is hosted by the monk from Taihu temple. After unveiling the pagoda and the stele on which its name and the names of donors are carved, he blesses the pagoda and the villagers with Buddhist gestures as deafening riﬂes are ﬁred, and explosives and ﬁrecrackers set off, to highlight the moment. People come to kowtow and pay tribute, laying branches against the pagoda, burning incense and offering paper money. Corn wine, a local specialty, is heated on the spot and served to everyone, followed by a gift of a Buddhist diagram to those present. Cai Laohei categorically calls his ceremony ‘popular activities’, to which he did not invite any township authorities. He organizes the opening according to the principle that whoever comes is welcome to avoid interference from the township government. Although no one interrupts the proceedings, the entire process is overshadowed by an ofﬁcial celebration hosted by the authorities for the opening of a new school building on the same day. The school project is sponsored by the ﬂoorboard factory with the full support of the authorities and most of the villagers go, or go ﬁrst before they visit the ﬁnished pagoda. Cai Laohei’s campaign against what he sees as the conspiracy between the authorities and the ﬂoorboard factory thus ends on a subdued note. The politics of the village’s layout exposes the hidden structure of the rural community. It shows the strength of traditional popular beliefs, especially the belief in fengshui, among the villagers and the importance of such beliefs in rural life. Cai Laohei’s ability to mobilize the masses lies largely in his understanding of the inner landscape and the synergy of the rural psyche. However, Cai Laohei’s story is not one of impressive sweeping success because of his limitations as a peasant. Cai Laohei’s experiences suggest that the intelligence, courage and community spirit of a peasant do not necessarily translate into insight about politics or business in a modern society. Nevertheless, Cai Laohei’s battles are mostly fought on and about the land and the landscape of Old Gao Village. His audacious adventure into White Cloud Valley is his ﬁrst challenge to commonly accepted wisdom, although the villagers believe that the trip has cast him under an evil spell so that he cannot succeed either in business or in his personal life. Then he ventures into a vineyard business and ends up losing most of his money. He funds the project of resurrecting the White Pagoda to restore the fengshui of the village and to gain political inﬂuence. He also spreads rumours which stir up the villagers to log the village forests illegally, thus creating a political crisis for the local government, before he is arrested for kidnapping Stone. Village

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politics proves to be largely politics over the landscape and the environment. It shows how profoundly a rural community is attached to its land and how signiﬁcant interpretations of the meaning of the landscape are in their daily and political lives. If it can be said that with Old Gao Village Jia Pingwa reaches another height in his portraiture of native place, it is achieved through his presentation of the connection between community and the land of its location.

Community degeneration Although a major element of the popular belief systems of Old Gao Village, the importance of the environment does not stop at the political level, because it directly affects the physical well-being of the community. Besides, the environment has always been a threat to the community and in recent years the community increasingly and perceptibly suffers from damage to it, at least the villagers, as well as Gao Zilu and Xixia, believe so otherwise, how can one explain the large number of abnormal births in the village? How can one explain the short stature of men here? How can one explain why there are so many cancer sufferers in the village? And, most worrying of all, how can one explain endemic male impotence? Male impotence is so rampant that husbands will send their wives to sleep with someone else in order to ‘borrow’ healthier sperms. Although one can blame the lack of genetic variation as the cause of the problem, because the village insists on marriages within the community, one cannot entirely exclude the environmental factor. Gao Zilu is acutely aware of the problem and one night after he again fails to have an erection, he voices his apprehension for his home town: ‘If this is indeed the result of the environment, in ten or twenty years, the biggest problem for Old Gao Village will not be food or clothing, but reproduction’ (318). In short, the narrative suggests that what is vital for the survival of the community is not economic development, or power politics, but the male ability to reproduce. This reductionist hypothesis for the male physical failure is a concern reiterated in many of Jia Pingwa’s writings. If Old Gao Village as a community can be viewed as a miniature China, for which the narrative has provided abundant contextual references, the concern for community regeneration can then be extended to a concern for the potency of China as a nation and the Chinese as a race. Race here is the key issue, rather than the Chinese nation or Chinese civilization. With the text’s frequent references to the poor quality and insufﬁcient quantity of sperm, the gaze is on the male body, or more precisely on the male sex organ. In Jia Pingwa’s presentation once again, in terms of racial and national potency, women are irrelevant, because the perpetuation of the race is a male responsibility, and the blame for racial degeneration lies in Chinese men. Hence, penis envy, Freud’s alleged female feeling of inadequacy, rather refreshingly happens to men in Old Gao Village, and the feelings of sexual inadequacy also remains with

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village men. This, however, does not by any means qualify Old Gao Village as a feminist text. Far from it, it simply renders women irrelevant to the fundamental social structure. As mentioned before, this concern for community and racial degeneration as a result of male sexual dysfunction has been recurrent in Jia Pingwa’s novels since Defunct Capital in 1993. What is different in Old Gao Village, however, is that the anxiety has now been transformed into a collective complex, where penis envy is a community obsession and a sign of a community in crisis. In the text, the penis frequently appears physically or symbolically, each time accompanied by comments, concerns and discussions about how strong and healthy the masculine organ used to be and how it has degenerated. For instance, each time after intercourse Zilu’s sense of failure is reiterated through Xixia’s questioning of his ability to impregnate her. At the same time his condition continues to deteriorate and, the longer they stay in Old Gao Village, the worse their chances are of conceiving a child. Nobody in the village has the faintest doubt about women’s ability to procreate and men are held totally responsible for the failure because of their impotence. Old Gao Village’s male penis envy is highlighted through various incidents when villagers talk about ‘three legs’, implying that the penis of some men was so long that it was like an additional leg. Stone’s drawings, for instance, have an extra line between men’s legs, apparently very similar to the cave paintings in White Cloud Valley. ‘Three Legs’ is also the nickname of the monk whose body was carried back by Cai Laohei to Taihu temple. The villagers circulate a number of stories about the size of the monk’s penis – it was so big that he could not walk or swim properly without tying it to one of his legs. Even in death, it still measures as long as ten matchsticks, much to the envy of the males of Old Gao Village. Most signiﬁcantly, the penis envy in Old Gao Village is not about sexual pleasure but about reproduction. This desire is projected on to cave paintings, a child’s drawing and the corpse of a monk who had led a celibate life. Male sexual problems are not so much a problem of a masculine identity as problems of reproduction. In Old Gao Village, although the men are short, shabby, unattractive and impotent, their supremacy is never in question or challenged. The penis envy is about the ability to reproduce and the villagers are convinced that the quality of the sperm is determined by the functionality of the penis and that the functional decline of the male organ directly affects the quality of the race. Sexual pleasure may be an issue for individuals, when some men are chased out by their wives for failure to satisfy them, but the community is not too concerned about this. The villagers even grudgingly accept the sexual promiscuity of the two attractive, unmarried women, Suhong and Jüwa. Even between Zilu and Xixia, the educated elite, sex is dominated by the desire to conceive once they return to Old Gao Village.

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The Chinese critic Li Jianjun ﬁnds Jia Pingwa’s sexual descriptions obsessive and meaningless. He calls Jia Pingwa a ‘sexual psychotic’ when commenting on how frequently the sexual organs and sexual activities have appeared in Jia Pingwa’s ﬁction in the past decade. Li Jianjun maintains that Jia Pingwa’s literary engagement in sexual conduct is gratuitous and degrades the dignity of human existence (Li Jianjun 2002: 47–8). Indeed Jia Pingwa’s ﬁction often has sexual descriptions and even more often these sexual engagements do not uplift the images or the spirituality of his characters. I do not believe, however, that it is necessary or productive to speculate on a connection between the author’s psychological status and his sexual descriptions. Hence my attention has been on Jia Pingwa’s ﬁctional characters and the symbolic meanings of their sexual conduct. It is not true that the appearance of sexual organs are meaningless in Jia Pingwa’s writing and I have discussed their symbolic ramiﬁcations here and elsewhere, although it is indeed difﬁcult to insist that Jia Pingwa’s sexual descriptions are always brilliant or signiﬁcant. On the whole, nevertheless, it can be said that Jia Pingwa’s narratives often treat sexual organs and sexual activities with the intention of offering metaphorical references that are related to the subject matter of his writing. Whether he has been successful in this intention is a different matter. In Old Gao Village, the gaze upon the male body also extends from the penis to the height and mentality of men, and it is women who do the gazing. Xixia ruthlessly scrutinizes every aspect of male inadequacy in her marriage with Zilu and in her interactions with the villagers. In her many meetings with Cai Laohei, Xixia examines Cai Laohei physically, intellectually, morally and emotionally: how he sleeps with his wife, how he conducts his business, how he dresses himself and how he talks and eats. Suhong chooses to sleep with Lumao () because he has a good, masculine body and is one of the few healthy-looking men in the village. Jüwa is able to attract the three most powerful men in Old Gao Village, Zilu, Cai Laohei and Wang Wenlong, and, most importantly, she is the one who selects and makes the decisions about her preferences. The female gaze on to the male body and male inadequacy is a new departure in Jia Pingwa’s writing, if not entirely novel in contemporary Chinese writing. It can be seen as a natural continuation of male inadequacy as a motif in many of his writings in the past decade.

The aesthetics of narrating a community Old Gao Village as uncovered by Xixia is very different from the other Shangzhou locations in Jia Pingwa’s earlier native-place stories in which Shangzhou is seen through the eyes of a Shangzhou native and a returnee. Xixia is not emotionally attached to the place nor has she previous experiences to compare with her present impressions. This emotional distance keeps her observation away from the contamination of what Bryna Goodman

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calls the ‘virtuous native-place sentiment’ – that is, the native place not only invokes nostalgia in the person away from the home place but also is the connection between one’s affection for the native place and the motherland (Goodman, B. 1995a: 12). Furthermore, since her name automatically denotes a loss of homeland, Xixia is actually indigenous nowhere. She is therefore set up to be distant from any Han Chinese surroundings, and, most of all, distant from a ‘pure’ Han Chinese remnant and stronghold such as Old Gao Village. Her ethnicity sets her apart from her husband and the other villagers, and she is also a modern intellectual, independent of her husband ﬁnancially, intellectually and emotionally. Despite Zilu’s resentment of her involvement in village affairs, she does what she believes is right and necessary – she helps Cai Laohei with his vineyard business and participates in many community events. Her detached interest and her exploration of Old Gao Village add an extra dimension to the imbedded irony of Old Gao Village. For Xixia, the investigation to be carried out in the native place is not about the place’s cultural meaning, past or present, as it is in many ‘root-searching’ stories. Rather, it is about what has gone wrong to have reduced the villagers to their current pathetic state of being. Old Gao Village is different from other native-place stories because the narrative deprives Zilu of the opportunity to display his ‘virtuous nativeplace sentiment’, if indeed it is still applicable to him at all. His commitments keep him so busy that he does not have a chance to reﬂect on his personal relationship with the native place, unlike, for instance, the narrator in Lu Xun’s native-place stories. Lu Xun’s narrator would arrive back at Luzhen, full of reﬂections about the changes that had occurred in his absence and burdened with the guilt of his own inability to ease his countrymen’s suffering as an educated person. Zilu does not engage in sentimental reminiscences and has mixed feelings about the native place. The end of the narrative sees him leaving in tears but vowing never to return (410). Old Gao Village is a landmark in Jia Pingwa’s literary construction of Shangzhou. Compared with his second novel Turbulence in 1987, broadly speaking also about social change and community life in the rural sector, Old Gao Village shows enormous growth on the part of the writer, in terms of both his craft as a novelist and his understanding of Chinese society as an intellectual. The shadows of socialist realism are long gone and the author is much freer in his exploration of various aspects of rural communities and in his deployment of narrative devices. As an organic part of Jia Pingwa’s institutionalization of his native place, Shangzhou, Old Gao Village marks a new pinnacle in Jia Pingwa’s literary achievement. By exploring the manners in which the villagers bond and divide, Jia Pingwa has presented a community, as deﬁned by Scott Romine, that is united by its common norms, manners and codes of behaviour but can be extremely divided in terms of its goals (Romine 1999: 3). In his examination of the southern community created by William Faulkner, Romine emphasizes how these narratives establish the concreteness of the community they

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represent through an essentially circular production of an objective social world (Romine 1999: 9). This understanding of the substance of community in literary representation coincides with what Jia Pingwa tries to employ as a narrative technique. This is a coincidence because Romine’s comment is about content while Jia Pingwa’s concern is with the poetics of ﬁction. Also, Romine’s theoretical inspiration comes from Bourdieu’s Outline of a Theory of Practice (Bourdieu 1977), based on sociological research, while Jia Pingwa’s philosophical understanding derives from Taoist enlightenment. Nevertheless, Faulkner and Jia Pingwa are comparable in their focus on community life and community identity. Narrative attention to community life and collective plight proves to be productive and sheds light on humanity from a very different and speciﬁc angle. It is important to note that Jia Pingwa’s ethnographic approach in Old Gao Village tries to depict the perspective of the villagers so the narrative deals with what they believe is important and relevant to their lives. This approach combined with the concrete–abstract technique employed gives the narrative the qualities of a documentary. The term ‘grand narrative’ (hongda xushi !) is often used by mainland Chinese critics to refer to literary writings that engage in national narration or describe human experiences on a grand historical scale. It is in the latter sense that I shall use the term to describe Old Gao Village. The history of a small rural community and the complexity of the community life of ordinary villagers are equally ‘grand’ as narratives, even if there are no national heroes or world-shattering events. The uneventfulness of community life, although trivial for outsiders, is just as formidable for the locals and Old Gao Village is no less than a full-scale epic of China’s north-western rural community. Moreover, Old Gao Village is representative of the Chinese nation and Chinese history through the quotidian, the trivial concerns of villagers and the increasingly unattainable ambitions of peasants in the process of being displaced by China’s rapid industrialization and modernization. Especially in its allegorical rendering of Old Gao Village as a victim of its own glorious history and cultural traditions, the narrative has implicated China in many ways, particularly its need for a reassessment of the past and strategies for regeneration, if not modernization.

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Remembering Wolves – the function of local events

Remembering Wolves – the function of local events

Jia Pingwa started writing Remembering Wolves as soon as he ﬁnished Old Gao Village in June 1998, for he was very keen to experiment with how the imagery the author had in his mind could be made to interplay with narrative plots. He had felt that his previous efforts in this respect had not fully achieved the desired results but he wanted to do it differently this time. In the book’s postscript Jia Pingwa speciﬁcally argues that because life itself can be both obscure and clear, the more concrete and actually lifelike the narrative is, the more abstract and imagery-rich the novel becomes (271). He continues to remark that Remembering Wolves is completely different from his previous writings and it may not be the most interesting to some (271–2). This explains why Remembering Wolves is not very long and it has a simple plot. Gao Ziming , a journalist and environmentalist, returns from the provincial capital Xijing to Shangzhou in order to document the remaining ﬁfteen wolves in the area. He meets up with Fu Shan , the former principal hunter of Shangzhou’s regional hunting troop. Fu Shan turns out to be his maternal uncle whom he has never met before. Accompanied by another hunter, nicknamed Broken Head (Lantou ), as well as a hunting dog and a cat, the three set out as a team to undertake the mission that has been endorsed by the authorities of documenting the lives of the wolves. They hike through the villages and the mountains in search of the wolves but in the process they wipe out the wolves as circumstances demand, contrary to their original goal. However, as the journalist returns to the city to report that the wolves are dying out, he is informed that the people of his native village, including his uncle, are becoming wolves and that the area has already been segregated to prevent free movement of people inside and outside.

Records of events as the key to locality ‘This is still a story about Shangzhou’, the narrator says in the opening sentence of the book and in so doing declares that Shangzhou remains the narrative focus. Continuing the negative assessment of the native place in Old Gao Village, Remembering Wolves is also a dystopia of the degradation

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of Shangzhou’s natural environment and society. Shangzhou in this novel was and continues to be the battleground between wolves and humans, and the conﬂict between nature and human society is so ﬁerce that it is heading towards the destruction of both. Wolves are dying out at a rate too rapid to reverse the trend, and humans are just as vicious as the beasts. The authorities and intellectuals alike have realized that humanity actually needs the presence of such man-eating predators. Hence, in the imminent absence of wolves, Shangzhou locals begin to remember them and this remembering is achieved in a number of different ways. Gao Ziming, the narrator, assumes that the reader ‘remembers’ him from his previous stories about Shangzhou. Hence the matter-of-fact way in which he opens his ﬁrst-person narrative: ‘This is still a story about Shangzhou.’ He bears the surname of ‘Gao’ to imply his connection with Old Gao Village, in which most people in the village bear the same surname of Gao or are related to one who does. His given name is also connected with the major character Gao Zilu – the shared ﬁrst character zi in their given names indicates a close kinship – possibly they are paternal cousins. Jia Pingwa’s usual omnipresent author-narrator narrates but does not take part in the narrative events, as in ‘Three Records of Shangzhou’, or even in Old Gao Village. Gao Ziming has an extra role in that he takes up the persona of a photographic journalist and he also initiates many of the events that happen in the twenty-day journey of chasing after the wolves. Carrying two cameras, Gao Ziming also dresses like a professional: on top of his red-checked shirt is a multi-pocketed khaki vest and on his head a baseball cap back to front. To make sure that the narrator is not to be confused with the author, he further conﬁrms himself as a third-generation resident of the provincial capital. As a result of this, he cannot grow a beard any more, which he regards as another sign of genetic degeneration. The persona of a journalistnarrator is very convenient for an ethnographic survey, which Remembering Wolves ultimately achieves. The journalist-narrator automatically has access to sufﬁcient ofﬁcial statistics and other information he needs and his ﬁrst assessment of Shangzhou is a series of numbers. It has an area of 18,000 square kilometres divided into seven administrative regions with two-thirds of it as arable land to support a total population of 2,210,000. One-third of Shangzhou region is still forests but there are only ﬁfteen wolves in the entire region (20). The sharp contrast between the small number of wolves and the size of the land area and population immediately produces a tension and it becomes the reason for Gao Ziming’s return trip. The central thematic concern in Remembering Wolves is the complex relationship between humans and nature. The relationship is complicated, because between the two there is no clear separation, and yet there is as much conﬂict as mutual reliance. The opposing forces are represented by the hunters and the wolves but their distinction is blurred by frequent transformations between the two, physically, mentally and emotionally. There are also instances when they exchange places metaphorically in terms

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of their behaviour and character. Convergence between the natural, the cultural and the supernatural happens all the time. The locals in the villages of Shangzhou and the wolves of Shangzhou’s mountains continually change positions. Sometimes it is not clear at all who are the hunters and who are the hunted. The distinction between the heroes and the anti-heroes, or between the protagonists and the antagonists, therefore, also disappears. On the human side, the central character is Fu Shan, the legendary heroic hunter of the region, who has been well respected by the villagers. When the story begins, Fu Shan’s hunting team, which once had about a hundred members, has just been dismantled. With the numbers of wolves in the region diminishing so rapidly and drastically in recent years, there is no longer a need for a hunting team. The authorities, having realized the importance of balancing the needs of the environment and those of the people, have now adopted environmental protection policies. As a result of his knowledge of the wolves, Fu Shan has been appointed to the committee in charge of the environmental protection of Shangzhou region. His most recent tasks are disarming the ex-hunters and counting the remaining wolves. Each of the ﬁfteen wolves has been identiﬁed and given a number, although Fu Shan is the only person with this knowledge. The story has three lines from which the narrative diverges and converges. The ﬁrst is the story of Fu Shan, his family history, his legendary hunting activities and his present problem as a hunter of protecting the vulnerable and yet still very dangerous wolves. While he tries his best to help his nephew Gao Ziming track down the wolves, he himself experiences a debilitating identity crisis and in the end, ironically, evolution and biology answer the most difﬁcult question for him – he becomes a human wolf. The second story line traces the activities of wolves. To a large extent, the wolves have been relying on humans, or at least their domesticated animals, for their sustenance, because of the drastically diminished numbers of wild animals in recent years. At the same time ﬁghting with humans is second nature to the wolves and they have accumulated collective wisdom plus animal instinct for the battles. Each of the ﬁfteen wolves knows and is known to Fu Shan and the need of each to survive is just as great as their reliance on one another for survival. The wolves are good matches for men and possess great skills, courage, intelligence and tenacity. Their ability to transform themselves into humans and other shapes for disguise is particularly intriguing for the hunters and for the narrator. However, the narrator leaves the reader with no doubt about the intelligence and supernatural powers the wolves command. Being a journalist, Gao Ziming double checks the facts and ﬁnds absolutely convincing evidence about the most incredible circumstances. As a result, the battles of human versus wolf are dramatically played out with courage, compassion, intelligence and dignity on both sides. In the end, the wolves die horriﬁc and yet heroic deaths, whereas the hunters turn into wolves themselves. The third line of the story is the place of Shangzhou itself – the villages, counties, temples, markets, valleys, homes of the mountain dwellers and

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more. Shangzhou as the place is what occurs in it. When the hunters and the wolves battle against each other, the place is not a passive background but an active participant in the events. Gao Ziming observes and portrays his native place through a collection of past and present events and it is in this sense that Remembering Wolves offers an ethnographic proﬁle of Shangzhou. The whole story is a journey of return for the narrator to re-view Shangzhou and to see what kinds of stories Shangzhou has to offer. Remembering Wolves is as much a novel by Jia Pingwa about Shangzhou as a collection of stories from Shangzhou. In Old Gao Village Jia Pingwa displays his research and collection of vocabulary of the local language of Shaanxi; Remembering Wolves is a continuation in the same direction by gathering the ‘local stories’. In his postscript to Remembering Wolves, Jia Pingwa explains how he tries to ﬁnd a better way to convey what he sees from a Taoist understanding as the dynamics between the abstract and the concrete, philosophically and narratologically. For him, in literature as well as in the visual arts, the concrete images of objects and personalities may be best able to indicate the abstract. For him, images in ﬁction, unlike images in poetry or in painting, are usually better drawn through events, and Remembering Wolves demonstrates the author’s efforts in this direction. The abstract notion of Shangzhou as the native place is constituted by concrete events that the narrator happens to come across. The end result is the ‘natural’ ﬂow of events along with the movement of the characters, whereas the author retreats as much as possible from controlling and structuring the narrative. The characters and the narrator just happen to be at the various locations, where they may get involved, become witnesses or simply stay as audience in relation to the events that take place. Shangzhou as a place is hence constituted by events: what happens in Shangzhou becomes the image of Shangzhou, which in turn forms an abstract image of the place. As a result of the author’s interest in the conﬁguration of the local place, the narrator frequently makes narrative detours to explore new territories, which enable him to encounter a large number of people and events and subsequently recount the experiences as local stories. The intention to construct the place through events alters the function of the narrator so that he becomes primarily a ‘recorder’, which is a return of the narrative function of the narrator in premodern Chinese ﬁction. Victor Mair holds this function as a recorder fundamental to Chinese narratives and he sees that there are considerable differences between the Chinese novel (xiaoshuo) and ﬁction in European narrative traditions: Where the Chinese term etymologically implies a kind of gossip or anecdote, the English word indicates something made up or created by an author or writer. ‘Xiaoshuo’ imports something, not of particularly great moment, that is presumed actually to have happened . . . For this reason, many recorders of xiaoshuo are at great pains to tell us exactly from whom, when, where, and in what circumstances they heard their stories. (Mair 1983: 21–2)

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The term xiaoshuo literally means ‘small talk’. As Diara Berg also points out, the difference is primarily that the premodern Chinese novel does not shy away from ‘importing’ materials from a variety of sources: the xiaoshuo texts retain the tradition of recording ‘street gossip’ as their source, and may include oral narratives, family records and other documents of regional sayings and customs (Berg 2003: 179). The effect of the xiaoshuo narrative is best seen from its non-linear plot development and the narrator’s lack of interest in exploring the depth of the inner world of the characters. Indeed, the narrator in Remembering Wolves spends a great deal of time ‘importing’ regional statistics, local tales and, of course, street gossip of various kinds from gazetters of Shangzhou’s townships. Following the ‘small talk’ tradition has been prominent in Jia Pingwa’s writing, but it is in Remembering Wolves that ‘recording’ events eventually take over ‘narrating’.1 Remembering Wolves uses events to connote the meaning of the place to show how the place is inhabited by all those there, from animals to humans, from plants on the hills to clouds in the sky, and from invisible souls to supernatural forces. Jia Pingwa’s characters in Shangzhou and Xijing always have a close connection with natural and supernatural forces and they do not always have control over their destinies. But in this novel in particular, humans are presented as part of the land and they have to share the space with all those around them. Shangzhou’s mountains, villages and rivers thus become a shared habitat for all creatures large and small, where events take place as driven by the needs of natural and supernatural forces. Hence, unlike Turbulence or Old Gao Village, where a particular community is used to represent Shangzhou, Remembering Wolves constructs the location fundamentally as a place, where ways of existence are explored and presented but no speciﬁc community goals are privileged.2 However, Remembering Wolves remains a story of the native place, and the connection with the narrator’s ancestors is even more relevant. Its innovation is its conﬁguration of the native place through ‘recordings’ of stories, events, tales and fantasies of the locals. The narrator, like an anthropologist who explores a native place, encounters local stories and then notes them down to form the ethnography of the place. What is most important about these stories is that the narrator’s recordings succeed in denoting various ‘local’ perspectives. In short, Remembering Wolves does not demonstrate many of what usually are seen as important ‘characteristics’ in modern Chinese or European ﬁction, such as exploration of the depth of the individual’s inner world, growth of the characters, scope of personal relationships and so on. What it does offer is a chain of mini-stories that arrive naturally at the doorstep of the narrator and in which Shangzhou as the native place provides the organic connection. Remembering Wolves may be considered a ‘modernist ethnographic fantasy’, which, in my view, is a step closer towards capturing Jia Pingwa’s aim of literary nativism: telling the story of the native place in an indigenous narrative style. By ‘modernist’, I mean the book’s innovative use of traditional narrative devices and its spiral-like progress towards a new

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narratology with its implicit nationalistic concerns. ‘Ethnography’ attempts to capture the ‘naturalness’ and the quotidian quality of the narrated events, in a deliberate contrast to the ‘ﬁction’ genre in European traditions. ‘Fantasy’ highlights the imaginary and ‘fantastic’ feature of the narrative on the whole and, in particular, its incorporation of supernatural elements. The narrative world is built from three equally important elements: the real, the imaginary and the fantastic. These elements combine organically and the harmony among them is established to conﬁgure the sense of the locale of the native place. The local people are carrying on with their daily lives without seeking to distinguish the real from the imaginary or the fantastic.

From local events to the ethnography of Shangzhou From the very beginning, the relationship between the text and the narrator has been altered. When the narrator takes on the persona of a photographic journalist, a distance is inserted between the narrator and the place. Instead of being born and growing up in Shangzhou like his counterparts in many other of Jia Pingwa’s novels, Gao Ziming is from the provincial capital. Besides, his connection is maternal, for Shangzhou is the native place of his maternal grandmother. In the Chinese kinship system, relatives on the maternal side are generally regarded as ‘outsiders’ (wai) or at least not as close as those on the paternal side. The narrator is aware of this and so he informs the reader: !"#$% &'(!)D !"#$%&'()(* !"#$%&'()*+,-./%01+2'34, !"#$!%&'( … !"#$%&'()*+,-.//0123456708 !"#$%&'()*+,-%./0123456789" !"#$%&'()*+,-!./01234560789 In fact, the story I’m telling you now has layers and layers of genetic connections with myself. I have, before this, written many works on the people and events of Shangzhou, including many relatives and fellow villagers. But I have left out my maternal grandfather. ... When I was six years old, following my grandmother’s wish at her death bed, my mother went back to Shangzhou to locate the relatives on her maternal side. But after that, she did not go back again. I still don’t know any of those peasant relatives in Shangzhou, although in my memory, I always know the stories about the two families that my mother told me. (18–19)

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Compared with other novels by Jia Pingwa, the distance between the narrator and his native place is deliberate and it enables him to be more ‘objective’ and ‘scientiﬁc’ than in his previous, nostalgic accounts of Shangzhou. As a resident of the provincial capital, the narrator is not qualiﬁed to tell ‘local tales’ so he listens, observes and records. Indeed, no sooner has the narrative begun when the narrator turns to historical records to verify an incident in the Qing dynasty in which thousands of wolves destroyed a walled town in the south of Shangzhou. How did this happen? Here comes the ﬁrst story in Remembering Wolves. The town had been located on top of a mountain at a height of more than two thousand metres above sea level. As a journalist, the narrator had the chance of visiting the site of the ruins about ten years ago, when there were about nine households still there, all of them living in extreme poverty. A walk around the town showed that the last time the town enjoyed prosperity was in the late Qing dynasty, in the 1820s. The town was about ﬁve square kilometres in size. The remains of the walls and three gates were still standing. When the wolves attacked the town, their roars were as loud as the rush of ﬂood currents. People shut all four gates and started ﬁres on the city walls in order to scare off the wolves but to no avail. Hundreds of goats and pigs were thrown at them but were gone within minutes and the wolves remained. Not only did they remain but they started climbing the walls, using one another to form ladders. People threw down torches, spears, bricks and rocks. Some wolves were killed but more kept coming, more and more, all with a hungry, green glint in the eye. While the battle was going on ﬁercely on the walls, a small group of wolves managed to sneak into the city through the underground drainage system from the south. Hundreds of women and children were mauled to death by the wolves. In the end the wolves took over the town and the people ﬂed. Sometime afterwards the wolves left, and some people returned to rebuild the town. But soon bandits came, took what was left and murdered the magistrate. That was the end of the old town and people moved away. They built three smaller townships in the surrounding areas. This story shows how Remembering Wolves uses the act of recalling, reminding and remembering as the driving force of narration. The narrator’s journey facilitates his encounters with the locals and the wolves and the result of such diversiﬁed sources is that the narrative gathers in a total of more than sixty events and stories. Although these stories and events can be roughly grouped into a few categories, the connection is more genetic than typological. The absence of an overt narrative structure underlies the intention that it is the place itself that generates its own tales. A large number of the stories are about local customs, and most of them are recorded while the custom is being practised. The range is enormous, covering weddings, funerals, markets, cuisines and food specialities, local medical practices, special ways of tea making, local worship, temple gatherings, games and performances of local opera. The author even goes as far as

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providing two pages of music notation with lyrics of the local mourning song (73–4). The following is the story a bride carrier tells the narrator and it shows how attentive the narrator is at observing local cultural practice: !"#$%&'()*+,-./#$0123(45+67 !"#$%&'()*&'(+,"-./01D !" !"#$%&'()*&'(+,-./012345067 D !"#$%&'()*+,-".,/!0'12 !"#$%&'()*+,-./)0&1.23 4256 !"#$%&'()*+, -+, .*+, !"#$%&'()*+,-./012345678$ !"#$%&'()*+,-./012&345!678 !"#$"#%&'()*+,Deep in the mountains of Shangzhou it is the local custom to hire a carrier to carry the bride on his back to the bridegroom’s home, because the mountain path is too narrow and steep for sedan chairs or vehicles. I have seen those bridal troupes on previous trips. A bridal carrier is an occupation in the mountains. Normally, a carrier is a young man in good health, unmarried. On his back is a bamboo chair covered with a red woollen rug. The bride sits on the chair. Her head is covered with a red head-covering cloth. I met a carrier before, who was in his midforties but still a virgin. He told me that almost all the daughters-in-law of his village were carried by him to their homes and he knew whose daughters-in-law were fat or skinny, whose daughters-in-law smelt good and whose daughters-in-law had terrible body odour. He knew them all. Well, until that moment. As soon as he reached the house, the newly wed would go through the rituals of kowtowing to their parents and being inducted to the bedroom. By then nothing was his business any more. All that was left for him to do was to smoke his dried tobacco leaves. He must have done something terrible in his former life. How he hated himself that he could never carry a wife for himself! (46) There are many such stories that perpetuate Shangzhou in historical times, and modern social and cultural changes seem to be irrelevant, even though there are occasional appearances of modern technology, such as cars, electricity and telephones. However, cameras are still cause for fascination amongst the locals, for instance. There is a disproportionately large number of representations of child abuse, theft, fraud, prostitution, gambling, murder – there is even the case of a serial killer, who slaughters forty-eight people. The narrator frequently relates the corruption of basic community ethics in the region to changes in the environment and in the cosmology. In one town the team comes across a man who throws his adopted daughter in front of passing cars twice in

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one day in order to proﬁt from compensation. There are also a few stories about cases of extreme poverty in some of the villages, such as the story of an old couple who possess only one pair of pants between them. When visitors arrive, the old man greets them with his lower half of the body naked (189–90). Some stories show the extreme innocence and ignorance of the mountain people, such as how Broken Head loses all his savings on his way back from a labouring job in the provincial capital. He thought it would be safe to put the cash in his shoes underneath the shoe-pads and went to sleep. When he woke up, his shoes were gone. Other passengers on the train had thrown them out of the window, because the shoes were worn out and had such a terrible smell (64). Northern Shaanxi was the base of the communists from the 1930s to the 1940s but its connection with the nearby Shangzhou becomes a story of extreme ridicule for the locals: !"#$%&'()*"&+,-./01 "#$%&2 !"#$%&'()*+$!,-."/01234456 !"#$%&'()*+,-./0 1234/5 !"#$%&'()*+,#-*./012$3 Well, on the ﬁrst day, the enemy put me on the tiger stool and I said nothing. The second day, the enemy forced chilli water into me, and I said nothing. When the third day came, the enemy pulled each of my ﬁnger nails off, one by one, and I said nothing. By the fourth day, the enemy gave me a really beautiful woman, and I told them all! On the ﬁfth day, I wanted to keep talking but they executed me! (119) If there is anything glorious at all in Shangzhou, according to Remembering Wolves, it is in the stories about Li Zicheng , a historical ﬁgure who led the peasant uprising from Shaanxi that was instrumental in ending the rule of the Ming dynasty in the 1640s. Shangzhou was part of the battleground at the beginning. The mountains, in this case, are memory holders – the roar of the battles remain deep in the valleys and are occasionally released into the air (196 –7). The sound will trigger further, proud tales from the villagers about Li Zicheng (115 –17). Another type of story gathered in Remembering Wolves is related to supernatural phenomena, and the narrative is literally a collection of such events. The metamorphosis of animals, especially wolves, is very common, and the villagers are often tricked, even on occasions the hunters. Some wolves bring a mysterious fragrant jade as presents to the Taoist priest, because he often gives the wolves food and medical treatment. The jade is believed to be the best talisman one could have but only the wolves know where the jade comes from. On one occasion, both Broken Head and Gao Ziming see Fu Shan being approached by a blonde woman who turns out

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to be the monkey Fu Shan had saved years back and tries to repay his kindness. The locals at another place recover something called taisui from the bottom of a river. In popular belief, taisui is the God of Eternity and is easily offended and one should, therefore, avoid him at any expense. But this taisui in Remembering Wolves is very different: ‘It is neither plant nor animal’, but an accumulated mass of bacteria and fungi, weighing up to 23 kilos and it also grows. It is edible and has excellent medical effects. The governor of Shangzhou gives orders for the best care of it, for it is the true ancestor of all life on earth (134 –5). One evening in a town where Gao Ziming and his uncle were staying, a meteor shower occurs, and the locals believe this to be a very bad omen. The shower indeed turns out to be the harbinger of the return of wolves after an absence of many years. Overnight, the wolves savage twelve teenage girls, all of whom die horriﬁcally with their lower bodies covered in blood or missing (49 –50, 53–4). Juxtaposition of these events is a major feature of Remembering Wolves and it is very effective at constituting the sense of the local place. The stories, many of which are violent, show that Shangzhou is not a place of harmony between nature and humans any more. Nor does Remembering Wolves offer any scenery of pastoral beauty. In the past, bandits were widespread; these were people who chose to live in the wilderness and who together with wolves, posed continuous threats to the villagers. Nowadays, although the bandits seem to have long gone and wolves are on the verge of extinction, the locals believe that the evils have been transformed into vicious individuals among the villagers and sometimes they take the form of cars that kill on the road. Human qualities, such as toughness, tenacity, resilience and even ruthlessness apply to the place as well as to humans and beasts that survive there. Unlike the conventional wisdom which ﬁnds answers to environmental degradation in human abuse and regards animals as the victims of human beings, Jia Pingwa’s representation takes a rather Taoist perspective, which regards the human race, animals and plants as members of equal importance and status in the natural environment. In Remembering Wolves many factors contribute to Shangzhou’s environmental degradation, and humans, animals and the place are affected with equal devastation. Furthermore, environmental degradation does not happen on its own but is connected with other disastrous social or natural phenomena, including the degeneration of human morale, and of the health and the ability to reproduce of both humans and animals. This understanding of the inseparability between humans, their activities and the natural world gives Remembering Wolves a distinctive voice, especially in the way the narrative ceases to be ‘anthropocentric’. Hence when men suffer from impotence or a drastic reduction in sperm count and the quality of the sperm, pandas do not even have sexual desires any more and the survival rate of their new born is only ten per cent (25). When a panda and her newly born died in labour, on the following day their caretaker went mad and had to be institutionalized.

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Attached to mountains: towards a native subjectivity Fu Shan’s subjectivity as a native and a local hero is established through his particular naming and his special relationship with the environment and its animals. His name can be understood as being ‘attached to mountains’. Fu , the family name, is a pun on the character fu , ‘to attach’; Shan , the given name, is the character for mountain. Hence, ‘Fu Shan’ can mean being part of the mountains. Fu Shan’s grandparents were residents of the town that was destroyed by wolves. His grandfather was a cotton vendor and he had a brother who traded in grain. That was one and a half centuries ago when people were often injured, mauled or killed by wolves and bandits. Life for humans was a constant struggle against the elements, but wolves and bandits were especially harmful. Fu Shan’s father had no choice but to become a hunter for survival, since he was orphaned by disasters caused by wolves and bandits. When Fu Shan came along, he was taught hunting at the tender age of ﬁve by his hunter father and soon became the most talented hunter in the region. By the age of forty-two when the hunting team was dismantled, Fu Shan was a legendary hero. Fu Shan’s characterization relies predominantly on the images and impressions he leaves on those around him, and on his activities. One could argue that the character is two-dimensional. The lack of inner depth, which most readers in the West and in contemporary China would perhaps ﬁnd unimpressive, is deliberate however. This is another aspect of Jia Pingwa’s literary experimentation at further developing Chinese indigenous narratology. The narrator is not so much interested in the growth and development of the ‘hero’ as in presenting what he does, for what he does represents what he is. Moreover, what he is seems to be beyond his own control. As in many traditional Chinese novels, the major characters are shaped more in terms of their activities rather than their thoughts or ideas. Their inner world remains closed to the reader, and access to their personalities is by means of their daily activities and their interactions with others. The hero often sets out to answer calls from Heaven, the emperor, his ancestors or the family clan. His quest is not a personal one and the motivation is more a heavenly mandate than a personal need for separation and growth, at least not in the sense of a Freudian Oedipus complex. The plot of the narrative usually focuses on how he fulﬁls or fails his mission. In other words, the narrative would elaborate on his ‘doing’ and his persona rests with what he accomplishes or fails to accomplish. Fu Shan’s image resonates with most of the abovementioned. He is loyal to his mates in the hunting teams and is deeply bonded to them. But he does not communicate with them well or seek to develop his relationship with them further. He has friends and admirers everywhere but is attached to none. He does not have a family, or even a proper home. References to Fu Shan’s identity are thus deﬁned by the one group with which he has an inseparable relationship: the remaining ﬁfteen wolves. Access to his

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character and emotions has to be achieved through how he hunts down, whether reluctantly or actively, these ﬁfteen wolves. As a hunter, he cannot live with wolves and cannot live without them either. Hence, the questions related to Fu Shan’s characterization should not be about how much his persona has been concealed from the reader. It is more productive and meaningful to ask whether it is possible to establish and assess Fu Shan’s subjectivity as a native in the cultural and social context of Shangzhou of the 1990s. The authorities and his nephew all believe, understandably, that they have given Fu Shan ample opportunities to transform himself from a (doomed) traditional hunter into a relevant modern environmentalist. They cannot see the distance between the two – after all, Fu Shan can live and work in the same environment and it is only the nature of his tasks that has changed. For Fu Shan, although he tries his best, the gap is unbridgeable. Hunting wolves is his unforfeitable responsibility and the very essence of his being. The urban environmentalists, as represented by Gao Ziming, see only the danger of animals on the verge of extinction and fail to understand the meaning of belonging to the land for natives like Fu Shan. For him, what he does is what he is and there is no possibility of transgression. The demand of environmental protection, however politically correct, is to impose a transformation of his subjectivity. ‘I was born for wolves’ (37), he says loudly, with frustration rather than pride, because he sees the end approaching and understands its inevitability. It is not that Fu Shan cannot change from being a popular hunting hero, despite his apparent pleasure at being treated like one, or that he does not want to be relevant in the eyes of the authorities who are promoting modern values. A native subjectivity means being one with the land through birth, life and death and not taking the superior position of being its protector. It is not a matter of choice between tradition and modernity, or adaptation to modern values and ways of life, because there is no choice for natives like Fu Shan: it is unthinkable for him to ‘sit in an ofﬁce, dressed up in a Western suit or a Mao suit, holding a cup of tea in his hand while ﬂipping through documents’ (36–7). Native subjectivity means his ﬁxation, body and soul, with the native place to the extent that decisions about his being are made for him by the place. He cannot protect the environment because he himself is part of it. Fu Shan’s tragedy is that of a hero in a closed traditional, agrarian society. The narrative actually provides an analogy for Fu Shan’s dilemma through a local legend:

!"#$%&'()#$%&*+,#$%-.!"/ !"#$%&'()*+,-./012"3456789 !"#$%!&'"()(*#+,-.!/01234#5 !"#$%&'()&*+,*-./01,2*-3 !"#$%&'()*+,-./01234!5.67!8 !"##$%&'()*+,-./0123456789 !"#$%&'()*+,-./0102345(678

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Remembering Wolves – the function of local events !"#$%&'()*"+,+-%./0'(12%345 D !"#$"%&'()*+,-./)(01234) !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:; !"#$%&'()*+#,-.)/01-.2$)345 !"#$%&'()*+,-'(.#$%/"01'(23 !"#$%&'()*+,-.)/01234)55/01 !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123$45% Once upon a time there was a hero. He believed himself to be a hero and he was indeed a hero. He arrived at a village and heard about the white tiger that often came to hurt them. The hero went straight to the mountains to ﬁght with the tiger. The ﬁght lasted one day and one night. He killed the tiger eventually but he had wounds all over his body. Returning to the village, he was treated with a lavish banquet and he asked if they needed him for anything else. The villagers said there was a black dragon in the pond and the dragon ruined their crops. It drank all the water in droughts and spat it out when ﬂoods came. The hero went to the pond and struggled with the black dragon for three days and three nights. He was nearly eaten by the dragon but still he managed to cut the dragon’s head off. He was cheered by the villagers with another banquet. He drank a bottle of wine and spoke in obvious complacency: heroes should eliminate evil for the people. Anything else for me to do? The villagers said there was yet another evil. Only when this evil was eliminated would peace be enjoyed by all. The hero asked: ‘Who is it?’ The villagers replied: ‘It is you’. The hero was surprised, how could this be? He lowered his head and said nothing. He got up to leave but fell down to the ground and died. The wine contained poison. (104 –5)

Clearly the value system as embodied by Fu Shan and the villagers is very different from that represented by Gao Ziming, the journalist from the provincial capital. The clash reaches the climax in the last pages of the book when Fu Shan is cornered by the villagers demanding him to kill the last three wolves. At the same time, Gao Ziming is beaten to the ground, spat on and despised by the villagers (246–7).

Metamorphosis: the hunter’s heroic self and beast Other More than once Fu Shan has been likened to the Chinese folklore hero Wu Song , the man who fought singlehandedly at night with a tiger and killed it (136). Like Wu Song, the archetype of the Chinese heroic macho male (Louie, K. 2002), Fu Shan is courageous, loyal, good at ﬁghting and always ready to seek social justice on behalf of the poor and the weak, if not misogynous and short-tempered. He is not only respected and entertained

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as a hero but also expected to behave like one. If a wolf is discovered or someone is making trouble in the neighbourhood, Fu Shan will be fetched. He will, of course, kill the wolf or ﬁx the problem by beating the trouble-maker into obedience (10–11). He also volunteers to ﬁght or kill to serve community justice when he comes across evil and crime, just as he shoots the wolves when he sees them. The problem with his heroic status is that it is no longer sustainable. The narrator sees the tragic nature of Fu Shan’s being very clearly and points out that the present is no era for heroes (35). Modern civilization does not need social justice to be served in the traditional manner: neither killing wolves nor beating thugs is legal any more. Still, the demand for him to stop shooting the wolves not only brings shame on him but also presents a choice between life and death for him and indeed for all hunters. It is commonly known that most hunters attract fatal diseases of one kind or another when they stop hunting. Some of these ex-hunters become paralysed or die. Fu Shan has been aware of the changes in his body – the weakening of his ankles and wrists, and the continued lethargy. There is no medication for his illness but as soon as he picks up his hunting riﬂe his energy returns. Broken Head, the hunter who accompanies Fu Shan and Gao Ziming on the survey trip, suffers from frequent severe attacks of headache which can be alleviated only by heavy doses of painkillers or by hunting. However, self-salvation is only part of the motivation for Fu Shan to continue hunting. There are other more compelling reasons at work here – his urge to protect people from harm, and to eliminate evil, his pride as a hunter when faced with daring, insolent wolves, and his profound hatred for wolves who have taken away many of his family and relatives. Worst of all is that the villagers, even friends, ridicule him if he stops. The ﬁnal straw was the insult he encountered from his neighbours about his lack of manly courage and his failure in his duty as a hunter. He ran out and ﬁnished the last three wolves in one day. Of course, Fu Shan has failed to deliver what he conscientiously agrees to. Fu Shan’s failure, however, raises the questions: Is it fair and justiﬁable to impose such a demand on him? How does the ideology of environmental protection relate to his native subjectivity? One message is clearly discernable: the urban–rural divide is wider than conventionally understood and a native’s attachment to the land should be respected. For Fu Shan the transformation from hunter to environmentalist is not possible, but metamorphoses between hunter and hunted are not only possible in every way but happen all the time. Wolves are his Other, his alter ego and his destiny. Mentally and physically Fu Shan and wolves have numerous connections. He has been a hunter of wolves for his entire life since he was ﬁve and his body is covered with scars left by wolves. He was taken by a wolf when he was young, and the incident left three protruding lumps on his neck which change colour when he becomes emotional. He

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knows wolves well and vice versa, and communication between Fu Shan and the wolves is extraordinarily effective. Both are capable of extreme tenderness and viciousness, kindness and ruthlessness. The hunter and the hunted are both trusted friends and patrons of the Taoist priest, at whose deathbed both Fu Shan and the wolves are present. Fu Shan kills all the wolves but becomes one himself in the end. Like the wolves, Fu Shan does not have a permanent home and lives in the wildness of Shangzhou. His journalist nephew observes that Fu Shan bears many resemblances to wolves and that this resemblance also extends to all the people in south Shangzhou. Gao Ziming marvels at his discovery: !!"#$%& '()*+,-. /012"'()* !"#$%D !"#$%&'()*+,-./0 !"#$%&'()*+,-. //+01.23 My god! Two ears stand on each side of Uncle’s cleanly-shaved head and they are moving. What a pair of ears! Long and pointed, sticking upwards, higher than his eyes and eyebrows. In astrological manuals, people with such ears are considered clever and stubborn. But at that moment a thought ﬂashes through my mind: Uncle must have been a wolf in his former life. (37) Fu Shan searches for wolves with Ziming and Broken Head but it soon becomes obvious that the wolves are following him around. Throughout the journey, whenever Fu Shan arrives in a village or a town, wolves soon show up, even in places where they have not been sighted for years. Fu Shan has a wolf skin that he obtained from a wolf he killed to avenge a mate. He sleeps on the skin and the fur will stand up whenever there is a wolf close by. Another piece of wolf skin Fu Shan threw at the man who pushed his foster daughter at cars in order to collect compensation: it suffocated the man and scorched him to death. Fu Shan in time becomes the reason for people to ‘remember wolves’, for when he appears wolves will follow. Wolves are Fu Shan’s second nature. Like a wolf, he drifts in and out of human society. He does not have a family and refuses to be assimilated by ‘modernity’, as represented by the notion of environmental protection. He is not interested in sitting on the environmental committee. He relies on his instincts for what he does and what is his true self. Just like a wolf, he is a hunter – it is not his profession or career but his very being. If wolves pose as Fu Shan’s Other and they are divided into human and animal, then Fu Shan must pose as the Other to modern civility and the dividing line must be between rural tradition and urban modernity. Towards the end, after Gao Ziming returns to the provincial capital, he is informed that his uncle has turned into a human wolf, as have all the people in the same village. The narrative ﬁnishes with this image of Fu Shan:

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!"#$%&'()*$+, !"#$%&' !"#$%&'()!*+,-$./01234$567 !"#$%&'()*+,-. '/012'345'6 !"#$%&' (")*+,-./0123456( !"#$%&'()*+,!-../0123456 ! Sex does not interest him but gradually he gained a lot of weight, becoming more and more like a panda. All of a sudden, fangs grew out of his mouth. He stopped wearing pants and put a bamboo pipe on his penis. He would tie the bamboo pipe with some rope so it stuck out really high. Later on, he just turned into a human wolf. Possibly it is a disease as the consequence of having been bitten by wolves, just like how humans contract the mad-dog disease if bitten by mad dogs. Weren’t they all bitten by wolves before? (264 –5) The interconnectedness between humans, human society, animals and the universe is projected in the self–Other relationship between Fu Shan and the wolves. His entire life has been devoted to hunting down the beasts but his own success in turn spells the end of the reason for his existence.

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10 Poetry, essays and textual personality

Although the majority of Jia Pingwa’s works are short stories, novellas and novels, poetry and essays are the other two signiﬁcant components of his literary achievement. He produces both modern free verse and classical-style poetry, and crosses easily between genres. His essays remain the most popular among readers and publishers. His poems and essays have close intertextual connections with his ﬁction and with each other; they best demonstrate the extensive range of Jia Pingwa’s literary talents and show the more reﬁned aspects of his aesthetics. They better suit his inclination to the literati traditions and some of his classical-style poetry and essays are very good examples of Chinese literary traditional genres. Jia Pingwa’s poems and essays give better access to his personal life and social concerns, as the subject matter is predominantly personal and he does not shy away from presenting immediate emotional responses to his external world, nor is he reluctant to portray his inner thoughts and feelings. Thus, these two genres offer him an alternative to ﬁctional narrative, especially in terms of self-expression. Here he does not shy away from recording in detail events in his life and from exploring various dimensions of social life, cultural traditions and aesthetic ideals. In general, Jia Pingwa’s poems and essays cover a large spectrum of topics and events that are closely associated with his personal life and artistic development. They are an essential part of his claim to be a complete literary ﬁgure. Poems and essays are also highly relevant to his narrative goal of producing the best Chinese narrative and of revitalizing Chinese narrative traditions, especially the essay. While developing his own prose style, Jia Pingwa also consciously learns from great masters. In the early 1990s, Jia Pingwa acknowledged major inﬂuences especially from Zhu Zhiqing , Feng Zika.i and Zhou Zuoren in aspects of essay composition and Lu Xun, Shen Congwen and Yu Dafu in terms of writing ﬁction (Sun Jianxi 1994: 330). In recent years, he has been prone to mention Lu Xun, Lin Yutang , Zhang Ailing and Qian Zhongshu (Jia Pingwa 2003a: 175) as his signiﬁcant models when writing essays.

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Poetry and its narrative role Jia Pingwa’s output in poetry is quite small and he writes mainly two kinds of poems: the modern free verse of narrative and lyrical poems, rhymed or unrhymed, and poems in classical style, in couplets and other formats. His classical poems mostly appear in his novels as part of the narrative or in couplets composed for friends or for special occasions. Poetry has not been what Jia Pingwa is best known for; it is, however, the genre in which he began his literary career. He claims he still takes much pride in his poems and takes great care in composing them. There is, however, very little criticism of Jia Pingwa’s poetry to date, except for one chapter in Fei Bingxun’s book On Jia Pingwa (Fei Bingxun 1992: 175–85), which was initially published in 1990 by the Northwestern University Press in Xi’an. Fei Bingxun, a scholar specializing in Chinese literature in the Chinese Department, Northwestern University, now in his retirement, was the ﬁrst to conduct comprehensive research on Jia Pingwa. Fei Bingxun regards him as an accomplished poet in both the classical and modern forms, and believes that Jia Pingwa has been initiating a new, individual poetic style with narrative poems, usually ones in which grand themes are narrated in a plain and yet poetic language. In my view, however, Jia Pingwa’s achievement as a poet is not of major signiﬁcance, if only because his poetic output is too small and not particularly inﬂuential. Even within the relatively small number of poems he has so far published, the quality is uneven. Despite the occasional poetic innovation and brilliance, his free verse does not demonstrate extraordinary qualities, compared with what other poets accomplished in the 1980s, nor do they equal his own achievements in ﬁction and essays. Jia Pingwa’s poems in classical style have better poetic quality in general, but again, their quantity is too small to warrant a claim for substantial poetic achievement. Jia Pingwa’s poems ﬁrst appeared in 1983. Two of his major narrative poems, ‘An Old Woman’s Story’ (Yige laonüren de gushi !"#$%) and ‘My Ancestors Were from Under the Big Scholar Tree of Shanxi’ (Wode zuxian shi cong Shanxi dahuaishu xia laide !"#$%&'()*)1 were initially published in the national Poetry Journal (Shikan ). In 1986 he published his small, and to date still only, poetry collection of thirty-one poems, Blank (Kongbai , Jia Pingwa 1986c).2 All the poems in Blank are free verse, either narrative or lyrical, written from 1976 to 1986. There has not been any substantial published output in modern poetry by Jia Pingwa since the late 1980s. Lyrical poems Most of Jia Pingwa’s lyrical poems are emotional responses to life incidents and, given his youth at the time when they were written, many of them are understandably about love, or, rather, about unrequited love. Some of them,

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however, can be innovative and experimental despite the conventional themes. Here is an example:

One-sided Love !"#$% ! ! !"#

The best love in the world is one-sided involves no pain can be totally brave

!D !"#$ D !"

In being loved by someone you never know who they are in loving someone you know yourself

!" !"#$% NVUS

Fishing out the key To open my own single apartment Spring 1986 (Jia Pingwa 1986c: 44)

Jia Pingwa tends to use plain language to ensure an absence of emotional intensity in his free verse, which suits the calmness that he often demonstrates between the lines. Although the above poem does not show any extraordinary quality in its poetic devices, its focus on the self of the poet is rather unusual for the time when it was produced. The consolation the subject/poet is able to ﬁnd in his own space, within the conﬁnement of his own apartment, is also unusual and it shows an appreciation for solitude with refreshing self-restraint from being overtly sentimental with a touch of irony commenting on the subject’s limited love life. If Jia Pingwa is to be commended for his lyrical poems at all, it is for this distance from overt romanticization, especially when we consider the Chinese poetic fashion in general in the late 1980s. The following is a poem by Jia Pingwa which he chose to use as the preface to Jia Pingwa’s Essays: The Author’s Own Selection, as a statement of the author’s ‘unrequited love’ for his aesthetic goals (Jia Pingwa 1987b: 10–11). The poem, however, can easily lead to interpretations of personal emotions:

Sky and Earth

——

=^

! !"#$ ! !"#$

For A on a quiet night I As much as all the water are your tender feelings As many as there are clouds are my thoughts of you

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!" ! !"#

%$Water rises to form clouds they fall becoming water between them we can never meet

!" !"#$ D D !"#$%D

II Night falls and the days are lonely the moon is our eyes I look at you you look at me the dew of our yearning gently falls each night

!"#$% !"#$%& NVUP

III Love draws a distance between us the distance prolongs our love Spring 1983 (Jia Pingwa 1986c: 3–4)

Although the ‘polarization’ of the lovers between the sky and the earth may be innovative and the ‘love’ could be considered as referring to the poet’s unattainable goal of nobility for his own writing rather than the emotional bond between two lovers, images of dew as tears, the moon as the eye and the loneliness in the dark are all much clichéd poetic expressions. The most innovative aspect of the collection is its title, Blank, which Jia Pingwa explains in his epigraph (Jia Pingwa 1986c):

Self Proclamation !"

What is the sky? Blank.

Again, it is the poet’s perception that stands out, although using the sky as a metaphor for the self is rather unusual. Narrative poems Blank also has many of Jia Pingwa’s narrative poems, which are of varying length and, with a few exceptions, are based on the life stories of villagers in his immediate sphere to the extent that they become highly autobiographical. The poem ‘My Father’, for instance, about Jia Pingwa’s teacher father, consists of very simple life incidents, through which the poet/son sings in high praise of a teacher’s heroic dedication to his profession. The poet shows great respect for his father who taught for more than forty years but was mistreated by the system. Through direct language and a juxtaposition of extremely ironic events, the image of his idiosyncratic and yet heroic father emerges clearly:

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!"#

%$

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But Father apart from teaching never learnt how to socialize even asking people for help he couldn’t pass over a cigarette

He was criticized during the Cultural Revolution D !"#$% bowing his head as he was denounced !"D he was still correcting how to say ‘to ﬂee’ !"#$$% ‘it shouldn’t be read as “taozhi tiantian” but “yaoyao” …… …… !"#$%&'( His graduates worked all over the land !"#$%& but he hardly knew any place beyond the mountains !"#$ the higher his students rose !"# the humbler his status …… ……

!"#$%&' UR

Knowledge ennobles him knowledge belittles him he is great because nobody can do without him but no one considers him important Winter 1985 (Jia Pingwa 1986c: 47–8, 50)

When his father passed away in September 1989, Jia Pingwa wrote an obituary to pay tribute – ‘Mourning My Father’ (Jifu ) (Jia Pingwa 1995f: 17–28). Although having his father as the subject, this narrative poem is very different from the obituary especially in terms of the ‘lyricality’. The latter is far more lyrical, not only because it is emotionally charged but also because the obituary uses a more lyrical language whereas the above poem narrates ‘incidents’ mostly as irony in both the teacher’s life and the Chinese political reality during that period. Most of Jia Pingwa’s other narrative poems are similarly simple in their story outlines with an emotional distance on the part of the poet/narrator. Some of Jia Pingwa’s narrative poems also show traces of the fashion of the 1980s to search out one’s roots with the intention of highlighting China’s national identity and cultural traditions through rural settings and village customs. ‘My Ancestors Were from Under the Big Scholar Tree of Shanxi’ is a salient example of ‘root-searching’ with tales based on the legend of China’s internal migration in history. The poetic narrative, however, mistakes the myth for fact that the forced internal migration from Shanxi was administered by the Mongol rulers to control the Han population, while it uses many tales from northern Chinese folklore and legends that attribute a number of Han Chinese racial features and body habits to the legacy of

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being reduced to second-class citizens by cruel alien rulers. Jia Pingwa later rectiﬁes his historical error when he re-employs the mythology of the forced migration from under the big ‘scholar tree’ in his novel Old Gao Village. It is important to notice that the intention to capture the origin of the Chinese national spirit has accompanied Jia Pingwa since the early 1980s. In more than 150 lines ‘An Old Woman’s Story’ (Jia Pingwa 1986c: 5–14) traces the village mentality through a narrative about the tragic life of a village beauty as the victim of village customs, hypocrisy and snobbery. Her tragedy was, ironically, a direct result of her beauty – no one wanted to marry her any more after one of her two suitors was killed in a ﬁght over her. And yet almost every man in the village tried to sleep with her until she was thrown out of the village, being blamed for corrupting morals by the village head. In her existence despised by others, she had to resort to solitude, and to make a living she grew peonies, the quintessential Chinese ‘national’ ﬂower and a symbol of her own beauty. When the ﬂood came one night and wiped out the village entirely, she was spared, fortunate in that she was living in the hills by herself. Most people of her age died and the younger generations did not bother to get to know her but never missed a chance to scorn her. She lived alone for a long, long time and died alone, on a snowy night. The villagers never lent her a hand to help her and no one was even remotely grateful, when, after her death, they all beneﬁted from the peony roots she left behind, a precious medical herb. The narrator’s overt sympathy with the fate of the woman is clearly demonstrated in contrast to the heartlessness of the villagers. Moreover, the characteristics of the old woman – her wisdom, tenacity, courage, kindness, creativity, especially her perspective on the dead among the living – have also appeared in the other writings of Jia Pingwa, such as Zhuang Zhidie’s mother-in-law in Defunct Capital, the paper-cut expert in White Nights and in the short story ‘Ku Mairong: The Paper-cut Lady’ (Jia Pingwa 2002e: 106 –18). ‘An Old Woman’s Story’ begins with the stanza that describes a world where the living and the dead are not segregated and where the living live among the dead: !"# All those her age have passed away but she goes on living D !"#$% sitting in the graveyard !"#$ tombstone for the dead (Jia Pingwa 1986c: 5) They are not segregated, because the living and the dead are of the same generation and because in the mind of the living woman the dead are alive and beside her. She spends her time in the graveyard, possibly engaging in a conversation with the dead. By sitting there, the old woman becomes the tombstone and the image stands out in terms of both her longevity and her statue-like presence – the living as the dead among the dead.

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Poetry, essays and textual personality !"#$% !"#$%& !"#$%& !"#$%!&'

She is truly confused about yin and yang cannot tell spirit, ghosts or humans apart talking her dreams as if they were real taking the day for night (Jia Pingwa 1986c: 8)

The old woman’s reality resembles a return to the beginning of life – the stage of hundun , or the ideal state of non-differentiation.

!"#$%&' !"#$%&' !"#$$ !"#

%$Younger ones curse her senile confusion not a one wants to talk with her the ﬂowers at her gate are in full bloom she sits repulsively among them (Jia Pingwa 1986c: 8)

However, such a child like state of mind is not tolerated by the villagers, and the villages’ rejection of the old woman produces two kinds of juxtaposition to emphasize irreconcilable contrasts. In place of the usual oppositions between the living and the dead, the gods and humans, the day and the night, the irreconcilability lies between the aged and the young, between intimacy and distance, and between the ugly and the beautiful. The poet’s message is more than obvious: the ugly is the really beautiful and the habitual failure on the part of the villagers to appreciate and reward such beauty presupposes the problem of the village mentality, which the poem implies is typical of Chinese society at large. In his choice of images and subtle references to the negative ‘Chinese characteristics’, Jia Pingwa embarked on a different path, when most Chinese writers were still seriously ‘root-searching’ for the source of national strength. Here is a more typical ‘root-searching’ poem by Jia Pingwa:

Old Man

!" ! !"D

In the darkness of the room a charcoal ﬁre kept burning for the whole winter’s nights

D !"#

%$he seems asleep but remains alert awake but his eyes keep closing and opening

D !"# !"#$

the front of his body is lit like a gilded clay statue the back of his body cast on to the wall is the image of a demon

stoking the charcoal stirring the embers such is his work

! !" !"

Poetry, essays and textual personality

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193

no words do not mean loneliness remembering is reﬂection on winter nights ﬁre is companion the entire winter keeps him company Winter 1985 (Jia Pingwa 1986c: 53–4)

This poem is very much in line with the ‘root-searching’ movement in the mid-1980s, although when we think of this movement it is usually novels and stories that come to mind. Chinese poetry at the time also had its share of looking for Chinese cultural roots, and Jia Pingwa, in a small portion of his free-verse poems, is one of the poets who contributed to this trend. As Fei Bingxun suggests, Jia Pingwa is effective in articulating the Chinese national spirit in plain and simple poetic expressions (Fei Bingxun 1992: 180–1). The poem ‘Old Man’ resonates very much with Haizi’s ‘The Wheat Is Ripe’, for instance: !

Harvest Home

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That year the new wheat around Lanzhou ripened

! !"#$%& !

On the river my father having spent full thirty years, has now come home

D !

!

catching a sheepskin raft, has come home

D !"#

Someone with a bagful of grain pushed the door in the dark

!"

Underneath the oil lamp it turned out to be Third Uncle

!

Two aged brothers not a word exchanged the whole night through

!"

only the water pipe rumbled and gurgled

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Everyone’s mind was on the yellow earth, one foot thick Alas, harvest home! 20 January 1985 (Haizi 1995: 12–13)

Both of the poems invoke the stereotypical images of old male villagers from China’s north-west as embodying the tenacity of Chinese national

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character, which is also located in the space of a dark interior illuminated with ﬁre or lamp, and, most importantly, in the absence of speech. The old men are speechless precisely because they are fully preoccupied with remembering, which is also a common feature of ‘root-searching’ writing. Other similar poems include ‘Ode to the Yellow Earth Plateau of Shaanxi’ (Zhi Shaanbei huangtu gaoyuan !"#$) (Jia Pingwa 1986c: 27–8) and ‘Ode to the Plain of Central Shaanxi’ (Zhi Guanzhong pingyuan ! ) (Jia Pingwa 1986c: 29–31). Classical poems Jia Pingwa’s poems in the classical style articulate depth, subtlety, dignity and the poet’s spirituality succinctly within the conventions of Chinese poetic tradition, as the following examples show:

!" !"

With tea, you treat your guest simply At ease, you leaf through your books (Jia Pingwa 1996a: 335)

!"#$ Another year, grass shoots of green !"#$ For ten miles, almond blossoms keep their scent (Sun Jianxi 1994, v.1: 197) !"#$ The pure poem cannot be kept from view !"#$ The bright moon will not rest in the courtyard (Sun Jianxi 1994, v.2: 557) These couplets are written according to the strict requirements of classical tradition. The ending sounds are balanced and the structures of the lines are parallel to each other, with verbs, adjectives and nouns (whether objects or subjects) all properly matched with their counterparts. The carefully selected plain words are highly expressive despite the limit of ﬁve or seven characters in each line. The registers and connotations of vocabulary convey very much the mood and the sensitivity of the literati, still highly valued in contemporary Chinese society. Jia Pingwa does not publish classical poems separately but often composes them, especially classical couplets, as dedications to friends or as part of his calligraphy and paintings.3 Further examples of his classical poems: !"#

%$Two Couplets on ‘Speaking about Tea’

!"#

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%$I Bathed in snow the plum tree coaxes forth its ﬁrst blossoms Tea-cleansed one frantic person snatches a few quiet moments

Poetry, essays and textual personality !"#$% ! !"

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II (adaptation of two witticisms from an old book) Sit down, please be seated, please take the seat of honour Drink, imbibe tea, savour a good cup of tea (Jia Pingwa 1998e: 84–5)

The interest in the classical style and the ability to compose poems in it are not very common among writers and poets of Jia Pingwa’s generation, which is not surprising considering the dominance of the ‘Maoist style’ (Li Tuo 1997) and the popularity of ‘obscure poetry’ or the prevalence of free verse in poetry writing since the May Fourth period in general. Jia Pingwa’s classical poems reﬂect his internalization of the values and the manners generally found in the traditional literati. Two purposes are more than obvious in his utilizing the classical style: self-cultivation and expression, and retrieving the Chinese elite style through poetic forms. Classical poems seem to be more ‘compatible’ with his aspiration to represent the Chinese mentality with Chinese narrative forms. Poems played important textual roles in traditional Chinese novels, and Jia Pingwa’s use of poems as clues to plots in his novels is also a deliberate utilization of another Chinese narrative form to articulate a Chinese narrative identity within his novels. In Jia Pingwa’s controversial novel Defunct Capital, poems play a key role in shaping the story and, in particular, the major character, Zhuang Zhidie. Classical-style poems serve as qualiﬁers for the level of cultural attainment of the individual. The quality and style of the poems produced by each individual vary depending on their talent, age and status. Zhuang Zhidie assumes the role of a literary ﬁgure in the novel, as the narrative calls him a ‘cultural idler’ and his poetic talent is given many opportunities to exhibit itself, in contrast to the basic skills of his other associates.

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The Buddhist way of thought is like the clouds on the peak, the higher you climb, the further they recede; The meaning of belief is like the moon in water, the more you trouble the surface, the deeper the moon sinks. (Jia Pingwa 1993a: 210)

!"# !"#

The original rice, the original sauce and the original cooking; The old household, the old man and the old brand name. (Jia Pingwa 1993: 210)

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Zhuang Zhidie as the best groomed of the poets is prominent at the funerals of his friends, initially that of Zhong Weixian , the editor-in-chief of Xijing Magazine, and that of Gong Jingyuan, the calligrapher. On both occasions in only a short time, Zhuang composes well-constructed, contentspeciﬁc couplets to mourn the dead.

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Don’t be downcast because luck is so ﬁckle: the lotus is beautiful growing in mud; when trees spread their leaves wide, the birds know warmth; and the winter plums are already blooming red. Don’t dismiss life as too short: the glow-worms run wild for the night ends soon; when the moon loses its harsh glare, the stars hide in the darkness; and the song of the autumn cicada slowly fades. (Jia Pingwa 1993a: 364)

!"#$%"&'()*+,"-. .$#/0 !"#$%"&'()*+,"-..# $/0

I was born after you and you died before me; the Western Capital cannot keep its guests; the wind cries for you as well as for me; there is no border between life and death. You are in the world of yin and I in the world of yang; a man can be buried wherever the earth is yellow; the rain mocks you as well as me; there is no gulf between yin and yang. (Jia Pingwa 1993a: 412)

!" !"

In life or death you have one son Dead or alive we are four brothers (Jia Pingwa 1993a: 410) Zhuang’s couplets are neatly composed following the general requirements for form. The elegance of Zhuang’s lines sharply contrasts with the crude lines of his friend Ruan Zhifei:

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Brother Gong, now that you’re dead, your calligraphy must triple in price. Who can I turn to? From now on, there’s always an empty seat at the mah-jong table. (Jia Pingwa 1993a: 412)

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Street ballads and Shaanxi folksongs in Defunct Capital Jia Pingwa also has recourse to ballads and folksongs in his ﬁction, particularly in Defunct Capital, where they appear as popular expressions of social concerns and popular feelings. The lyrics of the ballads and folksongs are able to capture the ‘authentic’ atmosphere of the general mood of Chinese society in the early 1990s. Both can also effectively underscore Jia Pingwa’s search for a Chinese ‘indigenous’ identity for his writing, since they were an integral feature of premodern Chinese novels. The cultural circles surrounding Zhuang Zhidie are mostly the cultural elite of Xijing, and the traditions he cultivates are associated with high culture or literati practices. The narrative, on the other hand, does not conﬁne itself to elite culture and deliberately draws on resources from the arena of popular culture to add other dimensions to its depiction of Chinese culture. With expressions rich in local ﬂavour, street ballads are one of the major forms of popular culture adopted by Defunct Capital. Street ballads help the narrative to absorb and demonstrate the street-level Chinese social traditions.4 Jia Pingwa ﬁnds the meaning in the form itself as conveyor of a narrative identity and tradition. There are about ﬁfteen street ballads in the text, some of which are directly related to the plot while others are simply ‘decorative’ parts of the narrative mode, but most are about the public’s discontent with social injustice or corruption in politics.5 Woven throughout the narrative, street ballads in Defunct Capital are mostly composed and sung in a manner reminiscent of classical Chinese narrative traditions. The character central to the performance of the street ballads is an old man, who makes his living by visiting the authorities to challenge their decision about his career. He used to be a country schoolteacher but has given up teaching to petition the authorities to attend to injustices in his employment situation. Always pulling a two-wheel cart through the busy streets of Xijing, he sings ballads whenever he likes. Much to the dislike of the authorities, his ballads go beyond his own misfortune and expose the corruption and injustices in society in general. They bitterly mock Chinese political culture with idioms and metaphors that are easily remembered and passed on among his audiences. The following examples illustrate the kind of popular political humour the ballads aim at achieving:

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[The ofﬁcial] drinks a little revolutionary wine every day. It hurts his stomach and the Party’s reputation. His wife is so angry she turns her back on him,

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Poetry, essays and textual personality And reports him to the disciplinary committee. But the CCP Secretary says: Well, it wouldn’t be right not to drink one’s share. (Jia Pingwa 1993a: 73) !__ !"#$% !"#$ !"#$ On his belt [the ofﬁcial] hangs a pager. In his hand, he holds a mobile phone. In the restaurant he orders roast chicken. In the hotel he sleeps with a whore. (Jia Pingwa 1993a: 390) !"#$%&'()*+), !"#$%&D !"# !"#$%&'()*+, !"#$%&D !"# !"#$%&u !"#$!"%& First-rate writers go in for politics, sucking up to politicians to become advisers; Second-rate writers dash for others’ cash, helping business with their ads; Third-rate writers turn into gangsters, reprinting porn for money; Fourth-rate writers turn out manuscripts, pretending to be digniﬁed with empty stomachs; Fifth-rate writers, you’re damned, wiping your bums and fucking yourselves. (Jia Pingwa 1993a: 437)

As part of the Chinese political tradition, the street ballad has always been a legitimate form of political dissent and social criticism. During the ﬁrst three decades of the PRC, it almost died out as a result of the CCP’s strict social and political control over the entire population. Since the late 1970s, however, the street ballad has returned and has been increasingly popular, as it tells political jokes, expresses mild political dissent and civil dissatisfaction, and gives people hearty laughs. Nowadays street ballads are often transmitted by word of mouth. Oral performances as depicted in Defunct Capital are seldom heard on the streets.6 The street ballad is also indicative of how ordinary Chinese people relate to the authorities as ‘subjects’ rather than citizens even in today’s China. The goal of exploring the street ballads in Defunct Capital is not so much a comment on Chinese politics as on a cultural tradition, since, typically, street ballads are sung and appreciated as

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a community activity and an interesting street scene, and the entire process of singing, listening and cheering is recorded as a cultural phenomenon. Through incorporating street ballads as a form of Chinese narrative and a form of Chinese political culture, Defunct Capital effectively demonstrates an important feature of the social mechanism of Chinese society. The singing of street ballads in Defunct Capital is most similar to that in The Dream of the Red Chamber. The latter uses street ballads sung by a Taoist and a Buddhist monk, who, as alternative narrators to the major story-teller, are convenient authorities on human truth and individual destiny. Although the old beggar in Defunct Capital is not a monk, he is dressed like one, being costumed in garments made out of a temple banner. Embroidered on his pants is the four-character expression used in almost all the temples in China, youqiu biying !, meaning ‘[The Buddha] answers all who seek help’. The ballad singers of different historical times seem to share many similar personal characteristics, as poor, old, dirty beggars, who are fearless of the authorities and whose ballads are full of sarcasm and black humour. They either foreshadow plot developments or reveal a kind of ‘essence’ of Chinese philosophy of life or else draw life paths for other characters. As social outcasts in their shabby clothes, they seem to be able to speak the ‘truth’ since conventional restrictions and persecution, political or otherwise, do not apply to them. From such intertextual links with a classic like The Dream of the Red Chamber, Defunct Capital is able to present signiﬁcant cultural credentials in terms of its author’s ambition to create a deﬁnitive ‘Chinese narrative’. Closely related to street ballads as expressions of popular culture and local cultural practice are Shaanxi folksongs. Like the street ballad, Shaanxi folksongs are deployed as indicators of local popular cultural tradition. They are known for their freshness, with bold, image-based, passionate expressions of local music. Tang Wanr and Liu Yue are both good folksong singers, whose singing brings the vitality of the village to Zhuang Zhidie and his literati group, who have hardly encountered such vigour in verbal expression. Examples of folksongs by Liu Yue and Tang Wanr: !"#$!%&'"() !"" #$%&'()*+, You take my hand and I kiss you on the mouth; Hand in hand, kissing, let’s take a walk in the valley. (Jia Pingwa 1993a: 147)

!""#$%&'()*+ !"#$%&'()*+,-./

A bright red fruit is peeled, they are all talking about us. Nothing has happened between us but our good names are soiled. (Jia Pingwa 1993a: 147)

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!"#$%&'()*+,-.!/0 !"#$%%&'()*++,,-

The dust is high all the way across the vast Qin plains, Thirty thousand people shouting Shaanxi opera. How happy they are to get a bowl of long noodles, How annoyed they are to ﬁnd there are no chillies. (Jia Pingwa 1993a: 222) The cultural signiﬁcance of Shaanxi folksongs in Defunct Capital is multiple. As a local and ‘low’ cultural form, they are in sharp contrast to the strictly formulated classical poems Zhuang Zhidie uses for self-expression. Folksongs are full of vitality whereas Zhuang Zhidie’s poems are either of disillusionment about life or mourning of death. From style to idioms to images, the folksongs are forceful statements of the vitality of the country compared to the dull descriptions of the defunct capital. The lyrics use many local metaphors to depict local Shaanxi characteristics. The folksongs also constitute the gendered roles of different narrative forms. The songs, performed by both Tang Wanr and Liu Yue on occasions when they strongly feel their inadequacy in speech, let alone in writing, assume a secondary, feminine role in relation to the masculinity of Zhuang and his writing, especially in the Chinese classical style. Folksongs have a very special position in the CCP’s history and Defunct Capital’s adoption of them as a local cultural form needs to be seen in the context of the CCP’s political strategy. In the early days of the CCP, folksongs were widely used to mobilize peasants to join the CCP revolution, since they were familiar to the villagers. As a form of popular culture, they carry with them the innate subversiveness to established authorities which made them signiﬁcant weapons in the Chinese communist revolution (McDougall, B. 1984; Holm, D. 1991). The CCP’s early history was inseparable from folksongs and they were used very effectively to communicate with illiterate peasants. Shaanxi folksongs in particular once occupied a central position in the CCP’s propaganda campaigns along with the centrality of Yan’an in the CCP’s earlier history. ‘The East is Red’, a Shaanxi folksong, was adapted by the CCP in the 1930s in praise of Mao as the saviour of the Chinese people and made popular all over China from the Yan’an days. Gu Qing , the protagonist in the ﬁlm Yellow Earth, was travelling in northern Shaanxi on a mission to collect folksongs, as part of the Party’s political strategies (Berry 1985: 62 – 79). After 1949 Shaanxi folksongs gradually lost their central position in the national cultural scene in the same way that Shaanxi was no longer the focus of the CCP or its base. Defunct Capital brings back the relevance of Shaanxi folksongs and they help reassert the cultural identity of Shaanxi in the Chinese national cultural discourse.

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Self, society and cultural space in the essay

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7

Jia Pingwa’s essays are an enormous undertaking and they cover an extremely wide range of topics, including travel, natural landscape, local customs, exotic cuisines, family life, relationships, social and cultural phenomena, philosophy, commentary on arts and literature, prefaces, postscripts, reﬂections about his own writing and those of others, and many more. In the 2000s, he has even taken up writing commentaries for local newspapers about international and national soccer matches. This magnitude, range and variety mean it is difﬁcult to conduct a meaningful analysis within a limited space. To date the most comprehensive study on Jia Pingwa’s prose writing is the monograph Studies on Jia Pingwa’s Essays (Jia Pingwa sanwen yanjiu !"#$) by Zeng Lingcun (2003). Other materials include Fei Bingxun’s chapters on Jia Pingwa’s essays (Fei Bingxun 1992: 149–73) and Wang Yongsheng’s The Language World of Jia Pingwa (Jia Pingwa de yuyan shijie !"#$%) with a most useful list of articles on Jia Pingwa’s essays (Wang Yongsheng 1994: 296–315). Fei Bingxun’s assessment of Jia Pingwa’s essays, although not the most up-to-date, lists the key features, most of which are still applicable. In Fei Bingxun’s perception, Jia Pingwa’s essays have developed a highly individualistic style as they are writings of sincerity and emotional truth; they have successfully inherited the subtle manner of juxtaposition of imagery in traditional Chinese poetry and painting; and they offer both philosophical contemplation and enlightenment with extraordinary sensitivity to the immediate environment (Fei Beingxun 1992: 150–4). Zeng Lingcun’s study groups them into six categories: art (tanyilu ); travel writing ( fengqinglei ); society (shiqingpian ); solace and reﬂection (antuo zhizuo !); soulsearching (linghunpian ); and others (qita ) (Zeng Lingcun 2003: 19–25). The author’s own selection of his essays published by Guangxi’s Lijiang publisher in 1987 was a very comprehensive collection and he had divided his own prose output into ﬁve sections with titles suggestive of their respective content: ‘Traces of the moon’ (Yueji ); ‘Traces of love’ (Aiji ); ‘Traces of the heart’ (Xinji ); ‘Traces of feet’ (Zongji ); ‘Traces of words’ (Wenji ). These categories are helpful to perceive the diversity of Jia Pingwa’s prose writing but they are not sufﬁcient for an understanding of the organic coherence and totality of Jia Pingwa’s essays or his literary achievement as a whole. It is important to understand the deliberate and multilayered links between the subjectivity of Jia Pingwa’s authorship and the composition of essays in order to comprehend the scope and the goal of his literary undertaking. Essay writing for Jia Pingwa can be therapeutic, as it provides space for self-expression, self-indulgence and self-cultivation. The essay provides a ﬂexible forum to enable him to make direct social, cultural and artistic commentaries and express his own literary thoughts and ideas. Furthermore, pursuing the greatest reﬁnement in essays as an art is an end

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in itself for Jia Pingwa. In other words, he has the ambition to produce the most beautiful piece of ‘Chinese’ writing and it impels him to use the essay effectively to return to Chinese traditional aesthetics. This was also the purpose when Jia Pingwa initiated the establishment of the journal Belles Lettres (Meiwan ), which is devoted exclusively to the publication of essays aiming to revitalize the Chinese essay (Jia Pingwa 2000c: 14–8).8 To Jia Pingwa and his colleagues working for the journal, a speciﬁc goal is to search for the ‘grand narrative’ in the Chinese essay (dasanwen ), hence the title of the journal Belles Lettres, for ‘the narrative may remain forever’ (wenzhang qiangushi !") (Jia Pingwa 2000c: 14–15). Jia Pingwa has been editor of the journal and highly instrumental in its success, and he has also subsequently edited a number of essay collections and studies on essay writing (Jia Pingwa 2001i and Jia Pingwa 2000c). It is, therefore, most productive to approach Jia Pingwa’s essays exploring their connections with the author’s subjectivity, for Jia Pingwa has developed an intimacy with the genre so much so that prose writing and his subjectivity are connected in a number of ways. Primarily the essay enables the author to project the self on to natural and cultural objects. The essays also provide concrete details of Jia Pingwa’s family relationships, his social interactions, attitudes to friends and friendship, how he relates to the place where he is or travels to. Finally, his essays contain a large amount of information about his artistic and literary critiques of his own and other people’s writing or art. His prefaces and postscripts in particular are important documents of Jia Pingwa’s professional development and of his conceptualization and production of speciﬁc works. The essay and the self It is common for melancholy to serve as the motivation of creativity, and many great literary works have had their origin in the author’s melancholic self. Jia Pingwa’s emotional state often takes him to a different creative mode, and the melancholic state of mind usually leads him to writing essays. More than once he admits that he composes essays when he feels the weight of inner burdens. For instance: !"#$%&'()*+,-&./ $%01#23& !"#$%#&&''( $%#))**+,-.#/0 !"#$%!&'())%*+,-. Leaﬁng through the essays I wrote in the past, clearly I wrote more essays on the days when I did not feel happiest. I believe, in the likelihood of the impending chaos of the near future and in the likelihood of many worries and days of melancholy, what really belongs to me, would have to be this tiny piece of land. (Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.14: 179)

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The therapeutic function of the essay for Jia Pingwa derives from the narrative mode since the act of writing reﬂective essays gives him the opportunity to release his inner tension. What is special about the essay for Jia Pingwa, and for other Chinese writers as well, is that it allows the author to ponder the relation between the self and the outside world through projecting the self on to ‘objects of self-identiﬁcation’. Those objects go back a long way to be associated with the self-expressions of the Chinese literati, whether of the sun, the moon, the clouds, the trees, the wind, the horse, the Buddha’s image or the imaginary crane. Those objects have become symbols or even cultural icons as they have standardized connotations in the context of Chinese poetics. They offer poetic possibilities of solace, and the literati’s literary output in turn forms highly visible emotional patterns in connection with these symbols. Although each has to be creative enough to formulate new lines poetically, one is also expected to conform to the imagery and the cultural codes creatively. Jia Pingwa excels in his effort at creatively adhering to the cultural tradition of essay composition, and his essays are a combination of exquisite musicality in its linguistic ﬂair and the most pragmatic earthly concerns. One of his biographers, Mu Tao , calls Jia Pingwa ‘the last literatus’ and insists that his writing ‘is very close to the writings of traditional literati’ (Jia Pingwa 1994j: 43, 75). This is especially the case in terms of the personality displayed in Jia Pingwa’s essays. In general, his essays continue in the tradition of classical prose writing in their themes, style and language. Like literati in the past, Jia Pingwa’s essays are either comments on landmarks or landscape or elaborations on cultural objects in reﬁned and exquisite language in a free style that reﬂects the meandering of a literary spirit and imagination. Fei Bingxun’s judgement is that Jia Pingwa deliberately learns from past masters of Chinese literature for artistic inspiration and modes of expression. Su Shi and Sima Qian, among others, were Jia Pingwa’s models for the choice of subject matter and style (Fei Bingxun 1992: 152, 218). Jia Pingwa’s essays are a continuation of and development from the traditions of past literary giants. The moon, for instance, is the most frequently used motif in Jia Pingwa’s writing, and his adoption of the imagery is both conventional and innovative. Many of his short stories have the moon in their titles and many of his female characters have the moon or the word yue in their names, where Jia Pingwa tends to associate the moon with feminine beauty or femininity. In his earlier essays, however, the imagery of the moon has a very different function, as it takes on the role of a companion to the narrator, as the moon does in many classical Chinese poems. Jia Pingwa has a group of essays which he calls ‘Traces of the Moon’ (e.g. Jia Pingwa 1982a, Jia Pingwa 1987b) and many pieces have the moon as the central motif, such as ‘Traces of the Moon’ ( yueji ) (Jia Pingwa 1987b: 37–40), ‘Facing the Moon’ (duiyue ) (Jia Pingwa 1987b: 59–61), and ‘The Moon Mirror’ ( yuejian ) (Jia Pingwa 1987b: 82). These pieces were written in the 1980s when

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Jia Pingwa was a young man, far more sensitive than his current emotional state. Marvelling at the beauty of the moon and its power to induce the viewer to self-reﬂection, the essays allow the author to confess his inner turbulence under the purifying force of the moonlight. The moon and the self are closely connected because the moon symbolically and practically becomes a mirror in which the author is able to perceive the self through its reﬂection. In his recent essays, however, as the author grows increasingly selfconﬁdent, the relationship between the self and its textual elaboration has become more philosophical with a pragmatic focus. The sentimentalism of his youth seems to have been replaced by a more poignant assessment of his immediate environment and inner responses. ‘Talking Big at the Age of Fifty’ (Wushi dahua !) (Jia Pingwa 2003a: 19–21) exempliﬁes the changes in his self-assessment and in his adoption of a much plainer language and images for self-representation. !"#$%&%'( !)*%+,-./"01234&5 !"= !"#$%&'()*+",-. !"#$%&'($'(&)*+$ &,-./0 !"#$%D !"#$%&'()*+%,-#./0 !"#$== !"#$%&"'()*+,-./0 !"#$%&' !()*+",-.,/0123+" !"#$%&'()* !"#$%&'(")*+,-./+01234+56 When turning ﬁfty, no, actually after forty, you will know that in one’s lifetime one can only produce very few achievements and that most of your engagement is to ﬁnd your own place. It has eventually dawned on me that I am a strong person. A strong person is much kinder so that I am able to live my life happily. No longer do I need to take cigarettes and wine to linger around the doors of ofﬁcials, or to beg the ofﬁcials for their opinions about my books, my calligraphy or my painting . . . well, it is shameful to smear other people’s reputations but it is not right either if one takes too much pride in oneself. Most appropriately, one should distance oneself from all that. I have been writing but not until recently have I discovered how to write, and learnt how to live. I therefore remind myself: learn to appreciate. What counts in the end is an old saying: My life is all but my heart, which is not warmed by the opinions of others; My writing is to stay forever, which I did for reasons of solace. (Jia Pingwa 2003a: 19–21) As in the above passage, self-discovery or puriﬁcation is no longer the concern. Rather, the author’s attention is on the mundane nature of writing and living as well as his discovery of strength in himself.

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Jia Pingwa’s essays reinforce his ‘doubleness’ as a traditional literatus and a modern intellectual. On the one hand, many of his essays reveal him as a traditional literatus who differs from and complements the peasant writer, and the literatus Jia Pingwa seems much calmer and detached from social reality, concentrating on self-cultivation, aspiring towards aesthetic beauty and emotional peace. He practises high culture and makes efforts to excel as much as he is able to in the ‘four arts’ of the literati, namely the seven-string zither, Chinese chess, go or weiqi , calligraphy and painting (wenren siyi, qin, qi, shu, hua !, !). On the other hand, as an intellectual, he cannot help but voice his opinions on social phenomena and social issues important to the people that he cares about. Those issues dealt with in his essays frequently turn up in his novels as focal points and, in this sense, social realism, rather than other modes of narrative framework such as modernism or postmodernism, dominates Jia Pingwa’s prose narratives. The essay and society Jia Pingwa’s essays of social commentary can be sharply observant and highly critical of customs and social phenomena. Also, because of his sharp observations, the essays are able to reveal the most obvious points that often escape people’s notice. Two brilliant series of essays, one on contemporary Chinese social behaviour and the other on archetypal personalities, are the best instances in this category. Setting out with a structure based on the verb ‘shuo ’ or ‘speaking about’, the ﬁrst series captures very effectively the characteristic features of this subgenre in Jia Pingwa’s essays and they cover many familiar modes of behaviour of Chinese people. The list includes: ‘Speaking about Conversation’ (Shuohua ), ‘Speaking about Flattering’ (Shuo fengcheng ), ‘Speaking about Dinner Parties’ (Shuo qingke ), ‘Speaking about Raising Children’ (Shuo haizi ), ‘Speaking about Being Sick’ (Shuo shengbing ), ‘Speaking about Family Life’ (Shuo jiating ), ‘Speaking about Dressing Oneself ’ (Shuo daban ), ‘Speaking about Cosmetology’ (Shuo meirong ), ‘Speaking about Houses’ (Shuo fangzi ), ‘Speaking about Spending Money’ (Shuo huaqian ), ‘Speaking about Death’ (Shuo si ), ‘Speaking about Living’ (Shuo huo ), ‘Speaking about Soccer Games’ (Shuo zuqiu ), ‘Speaking about Soccer Fans’ (Shuo qiumi )9 and ‘Speaking about Giving and Taking’ (Shuo shede ) (Jia Pingwa 2003a). Presenting and juxtaposing everyday practice in social interaction, these essays expose with great insight and sarcasm life problems that every ordinary Chinese faces daily. The author is able to penetrate the corrupted social etiquette in contemporary Chinese society, in which many Chinese ﬁnd themselves trapped. Because the subject matter of these essays is the mundane reality of Chinese personal and social life that all are only too familiar with, Jia Pingwa’s defamiliarization of the contemporary Chinese quotidian endears his reader to his essays immensely. Moreover,

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the revitalization and further development of traditional usage and expressions enable these essays to give textual pleasure with easy access to a very wide readership. The following is a few lines from his essay ‘Speaking about Dinner Parties’, which are illustrative of the style and characteristics typical of Jia Pingwa’s social commentary: !"#$%& '()*+,-./0*&()*1 !"#$%& '(D !"#$%&'( !" !"#$#%&'()" *'+,-./'012' !"#$#$!%&'()*+,-./,01!23456 !"#$%&'()*+,-#'./*+01#23456 !"#$%&'( If the hosts held a dinner party but did not succeed in their request for help, they would invite the guest no more. They would even consider this dinner ‘being thrown at the dogs’. Those who were normally invited, especially those who helped you, would expect you make some gesture and would ask how come you were not even offering a dinner in return? Some people, on the other hand, are so fed up with dinner parties. Thinking that the meals belong to others but the stomach is his own, the guest feels that he wastes too much time on meaningless socializing. He says, therefore, don’t worry about dinner, there is no need, and he will do his best to help. Well, nobody believes a word he utters until it is certiﬁed by dining together. Of course, if one accepts invitations, one sells oneself as a hostage and turns one’s tummy into a graveyard for all the dead animals. (Jia Pingwa 1998e: 323–4) A few of Jia Pingwa’s essays on stereotypical personalities in the community are organized under the character ‘ren ’ or person(s), such as ‘A Frantic Person’ (Mangren ) (Jia Pingwa 1998e: 337–9), ‘Idlers’ (Xianren ) (Jia Pingwa 1998e: 340–5), ‘Chess Players’ (Yiren ) (Jia Pingwa 1998e: 346–50), ‘Observing People’ (Kanren ) (Jia Pingwa 1998e: 358–65) and ‘Celebrities’ (Mingren ) (Jia Pingwa 1995f: 46–52). For instance, ‘Idlers’ deals with the social group that has its traditions in the chivalric ﬁghters of past times (xiake ), who were exponents of the martial arts, educated and determined to ﬁght for social justice against evil forces. The essay highlights and stereotypes their characteristics, ethics, codes of behaviour and role in contemporary society. ‘On Women’ (Guanyu nüren !) (Jia Pingwa 1995f: 73–8) is a demonstration of Jia Pingwa’s value judgement of gender relations and his interpretation of what accounts for women’s independence and liberation. He describes Chinese society as essentially

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patriarchal and offers advice to women on how to make themselves attractive to men in order to achieve ‘true equity’ with them. ‘Celebrities’ gives an almost autobiographical account of the process through which Jia Pingwa himself became a famous person. The piece, written on his thirty-eighth birthday, playfully expresses bitterness at the disastrous consequences encountered in the everyday life of a celebrity. His observations in these essays are further developed in Defunct Capital and the major characters in that novel are drawn from these three groups of characters. Noticeably, Jia Pingwa is highly skilled in distilling mundane events into patterns of cultural signiﬁcance identiﬁable by Chinese readers in general and this effect contributes greatly to his appeal. Another characteristic of his cultural critiques is that, however sharp and penetrating they are, they do not demonstrate political partisanship or take a clear stance in ideological battles. The essay and the place Jia Pingwa has been known as a reluctant traveller outside of his native Shaanxi. Unlike many major Chinese writers today, he has travelled only once overseas to the United States via Hong Kong and has not elaborated a great deal about that trip. In recent years, he has increasingly travelled to other provinces and cities, especially to the north-western regions. His travel writing, therefore, is primarily about two kinds of places: his native Shaanxi and the places he has visited within China. Strictly speaking, one may argue that writing about one’s native place may not exactly be travel writing. In Jia Pingwa’s case, however, the native place itself becomes the subject matter of his ‘random jottings’, with the place’s geographical features and cultural practices as the narrative focus. His returning visits to the villages and small towns of Shangzhou region are signiﬁcant journeys of discovery and self-discovery, and for this reason his essays on Shangzhou are both sketches of its visual images and studies of its ethnography. These essays show Jia Pingwa’s careful examination of his cultural identiﬁcation and his connection with his cultural roots, which he ﬁnds in his native place. The best known of Jia Pingwa’s travel writings on his native place is ‘Three Records of Shangzhou’, ﬁrst published separately as ‘Initial Records of Shangzhou’, ‘More Records of Shangzhou’ and ‘Further Records of Shangzhou’.10 Imitating traditional Chinese historical writing, ‘Three Records of Shangzhou’ was conceptualized as the ‘true records’ of Shangzhou region’s geography, landscape, people and customs. They are made of short pieces independent of each other, and each piece may deal with only one aspect of the local history, a small part of the village life or a village personality. ‘Three Records of Shangzhou’ pioneers Jia Pingwa’s invention of ‘literary ethnography’ – an infusion of different literary genres with the narrative focus on presenting the personality of the place through exploring its history, geography, social fabric, customs and people. The Best of Jia Pingwa’s Travel Writing (Jia Pingwa 1992f ) has a number of essays on the

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customs and people in other areas of Shaanxi, among which, most impressively, is a group of essays on the local culinary art of Shaanxi. To Chinese readers in general, Shaanxi’s cuisine is normally considered nothing more than bread in a bowl of lamb broth with vegetables. In the space of a dozen short essays, Jia Pingwa is able to put Shaanxi cuisine on the cultural map of China. Typically, his mapping of the local landscape is achieved through portraying local lives, namely how the locals live their daily lives. The local folks ‘belong’ to the land in the sense that they are part of the landscape like other natural elements, and, as such, they are active embodiments of local culture. When Jia Pingwa travels to other parts of China, he takes detailed records of experiences, observations and emotions. In the same manner that traditional Chinese literati ‘enculture’ landscape when travelling or in exile, Jia Pingwa’s travel offers him the opportunities to gaze into environments unfamiliar to him physically where he ventures into discoveries of beauty, culture and intellectual or poetic inspiration. His travel writing demonstrates a literary mind able to respond to a large variety of cultural stimuli and engage in reﬂections about the locality and its cultural history, wherever that may be. A comparison between Li Bai’s poem ‘Hard is the Road to Shu’ (Shudao nan ) and Jia Pingwa’s ‘Notes on Reaching Sichuan’ (Ru Chuan xiaoji !) (Jia Pingwa 1998, v.11: 261–266) reveals similarities in the choice of subject matter, the attitude of a detached outsider or observer, the distinguished and exquisite beauty in language and style, and extraordinary skills in representing the beauty of the landscape. Li Bai’s composition is in the form of a classical poem, very much a ‘narrative’ with detailed picturesque descriptions of the natural landscape. Jia Pingwa’s piece, on the other hand, is devoted to the cultural scape. The writer’s gaze into Sichuan renders it as the ‘exotic’ neighbour in relation to Shaanxi and the description quickly moves from images of the natural landscape into the culture and customs of the city of Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan province, with a focus on the cuisine and lifestyle of the locals there. Of course, many Chinese writers would write about Sichuan by means of recalling Li Bai’s masterpiece but Jia Pingwa’s modelling of Li Bai’s poetic imagery takes him to his own narrative height that also enables him to the discovery of Chengdu’s charm in a style more appropriate for the present. In other words, aesthetically and linguistically, Jia Pingwa’s piece is no less reﬁned than Li Bai’s. The most signiﬁcant of Jia Pingwa’s writings on the places he has visited include ‘Notes on Reaching Sichuan’, ‘Notes on Travelling in South China’ (Nanguo biij !), ‘On the Way to Xinjiang’ (Xilushang ), and ‘Diaries in the South of the Yangtzu River’ (Jiangzhe riji !). In these pieces, the focus is on the connections between the landscape, local people and local customs with Shaanxi in the background as cultural references and as the point of departure for him to perceive his cultural ‘other’. A keen observer of regional differences, Jia Pingwa believes that one’s literary style,

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especially that of the essay, is to a large extent shaped by geographical and cultural conditioning. These writings are also largely cultural elaborations and articulations of personal aspirations projected through the landscape and they disclose a profound nostalgia for traditional cultural practices, sentiments and emotional patterns. His depiction of landscape and place uses similar language and symbols to traditional Chinese landscape paintings, and travel for Jia Pingwa, as for the literati before him, is a pilgrimage and a quest for spirituality into the cultural history and natural landscape. Both in terms of subject matter and artistic expression, Jia Pingwa’s travel writing is comparable to many of the best examples in Chinese literary history. They are both a return to and a departure from the traditions of the genre. Jia Pingwa’s essays display his poetic and cultural readings of nature, environment, people and social interaction and they offer great textual pleasure as his writing achieves elegance with refreshing images in a plain, descriptive language. The essay and literary criticism A considerable proportion of Jia Pingwa’s essays comprises prefaces, postscripts and correspondence devoted to the discussion of his own works and the creative productions of others. Since the mid-1980s Jia Pingwa has often been asked to write prefaces for works produced by other writers, especially junior writers. He has also produced much commentary on paintings and calligraphy of Shaanxi’s local artists. The fourteenth and eighteenth volumes in the collection edited by Wang Yongsheng have collected all these writings (Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.14; 2004, v.18), including transcripts of a number of interviews with Jia Pingwa by critics. These writings form a signiﬁcant and substantial subgenre in Jia Pingwa’s essay output as they are his forum for literary criticism and theoretical issues. In prefaces and postscripts Jia Pingwa usually provides summaries of his narrative intentions and relevant information about the creative process, hoping that his explanation will afford maximum appreciation of his creative intent and eliminate ‘misreading’ of his works as much as possible. These writings, therefore, are important documents in understanding Jia Pingwa’s perspective regarding his own work and in assessing his viewpoints on many important issues in the contemporary Chinese literary scene. For instance, his postscript ‘About Health Report’ (Guanyu ‘Bingxiang baogao’ !"#$) traces the path of his thoughts in the process of writing Health Report, believing that this helps him explain his views on cultural issues (wenhuaguan ) (2003a: 130–1).11 Apart from providing information about his own writing and offering ad hoc art criticism on the paintings and calligraphy of acquaintances, three issues have been central to Jia Pingwa’s preoccupations. First, in these essays, he is most likely to express his views and perception of Chinese literature, especially the contemporary literary scene, experiments in ﬁction

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and his own positioning in the literary establishment. Second, essays provide the venue where he comments on the changes and trends in essay writing. As editor of Belles Lettres and one of the most prominent essayists in contemporary China, Jia Pingwa has systematically developed his theoretical position about the essay. The notion of the ‘grand essay’ (dasanwen ), that is, that the essay should be divorced from petty emotional meandering, is the core of his view in this regard (Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.14: 289 – 90; Jia Pingwa 2000c: 14 –8; Jia Pingwa 2003a: 223 –36). Literary language is another of his major concerns and increasingly so in recent years. He believes approaches to language for the essay should be different from those to the language of novels and short stories so as to correspond with their varied narrative purposes, although he also talks about literary language in general (for instance, Jia Pingwa 2003a: 172–3 and 174–6). Jia Pingwa’s major ideas about narrative language in ﬁction are summarized in his essay ‘On Narrative Language’ (Guanyu xiaoshuo yuyan !"#) (Jia Pingwa 2003a: 237–44). Jia Pingwa strongly believes in the regional identity of the author and its link with the regional characteristics of their literary output.

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Conclusion: the poetics of native place

Narrating China and the poetics of native place My analysis has centred on the conﬁguration of the local in Jia Pingwa’s works and argues that his Shangzhou stories have been built up as a cultural institution in connection with representing the Chinese national cultural space. There are a number of reasons for privileging the reading of Jia Pingwa’s literary texts as a phenomenon of national narration. First, cultural traditions and national identity have been a preoccupation for the greater part of Jia Pingwa’s literary career, sometimes ostensibly declared and sometimes subsumed. Second, in the study of Chinese literature, nationalism in literary representation has not been adequately explored and so far there have not been many substantial works on China’s literary national imagining, although ‘national salvation’ has been a central and recurrent issue of modern Chinese literature. Third, few critiques have elaborated on China’s nation-narration through regional cultural traditions and local identities. This study of Jia Pingwa’s writing within the framework of ‘nation and narration’ underpins the signiﬁcance of regionality in negotiating China’s national identities as oppositional to the dominance of the CCP-centred national stories and their usual antagonists. Viewed in this light, the most distinctive feature in Jia Pingwa’s national narration is that the entire project is carried out at the local and the community level and that the close connection between the local and the national characterizes his Shangzhou stories. In his book The Nation and Its Fragments, Partha Chatterjee makes two salient points relevant to Jia Pingwa’s narrating China and to cultural nationalism in contemporary China in general. The ﬁrst is his questioning of ‘whose imagined community?’ and the other is his analysis of the relation between the nation and peasants. Chatterjee says: I have one central objection to [Benedict] Anderson’s argument. If nationalisms in the rest of the world have to choose their imagined community from certain ‘modular’ forms already made available to them by Europe and the Americas, what do they have left to imagine? History, it would seem, has decreed that we in the postcolonial world

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Conclusion shall only be perpetual consumers of modernity. Europe and the Americas, the only true subjects of history, have thought out on our behalf not only the script of colonial enlightenment and exploitation, but also that of our anticolonial resistance and postcolonial misery. Even our imagination must remain forever colonized. (Chatterjee 1993: 5)

One of the most apparent of Western inﬂuences on China from the nineteenth century onwards is China’s national imagination and the representation of the Chinese nation in modern Chinese literature. Lydia Liu has succinctly documented how, conceptually, many May Fourth Chinese writers were inﬂuenced by ideas from the West about nation, about China, and about how to represent China. The extent and the scope of the Western impact are effectively summarized in her book title Translingual Practice, which captures the nature of the beginning of the process of China’s modernization. ‘Translingual practice’ refers to how the Chinese intellectuals absorbed ideas from the West through loans from other languages and how they also had to ﬁnd neologisms to express these new ideas in the Chinese language to the masses. Lydia Liu’s assessment also includes the speciﬁc ways in which the West had inﬂuenced Chinese national imagining, especially ‘negative’ Chinese national characterization, such as the writings of Lu Xun (Liu, Lydia 1995: 45–76). Furthermore, I would add, apart from the task of representing the nation, Western literary traditions were also instrumental in the birth of modern Chinese literature in a number of other ways, including the sense of the historical mission to awaken the masses, the adoption of the vernacular with the new vocabulary as a literary language, the adoption of literary genres in Western traditions such as drama, and the adaptation of Chinese literary genres to the forms and standards of those of the West, such as ﬁction and poetry. Novels, short stories and poetry are the genres that have undergone the most drastic changes in the past century. Many writers have indeed turned their back on Chinese narrative traditions in favour of Western narrative devices. Chatterjee’s discussion on ‘the nation and its peasants’ begins with how the European modernizers thought of peasants as embodying all that was backward and premodern, before he demonstrates how peasants in India have been thought of invariably, either by the colonial rulers or by anticolonial nationalists, as simple, ignorant, backward and in need of guidance and help to be woken up to take part in political activities (Chatterjee, P. 1993: 158 – 9). The ‘peasantry discourse’ in Europe and in India in Chatterjee’s presentation has a striking similarity to the Chinese intellectual discourse about peasants, as described by Myron Cohen (Cohen, Myron 1993). Considering the dominance of the bias against peasants in the context of the modernization process in China and internationally, Jia Pingwa’s Shangzhou stories are a unique contribution in their assertion of the peasants’

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presence in contemporary China’s national narration. Jia Pingwa’s Shangzhou stories offer an alternative model for the relation between ‘the nation and its peasants’ and the articulation of the perspective of ‘peasants’, who do not often have a voice. Moreover, the Shangzhou stories also strike a chord with what Chatterjee proposes as ‘notions of community’ which shape the ‘paradigms of peasant consciousness’ as the very Other of ‘bourgeois rationality’ (Chatterjee, P. 1993: 160–7). The core of the ‘peasants’ consciousness’, as I understand it, entails community-oriented ideals and a socio-geographically based membership of communities. Likewise, the focus of Jia Pingwa’s Shangzhou stories is on the community, and in his major novels especially, the goals of his heroes are usually for the public good of the community. This is the case in Turbulence for Golden Dog, for Chengyi in Earth Gate, for Cai Laohei in Old Gao Village and for Fu Shan in Remembering Wolves. Even in his two novels about Xijing, Defunct Capital and White Nights, which foreground individual protagonists, Zhuang Zhidie and Ye Lang, in the urban environment of their provincial capital the two men are still deeply rooted in their rural connections and community is very important for them to the extent that they even create some quasi-rural community around them in the city. Jia Pingwa’s local stories assert what is local, regional and marginal in China’s mainstream discourse of cultural nationalism. In other words, the Other has been held as essential to the ‘authentic’ China. Contrary to the accepted ‘wisdom’ among the Chinese intellectuals who regard ‘peasants’ as the backwater of Chinese society and poor in ‘culture’ or at least modern culture, Jia Pingwa’s Shangzhou stories give sublimity to what has been considered as mostly ‘feudal’ in the rural context. His writings also demonstrate how the local, rural and folk cultures have been undervalued in and eroded by the Chinese mainstream modernization discourse. At the same time, the Shangzhou stories also very clearly convey the message that death of local cultures and communities will lead to the loss of vitality of Chinese culture. In general, Jia Pingwa’s writings do not deal with ‘issues’, especially overtly political ones, but talk about ‘topics’. His local stories are the necessary transformations of cultural topics that he regards as relevant to contemporary Chinese society. Besides, not only does he wish to tell local stories, he wants to tell the stories as naturally and organically as possible. This organic quality of Jia Pingwa’s narrative sets the Shangzhou stories apart from the usual ‘allegorical grand narratives’ involved in national narration. For Jia Pingwa, the anthropology of native place and the quotidian of the community are far more meaningful and signiﬁcant, and they are the reason that Jia Pingwa’s ﬁction and essays should be regarded collectively and ultimately as an epic of his native place. Precisely in the sense of cultural mapping, Jia Pingwa’s native place is both the cultural space of ‘authentic’ China and its Other similarly to the way in which Rey Chow sees Zhang Yimou’s ﬁlms. She insists that Zhang Yimou’s visual presentation is ‘ethnography as it is

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practised by those who were previously ethnographized and who have, in the postcolonial age, taken up the active task of ethnographizing their own cultures’ (Chow, Rey 1995: 180, her emphasis). If I may also borrow Rey Chow’s consideration of Zhang Yimou’s visual ethnography as translating ‘China’ (Chow, Rey 1995: 183–4, my emphasis), Jia Pingwa’s Shangzhou stories are certainly a rendering of the Shaanxi local into the Chinese national. The distinction between Jia Pingwa’s national narration and those of the standard ‘grand narratives’ can perhaps be best illustrated through a brief comparison with Chen Zhongshi’s White Deer Plain, published in the same year as Jia Pingwa’s Defunct Capital (Chen Zhongshi 1993). Like Jia Pingwa, Chen Zhongshi is from Shaanxi and White Deer Plain is similarly situated in Shaanxi. However, Chen’s novel accentuates Shaanxi as the birthplace of the modern Chinese nation by tracing major political events in Chinese modern history and their local manifestation. As a national epic, it offers a glorious historical panorama with the CCP as the ‘master’ of China’s nationalist discourse. It was no surprise that White Deer Plain won the Mao Dun Literary Prize in 1998 and Chen Zhongshi was promoted as the president of Shaanxi Writers Association. In comparison, Jia Pingwa’s ethnographic accounts of the native place offer very little historical or national grandeur. His Shangzhou stories, although there are certainly connections with the Chinese national history, primarily show details of how local people live in their native place, and how local cultures are lived and regenerated. What Jia Pingwa regards as culturally and therefore narratively relevant includes local lifestyle, local belief systems and the manner in which people conduct life’s rituals. Jia Pingwa’s Shangzhou stories present a paradox in which the quotidian of the local is transformed into the subliminal and the national. The two sides of the coin – the local and the national – are joined through his institutionalization of ‘native place’, with the notion that Shangzhou is native place to the locals but also native place to the Chinese civilization and therefore place of origins for national cultural traditions. It is in this sense that Jia Pingwa’s Shangzhou stories amount to an institution of native place for regional Shaanxi and for China as a nation.

Authenticity and ﬁctional estrangement Jia Pingwa’s Shangzhou stories have effectively created a poetics of native place with authenticity as a key notion, for Jia Pingwa’s ethnographic intention urges him to ‘seek truth from ﬁction’. Hence the entire enterprise of Shangzhou stories aims at lending perceptible authenticity to the place and its meaning for the local people. How could anyone claim truth from ﬁction, one may ask, even if what Jia Pingwa writes is hardly pure ﬁction? Nevertheless, authentic ethnography through ﬁctional estrangement is precisely what the author aspires to achieve and Jia Pingwa’s poetic authenticity is realized through three major mechanisms: the fantastic as real, the ethnographic as real and the simple as real.

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The fantastic as real The fantastic in Jia Pingwa’s ﬁction has two aspects: the practice of popular belief systems in rural and urban communities and the supernatural phenomena, although there is no clear-cut distinction between the two. Jia Pingwa became interested in incorporating the practice of popular belief systems in his ﬁction as early as the mid-1980s. His novella ‘The Auspicious Gravesite’ (Meixuedi ) explores the belief and practice of fengshui in a village. In Turbulence, Taoism plays a central role in plot development, in the layout of the local environment and in the balance of village power politics. In Defunct Capital the practice of glyphomancy is frequently used at key moments to the storyline. The practice of Buddhism and its central notions pervade the narrative, including reincarnation, the division and the convergence of the worlds of the living and the dead, and the predetermination of the destiny of events and individuals. The adoption of supernatural phenomena in Jia Pingwa’s writing is connected with his hope of reviving the ‘indigenous magic realism’ that has long existed in premodern Chinese writings. As a narrative mode, magic realism is known to treat ‘impossible’ events as real, contrary to conventional views of reality. Generally speaking, the mythical and the fantastic range from extraordinary modes of communication between animals and humans, or between nature and humans, or between the dead and the living, to ghosts able to assume presence in the human world. Jia Pingwa’s novels since the 1990s all have magic realist elements present. In Defunct Capital there are the cow with her philosophical quest; the incident at the beginning of four ﬂowers of different colours blossoming and perishing on one plant to symbolize, perhaps, either the four beautiful women associated with Zhuang Zhidie or the four cultural idlers who, one after another, end in misfortune; the day on which four suns scorch from the sky; the magic and perceptive power of Zhuang Zhidie’s mother-in-law and her mythic existence between the worlds of yin and yang. In White Nights, the narrative has the reincarnated man playing a central role in connecting both the narrative events and its major characters. In Earth Gate Grandpa Yunlin has magic powers in many areas, from his magic medical skills to his ability to predict the future. In Old Gao Village, the entire village is under the spell of the frequent appearance of UFOs and the fengshui of White Cloud Mountain. The young boy Stone, born paralysed from the waist down, is able to draw objects and events he has never seen in his life and to predict future events accurately. In Remembering Wolves, wolves and humans share an ‘oppositional coexistence’ until the distinction between them eventually disappears. All these phenomena are present in the narrative as an organic part of the community life and they are ‘real’ as experiences either lived, perceived or believed. Magic realism is not about reality per se but about reality as experienced or present in the mind of those who are directly involved. The ‘magical moments’ in Jia Pingwa’s narratives are always aspects of the place as a living environment for the personages in the story.

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The ethnographic as real The authenticity of Jia Pingwa’s Shangzhou stories also lies in the quality of the stories being organic to the cultural and natural environment of the local place. However, in the Shangzhou stories, authenticity does not have much to do with realism or naturalism. Rather, authenticity means credibility for the local and about the local. Jia Pingwa incorporates into his narratives as much ‘credible’ ethnographic material as possible: folklore tales, urban myths, historical events, gazette records, folksongs, local music and many more – in other words, material that brings the place to life and mark the place ‘real’. One of the recurrent ethnographic elements in Jia Pingwa’s writing, for instance, is the presence of indigenous Chinese musical instruments, classical Chinese music, local music and local opera or other local entertainments. For historical reasons, not many types of indigenous Chinese instruments have survived and are still in popular use today. Many instruments which have been adopted by Chinese or the Han Chinese for centuries and are very popular in modern times originated elsewhere – the pipa and the erhu are cases in point. Jia Pingwa has been very careful in this respect and he has so far featured only the xun and the guqin prominently as authentic Chinese instruments. Indigenous musical instruments provide both the soundscape and the performance culture associated with the instruments. In Defunct Capital the xun music haunts the city and sings out the pessimistic mood of the general populace. In White Nights the guqin music permeates the air of the city and highlights the guqin’s historical association with Chinese literati. The narrative is able to tell stories of guqin, its music, its players and its audience. In other words, through the cultural associations of guqin, White Nights is able to demonstrate the practice of traditional literati circles and to show that they are an important part of a historical city like Xijing. In Old Gao Village there is the erhu played by Uncle Mihu accompanied by his own singing. In both Defunct Capital and Earth Gate there are the practice and performances of the percussion music originated in Xi’an area from the Tang dynasty. In Remembering Wolves, for instance, a full page of music score of the local mourning song is reprinted with the lyrics, while the narrator listens on and conveys what he hears to the reader (Jia Pingwa 2000a: 73). Local operas such as Qinqiang are frequently staged in Jia Pingwa’s stories both in the villages and in the city of Xijing, and they are an important part of the local life. The simple as real The authenticity of Shangzhou stories is achieved also through simplicity in narrative structure. Jia Pingwa has often expressed an admiration for the ‘naturalness’ of story telling in premodern Chinese ﬁction (for instance, Jia Pingwa 1993a: 519) and ascribes two characteristics to what he calls

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‘naturalness’: ﬁrst, the ﬂuidity of narrative ﬂow in the sense that transitions of events and stories are so easily and naturally achieved that the author’s narrative intention remains indiscernable to the reader; second, the ﬂow of the story takes charge of the narrative so that any premeditation on characterization, plot development, narrative devices etc. becomes irrelevant in the creative process. In this sense, local stories should be equivalent to ‘simple stories’, although simplicity here does not mean ‘shallowness’ or ‘superﬁciality’. For stories to be ‘authentically’ local, according to Jia Pingwa, they have to have local currency, i.e. the stories have to be from the local and about the local. The best illustration of Jia Pingwa’s intention in this regard is his recent collection of short stories, Stories Overheard (Tinglaide gushi !"; Jia Pingwa 2002e). Stories Overheard also reﬂects recent changes in Jia Pingwa’s attitude towards narrative language and literary aesthetics. Jia Pingwa’s early Shangzhou stories are characterized by an exquisite beauty of narrative language, particularly the musicality in the rhythm of the narrative voice and the refreshing imagery his prose is able to present. His ‘Three Records of Shangzhou’ is most representative of his achievement in this regard. In recent years, his inclination towards ‘naturalness’ of narrative ﬂow and his increasing admiration for the ‘small-talk’ quality in premodern Chinese ﬁction have led to his re-evaluation of literary aesthetics and, consequently, he tends to use more ‘natural’ or commonplace language in his narrative. Jia Pingwa’s return to the Chinese narrative traditions is a continuous journey and his aim is to produce writings that regenerate Chinese narrative traditions. Many scholars have commented on Defunct Capital, and the most frequently discussed aspect of that novel is its intertextuality with premodern Chinese novels. Sheldon Lu’s chapter ‘Literature: Intellectuals in the Ruined Metropolis at the Fin de Siècle’ offers most insightful comments through detailed comparison between Defunct Capital and a number of premodern Chinese ﬁctional writings, especially in terms of Jia Pingwa’s indigenization of narrative devices (Lu, Sheldon 2001: 239–59, esp. 244–52). However, I believe the most important aspect of intertextuality between Jia Pingwa’s and premodern Chinese writings is the conceptualization that underlies the writing of ﬁction as ‘small talk’ (xiaoshuo ), and this conceptual similarity with premodern narratives marks out Jia Pingwa from most other contemporary Chinese writers and has been fundamental in his continuous borrowing of narrative devices from, as Sheldon Lu demonstrates, the novels of the Ming and Qing periods. This spirit of reinvention and regeneration of Chinese narrative traditions distinguishes Jia Pingwa’s literary nativism from most of what has been considered ‘native-soil’ literature or other literary endeavours to return to the Chinese cultural origin. Jia Pingwa’s poetics of native place is most innovative in its breaking away from Chinese literary establishment, which since the beginning of the twentieth century has intermittently pursued the goal of ‘grand narrative’ and followed a succession of ‘isms’ or trends from

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elsewhere. Writers are easily and often trapped in their resistance to the CCP’s indoctrinations and creative guidelines. What is difﬁcult to achieve is to be genuinely oppositional and yet at the same time artistically innovative. Jia Pingwa’s narratological experimentation is most avant-garde and postmodernist in his radically innovative adaptation to the Chinese narrative traditions. Being postmodernist may be an accident for Jia Pingwa, because his writings borrow so much from premodern Chinese narrative devices that by default they paradoxically qualify as devices often considered as belonging as well to ‘postmodernist narratology’ (for example, Currie 1998). For instance, far greater weight is assigned to imagery, cultural symbols and events than to the growth and development of the central characters. Or multi-narrative voices may be deployed to ‘decentre’ the role of the major narrator, as with the role of the cow in Defunct Capital.

From Health Report to Local Accent: future poetics of native place In 2002, Jia Pingwa published Health Report, a tragic story of love between a man named Hu Fang =and a woman named Jiang Lan . Hu Fang is from a wealthy gentry family of southern Shaanxi with good education and a gift for painting. He had problems with his family and became sympathetic towards communist ideas at college. Escaping from his family, he joined the communist army voluntarily in the 1930s, despite the fact that the CCP was targeting class enemies such as his own family. By chance he met the good-looking Jiang Lan and the two fell in love at ﬁrst sight. Both soon became members of the propaganda team in the communist army, in which Jiang Lan was a singer and a dancer and Hu Fang did painting and brush writing for the organization. They shared a few happy moments, dating secretly against the ‘no-lovers’ rule of the Party at the time. However, from that point onwards, the story changes into a sequence of misfortunes from which Hu Fang suffers. It began with the lovers’ separation, when he was arrested carrying out a military task and was believed to have been murdered, although he was saved by his father with a large ransom. Jiang Lan subsequently moved away from the area with the army and married their best friend, Han Wen , and they settled down in Beijing when the CCP took control of China. Hu Fang had also married someone else but the marriage gave him more agony than comfort and he cherished his true love for Jiang Lan in his heart all those years. He had problems with the various CCP authorities all the time until the 1990s and was frequently persecuted, exiled, tortured and punished. Hu Fang and Jiang Lan did not cross paths until decades later in their late sixties when he accidentally saw a ﬁlm in which she was the leading actress. Just when they eventually managed to get together to consummate their love, Hu Fang died of a stroke. Health Report is a counter-narrative to the orthodox communist revolutionary story that has been an organic part of the CCP’s ofﬁcial historiography. In such revolutionary stories, usually, peasants answer the

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call to arms by the CCP and take part in the communist revolution by joining the army, followed by years of ﬁghting in the sino-Japanese war and/or the civil wars against the nationalists before they eventually become highranking ruling ofﬁcials in Beijing or other cities after the founding of the PRC. Jiang Lan and Han Wen’s stories could have followed such a storyline. Hu Fang’s life story, however, is an irony at the expense of the CCP as his personal history parallels that of the CCP from the Yan’an period in the 1930s until the late 1990s, when most of his misfortunes are inﬂicted by the political campaigns waged by the CCP. Health Report unfolds a personal history against the odds of the national history, in particular against the history of the CCP. The focus is on the hero’s self, his self-perception and his passion. The narrative exposes the tension between the protagonist and the harsh, almost inhuman, environment under the rule of the CCP until the 1990s. Health Report represents a departure from Jia Pingwa’s ﬁction writing in a number of ways. Technically, for the ﬁrst time Jia Pingwa uses multiple narrative voices and Hu Fang’s story is told from the perspectives of a number of people associated with him, distantly or intimately. Thematically, it does not primarily focus on the community or native place and, for the ﬁrst time, the major characters depart their native Shaanxi to live or to live in exile in other parts of China. Politically, the narrative presents itself as a typical ‘post-revolutionary’ narrative, in which the subject’s sexual desire overrides his revolutionary zeal and his personal experiences not only ruin his idealism inspired by communism in his youth but also highlight the inconsistencies and ironies of the Chinese communist revolution. As this book goes to press, Jia Pingwa has just published his tenth novel, entitled Local Accent (Qinqiang ). The book is about the experiences of Shaanxi villagers in the last decade of the twentieth century. The title signals the return of Jia Pingwa’s narrative focus to native place and the continuation of the Shangzhou stories.

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Appendix 1 Interview with Jia Pingwa

The interview took place in Xi’an, China, 27 December 2004. Wang Yiyan: A few months ago, in the preface to Stories Overheard and in the interview between you and Hu Wenfu, you talked about ‘the intellectual substance of literature’. You mentioned that you agree with the view that Confucianism has indoctrinated Chinese writers with a sense of historical responsibility. This view was similar to the notion of ‘obsession with China’ initially formulated in the 1960s by the Chinese-American scholar C. T. Hsia in the postscript of his book A History of Modern Chinese Fiction 1919 –1957. However I believe what is more important and therefore more relevant to our discussion is not any obsession with China on the part of Chinese writers as such, but rather Hsia’s allegation that this obsession has limited the scope of the exploration of the human condition in modern Chinese ﬁction. According to Hsia, when literature advocates a historical or political cause, its literary worth should be questioned. Furthermore, Professor Hsia asserts that the concept of ‘original sin’ in Christianity played an essential role in Western literature. He also believes that, since Chinese writers do not have an underlying conviction of sin, they tend not to probe deep enough in the questions they ask of humanity. In other words, if literature is primarily concerned with social or historical issues, its literary merit is automatically questionable, for great literary works are ultimately concerned with humanity, as shown through the individual. Of course, these views have been much debated. It is unreasonable to regard a speciﬁcally Christian concept and understanding of humanity as fundamental to all humanity. In my own view, what has driven modern Chinese literature has been the continuous emphasis on the didactic function of literature in Chinese society or, alternatively, the conscious resistance to such an imperative by writers in recent decades. Both didacticism and anti-didacticism have coloured Chinese writers’ conceptualizing and representing humanity. What is your view on this? Obviously, Chinese writers can answer this question easily by insisting on the division between the East and the West – Western literature and Chinese literature do not share the same conviction as to the intellectual substance

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of literature, what you might call ‘literary depth’. However, in your discussion of the ‘depth of literature’ with Hu Wenfu, I sense a view that seems very different from the consensus currently popular among writers and critics in China. I wonder if you could elaborate on your view here. How do you deﬁne the concept of ‘literary depth’? Jia Pingwa: I haven’t read Hsia’s book but I feel that he’s got it mostly right. You prefer to use the notions of didacticism and anti-didacticism. In China we often use the notions of political resistance or anti-politicization. I do not fully understand what Hsia means by an ‘obsession with China’ but, in my view, China is a nation with a history of tremendous suffering. It has been bullied by big powers. Naturally the notion that ‘everyone is responsible for the rise and fall of our nation’ has been accepted by all of us and it is in our consciousness. That ‘everyone is responsible for the rise and fall of our nation’ is called political awareness and indeed it has been in the political consciousness of every Chinese. In Chinese traditions, there is a belief in the original goodness of man, but also the belief that men are born evil, as suggested by Han Feizi [Chinese philosopher of the third century BCE] for instance. In Chinese cultural traditions, there are examples of this. Chinese dramas and operas can be seen as didacticism on the high stage. Taoism propagates the concept of being one with nature, while Buddhism styles itself as ‘science of the mind’ and works towards the transcendence of the individual. I think a gap does exist between East and West, between these major cultures, and especially where philosophical concepts are concerned. Buddhism and Taoism are very different from Christianity. I agree with Hsia’s view that the sense of political mission has had negative impacts on the quality of Chinese literary production. However, it is not reasonable to insist on a sharing of the notion of original sin. We simply do not have such a tradition or such a conviction underlying our thinking. I do agree that political mission, historical responsibility and an emphasis on the didactic function of literature have kept Chinese literature from attaining the heights it might have reached. My discussion with Hu Wenfu was aimed at certain critics. Literary criticism is an integral part of Chinese literature. For a long time I have felt that many critics simply wanted to assert their inﬂuence and to direct the thrust of literature. They want to set the criteria, and many of them do insist that writing should be about life, destiny or aspects of social life. If you follow them, your writing is then considered to be good. I would like to borrow an example to illustrate my understanding of the ‘depth of literature’. I saw a television programme recently and was very impressed by its thematic concerns. It’s a pity that I may not be able to retell the story properly, but the programme was a dance with four scenes all punning on the pronunciation of jing: ﬁrst it is jing, mirror; second it is jing, meaning competition; the third is tranquillity and the fourth is purity. My interpretation is that with the mirror one knows where one comes from,

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how one looks like and how one behaves. These impressions and images remain on the level of characterization and description. The second refers to the necessary competition one goes through to become a social being. It concerns the conﬂicts and complications of human interactions. Further on, one will become calmer. Then one enters one’s own dream and ideal and seeks personal fulﬁlment. Finally, one returns to seek cleanness or purity. One wants to become an infant again. There is, of course, a difference, for the return is also a rise to a higher level, the recognition of one’s soul. I am unable to generalize the ultimate goal of literature, but I know a literary work has to have, primarily, images and impressions. It then engages in the quest and the exploration. It also has to depict fate and destiny and to reach the mind and the heart. Of course, all this is easier said than done. At present, a work that devotes itself to personal destiny is commonly recognized as good writing. If a personal destiny is placed in the social context and is emblematic of social life, then this is excellent. But then, that is where Chinese literature stopped and refused to move forward. After the reform period began, especially in the 1980s and the 1990s, Chinese literature made some attempts at innovation. However most of the works unfortunately imitated the West, dwelling, for instance, on concerns about death, etc. Many writers wrote under the spell of philosophical notions they had picked up from reading books by foreigners. Usually, they did not do a good job. Wang Yiyan: In my perception, many literary works with ‘Chinese characteristics’ produced in the past two decades show a similar concern for the Chinese nation and its future. Very often, the exploration of social problems traces the defects of Chinese cultural traditions, and then the works read like attacks on Chineseness or Chinese culture. If it is indeed always tradition that causes problems in Chinese society, such writings constitute no criticism of the Party state and therefore they are not really political dissent. What do you think? How would you interpret your own works in relation to such an ‘obsession with China’? Another point I want to raise concerns doubts about ‘the quality of the Chinese people’ (minzhong suzhi wenti !"#). At the turn of the nineteenth century and in the ﬁrst decades of the twentieth, quality of the people was the concern of the elite, of intellectuals such as Liang Qichao and Lu Xun. In the post-Mao era, the issue has been popularized, and nowadays everyone makes comments one way or another about the quality of others. Of course, the problem is always the quality of people other than oneself, and very often rural migrants into the city are branded as ‘low-quality’ people. In China, social problems are too often associated with the problem of ‘the quality of the people’. This is very odd. Social problems provoke criticism on social policy and politicians and concerned intellectuals should ﬁnd solutions. Why should ordinary people get the blame? People should query the quality of the politicians.

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I ﬁnd that many Chinese writers have internalized this mistrust of the masses and accepted that the quality of the Chinese people is ‘low’ or ‘lower’ than that of other nations. Many literary works have aimed at exposing the defects of the Chinese people. Of course, this trend started almost a hundred years ago, if not with Lu Xun. What is your view on the ‘quality of the people’? Jia Pingwa: What you said was quite right and I haven’t thought about it from that perspective. In my understanding, ‘the quality of the people’ is better styled the ‘characteristics of the people’. The Chinese people are not the most outstanding nation in the world, in my belief. You suggest that social problems are problems of governance and they are indeed. However, there is a saying that may tell you otherwise: rich people are usually gentler and poor people can be very cruel. Poor people are prone to expose their natural defects. Most Chinese people are still poor, and therefore they often show their poor qualities. Let’s take professionalism as an example. In terms of professionalism, the Chinese are deﬁnitely not as good as the Japanese or the Europeans. Too many Chinese take it too easy at work. No peasants worked hard when they shared work and income, but they did their best when they stopped sharing. Depending on your point of view, ‘the quality of the people’ is indeed a problem and it has its own starting point. Our government has its present problems, but our country has its own historically determined situation. One of the problems, for instance, is that of a large population with little land. Don’t forget that political criticism through literary works can only go so far in China. Writers are not allowed to touch on many issues. Take writing against corruption, for instance. The earliest anti-corruption works could portray their villains only up to the level of a county head. Later on, they could go up to the provincial level. However, no provincial Party secretary has been the object of criticism – it is not possible to portray the person in charge at that level as being corrupt. To write in the cause of anti-corruption is, strictly speaking, to make a political comment. Works with such themes may not be better than others, nor probe human nature deeper. However, there are political limits. To date, the highest corrupt ofﬁcial in literary works is the city mayor or the provincial governor. Nobody has had a go at a provincial Party secretary, who is the true Party representative. This is China’s reality. One must acknowledge that China has made much progress. One only has to think about China before the Cultural Revolution. If we acted now as we did then we would kill many people. China is far more open than before, and the understanding of democracy is sinking in. Democracy is a trend, a tide and a force that nobody can resist. However, there are still many problems. We can only play the game within limits. It’s like playing basketball within the court, and one can only try one’s best to work out a better way within the limits. In China a writer can in no way transcend himself, and this is the reality.

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Wang Yiyan: Some China observers would say that this is because the Party and the writers have reached an unwritten agreement. Would you agree? Jia Pingwa: Very few could genuinely do that. Most writers could not and would not. Most writers are left alone to thrive or to disappear. There are also the ‘underground’ writers, who do not mingle with the mainstream or any ofﬁcial or non-ofﬁcial organizations. They describe what they do as minjian xiezuo !, writing among the people. The Writers Association is no longer very useful for writers, unless you are the chairman or the head of one of the organizations drawing a salary with perks. In that case, you do things like organizing literary activities, such as ﬁeld trips, and writing for the dominant ideology. Wang Yiyan: Over the last century, there has not been much agreement between China’s intellectuals and the politicians, except on two issues. The ﬁrst is their shared anxiety over China’s modernization. The second is their criticism of the ‘quality of the people’. They agreed that, in order to modernize China, China must ﬁrst improve and reform the ‘quality’ of the Chinese people. Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao and Lu Xun all agreed on this. In recent decades, many Chinese writers used this idea to expose Chinese national defects. Han Shaogong’s Dictionary of Maqiao Village, Su Tong’s stories set in his ﬁctional setting of Maple Village, or Yu Hua and Can Xue’s writings are examples. It seems to me that in literature the Chinese national defects are often associated with peasants or lower-class urban residents (xiaoshimin) rather than representatives from other class backgrounds. Jia Pingwa: China is a big agrarian country, and Chinese cities are different from Western cities, at least I see them as being different. A large part of the population in Chinese cities used to be peasants. Even if we just focus on the present, Chinese cities remain places transformed by peasants and this is the key difference. Take you for example. You come back to China to Xi’an from the big cities overseas. Xi’an does look like a country town to you, doesn’t it? If we see that Chinese writers always link national characteristics with peasants and lower-class urban residents, this is the reality, which is very different from that of the West. Wang Yiyan: In your own works, before the publication of Defunct Capital in 1993, peasants from Shangzhou, your home town, are more sincere, honest and respectable. Your recent works seem to be more inclined to expose their selﬁshness, hypocrisy and narrow-mindedness. Do you agree? If so, what were the reasons for such changes? Jia Pingwa: On the one hand, I’m interested in exploring human nature at the moment, and my writings therefore touch more on these topics. On the other hand, China’s broad concept of literature and the literary views of

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contemporary Chinese writers can only change one step at a time. The entire literary atmosphere must also change. Most Chinese writers follow social trends and change step by step. For instance, the thinking of the writers of older generations is very different from that of writers in their twenties, especially those who are even younger than Weihui [author of Shanghai Baby !, Weihui 2001]. When I started writing, society had no space for literature. There wasn’t even one proper literary journal in the country. Now, things have changed. Those in their twenties are very lucky and are immersed in a good literary atmosphere. They are born into an open world and are exposed to international literatures and new ideas about literature. We had to move slowly step by step away from Mao’s Yan’an Talks. Wang Yiyan: I would like to change the topic to ‘cosmopolitanism’, which is becoming increasingly important in nativist writings. I’m trying to understand your views on ‘cultural locale’ and your construction of the native place in your writing as well as, perhaps, the transcendence of the native place in your writing. Please let me explain. In my understanding, in the Chinese discourse, cosmopolitanism seems to be a synonym for Westernization and it often refers to a Western lifestyle led by people who prefer knives and forks to chopsticks, drink coffee instead of tea, have steak rather than tofu and pork stews. In English discourse, cosmopolitanism may have a different or even an opposite meaning. To use chopsticks conﬁdently, drink jasmine tea, love Thai stir-fried vegetables, etc. are instances of cosmopolitan practice. Cosmopolitanism by nature is transnational, as it places emphasis on crossnational production, cross-cultural consumption and multiculturalism. In Western societies, there is a kind of people called ‘new-agers’, who are most likely vegetarian, support afﬁrmative action, adopt oriental cultural practices, reject Western mainstream lifestyles and radically resist conservative politics. These people often remind me of the young people in China who whole-heartedly chase after Western lifestyles. Those young people are characters in the writings of the ‘new generation writers’. Mostly they work in international companies and are consumers of foreign goods, food and drink. In my view, the so-called ‘new-generation’ writers are interested precisely in the contemporary metropolis and a cosmopolitan lifestyle. They are there to explore what there is to the quality of life and the effect of material possessions on the individual. They are not at all interested in the nation or the people of China. Chinese cultural traditions are irrelevant to their writing and to their characters. Shanghai is the Chinese cosmopolitan city par excellence and the setting of two recent novels. The ﬁrst is Song of Perpetual Remorse (Changhen ge ) by Wang Anyi (1996) and the other is Weihui’s Shanghai Baby. Wang Anyi’s characters are Shanghai residents, but they are not really immersed in a cosmopolitan lifestyle. They demonstrate the desire

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and longing of Shanghai residents to have a cosmopolitan life style. They exist on the margins between the local and the international. They practise cosmopolitan consumption occasionally, to have a taste of it. While they cannot sustain such a lifestyle for a long time they can make cosmopolitanism a Shanghai ‘local specialty’. Wang Qiyao ( ), the major character in Song of Perpetual Remorse, spends her entire life attempting to cultivate a ‘cosmopolitan’ identity with only very limited success, but her life is highly emblematic of the city of Shanghai and symbolic of China’s uneasy journey to modernity. In sharp contrast, Weihui’s Shanghai women adopt cosmopolitanism easily. The ‘ease’ that Weihui’s young women display is, of course, a performance but it is the ease that shows their resolve to reject Chinese traditions. The pleasure of Weihui’s women in casual, transnational sex is a heavy blow to women like Wang Qiyao, since marriage remains for her the ultimate event in a woman’s life. The refusal of young women in Weihui’s novel to take marriage seriously is a deliberate rejection of their cultural roots. It is not important that Weihui’s narrative is set in Shanghai or Guangzhou because the cultural locale has lost its signiﬁcance when transformed by cosmopolitanism. What is your opinion of cosmopolitanism? Will your works adopt a ‘transnational’ attitude? Jia Pingwa: My understanding is that cosmopolitanism is a reality and is necessary. The native-soil tendency in Chinese literature and Chinese nativesoil literature are very different from the native-soil literature in other literary traditions. The concepts are different, in that Chinese native-soil literature writes about the rural sector – whereas foreign literatures call for a return to nature when they come to talk about native soil. This is a historical gap leading to different understandings of experience. For instance, rich foreigners are fond of being vegetarian or wearing clothes made of hand-woven materials. The rich people here became rich all of a sudden and it has not been very long for them either. Naturally, when peasants become rich, they want to eat meat, wear leather jackets and dress up in woollen suits. China as a developing country means that people here see things differently. Wang Anyi is a few years younger than I am, and her thinking is not too different from my thinking or that of other writers over forty years old. What I ﬁnd amazingly different is writers such as Weihui or those younger than her. Their thinking is radically different from ours. I think this is because they were born under different conditions – they have been exposed to very different things and have developed in a totally different environment. I made a special trip to Shanghai to meet Weihui and Mianmian. I was keen to ﬁnd out why their writing and thinking were so different. As soon as I met them, I knew. In fact, Mianmian is the more radical and the more modern. Our meeting was at a bar for homosexuals, and she has always lived her life there. The people there are pop singers, ﬁlm stars, businessmen, foreigners, homosexuals and other such groups. Apart from

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the lifestyle of those people, what else could she write about? It would be impossible for her to write about villagers and peasants. Her themes are precisely what you’ve just said: transnational, cross-cultural, and especially transnational consumption. Nevertheless, most people in China, if they are over the age of forty now, tend to associate cosmopolitanism with modernization, which is further equated with and symbolized by Westernization. The cosmopolitanism of the younger generation, such as Weihui and Mianmian, is set in the international context, in the manner as you have just described. At home, they can eat food produced in England or Thailand. Their city allows them that. But to the mind of the majority of Chinese people, modernity is represented by big cities – not only Shanghai but also Beijing, even Xi’an. Because China is still an agrarian society, those cities are places of civilization and modernization, if viewed by peasants at the base of Chinese society. These perceptions are of course not quite in tune with modernity as perceived by others elsewhere, but they are inﬂuenced by the backwater situation of China itself. Compared with Western developed countries, China lags behind by about a century. Compared with other European countries, China is perhaps ﬁfty years behind. This does not mean China does not have anything that is advanced, but economic conditions and environment shape one’s thinking – hence the difference in perception. You ask me how I view cosmopolitanism and if my writing will adopt a cosmopolitan attitude. My answer is that Chinese thinking is one step behind. Most people look at the city and live in it like Wang Qiyao. There are a few like Weihui, but just a few and they appeared only a few years ago. If you really want to know what I shall do, I shall say because my environment is totally different, absolutely different from the modes of existence of Weihui and Mianmian – my environment is that of ordinary, common people, and I identify more with the destiny of people from the countryside or those who come from the country and now live in poverty in the city. This is my environment, and such an environment has determined my thinking. Of course, I’d love to live the cosmopolitan lifestyle that you describe. Everyone wants to live more comfortably, more conveniently. A long time ago, when I wanted to have ‘smelly-fermented beancurd’ or something else delicious, I had to go to Chengdu. If I wanted White Rabbit brand sweets, I could only obtain these from Shanghai. At the time, Beijing sweets were only available there. But now, things have changed and I can buy all of the above and more from an ordinary supermarket in Xi’an. Previously, one had to go to special big department stores to purchase international brands. I can do that now easily in a southern suburb of Xi’an. Of course, they had this a long time ago, and we have just got to that point. Slowly, one step after another, we will get there. To come back to literature, however, we should still have the courage to dream, to look for new ideas and to search for what is shared by all humanity despite the limitations of our environment. Modern consciousness is

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ultimately a consciousness of human conditions. Of course, things all have their special circumstances, and we do live in a backwater region in a backwater country. But this should not stop us from looking for mental and spiritual luxuries, or thinking in grand terms. That said, we still have to face our poor reality when it comes down to writing. Wang Yiyan: Who are your intended readers when you write? Jia Pingwa: Primarily Chinese, of course. I write for Chinese readers. Wang Yiyan: Will they be the same as those of Weihui and Mianmian? Jia Pingwa: Absolutely not! Most people do not live like them. As a writer, one should search for better things in life. A writer should serve one’s readers, but he should also enlighten them. We should look for the good things in our environment and expose those aspects we know not to be so wonderful. I believe that in terms of content and the inherent message, we need to learn from Western literature. But because our stories are written for Chinese readers, the manners should be Chinese and the ﬂavour has to be Chinese. It is no good for a Chinese writer to write a foreign novel. But many foreign novels are very rich in inner meaning and we have to search for those inner meanings. Wang Yiyan: The previous question was raised because I have been thinking about the notion of ‘home town’ or native place in Chinese cultural traditions. All this started as result of reading your Shangzhou stories. I feel that you have institutionalized Shangzhou in your writing as a native place. I have to apologize for the Chinese rendering of institutionalization: other than dianxinghua , I haven’t found a more appropriate Chinese phrase. Perhaps you can give me some better suggestions. Jia Pingwa: I don’t think you should call it dianxinghua, and I suggest that you regard Shangzhou as a symbol. Shangzhou is highly symbolic in my writing. I tend to use Shangzhou as a brand-name for the countryside in my writing. I have two base areas for writing, one is Shangzhou and the other is Xi’an or Xijing. I have been recycling these two places, one being the countryside and the other the city. They are also inherently connected. When peasants from Shangzhou come to the city, they stay at the bottom of society and linger on the margins of the city. They are the marginalized group and the city’s subordinate community. Writers are all limited one way or another but this is the group that I’m most familiar with. Wang Yiyan: I borrowed the expression ‘institutionalization’ from English. I wanted to capture the way you have built up Shangzhou as an archetype for the native place in Chinese literature. Wang Der-wei says that your

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Shangzhou stories are ethnography. If we put all your writings up to 2000 together, it is easy to see that the native place is Shangzhou, and Shangzhou again is the cultural locale, the space for Chinese cultural traditions. Shangzhou is the place where your roots and those of the Chinese nation are. This attachment to roots is not obvious but emerges gradually from your writing. Shangzhou emerges from the simple daily life of the villagers, the peasants, the hunters and the carriers. Shangzhou, of course, also has its high moments, but, when it comes to the basic level of the ﬁction, we are dealing with the households in the valley. The preoccupation of the people in your books is primarily with living a decent life on their land. Shangzhou reminds me of West Hunan in Shen Congwen’s writing. If we can assert that Han Shaogong’s Maqiao descends from Lu Xun’s Luzhen, then, Shangzhou could be a close relative of Shen Congwen’s West Hunan. Moreover, the native-place complex for Chinese literati has constantly been projected in modern Chinese ﬁction and it has been extended to reﬂect the ‘obsession with China’ to the extent that the native place is China, ultimately. Would you like to talk about your view of the native place and about how you see the relation between your writing and the native place? Jia Pingwa: I see the gradual disappearance of the native place in China, and I have for a long time been engaged in writing about the disappearance of Chinese cultural traditions. Defunct Capital, White Nights and Earth Gate all deal with this process of cultural disappearance. At the moment, I’m writing a novel with the title Local Accent. I focus on how peasants have been pushed off their land in the recent past. China is rapidly urbanizing, with eighty per cent of its population living in cities, because the country cannot rely on agriculture to get rich and develop. As far as I know, many peasants are at present leaving the country to work and live in the city so that much of the land is left idle. My purpose in writing Local Accent is to tell how peasants are gradually deserting the land. Of course, many factors contribute to this phenomenon including political and family reasons. Peasants have to leave for the city because life in the village has become unviable for peasants. My point is that if traditional cultures disappear, the native place will go too. So will the notion of the native land. Nowadays, the three associated concepts, countryside, peasants and agriculture, differ vastly from what they were a few decades ago, or even in the 1980s. Their connotations are also different as well. When the CCP called on ‘learning from Dazhai in agriculture’ in the 1960s, the Party insisted that peasants had to stay on the land. Now it is very different: no more talk about peasants staying on the land and the state has changed its deﬁnitions of these three concepts entirely. Writers are limited by their times and can only move with the passing of time. A writer’s thinking cannot be independent of his environment. When I was writing stories on China’s rural reform in the 1980s, such as ‘The Households at Chicken Roost Gulley’, ‘A Preliminary Biography of Xiaoyue’, it was the beginning of the 1980s and the reform

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had just started. I was very excited and felt hopeful for our country. This should not be interpreted as implying that I was co-operating with the government. Yet I was genuinely happy at the time because we were the beneﬁciaries of the reforms, and I saw how the peasants were also excited and how hard they worked on their land. However, all that excitement lasted only for the initial years when land was given to peasants. Now if you visit the country, you won’t be able to see anything like that any more. When I come to think about the change, I try to evaluate the situation. Is it progress or regression? I believe it is progress, and that our country is trying to ﬁnd a better way. Previously, when someone passed away in the village, the burial was never a problem, for there were plenty of young men to carry the cofﬁn to the graveyard. Now, if someone dies in the village, it is a big problem. All the young people have gone and nobody is around to carry the cofﬁn. One has to look for help in the villages nearby. This is the biggest, practical problem facing the villagers at present. Recently, my uncle died. We went to quite a few villages before we were able to ﬁnd enough people to carry the cofﬁn to the graveyard. The strong labourers of the villages have all gone to the city. Peasants are disappearing from the land. Wang Yiyan: How do the peasants feel about this? Jia Pingwa: Very bad. When the country has to move forward, the interests of some groups are often sacriﬁced. As far as the peasants are concerned, their life is sheer misery. They don’t have a legitimate place in the city and cannot enter the mainstream of the urban populace. When they work in the city and don’t get paid, they cannot get justice. But if they stay in the country, they can’t make any money at all. Nobody is in charge and nobody cares, either. The price for crops gets lower and lower, whereas the prices of chemical fertilizers, seeds and pesticides get higher and higher. Peasants also have to pay more and more taxes and other fees. But I expect things will be better in one or two generations’ time. Think about a few years ago, some people could get rich overnight, for they had materials for production. Compared with the system in the 1980s, the CCP is less likely to take political action to control the situation – it has established more and more legal procedures. Hence it is harder for people to get rich overnight. Once legal procedures are in place, it will be good for everyone and it is the gaps between the rich and the poor that will be smaller. The countryside is still at the same stage the cities were in when they were opening up. It is chaotic, lawless and only the ﬁttest survive. The capable and clever ones are all doing well, but the less capable are not so lucky. People in the country can be so unimaginably poor that they cannot afford to buy salt. Wang Yiyan: Can I say that you are leaving Shangzhou in your ﬁction, as indicated by your recent novel, Health Report, and the collection of short stories, Stories Overheard ? Or should I say that you have extended the

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boundaries of Shangzhou? Could I further presume that some changes have occurred in your attachment to the native place? Please note that I’m not referring to your love for Shangzhou, for that is a different matter altogether. For a Chinese, if one does not love one’s home town, it means one does not love one’s motherland, which is the most serious betrayal of one’s Chinese identity. Jia Pingwa: Just as I said a little while ago, my writing has two locations, one is Shangzhou and the other is Xi’an. I alternate between these two, and they are like two territories in which I travel around. Wang Yiyan: But Health Report seems to be located in northern Shaanxi. After all, Health Report lends itself to the suspicion of deconstructing Maoist revolutionary stories in the communist base area there. At least, it looks like post-revolutionary writing. Don’t you think so? Jia Pingwa: Health Report is a true story. The fact is that I had wanted to write it a long time ago, as early as in the 1980s. But somehow I didn’t manage to do it until recently. Wang Yiyan: How do you look at the notion of the native place? Jia Pingwa: Indeed the native place is not ﬁxed and is highly symbolic. In contemporary Chinese literature, or in Zhang Yimou’s ﬁlms, there exist many ‘pseudo’ customs, precisely because there is no ﬁxed locality for the native place. The customs of Shandong are often shifted to Shanxi in literary or ﬁlm renderings, but no one makes a big fuss. The symbolic nature of the native place also means that it is abstract. The notion of the native place involves very complicated emotions. It is something that has to do with one’s cultural roots rather than anything really concrete. For instance, Chinese like to ask where you are from. If you ask the He’nan people in Xi’an, they will say they are from He’nan. The fact is that they are the third generation of He’nan migrants to Xi’an and they have never been to He’nan. So the native place is rather vague. Also, there are people like myself, who are the ﬁrst-generation migrants from the country to the city. We have a stronger attachment to the ancestral place and we can remember what the native place is like. However, as our parents age and pass away, we don’t return to the native place as often, although we still have siblings there. Therefore, as time progresses and society changes, the native place becomes an empty shell. It is an emotion and a longing. This is different from ancient times. In premodern times, there was little population shift. Only students used to travel thousands of miles to take part in the imperial examination and, of course, they would want to go home. In cases of death, people wanted to have their bodies sent home and buried in the graveyard with their ancestors. This is not possible any more. Corpses

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cannot be transported out of Xi’an and must be cremated locally. This is another reason for saying that the native place is emotional, conceptual and symbolic. Naturally, as ﬁrst-generation migrants into the city, we often want to return to the old home. But we do not feel comfortable when we do go back. When I go back, I meet two kinds of people in the village. There are those who love you dearly, for you spent so much time together when you were young; there are also those who are jealous of you and resent you. They try their best to avoid you, and it is impossible to communicate. I’ll tell you a story about going home. I have nine male paternal cousins. Among the ten male cousins, I am the eighth. Recently, my second uncle built a new house with a courtyard so I took some presents to pay him a visit. About a dozen wives and kids were in the courtyard when I walked in, but no one knew who I was. They were wondering what was this guy doing here with presents for their grandpa? Nobody made an attempt to talk to me until I was introduced by my second uncle. So, it is rather meaningless for people like me to go back to the ancestral place. Even if we go back, we cannot stay long. We are not used to the lifestyle there any more and there isn’t anybody to talk to or to have a good conversation with. So, the native place has become purely a longing. Wang Yiyan: I would love to know about your thoughts on nativism in literature. In your writing, from language to narrative devices and modes, your attempt to adopt indigenous Chinese ways of story telling can be easily seen. I tend to use the notion of ‘nativism’ to describe your style, instead of using the term ‘modernism’, to describe the innovative qualities of your writing. Not that I don’t think your writing shows elements of modernism and modernity, or that I don’t like modernism. My concern is that there is too much confusion between modernism and Westernization, or rather, the tendency to look at innovative narrating in Chinese literature as a result of learning from the West. Your writing deﬁnitely shows that innovation can derive from adapting and further developing indigenous Chinese narrative devices. You seem to answer the questions of how to write and what to write very differently from other Chinese writers and I am curious to hear your views. Jia Pingwa: Literary nativism has been my goal for a long time, and it was the topic of my essay ‘On Turning Forty’ about a decade ago. I am a Chinese writer. My primary focus is on Chinese readers. I have been deeply inﬂuenced by traditional Chinese culture and I have always wanted to have a modern outlook for my writing. Yet it is Chinese in terms of its narrative devices and narrative language. Where are the roots and soil of our literature? This is the question that I have been focusing on. Only if we can ﬁnd the right soil and make sure that the roots go in, can we expect a ﬂowering, a good ﬂowering.

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Wang Yiyan: In your novel, Old Gao Village, you once again show your special interest in Shaanxi’s local language. Normally you are very careful about language and usage. However, many of your expressions are contrary to the ‘standardized’ usage in the modern Chinese language. Your comment? Jia Pingwa: Many people think that my classical Chinese must be very good. That is not really the case. In the language of Shaanxi, in the local dialect, there are many classical words. Written down, they are most elegant. People from Shaanxi have a built-in advantage over people from other provinces. I have been consciously searching for those aspects of the Shaanxi language, but other writers from Shaanxi do not necessarily do the same. Wang Yiyan: From the beginning of your writing career to just a few years ago, there seemed to be a close afﬁnity between your own experiences and what happens in your books. The themes of your stories have shifted from the romance and idealism of your youth to confusion, conﬂict and hardship in life in general for individuals. Your characters have also changed from being positive to negative. Can you talk about how and why these changes have occurred? What has contributed to the changes? Is it correct to say that you prioritize plot in your writing and that your thematic concerns are secondary? Jia Pingwa: Writing is really about one’s own experience of life. The stage of your life decides what kind of writing you produce. Your works correspond with your age, the accumulation of experience and change in your knowledge. I disagree with your suggestion that the plot of my stories takes priority over my thematic concerns. Quite the contrary. To me, the hardest part in a story is its subject matter, which is its life support. I write this way: when I am inspired by something or a notion, I will start thinking. I start plotting only after I almost know what I want to say. Because I want to write in the Chinese tradition and about the Chinese tradition, I need to seek a different format that my readers are unable to detect. There is a difference between Eastern and Western narratives. Take cinema direction as an example. There are fundamentally two ways of doing it. With the method that emphasizes the ‘naturalness’ of performing and ﬁlming, the ﬁlm tells the story in a way such that the audience does not feel the presence of the director or the cinematographer. With the other method, the narrative keeps reminding the audience that the director is trying to tell you a story. Zhang Yimou’s ﬁlms insist that his audience acknowledge his presence. The director of the ﬁlm Wild Mountains (Yeshan ), Yan Xueshu , keeps reminding the actors that they should forget about ‘performing’, forget about his presence as a director. He strongly emphasizes that the actors should feel the story themselves. The ﬁrst way is also the way that I have been seeking to write my story. Most Chinese writers write the second way and in the manner in which Zhang Yimou directs ﬁlms. These are two

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different ways but the difference is not that this one is more avant-garde and the other one less so. Not necessarily so. The attention to the colours, picture, format and style is borrowed from the West. The emphasis on ‘absence’, or the disappearance of this and that, as I have just discussed, is a technique and it is the technique of absence. The point is that the reader does not feel that someone is telling a story. One never feels that Dream of the Red Chamber and Romance in the West Wing are fabricated stories. When I was reading them, they appeared like historical reality, because the stories are narrated differently. Wang Yiyan: Many writers like to elaborate on the theme of death. Yu Hua is one typical example in this regard. Your essay ‘Mourning My Father’ has its emphasis on your father’s life rather than on his death, although it was written on the occasion of your father’s death. In Defunct Capital you write about two deaths. One is the death of the editor of Xijing magazine, Zhong Weixian, and the other is the death of the literatus calligrapher, Gong Jingyuan. Both occasions, however, seem to be more comic than tragic. The mourners are there to perform their duties of mourning for an audience. That is rather entertaining. The protagonist Zhuang Zhidie in the end lingers on between life and death. You seem to be more interested in the powerlessness of the individual against his destiny rather than in death itself. Recently, however, there is a change in your treatment of death. Death has appeared as a narrative motif. In Remembering Wolves there are frequent scenes on the heroic death of the wolves. By extension, there is also the tragic death of nature affected by the greed and the survival of the humans. Health Report begins with the death of the major character Hu Fang, at the happiest moment of his life. What do you think? Jia Pingwa: The purpose of every life is death. As soon as we are born, we head towards death. To be born is to be born to die. On the other hand, death is also life. To die is to live. This is a process. I don’t write deliberately about death in my works. I dislike illustrating philosophical ideas through literary writing. In China, many people use their literary writing to elaborate on philosophical notions. During and later in the reign of the ‘Gang of Four’, as well as the period immediately after that, Chinese writers used to conceptualize their writing from a particular political notion. Later on they developed the habit of illustrating philosophical concepts in literature, especially after they had ﬁnished reading some Western philosopher’s book. There is no essential difference between politically or philosophically conceptualizing literary works. My approach is to write from life, to reach enlightenment through life. If I feel something, and feel that I have something to say, I will build up a story. In my view, some contemporary Chinese writings are too intent on an illustration of ideas, especially when it comes to writing about death. As soon as you read a piece of writing, you can tell from which Western philo-

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sopher or from which Western philosophical book the writing derives. The intellectual debt of Chinese avant-garde writings in particular can be easily detected, for they are either copies of Márquez or Borges or Llosa. Any way, you can tell whose writing the avant-garde writer was imitating. Before those writings were translated into Chinese, one felt the imitations were very good. But after the originals were translated, we knew that the avant garde went in for a great deal of imitation. Many copied from Borges. They imitated everything from language to plot to ideas. Borrowing and imitation are ﬁne, but we should not overvalue such works of imitation. Wang Yiyan: ‘Nature’ is another important aspect of your writing. It is often mysterious in your works produced in the 1980s, when nature used to appear in human life through fengshui and yin–yang. Sometimes it actually controls human life. For instance, the Shang Mountain in your ﬁrst novel, Shangzhou, and the Zhou River in Turbulence, are both the narrative background and characters in the stories. Is that so? Jia Pingwa: Yes, indeed. We Chinese like to think that nature and humans are one and that the philosophy of Zhuangzi sees that everything has life and that nature, humans and objects are equal. I myself have been strongly inﬂuenced by Zhuangzi, and this is the reason why I look for images in my writing. It is a question of one’s attitude to nature, and my point of departure is that everything in the world is equal. Wang Yiyan: But some changes have occurred in the past decade – the previous harmonious relationship between humans and nature has disappeared. Starting from Defunct Capital, nature begins to take revenge on humans. Later on, in Earth Gate, the city destroyed home and nature, but then in Old Gao Village deterioration of the environment leads to the degeneration of humans in both their genetic heritage and their health. In Remembering Wolves, nature and humans hurt and defeat each other. The above-mentioned novels were all completed towards the end of the twentieth century. At the same time, death also appears in your writing. I remember wondering how you might reinvent yourself and your writing, but did not expect that you would turn around and become optimistic so quickly. In Health Report, you took a completely different turn from your previous writing in almost every aspect. The most obvious change is the disappearance of nature from your stories. Please tell me how you regard nature and how you treat nature in your writing now. Jia Pingwa: My current stories still have many elements of nature, depending on, of course, which works you are talking about. For me, although I would not go as far as being misanthropic, I have mixed feelings about human beings. Take our country for instance, in this society, you are expected to be honest, sincere and not to cheat or lie. Most people observe these values.

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But if you look into international relations, you can see that between nations, which are simply a bigger version of human groups, you can only expect the opposite. All we see is dishonesty, game playing, and dirty power politics. If you are a small and weak country, forget about international relations. International relations reveal the worst of human nature. Wang Yiyan: I would like to discuss with you two different things now: style and genre. Please give me as comprehensive answers as possible. First of all, the convergence or the transformation of the genres ﬁction and prose essay in your writing. Not only do you write your stories in the style of the prose essay, but you also compose your essays as if you are telling stories. Therefore, many of your pieces are selected for both essay collections and story collections. Of course, how others view your work may have nothing to do with your original intention. However it is also important for your views to be heard. You used to pay so much attention to the beauty of your prose and now you tend to stress simplicity – a style without ostentatiousness. I believe that the variety of your styles and your innovations are conducted in search of literary nativism. Could you please comment? Jia Pingwa: I write ﬁction and prose simultaneously. I don’t ﬁnish one thing and then pick up the other. When writing ﬁction, one pays more attention to plot and characterization. When composing a prose essay, one dwells on language. One is unable to pay that amount of attention to language when writing stories. It is not that you don’t want to, but you have to keep going with the development of the plot and the characters. You then use a very different language, a language very far from the language of prose essays. I have been trying to deploy the language of prose in my ﬁction. What is the language of prose? I feel it offers taste, rhythm – especially rhythm. A prose writer can control language. A novelist must narrate – to tell people about events. If you do the narrating, you lose control of the linguistic rhythm. A prose composer can pace the prose to control the ﬂow. I want to bring a prose composer’s control of language into the novel. What I have been trying to do, as I have said previously, is to learn from the West in inculcating spirituality in writing. But in terms of format, we should have our Chinese manners and Chinese ﬂavours. As one grows older, one increasingly looks for simplicity. One searches for ease, effortlessness and plainness. When one is young, one has to be romantic, poetic, passionate, and be especially keen on writing beautifully. When one reaches middle age, those qualities are no longer attractive. Minus the extra decorations, one’s writing becomes simpler, plainer, and more straightforward. No matter how romantic and ﬂowery my prose used to be, I am now more inclined to compose simple prose. Of course, being simple is not being simplistic or rough. It is just being more at ease and more straightforward. You become that way with age. It is closely related to your own experience.

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Wang Yiyan: What is the function of your prefaces and postscripts? My impression is that you write them as essays on creative writing. They also record the situations under which particular pieces were written. How would you like critics to read those essays? Jia Pingwa: Indeed I wrote those prefaces or postscripts to express my views on and experiences in writing. From Turbulence, I began to write lengthy postscripts to all my novels, especially at the end of Defunct Capital and White Nights. I basically write about my literary views. During that period [from the early to mid-1990s], theories and criticism were the focus of the literary scene. People were keen on imported ideas from the West, and many Western books poured into China. Everyone was following the trend and neglected everything else. I wanted to write down my opinions, gather my scattered thoughts about literature and keep a record. Postscripts also helped me to express my resentment towards China’s literary scene at the time. It is a pity that not many people have paid much attention to what I express there. Wang Yiyan: How about travel and writing? Your travel writing has been highly praised. Travel writing is also a genre in China’s literary tradition. There are many classics in travel writing in Chinese literary history. Would you please give us some idea about how you see historical travel writing? Which writers or pieces have inﬂuenced you the most? Jia Pingwa: The short essay (xiaopin ) of the Ming and Qing dynasties has been the most inﬂuential on me, but no particular piece. Wang Yiyan: Your Three Records of Shangzhou may be called ‘travel in the native place’. Is there any particular experience you want to talk about? In the West, there are writers who devote themselves to travel writing. Good travel writing is highly appreciated by readers and is regarded as good literature, for instance, Bill Bryson’s travel writing. Do you plan to do some serious travel writing? Your prose essay On the Road to Xinjiang seems to indicate that something bigger is on the way. But travel writers must like travel and you don’t seem to enjoy travelling much at all. Jia Pingwa: I don’t write about places as travel pieces. For instance, my Three Records of Shangzhou was written to record that historical time, and I was truly inspired by the change of wind at the time. Neither do I just write about the landscape. I think it is better to call them all prose essays and do not distinguish between travel writing or something else. I am not aware of writing about travel, and I don’t think I make a place interesting like Western travel writers do. On the Road to Xinjiang did some of this, but my focus was on something else. In history, many people have thought very highly of Liu Zongyuan’s travel writing but he was just expressing

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himself, talking about life and projecting viewpoints on to the background through writing about the places he had been. Wang Yiyan: Please let me change the subject to some minor conceptual questions. The ﬁrst is regarding the notion of ‘success’. As early as in the early 1970s, it became one of your recurrent themes. ‘Full Moon’, the short story that won the ﬁrst national prize for short stories, ﬁnished with the line in English, ‘Sure to be successful’. In Defunct Capital, the protagonist Zhuang Zhidie is preoccupied with the predicament that he is famous but not really successful in terms of his own profession. Much of your writing deals with the trouble that comes with establishing one’s fame as a successful writer. Yet at the same time the writer feels no nearer to success. I imagine that the predicament of fame and success comes from your own experience. Can you talk about it? How does this predicament express itself in your writing? Jia Pingwa: Why do I repeat this topic? Two reasons. First, I do feel guilty and dissatisﬁed with myself. I wish to transcend myself, and I want to produce a bigger piece of writing. On the surface, I am well known locally and wherever I go I am recognized by people and people think I feel really good about myself. Second, I want to remind myself and warn myself that minor fame is really nothing. Wang Yiyan: I understand that ‘forbearance’ is an important notion for the individual and for the nation in Chinese cultural traditions. Paul Cohen’s recent book discusses the historical signiﬁcance and contemporary connotations of forbearance (Cohen 2003), which reminded me of its continuous presence in your writing. The Chinese language has so many proverbs on the subject of forbearance, many of which derive from historical incidents. In short, forbearance is not a purpose but a means to an end, perhaps a very important means to a successful end. In your essay ‘I’m Not a Good Son’ you mention that it is from your mother that you learned about forbearance. May I ask you whether forbearance is important in your life and in your writing? Is forbearance a motif that you are interested in exploring? Jia Pingwa: Forbearance to me is not something you acquire or cultivate but something in your nature. In China, relationships among people are very complicated. In my interaction with foreigners, I ﬁnd them easier to deal with. Among the Chinese, there are too many problems and conﬂicts of interest, and so Chinese life requires forbearance. Forbearance is also part of my own personality. Some people are aggressive and others are reticent. I retreat all the time, and in my experience my achievements all rely on forbearance. There is a saying in Chinese: if you do not dare to attack, retreat. Forbearance is also an important philosophical notion in Chinese tradi-

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tion. Strictly speaking, in comparison with Western nations, the Chinese nation is yin, introverted and soft. Such nations can only attack through defence or advance through retreating. Wang Yiyan: Is your writing conceptualized in accordance with the issues that interest you? Many Western writers voice their literary concerns by asking questions, which are also often identiﬁed as epigraphs preceding the ﬁctional text. For instance, Margaret Atwood explores the nature of time in her book Cat’s Eye and she borrows ideas from A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking by asking ‘why do we remember the past not the future?’ David Lodge in his book Thinks . . . wanted to explore the nature of human thinking and its relation to emotions as well as its biological base. I am curious about how you form your subject matter? In your process of conceptualizing, do you have some questions in your mind that you want to explore? Are they philosophical questions or social problems? Jia Pingwa: Both. In China there is no such a thing as a pure, philosophical question. Any question is connected with social problems. Wang Yiyan: In the 1980s the Writers Association and other institutions often organized conferences and workshops to discuss guidelines for writing, the Party’s instruction and writing tasks, etc. Are there any more such occasions nowadays? What did you think of those meetings? Which meetings were inﬂuential, either positively or negatively, on your writing? In December 1984 Shanghai Literature had an important meeting on ‘the scar literature’ which was mentioned in your biography by Sun Jianxi. It was not clear if you were at the meeting. At the time, how did you view the CCP’s guidelines on literary creation? Jia Pingwa: Now there are hardly any meetings. No more funding, so nobody calls for meetings anymore, except for the Ministry of Publicity that has a planning session for artistic creation each year. It is a government procedure. Currently, playwrights and drama producers often hold meetings but not people in other ﬁelds of literature. I never attend meetings outside of Shaanxi, but will brieﬂy attend meetings within Shaanxi as I cannot afford to offend local colleagues. In the 1980s there were so many literary conferences, but I only attended one conference that took place at Dunhuang. I went because of the location. I am perhaps a person with an independent mind. I have been frequently criticized by the authorities. The ofﬁcial documents had me on the list for criticism in the campaign against liberalism and in the campaign against spiritual pollution. Later on, with the banning of Defunct Capital, I have been someone the authorities don’t like very much, and yet they cannot do much to me. It’s like someone holding a baby. Just when he is enjoying holding it, the baby pisses and wets this person’s clothes.

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Wang Yiyan: Which were the works listed in the red documents? Jia Pingwa: The documents say ‘a number of Jia Pingwa’s stories and novellas’, referring to many of the stories I wrote in the 1980s, such as ‘February Apricots’, ‘The Mourning Script for Xiawupo’, ‘Ghost City’, ‘Initial Record of Shangzhou’, and many more. In my native region, the ofﬁcials organized serious criticism meetings. Wang Yiyan: There has been confusion about your year of birth. In your autobiographical writings, sometimes you say it is 1953 and other times you say it is 1952. Jia Pingwa: It should be 1952. 1953 is what is recorded on my residential certiﬁcate, which is wrong. I used that date initially but later I felt it was not accurate, so I changed to 1952.

Appendix 2 Year Title

Genre Date and place of Appendix 2 publication Chronology of Jia Pingwa’s publications

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Notes

First period 1973–82: Apprenticeship in writing and the earliest short stories In the initial decade of his writing life, Jia Pingwa published nearly two hundred short stories, dozens of essays, a few poems and one novella. In 1977 his ﬁrst book of six children’s stories, Soldier Boy, was published by the National Children’s Book Publisher in Beijing. In 1982, his ﬁrst collection of essays was published. During this period Jia Pingwa wrote predominantly short stories. The highlight of this period is his winning of the ﬁrst national prize for short stories in 1978 for ‘Full Moon’ (1977). Year Title

Genre

Date and place of Notes publication

1952

Jia Pingwa is born in Dihua village, Danfeng county, Shaanxi province.

1972

Jia Pingwa enters Department of Chinese Studies, Northwestern University, Xi’an.

1973

! (A pair of socks) (1973), coauthor: Feng Youyuan , fellow student of Jia Pingwa at Northwestern University (1972–5).

Short story Qunzhong yishu (Art for the masses) (Shaanxi province).

1974

! (Deep footprints)

Essay

1975

Jia Pingwa graduates and takes up the position of assistant editor at the provincial publishing house Shaanxi renmin chubanshe.

1977

! (Soldier Boy)

(Lotus pond) (A young accountant) (A young electrician) =( !"# )=(Soldier boy) (original title: In the beancurd maker’s workshop)

Xi’an ribao (Xi’an daily).

Beijing: Zhongguo shaonian ertong chubanshe, 1977. Short story Short story Short story Short story

According to Sun Jianxi, Jia Pingwa published in total 25 pieces of literary writing during the three years of his university life between 1972 and 1975 (Sun Jianxi 2001, v.1: 57).

This is Jia Pingwa’s ﬁrst book, which has six children’s stories.

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Year Title !=(Before the visit) !" (A phoenix from deep in the mountains) (Postscript)

1978

!"(Stories of two sisters)

1979

=– !" !=(Love and passion – on the writing of ‘Full Moon’)

1980

!"(Notes from the highlands)

Genre

Date and place of Notes publication

Short story Short story This postscript offers typical statements of the day with all the jargons and sentiments that were politically correct at the time.

Essay

! – ! =(A guide to the highlands – by way of introduction (Full moon) (1977)

Preface

!"# (The bamboo and bashful plant) (1979) ! (Lesson one) (1977) (The shepherd) (1978)

Short story

Short story

Short story Short story

Hefei: Anhui renmin chubanshe, 1978.

Jia Pingwa’s second book. The stories are all collected in Jia Pingwa, 1998c, v.4: 1–149.

Shiyue, 1979, no. 3.

This essay won the ﬁrst Literary Creation Prize of the journal Shiyue in 1979.

Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi chubanshe, 1980.

The collection’s 37 stories were published in various journals before 1980. The ﬁnishing dates and initial publication details have been noted where available. According to Fei Bingxun, the theme of youth, love and pastoral romance dominated Jia Pingwa’s writing from 1977 to 1979, whereas other writers were busy licking the wounds of the Cultural Revolution (Fei Bingxun 1992: 12; Sun Jianxi, 2001 v.1: 140). Jia Pingwa’s third book and his earliest with his signature style emerging. A useful document about Jia Pingwa’s attitude on writing in the 1970s.

Shanghai wenxue (Shanghai literature) 1978, no. 3.

This story won the ﬁrst National Short Story Prize in 1978.

Appendix 2 Year Title

Genre

(Echo) (1978) !" (Xiacheng and Qiaojie) (1978) ! (Remembering South Village) (1978) !" (The ﬁfty-third) (1978) !!=(In the stillness of a snowy night) =(In the orchard) (1977)

Short story Short story

=(The water spring) (1977) – ! (Rockery ﬂowers: Notes on my term in a production brigade) (1978) =(Xiafangr) (1978) (Craving for water) (1978) (Reporting for duty) (1978) (The summer solstice) (1978) !" (Deep in the Qin Mountains) (1978) =(The bull that always went for him) (1976) (Shady willows) (1976) ! (Evening talks at the pig pen) (1977) =(Rock Gulley) (1977) (Popular trust) (1977) =(Helping hand) (1976)

Short story

243

Date and place of Notes publication

Short story Short story Short story Short story

Short story

Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story

This short story was adapted into lianhuanhua, or cartoons, and was translated into English. ‘The Young Man and His Apprentice’, trans. anonymous, Beijing: Chinese Literature, 1978, no. 3, 34–40.

244

Appendix 2

Year Title !=(The great axe of the Zhang family) (1977) =(Alarm clock) (1977) (Getting married) (1977) (The tea lady) (1977) !" (When passing over Yellow Clay Hill) (1976) (Our turn to host the cadre) (1978) =(Mr Rope Breaker) (1975) / (Always the people’s choice / A wellrespected lady) (1976) ! (Those people next door) (1977) ! (A mellow old man) (1977) ! (The sketch on the ‘confession’) (1977) !"# !"#(‘The criminal’: A case of 1976) (1977) (Yao Shengzhi) (1977) !"#$ (Wedding on the silvery brook) (1977) !"#(Morning songs) 1981

Genre Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story

Short story Short story Short story Short story

Short story Short story

!"#$%&' (New tales by Jia Pingwa)

– ! (The stream: a non-preface)

Date and place of Notes publication

Preface

Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe, 1980.

Collection of short stories about children’s life and Jia Pingwa’s fourth book.

Beijing: Zhongguo qingnian chubanshe, 1981.

Another earlier collection of Jia Pingwa’s short stories with 24 short stories written in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Most of them are based on his earlier life experiences and some bear obvious resemblance to episodes in Jia Pingwa’s memoir I Am a Peasant (Jia Pingwa 1998b).

Appendix 2 Year Title

Genre

Date and place of Notes publication

(The sound of weaving) (1979) !"=(The bachelors’ loft on a summer’s night) (1979) !"# (Love me, love my mushrooms) (1980) =(Hair) (1980)

Short story

Qingchun, 1979, no. 12.

(‘Evidence of crime’) (1980) (In the springtime) (1979) =(Return) (1979) =(The girl Qiqiao’r) (1980) =(Springtime worries) (1980) !"#=(The waterfall at Jade Fairy Mountain) (1979) – NVTS= ! =(Earthquake: Tale of 1976) (1979) (The moon) (1978) =(Bamboo ﬂute melody) (1979) !=(The last scene) (1978) =(New Year’s visit) (1979) =(On a moonlit night) (1980) !=(The old lady in the Xia family) (1980) =(In Yao Village) (1980) (Taking up the post) (1980) !=(A mountain inn)

Short story

(The girl Axiu) (1980) !=(Green leaves, green branches) (1978) =(White lotus) (1979)

Short story

245

Short story

Short story

Yanhe, 1980, no. 5.

Short story

Guangzhou wenyi, 1980, no. 6. Renmin ribao, 26 January 1980.

Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story

Huaxi, 1980, no. 7. Chang’an, 1980, no. 1.

Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story

Fangcao, 1980, no. 5.

Short story Short story Short story

Short story Novella

Yanhe, 1980, no. 8. Yuhua yuekan, 1980, no. 4.

This story won the annual prize of the journal for the best story.

246

Appendix 2

Year Title

Genre

Date and place of Notes publication

1982 A young writers’ workshop for north and north-western China held in Xi’an, hosted by the Chinese Writers Association, brought Jia Pingwa into contact with the prestigious organization for professional Chinese writers. 1982 was an important year for Jia Pingwa: he published more than ten short stories and more than thirty essays; he survived the ‘anti-spiritual pollution’ campaign after some of his short stories were found ‘problematic’ by the authorities; and last but not the least he was permitted to shed his editing responsibilities and became a full-time writer (Sun Jianxi 2001, v.1: 183). (Traces of the moon) !

Tianjin: Baihua wenyi chubanshe, 1982. Taibei: Xiapu chubanshe, 1994.

! =(Wildﬁre: short stories by Jia Pingwa)

Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe, 1982.

! (My childhood, my family) ! (Obituary of ‘Grandma Xiawu’) (1980) ! (My village uncle’s home) =(Love song) (Wildﬁre) (1980) (The old man) (1980) =(The two brothers) !"#$%& (In the inn of a small town) (Beauty) (Uncle Ma) (1980) =(The earthenware jar) (1980) (Playing chess) (1980) =(Between meals) (1980) (After rain) (1980) =(Passing by) ! (Acacia shoots) (The cup with a carp design) (1981) =(The cart puller)

Memoir Short story

Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story

Collection of 34 essays previously published in various journals. It has two prefaces, one by Sun Li and the other by Jia Pingwa himself. Collection of 21 short stories and a memoir written between 1980 and 1981.

Appendix 2 Year Title

Genre

Date and place of Notes publication

(The husband) (1979)

Short story

Yalujiang, 1979, no. 11.

!"## (Ren Xiaoxiao and his uncle) (1981) !"#$ (A poplar tree outside the window) (1980) =(Life) (1981)

Short story

Quancheng, 1981, no. 9.

247

This is a different story from that under the same title in Stories of Mount Taibai.

Short story Short story

(Postscript) (Home village)

Chang’an, 1981, no. 8. Zhengzhou: Zhongyuan nongmin chubanshe, 1987.

=(Home village) (1986) =(The village in the valley) (1987) =(The tornado) (1986) (The ﬂood) (1986) !" (The good dwarves) =(Ghost town) (1982)

Novella

=(In the valley) (1982) (Sandy land) (1981) (Song of surfeit) (1981) =(The upright ofﬁcial) (The patient) (1980) (Like branches intertwined) (1982) !=(The weaving maiden) (1982)

Short story

This collection has 24 short stories and novellas published between 1980 and 1986 plus a postscript. The short stories were mostly written around 1981 and the novellas around 1986.

Novella Novella Novella Novella Short story

Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story

This short story caused problems for Jia Pingwa in the early 1980s during the campaign against ‘spiritual pollution’ (Sun Jianxi 2001, v.2: 267). Yanhe, 1981, no. 11. Beijing wenxue, 1981, no. 10. Nanyuan zazhi.

248

Appendix 2

Year Title

Genre

!" (A brief biography of my foster parents) (1983) (Ofﬁcial Liu) (1982) (In the courtyard) (In the walnut orchard) (1983) (The neglected jade) (1982) =(Passion) (In the springtime) – !"# =(Cultural relics: tale of bygone days) (In the bird shop) (1981) (Drinking) !=(New Year’s eve) =(Postscript) (1987) (Evening songs)

Short story

(Land) (1982) (The neglected jade) (1982) (Like branches intertwined) (1982) (Honey) (1982) !"#=(A small town corner shop) (1982) (Evening songs) (1981) (The umbrella) (1981?) =(Nothing but tea) (1982) !=(Ajiao comes out of the bath) ! (My village uncle’s home) (1981) !=(The weaving girl) (1982) !" (The crooked path to the secluded beauty-spot) (1983) =(The cup with a carp design) (1981)

Short story Short story

Date and place of Notes publication

Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story Short story Tianjin: Baihua wenyi chubanshe, 1987.

This collection has the following 20 short stories.

Short story Short story Short story Short story

Wenyibao, 14 October 1981.

Short story Short story Short story

Chang’an, 1980, no. 4.

Short story Short story Short story

Short story

Also in Yehuoji (1982)

Appendix 2 Year Title =(The dove) (1982) =(The landlord) (1982) !"#$% (Ma Yulin and his son) (1982) (The mirror) (1981) !=(Thirty but not yet established) (1982) (Under the tree) (1984–6) (Desert grasses) (1982) !" !" v.5 (The oily moon and other stories: Jia Pingwa’s selection, v.5) !=( ) (On turning forty) (In place of a preface), ! (Stories about Mount Taibai), (Wang Mantang), (Liu Wenqing), (Medicine pot), (The oily moon), (Smoke), (Evening songs), (The dove), (The kang), (Ghost town), (Wildﬁre), =(Love song), !" (Obituary of ‘Grandma Xiawu’), (The earthquake), ! (Grandma of the Xia family), ! (A mountain inn), (Sandy land), (Song of triumph), =(The patient), (The neglected jade), (In the springtime), (Cultural relics), =(New Year’s eve), =(In the walnut orchard), (In the valley), !"#=(The

Genre

249

Date and place of Notes publication

Short story Short story Haixia, 1982, no. 2.

Not in Wang Yongsheng’s collection (Jia Pingwa 1998c).

Qingchun congkan, 1982, no. 2.

Novella

Not in Wang Yongsheng’s collection (Jia Pingwa 1998c). Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.6.

Short story

Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.5

Novella Short story Novella

Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe, 1993.

Collection of 29 short stories previously published in other collections. ‘The oily moon’ is an experiment using psychoanalysis as the means of characterization. Its narrative technique and theme are comparable to the avant-garde story ‘Past and punishment’ ( !") by Yu Hua, which is very unusual in Jia Pingwa’s writing.

250

Appendix 2

Year Title waterfall at Jade Fairy Mountain), (Sound of weaving), (Apricots in February), (The ﬂood) !=(Stories of Mount Taibai) (The widow), =(Digging ginseng), (The hunter), (The murderer), (The pilgrim), (The husband), (The father-in-law), (The village ancestors), (The leader), (The drinker), (The son), (The ugly man), (The lass), (The lad), (Ali), (Watching the ﬁght), (Mother and son), =(A gawky adolescent), (The youngest son), (Father and son)

Genre

Short story series

Date and place of Notes publication

This is a series of short stories threaded together against the background of Mount Taibai. In terms of structure, characterization and plot development, this series sets preambles to Three Records of Shangzhou and Pregnancy. It is from this collection that Jia Pingwa begins to adopt village legends, folklores and fantasies as materials for his ‘ﬁction’. Also, many of these stories were published separately elsewhere, as with those later in Pregnancy. Noticeably, this collection also marks Jia Pingwa’s departure from revolutionary stories as prescribed by the authorities in the Cultural Revolution. The story ‘Husband’ is a different one from the story by the same title published in 1979. The following can be found in Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.1: short stories published in 1973–78. Their initial publication details are unknown, but the dates of writing are noted. !"#$% Short story (Of catapults and pumpkins) (1975) (The members Short story of the brigade committee) (1975) !" (There is Short story ice on the brook!) (1975) (Water) (1976) Short story !!=(Uncle Short story newcomer) (1976) !" (A strong Short story hand holds the torch) (1976) ! (The teacher Short story isn’t here) (1977)

Appendix 2 Year Title

Genre

251

Date and place of Notes publication

(The springtime Short story girl) (1977) (She) (1978) Short story (The calendar) Short story (1978) (The sound of Short story the erhu) (1978) !=(Baojing Short story takes up his position) (1978) (Eyes) (1978) Short story =(Books) (1978) Short story (Drinking wine) Short story (1978?) ! (The last Short story scene) (1978) (Echo) (1978) Short story (Flora) (1978) Short story The following stories can be found in Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.2: short stories published in 1979–80. =(Entering the Short story mountains) (1979) ! (Harvest Short story time) (1979) – !"# Short story =(Cancer: a true story) (1979) !"=(School Short story tomorrow) !=(The Short story moonlight on the riverside) (1979) ! (Early Short story mornings in a mountain town) (1979) (The girl who Short story sells baskets) (1980) (The dead Short story husband) (1980) !(A big Short story serving of mutton soup) (1980) (The moon on Short story the water) (1980) The following can be found in Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.3: short stories published in 1981–97. !" (A small Essay peach tree) (1981) =(The kang) !=(New Short story Anhui wenxue, Year’s eve) (1981) 1981, no. 9. (The patient) Short story Yanhe, 1981, (1981) no. 1. (The mirror) Short story Nanyuan, 1981, (1981) no. 6.

252

Appendix 2

Year Title (Song of forest) (1979) ! (The old man and his vegetable garden) (1977) (Knowing) (1981)

Genre

Date and place of Notes publication

Short story Short story

Fable

Not in Jia Pingwa 1998c but in ! (The moon in the tree)

Second period 1983–6: Shangzhou stories and Jia Pingwa’s literary nativism If the ﬁrst period was Jia Pingwa’s decade of apprenticeship and he succeeded in establishing himself as a writer, the ﬁve years immediately afterwards saw him emerging as one of the leading writers nationally with the publication of ‘Three records of Shangzhou’. Extremely proliﬁc in these ﬁve years, in 1985 alone he produced ten novellas, that is, at the speed of one novella in less than six weeks. His publications during the period include four collections of short stories and the novellas, three collections of essays, one novel and one collection of poems. Although the major genre he uses during this period is the novella, he has further developed his signature style of ﬁction structured as a collection of essays. All of his writings during this time are about Shangzhou and their indigenous content and narrative features set Jia Pingwa distinctively apart from his contemporaries. 1983 ! (First records of Shangzhou)

! (Further records of Shangzhou) !=(More records of Shangzhou) !=Xiaoyue qianben (A preliminary biography of Xiaoyue)

Essay or novella

Zhongshan wenxue, 1983, no. 5, 133–84.

Essay or novella Essay or novella Novella

Chang’an, 1984, no. 7, 26–30. Shouhuo, 1983, no. 5.

Under this title are 14 pieces of writing. Some tell stories of the characteristics of the local people of Shangzhou, whereas others elaborate on the region’s environment, landscape and customs, hence the entire narratives can be seen as both essays and stories. Some critics tend to view the narratives together as a continuous piece. This series won the inaugural literary prize of Zhongshan periodical in 1987.

Appendix 2 Year Title (The households at Chicken Roost Gulley)

1984

Genre

Date and place of Notes publication

Novella

Shiyue, 1984, no. 2.

Novella

!"#(A preliminary biography of Xiaoyue) !" (In the Shangzhou highlands), ! (A preliminary biography of Xiaoyue), (The households at Chicken Roost Gulley), ! (My childhood, my family), !" =(Ma Yulin and his son), (Apricots in February).

Guangzhou: Huacheng chubanshe, 1984.

(December and January)

Shiyue, 1984, no. 4.

253

This story won the Literary Prize by Shiyue and the ‘Chonglang ’ (surﬁng) literary prize of the Xi’an Writers Association. It was adapted into the ﬁlm Yeshan (Wild mountains) by Xi’an Film Studio, which won the prize for the best ﬁlm in the ten years of the new era from the Ministry of Culture, the Sixth Golden Rooster Prize (Sun Jianxi 2001, v.1: 369). Information on the ﬁlmic adaptation in =– !"# (Wild mountains: from the story to the screen) (1990). To avoid confusion with Chinese Muslims, the name for the male character was changed to =in the ﬁlm.

In 1985 this story won the third national best novella prize, the literary Prize of Shiyue, the ﬁrst prize for Beijing Municipality Literary Competition in honour of the 35th National Anniversary, and the ﬁrst prize for Discovery in Creativity issued by the Shaanxi provincial government ( !"#$%). It

254

Appendix 2

Year Title

1985

Genre

(Shangzhou)

Novel

Date and place of Notes publication has been adapted into the ﬁlm Villagers () by Zhujiang Film Studio. Jia Pingwa’s ﬁrst novel.

Wenxuejia, 1984, no. 5. Beijing: Shiyue wenyi chubanshe, 1987. The following are the ten novellas Jia Pingwa published in the year 1985, which ﬁrmly established him on China’s literary scene. Novella Shiyue, 1985, =(The heavenly 1987 Prize for no. 2. hound) Outstanding Works by the Novella Bimonthly ( ! !"). Zhongguo, 1985, (Ice and charcoal) Novella no. 2. Novella Wenhui yuekan, (Human 1985, no. 10. extremities) Shanghai (Desert grasses) Novella wenxue, 1985, no. 3. Zhongguo zuojia, ! (A day in the Novella 1985, no. 4. life of Shangzhou) Novella Zhongguo zuojia, ! 1985, no. 1. (Distant mountains and wild passions, or The goldmine) Novella Renmin wenxue, (Darkie) Won the prize for the 1985, no. 10. most popular work of the year by the journal Novella Shuofang, 1985, =(Mountain town) no. 1. Novella Huacheng, 1985, !=(My early no. 3. days: four stories) Dangdai, 1985, Novella (The northno. 6. western pass) Beijing: Shiyue wenyi (December and chubanshe, 1985. January) ! (A preliminary biography of Xiaoyue), ! (Households at Chicken Roost Gulley), (December and January), (Postscript) Shanghai: !"(Traces of Second collection of Shanghai wenyi love) essays of 42 pieces, which chubanshe, 1985. were not included in Traces of the Moon.

Appendix 2 Year Title

Genre

(Traces of the heart) !=(First Records of Shangzhou), Further Records of Shangzhou), =(A traveller’s tales), ! (My early days: four stories), ! (My primary school), !" (After junior high), (Postscript) !"#$ (Collected essays of Jia Pingwa)

1986

=(Match paper) (Water signals)

Novella (or short story) Short story

=(The old fort)

Novella

(The heavenly hound) (The heavenly hound), (The goldmine), (Darkie), (Match paper), (The old fort), (Human extremities), (The northwestern pass).

255

Date and place of Notes publication Chengdu: Sichuan wenyi chubanshe, 1985.

Third collection of essays. It won the national best essay prize in 1989. The last three pieces are Jia Pingwa’s memoirs about his earlier life and the beginning of his literary career, which he writes about again in I Am a Peasant (Jia Pingwa 1998b).

Xining: Qinghai renmin chubanshe, 1985.

Collection of 37 essays. The editor (anonymous) identiﬁes the feature of Jia Pingwa’s essays as such that they appear descriptive but actually make persuasive arguments.

Shanghai wenxue, 1986, no. 2. Zhongshan, 1986, no. 2. Shiyue, 1986, no. 1.

Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe, 1986.

The novella has been adapted into a six-episode television series by Anhui Provincial Television Station.

256

Appendix 2

Year Title

Genre

!"#$%&' !"#$% (Famous novellas of the new era: Jia Pingwa volume) ! (A preliminary biography of Xiaoyue), (Households at Chicken Roost Gulley), (December and January), (The heavenly hound), (A few words in conclusion) !=(Blank)

!"#$ (Selected travel writings by Jia Pingwa)

Date and place of Notes publication Fuzhou: Haixia wenyi chubanshe, 1987.

Jia Pingwa’s postscript (397–8) talks about his feelings regarding writing about Shangzhou in the genre of the novella. All the stories here are about Shangzhou.

Guangzhou: Huacheng chubanshe, 1986. Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin meishu chubanshe, 1986.

His only poetry collection to date with 31 free-verse poems. A collection of Jia Pingwa’s writing on different places, local customs, landscape and food, especially food in Shaanxi.

Third period 1987–92: Consolidation with Turbulence, Pregnancy and Mountain Rambling This is the most glorious ﬁve years in Jia Pingwa’s career, in which he published three novels, four collections of novellas, three collections of short stories and six collections of essays. His novel Turbulence was a phenomenal success and it won the American Pegasus Prize in 1988. As he attracts the attention of critics and readers, his works began to be sought after by publishers. From this period onwards, most of his ﬁction was initially published in a major literary journal before appearing in book form or in collections. His essays also attracted increasingly positive appraisal. 1987

(The tornado)

Novella

Renmin wenxue, 1986, no. 12.

=(Home village)

Novella

Shiyue, 1987, no. 2.

(The village in the valley) (The god Majiao) !" (The good dwarves)

Novella Novella Novella

These ﬁve separately published novellas were originally conceptualized as parts of one novel, which took the title of Renshen (Pregnancy). This novella is the winner of the 1988 Shiyue Literary Prize (which began in 1986).

Appendix 2 Year Title

Genre

Date and place of Notes publication

!"#$%&' (Essays by Jia Pingwa: author’s own selection)

Guilin: Lijiang chubanshe, 1987.

(Evening songs)

Tianjin: Baihua wenyi chubanshe, 1987. Zhengzhou: Zhongyuan nongmin chubanshe, 1987.

1988

(Home village)

(Turbulence)

!"#$% – (Anthology of new Chinese literature – The heavenly hound) 1990 !"#(Fallen leaves at Tranquillity Village)

This is a relatively comprehensive collection of Jia Pingwa’s essays. It includes ﬁve sections: 1 = (Traces of the moon); 2 (Traces of love); 3 (Traces of the heart); 4 (Traces of the feet); 5 (Traces of words). This collection contains 20 short stories. This collection has 24 short stories and novellas published between 1980 and 1986 plus a postscript. The short stories here were mostly written around 1981 and the novellas around 1986.

Novel

Shouhuo, 1987, no. 1. Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe, 1988. Hong Kong: Tiandi tushu gongsi, 1991. Howard Goldblatt, trans., Turbulence, Baton Rouge: Louisiana University Press, 1991. Tianjin: Baihua wenyi chubanshe, 1988. Xi’an: Shaanxi lüyou chubanshe, 2001.

Jia Pingwa’s second novel. It was published both by the journal Shouhuo and by the Zuojia Publishing House. It won the Pegasus Prize in 1991 in the United States.

Novel

Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe, 1989. Taipei: Linbai chubanshe, 1989.

Jia Pingwa’s third novel.

Xi’an: Shaanxi jiaoyu chubanshe, 1990.

Collection of essays.

!"(Three records of Shangzhou)

1989 (Pregnancy)

257

258

Appendix 2

Year Title 1991

1992

Genre

Date and place of Notes publication

!"(The place for perpetual playfulness)

Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1991.

!"#$%& (The best of Jia Pingwa’s ﬁction), Ma Shixiong, Xu Lixue, =Song Jiajia, Zhou Wei, Zhao Wensheng, eds !"(Place for gathering the scattered)

Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe, 1991.

Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe, 1991.

Collection of 56 essays.

! !" =v.1 (Chapters from a Floating Life: Jia Pingwa’s own selection, v.1) (Defunct capital), (Turbulence) v.2 !" (Pregnancy / Rambling in the mountains: Jia Pingwa’s own selection, v.2) (volume for novels). The table of content of this book is as follows: (Pregnancy) !" (Chapter One The good dwarves) (Chapter Two The tornado) (Chapter Three Home village)

Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe, 1992.

‘Feidu’ is the original title of the novella ‘Yishi’ (The Abandoned Rock) before the publication of the novel Feidu (Defunct capital) in 1993.

Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe, 1992.

In 1992, having reached the age of forty, Jia Pingwa wrote the short piece, ‘On Turning Forty’, which became the preface for the 6-volume collected works of his own selection.

Collection of 44 essays divided into three sections. The preface explains the meaning of the title for the collection. The title is not related to the essay that shares the same name in the collection. Jia Pingwa uses it because he likes the character ‘wan ’ and he wants to make a comment on the trend of urban residents trying very hard to keep the tiny piece of land that each household is entitled to for private enjoyment. Hence, the place for perpetuate playfulness. Collection of 14 novellas and 5 short stories.

Appendix 2 Year Title (Chapter Four The god Majiao) (Chapter Five The village in the valley) (Postscript) =(Rambling in the Mountains) (The auspicious gravesite) (1990)

=(The bride carrier) (Late rain) (Bai Lang – the bandit) (Postscript) !"# v.3 (Darkie: Jia Pingwa’s own selection v.3) (novella volume) (The heavenly hound), (Darkie), (Human extremities), !=(A preliminary biography of Xiaoyue), (Households at Chicken Roost Gulley), (December and January). !"# v.4 !" (The trials of the Buddha: Jia Pingwa’s own selection, v.4) (novella volume) (The trials of the Buddha) (Defunct capital)

Genre

Date and place of Notes publication

Novella

Renmin wenxue, 1990, nos 7–8.

Novella Novella Novella

259

Zhang Yimou has bought the ﬁlm rights of this story (Sun Jianxi 2001, v.2: 325). This is the ﬁrst time that bandits emerge as subjects in Jia Pingwa’s ﬁction. The ﬁlm rights of this story have been sold to Huang Jianxin (Sun 2001, v.2: 325).

Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe, 1992.

Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe, 1992.

Novella

Renmin wenxue, 1991, no. 10.

This novella won the outstanding literary work prize given by Renmin wenxue in 1991. There are traces of this novella in Jia Pingwa’s 1993 novel by the same title, especially in terms of motifs and metaphors. But the plots and characters are entirely different.

260

Appendix 2

Year Title =(Match paper) ! (The goldmine) (original name: Distant mountains and wild passions) =– !" !"#$% =(Ice and charcoal: The story of a squadron leader, an actor and a woman) (1984) =(The old fort) !"#$%&' (Jia Pingwa’s prizewinning novellas), Xuanzi, ed. (Darkie), (Home village), (The heavenly hound), ! (First records of Shangzhou), (The old fort), (Households at Chicken Roost Gulley), (December and January), (Defunct capital) (Human traces)

Genre

Date and place of Notes publication

Xi’an: Xibei Daxue chubanshe, 1992.

The collection lists all the prizes won by each of the works.

Wuhan: Changjiang wenyi chubanshe, 1992.

Collection of novellas, short stories, essays and four poems with a postscript by Li Xing (). One of the three in the series of The Best of Jia Pingwa. The other two are: !"#$ (The best of Jia Pingwa’s ﬁction) and !"# (The best of Jia Pingwa’s travel writing). This collection contains 80 essays. Collection of 53 essays.

!"#$%& (The best of Jia Pingwa’s essays), Handan and Wang Chuan , eds

Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe, 1992.

!"# v.6 (Idlers: Jia Pingwa’s own selection, v.6) (essay volume)

Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe, 1992.

Appendix 2 Year Title

Genre

!"#$%& (The best of Jia Pingwa’s travel writing), Xinmin and Xiaoli , eds

Meiwen (belles lettres)

261

Date and place of Notes publication Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe, 1992.

Journal

Collection of Jia Pingwa’s travel writing with a preface by Zhou Zhengbao . It has six sections: 1 ! (Travelling in Shangzhou, 2 !=(Travelling in central Shaanxi, 3 (Travelling in southern Shaanxi), 4 = ! (Travelling in northern Shaanxi), 5 ! (Travelling in southern China), 6 ! (Travelling on the silk route). Jia Pingwa launched the monthly journal in 1992 as its founding editor. The journal became a respected national forum for China’s essayists and leads to Jia Pingwa’s editing essay collections in the years to come.

Fourth period 1993–4: Controversy over Defunct Capital The publication Defunct Capital is a major event both in Jia Pingwa’s career and in the history of modern Chinese literature. The book sold ‘half a million copies within the ﬁrst few months of its publication’ (Zha, Jianying 1995: 129) and generated heated public debate about the virtue and vice of its narrative style and sexual content. The authorities subsequently banned the book, as criticism of the book grew increasingly harsh and devastating. The publication and reception of Defunct Capital was a turning point in Jia Pingwa’s writing career and its impact has been long-lasting. While he himself withdrew from public life, the national debate helped to extend his reputation in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Chinese diaspora. Defunct Capital was published both in Hong Kong and Taiwan soon after its mainland edition, which also inspired publishers in the Chinese-speaking world subsequently to publish his short stories, novellas and essays. Between 1993 and 1994, apart from Defunct Capital, his publications amount to three collections of short stories and novellas, and seven collections of essays.

1993

(Defunct capital)

Novel

Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 1993. Hong Kong: Tiabdi tushu gongsi, 1993. Taibei: Fengyun chuban gongsi, 1994.

Jia Pingwa’s fourth novel, which has been banned by the authorities since January 1994. Announcement of the ban by the authorities can be found in Sun Jianxi 2001, v.3: 7–9. Its French translation (trans. Geneviève Imbot-Bichet, Paris: Stock, 1997) won the French Femina prize in 1997 (Sun Jianxi 2001, v.3: 365).

262

Appendix 2

Year Title

1994

Genre

Date and place of Notes publication

!" !" v.5 !" (The oily moon: Jia Pingwa’s own selection, v.5) (Short story volume) !"#$%&(A complete collection of essays by Jia Pingwa)

Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe, 1993.

Guilin: Lijiang chubanshe, 1993.

This three-volume collection of Jia Pingwa’s essays was conceptualized and edited by Peng Xiong , who is an editor highly respected by Jia Pingwa. Wang Zengqi is the other writer whose essays Peng Xiong chose to edit and publish. The three became close friends.

!"#$%& (The best of Jia Pingwa’s essays), Handan =and Wang Chuan , eds

Xi’an: Taibai wenyi chubanshe, 1994.

!"#$% (The red fox)

Beijing: Zhongguo huaqiao chubanshe, 1994.

The 81 essays in this collection are not very different from those in the collection edited by the same editors in 1992. The distinction is primarily in the addition of two prefaces. The ﬁrst is by Zhou Zhengbao with the title of ‘Sentimental Moonlight’ ( !") and it offers an overview of Jia Pingwa’s essays in publication by 1991. The second is Jia Pingwa’s frequently printed essay: ‘On the composition of essays in the new era’ ( !"#$). Collection of 39 of Jia Pingwa’s essays with his preface, expressing his reluctance to allow the publication of this collection. He also shows his frustration with the demands of various editors who chase after his manuscripts.

Appendix 2 Year Title

Genre

263

Date and place of Notes publication

!(Taibai) (Preface), =(Stories about Mount Taibai), (Wang Mantang), (Liu Wenqing), (Medicine pot), (The oily moon), (Smoke), (Evening songs), (The dove), (The kang), ! =(Two men with long and narrow faces), (The auspicious gravesite), (Bai Lang – the bandit), (The bride carrier), (The trials of the Buddha), (Match paper) !"#$%& (Short essays on life by Jia Pingwa), Shi Zixun and Liu Yucun ' eds

Chengdu: Sichuan renmin chubanshe, 1994.

Collection of 15 short stories and novellas written between 1985 and 1989.

Shijiazhuang: Hebei renmin chubanshe, 1994.

!"#(On turning forty)

Xi’an: Shaanxi lüyou chubanshe, 1994. Taibei: Xiapu chubanshe, 1994. Xi’an: Taibai wenyi chubanshe, 1994. Hong Kong: Tiandi tushu gongsi, 1997.

A collection of 75 essays by Jia Pingwa. It is divided into seven sections: ! (Emotional life), ! (Life free from desire), ! (Life of tranquillity), ! (Life with Zen), ! (A cultured life), ! (A worldly life), ! (Life and travel) Collection of 25 essays.

! (Breaking off the engagement) ! (A seated Buddha)

Collection of 77 essays.

264

Appendix 2

Fifth period 1995–2004: re-emergence newofdirections Year Title Genre Dateand and place Notes publication In the aftermath of Defunct Capital, while critics were either savaging his writing or discreetly silent, Jia Pingwa quietly re-emerged with the publication of another novel, White Nights. He steadily searched for new horizons and this period saw him produce another four novels, one memoir, some short stories, one book on Xi’an’s cultural history and many more essays. He has also taken to editing books on and of essays. Jia Pingwa’s tenth novel Health Report and his recent short stories since 2001 show substantial changes in both narrative structure and thematic concerns. While the novel remains his major preoccupation, short stories have returned. The popularity of his essays remains. Publishers have realized the proﬁts Jia Pingwa’s works generate and have been competing to publish them, especially his essays. It is now almost impossible to trace all the editions of Jia Pingwa’s works in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, many of which he himself is not aware of, let alone the numerous pirated editions, especially those of the still banned Defunct Capital. As far as the titles and bibliographical details can be conﬁrmed by the catalogues of major university libraries, Jia Pingwa’s publications in this period include four new novels, ﬁve collections of short stories and novellas, one edited volume of the essays, one edited volume of articles on genre studies of essay, one memoir and twenty-six collections of essays of various sizes. Five different kinds of collections of Jia Pingwa’s writings were published during this time, ranging from one-volume selections to four-, or eight- or even fourteen-volume complete collections. 1995

!(White nights)

!(Speaking about conversation) ! "#$% (Shangzhou: the story continues) !"#$ (Selected works of Jia Pingwa), Lei Da , ed.

!"#$%& !"(A treasury of Chinese essays: Jia Pingwa) !"#$%& (The best of Jia Pingwa’s ﬁction), Xuanzi and Wang Na , eds

Novel

Beijing: Huaxia chubanshe, 1995. Hong Kong: Tiandi tushu gongsi, 1995. Taibei: Fengyun chuban gongshi, 1996. Xi’an: Shaanxi Renmin chubanshe, 1995. Beijing: Huaxia chubanshe, 1995. Beijing: Zhongguo wenlian chuban gongsi, 1995.

Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1995. Xi’an: Taibai wenyi chubanshe, 1995.

Jia Pingwa’s ﬁfth novel.

Collection of 55 essays. This is a 4-volume collection of Jia Pingwa’s prose and ﬁction. This is an 8-volume collection of Jia Pingwa’s essays and ﬁction, divided by theme. The titles of the volumes respectively are: 1 =(Floating life), 2 (Social commentary), 3 (Root searching), 4 (Chivalrous bandits), 5 (Primitive passions), 6 (Spirit), 7 =(Free from desire) 8 (In quest for imperfection) Collection of 57 essays.

Appendix 2 Year Title

Genre

!"(Collection of the scattered) !"#(The yellow earth plateau), Fan Peisong , ed. 1996

!(Earth gate)

!"#"$%& !"(The world’s best Chinese essays: Jia Pingwa volume)

!"(The hall of quasi-language)

1997

Date and place of Notes publication Hong Kong: Tiandi tushu gongshi, 1995. Taibei: Youshi chubanshe, 1995.

Collection of essays.

Shenyang: Chunfeng wenyi chubanshe, 1996. Hong Kong: Tiandi tushu gongsi, 1997. Guangzhou: Guangzhou chubanshe, 1996.

Jia Pingwa’s sixth novel.

Beijing: Zhongguo gongren chubanshe, 1996.

This collection of 109 essays is edited by Xiao Chongsheng . It contains Jia Pingwa’s essays between 1980 and 1995 as well as a postscript by the editor. This collection of 98 essays is divided into three sections: 1 =(The way of language), 2 =(The artistic realm), 3 (The human world).

Defunct Capital won the French Femina Prize for Foreign !"#$%&' Beijing: !"(Two-legged Zhongguo animals: Jia Pingwa’s qingnian diaries and recent chubanshe, 1997. essays)

!"#$%&' !(A Treasury of Contemporary Chinese Literature: Jia Pingwa volume), Yemang , ed. 1998

Novel

265

!"#(Making noises) ! (Making noises) =(Glass) (Plum blossoms) (1997)

Fiction of 1997. This is divided into two parts: 1 !=(Diaries from his trip to Jiangsu and Zhejiang in 1996); 2 ! (Recent essays, grouped under three titles: (Travel writings); =(Random jottings); =(Comments) ). Jia Pingwa explains the meaning of ‘zouchong ’ in the preface – Shangzhou locals refer to human beings as ‘walking animals’. Wuhan: This collection has Changjiang ﬁve parts: calligraphy, wenyi painting, poetry, essays, chubanshe, 1997. ﬁction.

Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe, 1998.

Shanghai wenxue, 1997, no. 5.

The pieces collected in this volume and listed below have been regarded as both short stories and essays, and they have appeared in various collections of essays or short stories.

266

Appendix 2

Year Title

Genre

Date and place of Notes publication

(The dog Xiaochu) =(Nobodies) (1997) !"#(On reading The Romance of the Western Chamber) (1997) (The woman by the family name of Ren) (1997) =(Selfobservation) (1997) !" (Old Gao Village)

!"#$%&' (Complete works of Jia Pingwa: 14 volumes) v.1 – 60 short stories published between 1973 and 1978. v.2 – 50 short stories published between 1979 and 1980. v.3 – 51 short stories published between 1981 and 1997. v.4 – 6 novellas published between 1977 and 1981. v.5 – 7 novellas published between 1982 and 1983. v.6 – 9 novellas published between 1984 and 1986. v.7 – 12 novellas published between 1985 and 1997. v.8 – 2 novels, Shangzhou (1984) and White Nights (1995). v.9 – 2 novels, Turbulence (1987) and Defunct Capital (1993). The latter is only listed as a title. v.10 – 2 novels, Pregnancy (1987) and Earth Gate (1996).

This is Jia Pingwa’s rewriting of a Tang dynasty chuanqi story by Shen Jiji ( ). Novel

Harvest, 1998, nos 4–5 Xi’an: Taibai wenyi chubanshe, 1998. Wuhan: Changjiang wenyi, 1999. , ed. Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe, 1998.

Jia Pingwa’s seventh novel.

This is the most nearly complete collection of Jia Pingwa’s published works to 1998. Only a handful of short stories and essays have been left out. All the poems in Jia Pingwa’s poetry collection Blank are collected in Volume 13 except for one poem: ‘Passing by Yulin Desert on the 12th July’ ( !"#$).

Appendix 2 Year Title v.11 – 105 essays published between the 1970s and 1980s. v.12 – 133 essays published between the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s. v.13 – 77 essays published in the 1990s and modern poetry. v.14 – 143 various writings, including Jia Pingwa’s speeches about writing, prefaces and postscripts, correspondence, interviews, etc. Many of those selected are important historical documents !"# (I am a peasant)

!"#$%& (Jia Pingwa’s Zen essays)

!(Knocking on the door) !"#$%&' !"#(Building a house for dreams: essays by Jia Pingwa)

Genre

Date and place of Notes publication

Memoir

Changchun: Jilin renmin chubanshe, 1998. Xi’an: Shaanxi lüyou chubanshe, 2000. Guangzhou: Guangzhou renmin chubanshe, 1998.

Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe, 1998. Beijing: Renmin ribao chubanshe, 1998.

267

Memoir of Jia Pingwa’s life between 1968 and 1972 when he graduated from junior high school and before he went to university. !(Preface by Jia Pingwa); 1 ! (Picking ﬂowers as a way of talking); 2 ! (Beauty under one’s feet); 3 ! (Talking as one pleases); ! (Postscript by Kong Ming). Collection of 41 essays published in the 1990s. Collection of essays and it is divided into three sections: 1 three of his best-known essays: = (‘The reclining tiger’), ! (On turning forty), !" (Building a house for dreams); 2 Jia Pingwa’s commentaries about his own works; 3 a series of essays written about the journal Belles Lettres .

268

Appendix 2

Year Title

1999

Genre

Date and place of Notes publication

!"#$%&' !"# (Contemporary Chinese writers series: Jia Pingwa)

Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1998.

!"#$(Jia Pingwa’s calligraphy and painting) !"#$%& (The best of Jia Pingwa’s ﬁction) !"#$%& (The complete collection of Jia Pingwa’s essays)

Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin meishu chubanshe, 1998. Taibei: Jin’an chubanshe, 1998.

!"#(The sound of suona piping in the wind)

Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1999.

!"# (Following the sun)

Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1999. Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1999. Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1999. Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1999.

!"(Human drafts) !"#$(Bodhi and Persian dates) !"(In the Shang mountains)

!"#$%# (Jia Pingwa’s essays and other writings)

This is a series initiated by Renmin wenxue chubanshe to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the PRC in 1989, which has so far published single volumes on around 50 authors. The volume on Jia Pingwa has 6 short stories, 6 novellas and 17 essays in addition to a bibliography at the end.

Taibei: Jin’an chubanshe, 1998.

Lanzhou: Gansu renmin chubanshe, 1999.

One of the ﬁve-volume series of Jia Pingwa’s essays from this publisher. According to Jia Pingwa’s preface, the series is the result of a businessman’s marketing idea to publish 10-yuan mini collections of essays. This volume contains 9 of Jia Pingwa’s memoirs about his early life. Collection of 15 essays and short stories. Collection of 26 essays and short stories. Collection of 46 essays and short stories. This volume contains (First records of Shangzhou) and ! (Further records of Shangzhou). Collection of 126 essays produced from the early 1980s to the end of the 1990s.

Appendix 2 Year Title

Genre

269

Date and place of Notes publication

!"(Jia Pingwa), Pan Yaoming , ed. !"#$% (Introduction: Reﬂections of a man’s spirit); (Making noises); =(The heavenly hound); (The oily moon); (Wang Mantang); (Darkie); (The auspicious gravesite); (The bride carrier); !=(Appendix: chronology) !"#$%&' (Old Xi’an: Sunset on the Defunct Capital)

Hong Kong: Mingbao yuekan chuban gongsi, 1999.

Jia Pingwa is one of the 20 writers in the series on contemporary Chinese literature chosen by a committee of academics with international standing.

Nanjing: Jiangsu wenyi chubanshe, 1999.

D(Learning to live), co-author: Xia Fei

Lanzhou: Dunhuang wenyi chubanshe, 1999.

Xi’an’s cultural history produced by Jia Pingwa based on a collection of photos of old Xi’an. The narrative reveals many historical details that have appeared in Defunct Capital. This book is correspondence between Xia Fei and Jia Pingwa on their life philosophies. Collection of 30 essays.

Novel

!"(The pines on the Yellow Emperor’s Tomb Mount) !"#$(Stories of roses) co-author: Xing Qingren

Changchun: Jilin sheying chubanshe, 1999.

!"#$% (Selected stories of Jia Pingwa)

Beijing: Chinese Literature Press & Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 1999.

2000 !" (Remembering wolves) !"

Changsha: Hunan wenyi chubanshe, 1999.

Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe, 2000. Taibei: I-front Publications, 2002.

Collection of Jia Pingwa’s comments on the paintings of Xing Qingren . This bilingual (Chinese and English) selection contains two novellas. The English translations in the book are: ‘Wukui’ (Regrets of a bride carrier) and ‘Meixuedi’ (The good fortune grave). Jia Pingwa’s eighth novel. The Taipei edition has a brief but informative introduction by David Der-wei Wang.

270

Appendix 2

Year Title

2001

Genre

Date and place of Notes publication

!"#Essays by Jia Pingwa, Li Xing , ed.

Hangzhou: Zhejiang wenyi chubanshe, 2000.

!"# (Studies on the essay)

Baoding: Hebei daxue chubanshe, 2000.

!(Speaking about conversation)

Xi’an: Shaanxi lüyou chubanshe, 2001. Xi’an: Shaanxi lüyou chubanshe, 2001. Xi’an: Shaanxi lüyou chubanshe, 2001. Guangzhou: Guangdong renmin chubanshe, 2001. Hangzhou: Zhejiang wenyi chubanshe, 2001.

!(Playing chess)

!(Drinking wine) !"#$(Songs of black wings) !"#!$% (Shangzhou folks: men) =(The heavenly hound), =(The bride carrier), (Match paper), (Smoke), ! (Distant mountains and wild passions), (Wang Mantang), (The oily moon), ! (Making noise), (The patient), =(Selfobservation), (On reading the Romance of the Western Chamber)

Collection of Jia Pingwa’s essays from the beginning of the 1980s to the end of the 1990s. The collection is divided by theme into 8 sections: 1 (On nature); 2 (On objects of pleasure); 3 (On travel); 4 (On society); 5 (Some of our contemporaries); 6 (Stories of the past); 7 =(On art); 8 (Prefaces and postscripts). This is a collection of commentaries and scholarly articles on the genre of essay edited by Jia Pingwa. It contains 10 pieces, including the preface by Jia Pingwa. Collection of 55 Jia Pingwa’s essays. Collection of essays. Collection of essays. Collection of essays.

Collection of 11 short stories and novellas by Jia Pingwa which the editor believes show Jia Pingwa’s typical characterization of male protagonists.

Appendix 2 Year Title

Genre

!"#!$% (Shangzhou folks: women) =(Darkie), (Human extremities), (Ice and charcoal), (The auspicious gravesite), (The girl Axiu), (The girl Qiqiao’r), !"#$ (Obituary of ‘Grandma Xiawu’), (The woman by the family name of Ren), (The mirror) !"(On the road to Xinjiang)

2002 !"#$(Short essays by Jia Pingwa)

!"(The dumpling restaurant) The following three short stories had not been published in previous collections: (The dumpling restaurant) (2002), (The hunter) (2002), = (The man Aji) (2001)

Date and place of Notes publication Collection of 9 short stories and novella, which the editor believes show Jia Pingwa’s typical characterization of female protagonists.

!"#$ (Eighteen essayists)

!"#(Health report)

271

Novel

Xi’an: Sanqin chubanshe, 2001 (facsimile of calligraphy). Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 2002. Baoding: Hebei daxue chubanshe, 2001.

Jia Pingwa’s reﬂections while travelling from Xi’an to Xinjiang via Lanzhou in 2001.

Chengdu: Sichuan wenyi chubanshe, 2002. Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi chubanshe, 2002. Beijing: Xinshijie chubanshe, 2002.

Collection of essays.

This is a two-volume collection of essays selected from the journal Meiwen (belles lettres). Each volume has 18 contributors.

Jia Pingwa’s ninth novel. This is a ‘retrospective’ collection of Jia Pingwa’s ﬁction; it is divided into several sections, including ‘Initial Publication’ (The full moon), ‘FameEstablishing Publication’ (First records of Shangzhou), ‘Representative Publication’ (The auspicious gravesite; Darkie); ‘Inﬂuential and Controversial Works’ (Defunct Capital – the novella). Under the section of ‘Impressions’ are critical assessment of Jia Pingwa by Lei Da and Li Xing. There are also

272

Appendix 2

Year Title

2003

Date and place of Notes publication two interviews between Chen Zeshun = , Hu Tianfu and Jia Pingwa in addition to a bibliography of Jia Pingwa’s publications and a brief chronology of major events in Jia Pingwa’s life. Collection of 14 short stories. Most of them were written from 2000 onwards, a few were written in the late 1990s. ‘Bailang’ and ‘Late rain’ were written in the 1980s.

!"#$(Stories overheard) (The man Aji), (The hunter), =(Glass), (The dumpling restaurant), ! (Arasas, the debt collector), (The dog Xiaochu), !" (Stories overheard), (Ku Mairong – the paper-cut lady), (Plum blossoms), !"#(On reading The Romance of the Western Chamber), = (The woman by the family name of Ren), (Bai Lang – the bandit), (Late rain)

Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2002.

!"#(Talking big at the age of ﬁfty)

Wuhan: Changjiang wenyi chubanshe, 2003. Nanjing: Jiangsu wenyi chubanshe, 2003.

Collection of recent essays by Jia Pingwa.

, ed. Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe, 2004.

This is the continuation of the 14-volume series edited by Wang Yongsheng in 1998.

!"#$%&' !"(Twentiethcentury writers series: Arasas, the debt collector) 2004

Genre

!"#$ (Complete works of Jia Pingwa: volumes 15–18) v.15 – 2 novels, Old Gao Village (1998) and Remembering Wolves (2000). v.16 – 3 long essays, I Am a Peasant (1998); Old Xi’an (1999); On the Road to Xinjiang (2001).

Collection of short stories and novellas by Jia Pingwa.

Appendix 2 Year Title

Genre

v.17 – ﬁction, Health Report (2002); Stories overheard (2002). v.18 – essays published between 1998 and 2002. !"#$% (Jia Pingwa’s outlook on life) !"#$(Jia Pingwa’s words and painting) ! (Turbulence) 2005

!(Local accent)

273

Date and place of Notes publication

With Zouzou , Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexueyuan chubanshe, 2004. Jinan: Shandong youyi chubanshe, 2004. Shenyang: Chunfeng wenyi chubanshe, 2004. Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe, 2005.

A substantial interview with Zouzou.

With a review essay by Wang Yiyan (455–77)

274

Appendix 3

Appendix 3 Jia Pingwa’s autobiographical writings and critical biographies

Autobiographical writings Publication

Date

Title

Genre

undated 1981 1981

! (My brief autobiography) !"#=(Character chart) (1981) (Mourning my aunt) (On the evening of 20 May 1981) ! (My primary school) (Morning 4 April 1983) !"#$%&'=– =(On reading for the occasion of the eighteenth birthday of my younger sister: About writing outside of writing (July 1983) !" !#=(My ladders and myself on the ladder) (17 February 1984) =– !"#$ (Autobiography: the nineteen years in the village) (29 July 1985) !" (After junior high) (11 June 1986) !=– !"#$ (The three years in Northwestern University: Recollection after ﬁfteen years) (Mourning my father) (13 October 1989, thirty-three days after Father passed away and before ‘ﬁve seventh’) ! (On turning forty) (1992) !"#$=(I am not a good son) (27 November 1993) ! (I am a peasant) (1 October 1998) ! (Talking big at the age of ﬁfty) !"#$#%&'(%)*+ =(Jia Pingwa’s speech at the dinner party to celebrate his ﬁftieth birthday)

Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.12: 73 Memoir Interview Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.14: 12–15 Obituary Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.11: 77–83

1983 1983

1984 1985 1986 1987? 1989 1992 1993 1998 2002 2002

Memoir

Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.11: 306–11

Letter

Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.11: 366–9

Memoir

Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.12: 44–56

Memoir

Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.12: 88–95

Memoir Memoir

Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.12: 167–9

Obituary

Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.12: 197–207

Essay Memoir

Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.12: 314–17 Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.13: 60–5

Memoir

Jia Pingwa 2004a, v.16: 1–144

Essay

Jia Pingwa 20003a: 19–21

Speech

Jia Pingwa 20003a: 40–2

Appendix 3

275

Critical biographies Date

Author

Title

Publisher

1990

Fei Bingxun Wang Xinmin , ed. Sun Jianxi Jia Pingwa and Mu Tao

Jia Pingwa lun ! (On Jia Pingwa) Duose Jia Pingwa !" (The ﬂamboyant Jia Pingwa) Guicai Jia Pingwa !" (The genius Jia Pingwa), 2 vols Pingwa zhi lu: Jia Pingwa jingshen zizhuan !"#$%&' (An uneven path: biography of Jia Pingwa’s intellectual development) Pingwade foshou !" (The Buddha’s hand in Jia Pingwa’s possession) Hun gui hechu: Jia Pingwa lun !"#$ (Where could the soul settle? On Jia Pingwa) Zhongguo wentan daxizhen: Jia Pingwa changxiaoshu chuangzuo chuban jishi !"#$% !"#$%&'() (Earthquakes in China’s literary scene: a true record of the creation and production of Jia Pingwa’s bestsellers) Jia Pingwa qianzhuan !" (A preliminary biography of Jia Pingwa), 3 vols Jia Pingwa pingzhuan !" (A critical biography of Jia Pingwa)

Xi’an: Xibei daxue chubanshe

1993 1994 1994

1997

Feng Youyuan

2000

Lai Daren

2000

Sun Jianxi

2001

Sun Jianxi

2004

Li Xing and Sun Jianxi

Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe Taiyuan: Beiyue wenyi chubanshe Xi’ning: Qinghai Renmin chubanshe Shanghai: Renmin chubanshe Beijing: Huaxia chubanshe Beijing: Zhongguo guangbo dianshi chubanshe

Guangzhou: Huacheng chubanshe Zhengzhou: Zhengzhou daxue chubanshe

276

Appendix 4

Appendix 4 Works by Jia Pingwa

Jia Pingwa , 2005, Qinqiang =(Local accent), Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe. 2004a, Jia Pingwa wenji !"= (Complete works of Jia Pingwa), Wang Yongsheng , ed. vols 15–18. Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe. 2004b, with Zouzou , Jia Pingwa tan rensheng !"#= (Jia Pingwa’s outlook on life), Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexueyuan chubanshe. 2004c, Jia Pingwa yuhua !"= (Jia Pingwa’s words and painting), Jinan: Shandong youyi chubanshe. 2004d, Fuzao = (Turbulence), with an overview essay by Wang Yiyan (455–77), Shenyang: Chunfeng wenyi chubanshe. 2003a, Wushi dahua ! (Talking big at the age of ﬁfty), Wuhan: Changjiang wenyi chubanshe. 2003b, Ershi shiji zuojia wenku: A’ersasi !"#$%&'()* (Twentiethcentury writers series: Arasas, the debt collector), Nanjing: Jiangsu wenyi chubanshe. 2002a, Jia Pingwa duanwen !" (Jia Pingwa’s short essays), Chengdu: Sichuan wenyi chubanshe. 2002b, Bingxiang baogao != (Health report), Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi chubanshe. 2002c, Xilushang (On the road to Xinjiang), Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe. 2002d, Jiaozi guan =(The dumpling restaurant), Beijing: Xinshijie chubanshe. 2002e, Tinglaide gushi !" (Stories overheard), Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe. 2002f, Huainian lang (Remembering wolves), Taipei: I-front Publications. 2001a, Shuohua (Speaking about conversation), Xi’an: Shaanxi lüyou chubanshe. 2001b, Xiaqi (Playing chess), Xi’an: Shaanxi lüyou chubanshe. 2001c, Hejiu =(Drinking wine), Xi’an: Shaanxi lüyou chubanshe. 2001d, Shangzhou sanlu ! (Three records of Shangzhou), Xi’an: Shaanxi lüyou chubanshe. 2001e, Hei chibang zhi ge !"=(Songs of black wings), Guangzhou: Guangdong renmin chubanshe. 2001f, Shangzhou ren: nanren pian !" #= (Shangzhou folks: men), Hangzhou: Zhejiang wenyi chubanshe. 2001g, Shangzhou ren: nüren pian !" # (Shangzhou folks: women), Hangzhou: Zhejiang wenyi chubanshe. 2001h, Xilushang (On the road to Xinjiang) (manuscript edition), Xi’an: Sanqin chubanshe.

Appendix 4

277

2001i ed., Meiwen shibajia !" (Eighteen essayists), 2 vols. Baoding: Hebei daxue chubanshe. 2000a, Huainian lang (Remembering wolves), Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe. 2000b, Pingwa sanwen ! (Essays by Jia Pingwa), Li Xing , ed. Hangzhou: Zhejiang wenyi chubanshe. 2000c ed., Sanwen yanjiu ! (Studies on the essay), Baoding: Hebei daxue chubanshe. 2000d, Wo shi nongmin ! (I am a peasant), Xi’an: Shaanxi lüyou chubanshe. 1999a, Fengli suona ! (The sound of suona piping in the wind), Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe. 1999b, Jiao gen taiyang != (Following the sun), Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe. 1999c, Ren caogao (Human drafts), Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe. 1999d, Puti yu haizao !" (Bodhi and Persian dates), Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe. 1999e, Shushangde yueliang !" (The moon in the trees), Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe. 1999f, Zai Shangshan (In the Shang mountains), Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe. 1999g, Jia Pingwa sanwen suibi wenji !"#$"%=(Jia Pingwa’s essays and other writings), Lanzhou: Gansu renmin chubanshe. 1999h, Jia Pingwa = (Jia Pingwa), Pan Yaoming , ed. Hong Kong: Mingbao yuekan chuban gongsi. 1999i, Lao Xi’an: Feidu xieyang !"#$% (Old Xi’an: sunset on the defunct capital), Nanjing: Jiangsu wenyi chubanshe. 1999j, with Xia Fei , Xuezhe huo D=(Learning to live), Lanzhou: Dunhuang wenyi chubanshe. 1999k, Huangling bo (The Pines at the Yellow Emperor’s Tomb Mount), Changchun: Jilin sheying chubanshe. 1999l, with Xing Qingren , Meiguide gushi !"= (Stories of roses), Changsha: Hunan wenyi chubanshe. 1999m, Fuzao (Turbulence) with comments by Sun Jiaxi , Wuhan: Changjiang wenyi chubanshe. 1999n, Tumen (Earth gate) with comments by Mu Tao , Wuhan: Changjiang wenyi chubanshe. 1999o, Gaolaozhuang = (Old Gao Village) with comments by Xiao Yunru , Wuhan: Changjiang wenyi chubanshe. 1999p, Baiye =(White nights) with comments by Fei Bingxun , Wuhan: Changjiang wenyi chubanshe. 1999q, Jia Pingwa xiaoshuo xuan !"#= (Selected stories of Jia Pingwa), Beijing: Chinese Literature Press & Foreign Languages Teaching and Research Press. 1998a, Gaolaozhuang (Old Gao Village), Xi’an: Taibai wenyi chubanshe. 1998b, Wo shi nongmin: zai xiangxia de wunian jiyi !"#$%&'()* (I am a peasant: memoirs of ﬁve years in the countryside), Changchun: Jilin renmin chubanshe. 1998c, Jia Pingwa wenji !"= (Complete works of Jia Pingwa), Wang Yongsheng , ed. 14 vols. Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe. 1998d, Qiaomen (Knocking on the door), Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe.

278

Appendix 4

1998e, Jia Pingwa chansi meiwen !"#$ (Jia Pingwa’s Zen essays), Kong Ming and Sun Jianxi, eds. Guangzhou: Guangdong renmin chubanshe. 1998f, Zao yizuo fangzi zhumeng !"#$%&'()*+=(Building a house for dreams: essays by Jia Pingwa), Beijing: Renmin ribao chubanshe. 1998g, Zhizao shengyin ! (Making noises), Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe. 1998h, Zhongguo dangdai zuojia xuanji congshu: Jia Pingwa !"#$%& !"=(Contemporary Chinese writers series: Jia Pingwa), Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe. 1998i, Jia Pingwa shuhua !"=(Jia Pingwa’s calligraphy and painting), Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin meishu chubanshe. 1998j, Jia Pingwa xiaoshuo jingxuan !"#$ (The best of Jia Pingwa’s ﬁction), 2 vols. Taibei: Jin’an chubanshe. 1998k, Jia Pingwa sanwen daxi !"#$= (The complete collection of Jia Pingwa’s essays), 5 vols. Taibei: Jin’an chubanshe. 1997a, Zouchong: Jia Pingwa riji ji sanwen xinzuo !"#$%&'()* (Two-legged animals: Jia Pingwa’s diaries and recent essays), Beijing: Zhongguo qingnian chubanshe. 1997b, Zhongguo dangdai caizi shu: Jia Pingwa juan !"#$%&'() (A treasury of contemporary Chinese literature: Jia Pingwa), Yemang , ed. Wuhan: Changjiang wenyi chubanshe. 1997c, Zuofo (A seated Buddha), Hong Kong: Tiandi tushu gongshi. 1997d, Tumen (Earth gate), Hong Kong: Tiandi tushu gongshi. 1997e, La Capitale Déchue (Feidu ). trans. Geneviève Imbot-Bichet, Paris: Stock. 1996a, Tumen (Earth gate), Shenyang: Chunfeng wenyi chubanshe. 1996b, Shijie huawen sanwen jingpin: Jia Pingwa juan !"!#$%&'() (The world’s best Chinese essays: Jia Pingwa volume), Guangzhou: Guangzhou chubanshe. 1996c, Ru yutang (The hall of quasi-language), Beijing: Zhongguo gongren chubanshe. 1996d, Jia Pingwa sanwen jingxuan !"#$= (The best of Jia Pingwa’s essays), Taibei: Jin’an chubanshe. 1996e, Baiye (White nights), Taibei: Fengyun chuban gongshi. 1995a, Baiye (White nights), Beijing: Huaxia chubanshe. 1995b, Baiye =(White nights), Hong Kong: Tiandi tushu gongshi. 1995c, Shuohua =(Speaking about conversation), Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe. 1995d, Shangzhou: Shuobujinde gushi !"#$%&= (Shangzhou: the story continues), 4 vols. Beijing: Huaxia chubanshe. 1995e, Jia Pingwa wenji !"=(Selected works of Jia Pingwa), Lei Da , ed., 8 vols. Beijing: Zhongguo wenlian chuban gongsi. 1995f, Zhonghua sanwen zhencangben: Jia Pingwa juan !"#$%&'() (A treasury of Chinese essays: Jia Pingwa), Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe. 1995g, Jia Pingwa xiaoshuo jingxuan !"#$ (The best of Jia Pingwa’s ﬁction), Xuanzi =and Wang Na , eds. Xi’an: Taibai wenyi chubanshe. 1995h, Baosanji (Collection of the scattered), Hong Kong: Tiandi tushu gongshi. 1995i, Huangtu gaoyuan ! (Yellow earth plateau), ed. Fan Peisong , Taibei: Youshi chubanshe. 1995j, ‘Baiyun zhishang doushi yangguang – Jia Pingwa tan Feidu he Baiye !"#$%&'()*+’=(All is sunshine above the clouds: Jia Pingwa on Defunct Capital and White Nights), Wenyibao , vol. 5 (1995), 45–7.

Appendix 4

279

1994a, Jia Pingwa sanwen jingxuan !"#$ (The best of Jia Pingwa’s essays), Handan and Wang Chuan , eds. Xi’an: Taibai wenyi chubanshe. 1994b, Jia Pingwa: Honghu !"# (The red fox), Beijing: Zhongguo huaqiao chubanshe. 1994c, Taibai =(Mount Taibai), Chengdu: Sichuan wenyi chubanshe. 1994d, Jia Pingwa rensheng xiaopin !"#$ (Jia Pingwa’s essays on life’s philosophy), Shi Zixun and Liu Yucun ' eds. Shijiazhuang: Hebei renmin chubanshe. 1994e, Sishi sui shuo ! (On turning forty), Xi’an: Shaanxi lüyou chubanshe. 1994f, Tuihun (Breaking off the engagement), Taibei: Xiapu chubanshe. 1994g, Yueji (Traces of the Moon), Taibei: Xiapu chubanshe. 1994h, Zuofo (A seated Buddha), Xi’an: Taibai wenyi chubanshe. 1994i, Feidu (Defunct capital), Taibei: Fengyun chuban gongshi. 1994j, with Mu Tao , Pingwa zhi lu: Jia Pingwa jingshen zizhuan !" !"#$=(An uneven path: biography of Jia Pingwa’s intellectual development), Xining: Qinghai renmin chubanshe. 1994k, Renshen, guangshan =(Pregnancy / Rambling in the mountains), Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe. 1994l, Heishi =(Darkie), Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe. 1994m, Foguan (The trials of the Buddha), Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe. 1993a, Feidu (Defunct capital), Beijing: Beijing chubanshe. 1993b, Feidu (Defunct capital), Hong Kong: Tiandi tushu gongshi. 1993c, You yueliang (The oily moon), Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe. 1993d, Jia Pingwa sanwen daxi !"#$=(Complete collection of Jia Pingwa’s essays), 3 vols. Guilin: Lijiang chubanshe. 1993e, with Han Luhua, ‘Guangyu xiaoshuo chuangzuo de dawen’ (Interviews on writing ﬁction), Dangdai zuojia pinglun 1: 34. 1992a, Fushi juan (Chapters in a ﬂoating life), Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe. 1992b, Jia Pingwa huojiang zhongpian xiaoshuo ji !"#$%&' (Collection of Jia Pingwa’s prize-winning novellas), Xuanzi , ed. Xi’an: Xibei daxue chubanshe. 1992c, Renji (Human traces), Wuhan: Changjiang wenyi chubanshe. 1992d, Jia Pingwa sanwen jingxuan !"#$= (The best of Jia Pingwa’s essays), Handan = and Wang Chuan , eds. Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe. 1992e, Xianren (Idlers), Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe. 1992f, Jia Pingwa youpin jingxuan !"#$ (The best of Jia Pingwa’s travel writing), Xinmin and Xiaoli , eds. Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe. 1991a, Shou wandi (The place for perpetual playfulness), Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe. 1991b, Jia Pingwa xiaoshuo jingxuan !"#$ (The best of Jia Pingwa’s ﬁction), Ma Shixiong , ed. Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe. 1991c, Baosan di (The place for gathering the scattered), Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe. 1991d, Fuzao (Turbulence), Hong Kong: Tiandi tushu gongshi. 1991e, Turbulence (Fuzao ), trans. Howard Goldblatt, Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press. 1990, Jingxucun sanye !"= (Fallen leaves at Tranquillity Village), Xi’an: Shaanxi jiaoyu chubanshe.

280

Appendix 4

1989a, Renshen (Pregnancy), Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe. 1989b, Zhongguo xinwenxue daxi – Tiangou !"#$ (The heavenly hound), Taibei: Linbai chubanshe. 1988a, Fuzao (Turbulence), Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe. 1988b, Shangzhou sanlu ! (Three records of Shangzhou), Tianjin: Baihua wenyi chubanshe. 1987a, Shangzhou (Shangzhou), Beijing: Shiyue wenyi chubanshe. 1987b, rpt 1991, Jia Pingwa sanwen zixuanji !"#$% (Essays by Jia Pingwa: author’s own selection), Guilin: Lijiang chubanshe. 1987c, Wanchang (Evening songs), Tianjin: Baihua wenyi chubanshe. 1987d, Guli =(Home village), Zhengzhou: Zhongyuan nongmin chubanshe. 1986a, Tiangou (The heavenly hound), Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe. 1986b, Xinshiqi zhongpian xiaoshuo mingzuo congshu: Jia Pingwa ji !"#$ !"#$%&= (Famous novellas of the new era: Jia Pingwa volume), Fuzhou: Haixia wenyi chubanshe. 1986c, Kongbai =(Blank), Guangzhou: Huacheng chubanshe. 1986d, Pingwa youji xuan !"=(Jia Pingwa’s travel writing), Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin meishu chubanshe. 1985a, Layue, zhengyue (December and January), Beijing: Shiyue wenyi chubanshe. 1985b, Aide zongji ! (Traces of love), Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi chubanshe. 1985c, Xinji (Traces of the heart), Chengdu: Sichuan wenyi chubanshe. 1985d, Pingwa wenlun ji !"=(Collected essays of Jia Pingwa), Xining: Qinghai renmin chubanshe. 1984, Xiaoyue qianben !=(A preliminary biography of Xiaoyue), Guangzhou: Huacheng chubanshe. 1982a, Yueji (Traces of the moon), Tianjin: Baihua wenyi chubanshe. 1982b, Yehuo ji (Wild ﬁres), Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe. 1981, Jia Pingwa xiaoshuo xinzuo ji !"#$%=(Collection of Jia Pingwa’s recent short stories), Beijing: Zhongguo qingnian chubanshe. 1980a, Shandi biji ! (Notes from the highlands), Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi chubanshe. 1980b, Zaochen de ge ! (Morning songs), Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe. 1978, Jiemei benji ! (Stories of the sisters), Hefei: Anhui renmin chubanshe. 1977, Bingwa (Soldier boy), Beijing: Zhongguo shaonian ertong chubanshe.

°

Notes 281

Notes

1 Introduction 1 Gloria Davies in her introduction to Voicing Concerns: Contemporary Chinese Critical Inquiry asserts a differentiation between sinophone discourses and anglophone discourses. She argues that it is more accurate to use those terms as the different social contexts and academic traditions decide the differences in focuses and voices of scholarly discussions. Many scholars increasingly contribute to both of the discourses and they take up different issues as determined by the given social and cultural contexts (Davies 2001: 1–5). 2 For instance David Der-wei Wang’s introduction to Chinese Literature in the Second Half of a Modern Century (Chi, P. and Wang, D. 2000: xl) and Sheldon Lu’s chapter ‘Literature: Intellectuals in Defunct Metropolis at the Fin de Siècle’ in his monograph China, Transnational Visuality, Global Postmodernity (Lu, S. 2001: 239–67). 3 Further information about the winning of the French Femina prize can be found in Jia Pingwa’s ‘Letter to Mr Shang: Before and After the Awarding of the Femina Prize’ (Gei Shang X de xin – guanyu huo faguo feimina wenxuejiang de qianhou u – !"#$%&'()*+) (Jia Pingwa 2004, v.18: 265–76). 4 The news was announced by the People’s Daily and was found on 7 July 2003 at http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200307/07/eng20030. Jia Pingwa received a letter from the French Ministry of Culture and Communication dated 20 February 2003. 5 In his preface to the prose essay collection Red Fox (Honghu ) (Jia Pingwa 1994b), Jia Pingwa expresses his frustration at being pursued by publishers, his own inability to reject them and his guilt towards his readers. Sun Jianxi has also documented the competition between the publishers for Jia Pingwa’s works with the publication of Defunct Capital (Sun Jianxi 2001, v.2: 555–624). Jia Pingwa’s eighth novel, Old Gao Village, was ﬁrst published in the Shanghai-based journal Harvest (Shouhuo ), then followed immediately with a new edition by Taibai wenyi chubanshe in Xi’an (Sun Jianxi 2001, v.3: 447). In 1999 another edition with annotations was published by Changjiang wenyi chubanshe in Wuhan. 6 Renwen jingshen xunsilu !"#$ (In search of the spirit of humanism) edited by Wang Xiaoming documents the discussions held among leading Chinese intellectuals in the early years of the 1990s, when many Chinese intellectuals voiced their concerns about the impact of marketization of the Chinese economy and the power of commercialization on Chinese society, especially their corrupting impact on literature and social morals. Many of them believed that the quality of literary works produced in the 1990s was in sharp decline and that the ‘quality of people’ also went down (Wang Xiaoming 1996: 2).

282

Notes

7 Many critics have praised Jia Pingwa’s artistic achievements in essays. In books on contemporary Chinese literary history, Jia Pingwa’s essays are often discussed in separate sections (for instance, Jin Han 1993: 422–5; Hong Zicheng 1999: 328– 9). Martin Woesler’s statistical ﬁndings show that his essays are the most favoured (Woesler, M. 2000b: xxxii, 218, 221). 8 This can be evidenced by the selection and publication of Zhonghua sanwen zhencangben: Jia Pingwa juan !"#$%&'() (A treasury of Chinese essays: Jia Pingwa) (Jia Pingwa 1995f ). 9 Meng Fanhua, for instance, is one such critic and his criticism of Defunct Capital is an example of such critical assessment (Duowei 1993: 85–107). 10 For a detailed study of the role of the narrator in traditional Chinese ﬁction see Henry Zhao’s The Uneasy Narrator (Zhao, H. 1995). 11 Mianmian and Weihui are regarded as leading ‘glamorous women writers’. The ‘new-born generation’ refers to writers born in the 1970s who started publishing in the 1990s; their works are characterized by a lack of interest in politics and ideology and an enthusiasm for transnational cosmopolitanism and consumerism. See, for instance, Meagan Ferry ‘Marketing Chinese Women Writers in the 1990s, or the Politics of Self-fashioning’ (Ferry, M. 2003) and Sabina Knight, ‘Shanghai Cosmopolitan: Class, Gender and Cultural Citizenship in Weihui’s Shanghai Babe’ (Knight, S. 2003). 12 Shanghai has been regarded as a cosmopolitan centre that stands out among China’s cities and regions primarily because its local identity largely derives from its cosmopolitanism. Jeffery Wasserstrom, however, makes a convincing counter argument against the ‘modern’ image of Shanghai when examining the political citizenship of old Shanghai’s residents. His discovery also supports my thesis when he asserts that, for Shanghai ren, to be a citizen of Shanghai or a local shimin (person of the city) was related to being some kind of a national citizen or guomin (person of the nation). There was dual loyalty for those who lived in the settlement – the loyalty to the settlement and loyalty to the nation. More importantly, the two coexisted and the former did not replace love for a nearby or distant nation or empire which was associated with China (Wasserstrom, J. 2002: 125). In my belief, Shanghai’s cosmopolitanism should not disqualify it from being local or being Chinese on at least three accounts. First, the majority of Shanghai residents identify themselves as both Shanghainese and Chinese. Second, a person or a community may have multiple cultural identiﬁcations. Cosmopolitanism does not replace their local and national identiﬁcations. Third, the majority of Shanghainese are not cosmopolitan even in Shanghai’s heyday of being the ‘Paris of the Orient’. 13 I am indebted to Chen Xiaoming’s essay ‘The Myth of Nativism: A Narrative Constantly Being Covered’, which serves a preface to the collection of contemporary China’s nativist writing he edited (1995). His critical positions on literary nativism help me clarify my thinking on this matter, although I do not agree with him on a number of important issues. The ten texts in his collection are: Li Rui – Beijing youge jintaiyang !"#$ (There is a golden sun in Beijing), Yan Lianke – Tiangong tu (Life in the palace of Heaven), Wan Fang – Sharen (Murder), Chen Yuanbin – Wanjia susong (Allegations of the Wan family), Liu Xinglong – Fenghuang qin (Phynix zither), Ge Anrong – Huamu jijie ! (The season of ﬂower and plant), Xiong Zhengliang – Hongxiu (Crimson rust), Wang Biao – Yuwang (Desire), Jihui – Heise jijie ! (Season of darkness), Zhang Ji – Liushui qingjie ! (Flowing water complex). These ten short stories all deal with misfortunes in rural environments distant from modernity.

Notes 283 14 Ding Fan’s sixteen-volume series Xinshiqi diyu wenhua xiaoshuo congshu !"#$% (Stories of regional cultures in the new era) (Ding Fan 1998) has the following authors and texts: Zhou Daxin – Ziwu = (Purple fog), Zhang Guoqin – Gujing yiliu ! (An ancient view), You Fengwei – Jingui (The golden turtle), Yang Zhengguang – Dutu (The gambler), Yan Lianke – Huanle jiayuan != (Happy home), Peng Jianming – Yedu (Ferry stand in nowhere), Liu Xinglong – Huanghun fangniu ! (Cowherd at twilight), Lin Xi – Tianjin xianren ! (The leisure man in the city of Tianjin), Zhao Benfu – Kongxue (The barren spot), Ye Guang-qin – Feng ye xiaoxiao yu ye xiaoxiao ! (The wind blows misery, so does the rain), Wang Xiangfu – Yong bu huiguide gumu = !" (The unreturning aunty), Shao Zhenguo – Riluo fu richu (Sunset followed by sunrise), Li Kuanding – Liangjia funü (Women from good families), Li Guandong – Yudu (Fish crossing), Jin Xuezhong – Xunzhao niaosheng ! (Looking for bird chirping), Acheng – Hutian hudi husao ! (To have a wild time). 15 In his essay ‘Speaking about Conversation’ (Shuohua ), Jia Pingwa explains why he does not like to speak in public or try to learn the standard Chinese speech (putonghua ) (Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.13: 29–31). 2 The life and career of Jia Pingwa 1 In my interview with him in December 2003 Jia Pingwa spoke emphatically about the limitations that Chinese writers collectively face. In his view, China’s social and historical conditions frame Chinese writers with a certain mindset, which prevents them from moving beyond their nationalistic concerns. See Appendix 1. In his essay ‘On Turning Forty’ (Sishisui shuo !), Jia Pingwa categorically states that whether a Chinese writer believes that Chinese literature is great or shallow, he or she is part of it (Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.12: 314). 2 I have beneﬁted from the following biographies and publications on Jia Pingwa’s growth and the development of his creative activities: Fei Bingxun 1992 – On Jia Pingwa !; Wang Xinmin 1993 – The Flamboyant Jia Pingwa !"; Jia Pingwa and Mu Tao !"# 1994 – An Uneven Path !; Sun Jianxi 1994 – The Genius Jia Pingwa !"; 2001 – A Preliminary Biography of Jia Pingwa !"; Feng Youyuan =1997 – The Buddha’s Hand in Jia Pingwa’s Possession !"; Lai Daren 2000 – Where Could the Soul Settle? On Jia Pingwa !"#$%&. 3 According to Jia Pingwa’s memoir, ‘I Am a Peasant’, one of his cousins had trumped up a case of ‘anti-revolutionary’ background against his father, which led to his persecution. The cousin was estranged when Jia Pingwa’s uncle called on his educated father to help discipline the young man but the resentment in the young man was so intense that he took his revenge during the political chaos of the Cultural Revolution (Jia Pingwa 2000d: 105). 4 I conﬁrmed with Jia Pingwa that the last character in his mother’s name is , not . In the print setting of his memoir ‘I Am Not a Good Son’, has been used by mistake. Nearly all of the collections that have this essay have continued the misprint. 5 See Jia Pingwa’s ‘A Brief Autobiography’ (Wode xiaozhuan !) and ‘Autobiography’ (Zizhuan ) in Jia Pingwa 1995f: 424–5 (Lei Da ed., v.7, Xiandan juan ). 6 In its 2000 edition, Modern Chinese Word Dictionary (Xiandai hanyu cidian !) has added ‘wa’ as an alternative pronunciation for the character

284

7 8 9

10

11

12 13 14

15 16

Notes

probably as a result of Jia Pingwa’s fame, although The Xinhua Character Dictionary (Xinhua zidian !), 2000 edition, has not. ‘Educated youth returning to the village’ refers to the group of young people who went to high school in town but had to return to their home village to labour as peasants during the Cultural Revolution. Jia Pingwa records his feelings and thoughts about the occasion in his autobiographical chronology ‘My Ladder and Myself on the Ladder’ (Wo yu wode taijie !"; Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.12: 52–3). There are two mistakes with regard to ‘Love and Passion’ in Sun Jianxi’s book (Sun Jianxi 2001, v.1: 183). ‘Love and Passion’ is an essay not a short story and the prize was given in 1979, not in 1982. ‘Love and Passion’ was ﬁrst published in Shiyue (1979), no. 3: 236–7 and can also be found in Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.14: 4–9. The Third Plenum of the 11th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, held in 1978, initiated a more open and tolerant policy towards arts and literature, and mainland Chinese critics generally refer to literary writings produced during the decade after as ‘new-era literature’ ( !"). See, for instance, Jin Han 1993, A New History of the Development of Contemporary Chinese Literature. The Party line and general policy towards literature were articulated further in the Fourth Congress of Writers and Artists in 1979. For further information see Howard Goldblatt 1982, Chinese Literature for the 1980s: The Fourth Congress of Writers & Artists. Pang-Yuan Chi and David Der-wei Wang 2000, Chinese Literature in the Second Half of a Modern Century, offers recent studies in this area. Sun Jianxi has documented the banning of Defunct Capital, including the announcement in full of the ban issued by the Bureau of News and Publishing of Beijing (Sun Jianxi 2001, v.3: 7–8). In my interview with him, Jia Pingwa also mentions his political seesaw with the authorities from the 1970s until now, especially with the continued ban imposed on Defunct Capital (Appendix 1). For further information on ‘patterns of narrative structure’ in Chinese literature see Andrew H. Plaks, ‘Towards a Critical Theory of Chinese Narrative’ (Plaks, A. H. 1977: 309–52) and Henry Zhao 1995. Jia Pingwa told friends that his creative intention in Shangzhou was to directly link the local history, customs, landscape and social change with the love and life of the major characters (Sun Jianxi 1994, v.1: 245). See ‘Conversations between Jia Pingwa and Mu Tao’ (Jia Pingwa 1994j: 63–6). Jia Pingwa admits that, ‘lately I have been paying much attention to how Eastern and Western cultures actually come together and have been reading many works on classical Chinese literature and cultural studies by Westerners, especially works by important sinologists. I believe that the sinologists themselves are embodiments of such a marriage (between the East and the West). I try to see where their thoughts are and what their focuses are. I am happy about this and never get tired of doing so’ (Jia Pingwa 1994j: 42). Jia Pingwa also offers similar opinions on this issue in his discussions with other critics after the publication of Defunct Capital (Xianzhi and Xianshi 1993: 35). For a list of the prizes Jia Pingwa received up to 1992 see Sun Jianxi 2001, v.2: 673–6. Phil Billingsley’s study Bandits in Republican China documents the origin, location, practice and scale of Chinese bandits from the late nineteenth century to the establishment of the PRC. Speciﬁcally relevant to Jia Pingwa’s outlaw stories is the following statement: ‘for many educated Chinese an irresistible aura of mystery and masculine romance surrounded the rebel or bandit image. In contrast to ofﬁcial accounts, which carefully edited out from rebel confessions anything that could be construed as justifying the disruptive life, “outlaw novels”

Notes 285

17 18

19 20

from the classic Shuihu zhuan (Water Margin) to Yao Xueyin’s 1947 Changye (Long Night) have consistently held a strong grip on the Chinese male imagination’ (Billingsley 1988: 7). Guangshan is later gathered and published together with Renshen as a monograph (Jia Pingwa 1994k). Phil Billingsley has the following description for Bai Lang: ‘The movement led by Bai Lang through ﬁve provinces of North China – Henan, Anhui, Shaanxi, Hubei and Gansu – from 1911 to 1914 exempliﬁed the best of traditional banditry, which often verged on full-scale peasant rebellion. Bai himself was a “social bandit” (insofar as that ideal type can exist), implacably opposed to gentry power and considered a hero by the peasants of his home district. His movement sparked off security scares in such major cities as Beijing, Shanghai, and Wuhan, created disorders in more than seventy North China county seats, and almost brought about a foreign intervention. It had active support from both Republican revolutionaries and Manchu revanchists. The nickname “White Wolf,” symbol of the “low-class Chinaman’s hero,” retained its talismanlike effect for years, not only on subsequent Henan chiefs, but also on Chinese and foreign newspaper correspondents whenever a bandit incident occurred. Even in the 1960s, comic dialogues broadcast over Taibei radio still continued to remind listeners of the “roving bandit White Wolf who had set North China politics a-tremble” ’ (Billingsley 1988: 12). Elizabeth J. Perry’s article on Bai Lang is also very informative (Darry, E. J. 1983). Kam Louie offers informative discussions of Ah Cheng’s writings of that period in his book Between Fact and Fiction (Louie 1989: 76–90). If Pregnancy and Rambling in the Mountains are regarded as two separate novels, as they are by the author himself, Defunct Capital should be his ﬁfth novel. However, Rambling in the Mountains has not been published separately and I therefore regard Defunct Capital as the fourth novel published by Jia Pingwa, excluding Rambling in the Mountains in the count of the total number of Jia Pingwa’s novels.

3 Defunct Capital and cultural landscaping 1 Chen Jianhua offers insightful discussions on the connotations of the title Defunct Capital in relation to its plot (Chen Jianhua 1994a; 1994b). Zha Jianying and David Der-wei Wang both translate the title as The Abandoned Capital (Zha, Jianyang 1995: 129; Wang, David D. 2000a: xl). Geremie Barmé’s rendering is City in Ruin (Barmé 1994). Sheldon Lu’s translation is ‘Ruined Capital’ (Lu, Sheldon 2001: 239–59). I regard ‘Defunct Capital’ as the closest to the original, for Xijing has not been in ruins and it remains the capital of Shaanxi, although as the national capital it has been defunct. 2 There have been many debates about Fredric Jameson’s reading of Third-World literature as primarily ‘national allegorization’ (Jameson, F. 1986). Aijaz Ahmad points out Jameson’s inconsistency in deﬁning the First and Second Worlds by their production systems, capitalism and socialism respectively, while treating the Third World purely as ‘experience’ of externally inserted phenomena (Ahmad 1992: 99–100). Lydia Liu considers that Jameson misperceives a ‘transparency’ in Third-World literatures and that it is the institution of criticism rather than ThirdWorld literature that articulates ‘authentic national experience’ (Liu, Lydia H. 1995: 186). Another defect of Jameson’s division of literature between the ‘worlds’ is that, in my view, the margins of the worlds are never clear. According to the Maoist viewpoint, the Soviet Union and the United States belonged to the First World as superpowers. The dissolution of the Soviet Union and other Eastern European communist countries has seen the (re)emergence of many nation states.

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Many of them have engaged in discovering their origins in myths and other narratives. Many obvious Second-World countries are still actively conducting national story telling, such as Australia, Canada and Ireland. It may be more appropriate to perceive national story telling since the second half of the twentieth century as a post-colonial phenomenon. However, national allegorization or its broader concept, national narration, is undeniably a common literary practice and Jameson’s notion about the allegorical function of literature, if its application is not limited to the so-called ‘Third World’, echoes Homi Bahbha’s observation that with the nation’s coming into being it inevitably embarks on systematic cultural signiﬁcation (Bhabha, H. 1990: 1–7). In other words, the location of national culture, although never unitary or uniﬁed, is often found in the narratives of national story telling. It is from this stance that Defunct Capital and many other Jia Pingwa’s works are being observed in this book. 3 The best description of ‘social idlers’ is by Jia Pingwa himself in his essay ‘Idlers’, in which he demonstrates and discusses different aspects of this social group, who are mostly self-employed or unemployed, with martial arts expertise and some education. The idlers are often subversive of authorities and ready to ﬁght for social justice (Jia Pingwa 1999d: 13–17). 4 Mao Zedong (1893–1976) was Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party between 1936 and 1976 and the most inﬂuential political ﬁgure in modern Chinese history. Kang Sheng (1898–1975) was a member of the ruling elite of the CCP until his death in 1975 and he was denounced by the CCP after the fall of the Gang of Four in 1976. Both Mao and Kang were regarded as scholar-type communist ofﬁcials and Kang was one of the major communist theorists and propagandists. Zhao Yuanren (1892–1982) was an outstanding linguist and an active reformer of the Chinese language. His contribution to the modernization and standardization of the Chinese language is recognized internationally. Kang Youwei =(1858–1927) was a political activist during the late Qing dynasty (1644–1911). He was one of the initiators of the process of China’s political modernization, although he remained a monarchist. Defunct Capital gathers them together in a random sequence and only their cultural activities are relevant to the narrative. 5 Y. C. Wang’s deﬁnition of Chinese intellectuals and literati is useful in this context: ‘Although the term intellectuals is difﬁcult to deﬁne when it is used to denote a certain group of men in an industrial society, it takes on a clear-cut meaning when applied to the elite in China. It simply means “educated men” in distinction to the masses who are uneducated. Given this fact, one can speak of the “higher” or “lower” intellectuals, meaning men who had much or little formal education. Since the word intellectuals has a modern connotation, I have reserved it for the Chinese of the Twentieth Century and have used another term, literati, to denote the educated people before this time’ (Wang, Y. C. 1966: vii). 4 Defunct Capital and the sexual dissident 1 Louise Edwards interprets the characterization of Jia Baoyu as ‘metaphoric bisexuality’, which gives rise to his conﬂict with a society that seeks to divide masculinity and femininity between the sexes. Edwards recognizes three types of sexual ideology and their interplay within the character Jia Baoyu: the Confucian principles of rigid gender prescriptions, the yin–yang philosophy’s ﬂexibility of corporeal sexuality, and the Taoist adoption of femininity as a rejection of passion (Edwards, L. 1994: 37). While Baoyu is certainly bisexual in the sense that he is sexually attracted to both men and women, his effeminate characteristics belong to the effeminate masculinity cultivated by Han scholars and ofﬁcials since the Ming dynasty or even earlier. It is this ‘soft masculinity’ that makes

Notes 287

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Baoyu sexually attractive to the women in the Grand View Garden. Van Gulik’s comments on the delicate ideal lover and the hyper-sensitive youngster image of masculinity are based on a Qing illustration of Jia Baoyu. In an article on masculinity and penile potency that compares the literary search for masculinity in Taiwan and mainland China, Kam Louie discusses several examples that illustrate how ‘pig’ serves as a sex symbol in Chinese legends and writing (Louie, K. 1993–4). Both mandarin ducks and butterﬂies are symbols of love and lovers in Chinese literary and art tradition. Hence, stories of mandarin ducks and butterﬂies are love stories, although in Chinese literary history the name has a speciﬁc connotation. It was applied to this school of writing because its initial success derived from characters who were compared to mandarin ducks and butterﬂies in ‘Yuli hun ’ (The soul of the jade pear) by Xu Zhenya . Writers of this type of love story were also called mandarin ducks and butterﬂies by the other writers and critics of the time. Accused of lacking a social conscience and concerns for matters of national importance in their writings of sentimental romance, such writers were criticized for being concerned only with trivial matters such as personal emotions. For further information see Rey Chow’s chapter on mandarin duck and butterﬂy stories (Chow, R. 1991: 34–83). Baimaonü (the white-haired girl) was one of the eight performances promoted by Mao’s wife Jiang Qing during the Cultural Revolution. The original opera was created by artists in Yan’an where the play was ﬁrst staged in 1943. In the earlier versions of the play, Wang Dachun was still a plain village lad when he returned to claim his lover after joining the communist army. In the ballet version, Wang was polished, had a communist education and was given the mission of mobilizing his ﬁancée and the villagers against the landlord. For information on the original production of ‘The White-Haired Girl’ see Holm 1991: 320–3. For the production held during the Cultural Revolution see Ebon 1975. The novels categorized as ‘new revolutionary romance’ (geming xin chuangqi !") include, for instance, Linhai xueyuan ! (Sea of forest and snowy plains) and Yehuo chunfeng dou gucheng !"#$ (The ancient city engulfed by wild ﬁre and spring breezes). See Jin Han et al. 1993: 240–3. In these new romances, the CCP soldiers must also be scholars before they are given textual and sexual privileges. The wen–wu paradigm proposed by Louie applies very well to the CCP soldiers, except that the wu here should not be mistaken as being equivalent to the ‘tough guy’. In classical Chinese ﬁction model soldiers are also scholars, as in the case of Guan Yu . Guan Yu is certainly textually privileged over, say, Zhang Fei , the brave, foolhardy and tough ﬁghter. Guan Yu and Zhang Fei are two major characters in the classical novel Sanguo yanyi ! (The Romance of the Three Kingdoms) by Luo Guanzhong . For a summary of those women’s writing and their expression of desire for ‘real men’ see Louie, K. 1991 and Zhong, X. 2000. See for example, Li Tuo’s Zhongguo xungen xiaoshuo xuan !"#$ (Selected works of Chinese root-seeking literature) (Li Tuo 1993). Li selected twelve writers, among whom Wang Anyi is the only woman. Wang, well-known for her writing on sexual and love themes, is not usually considered to be representative of root-seeking writers. Zhuang’s fondness for women’s small feet is demonstrated several times in the narrative. For instance: ‘The feet of Niu Yueqing are ﬂeshy and wide so that she always wears ﬂat heels. Zhuang regards this a pity, for the most important part of a woman’s body is the feet. If a woman’s feet are not good-looking, three tenths of her beauty are lost’ (42). In contrast, Tang Wanr has perfect feet in Zhuang’s eyes – small, delicate, and extremely sensual: ‘the toes are as tender as

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the tips of bamboo shoots’ (53). On page 151, Zhuang kisses Liu Yue’s foot to show his admiration for her. Margaret Atwood’s dystopia The Handmaid’s Tale (Atwood 1987) effectively projects such a regressive situation where women are once more denied the rights to read and write. Atwood wittily names the situation ‘Pen is Envy’, which sarcastically puns on the disputable Freudian hypothesis of ‘penis envy’. Robert Allinson focuses on the metamorphosis connoted in the butterﬂy dream and regards the transformation into a butterﬂy as a movement upwards to a kind of higher being, since the butterﬂy is essentially a symbol of beauty. A different interpretation, based on the void of thought and language, is that the butterﬂy may be seen to (dis)possess the natural state of inaction aspired to by Taoists (ziran yu wuwei); hence transformation into a butterﬂy offers a possible exit from society and language. It thus implies the entrance into freedom and ease with one’s own nature and the natural world (Allinson, R. E. 1989). Regarding the butterﬂy story, Judith Berling states: ‘Chuang Tzu also records experiences which transcend the limits of the body. Almost all people have dreamt they were an animal, but Chuang Tzu goes on to question whether he is a man dreaming he is a butterﬂy, or a butterﬂy dreaming he is a man. He has the courage and imagination to suppose he might be the butterﬂy; in that imaginative act he transcends both his humanness and his identity as someone called Chuang Tzu. This is not threatening or distressing to him; whether as Chuang Tzu or as the butterﬂy, he is very much alive and endowed with wit and grace’ (Munro, D. 1985: 108). Zhuang and Zhou as the two sides of one persona resemble a similar complementary characterization of Xue Baochai and Lin Daiyu , two female characters (Chai Dai heyi !) in The Dream of the Red Chamber. That Chai and Dai are one entity is the interpretation of the relationship between the two as both oppositional and complementary. Initially raised by Yu Pingbo , a distinguished scholar of The Dream of the Red Chamber, the vision has gained general acceptance. For a recent and substantial study and a detailed analysis of the characters see Edwards, L. 1994: 46. Many readers and critics have questioned the credibility of Zhuang’s sexual attraction. See, for instance, discussions in Feidu fei shei (Xiao Xialin 1993).

5 Defunct Capital and female domesticity 1 For discussion on returning women to domesticity and to traditional environments see Shen, Yichin 1992. In Misogyny, Cultural Nihilism, & Opposition Politics Lu Tonglin’s analysis of misogynous elements in contemporary Chinese ﬁction also draws attention to the recurring images of domestic women in recent Chinese writing (Lu, Tonglin 1995). See also Lu, Tonglin 1993. 2 These four selfs can also be rendered as ‘self-esteem, self-awareness, selfpossession and self-love’, as indicated by Croll. 3 In her discussion about the manipulation of ‘women’ as a signiﬁer in the rhetoric of May Fourth writings and CCP propaganda, Tani Barlow demonstrates how the various terms are associated with the category of ‘women’ in modern Chinese language in different political discourses. She argues that the political concept of funü resituated women inside the state and its synecdochic extension, the family. Hence modern women became a space, or a stage for the Chinese communist revolution and China’s modernization. The alternative, nüxing, connoted the concept of a modern self-conscious woman as in May Fourth writing and it was marked off because of ‘bourgeois’ connotations. See Barlow, Tani 1991. See also her chapter in Gilmartin, Christina K. 1994: 339–59. 4 Another possible interpretation of the four ﬂowers is that they refer to the fate of the novel’s four main female characters, Tang Wanr, Liu Yue, Huming and Ah Can (Lu, Sheldon 2001: 245).

Notes 289 5 The Numinous Number of Master Shao (Shaozi Shenshu !) is allegedly a book written by Song Neo-Confucian philosopher Shao Yong (1011–77) and it deals with numerology and semiology. The Numinous Number of Master Shao seems to be a collection of poems, each of which refers to a certain individual. The connection between the poems and individual people or events, however, is accessible only through an index of numbers decided by calculations based on the birth date and time of individuals. The original index has since been lost, hence no one is sure how to access the descriptions, but the interest in its mystical content is all the more fervent. In Defunct Capital, the index to The Numinous Number of Master Shao appears in the possession of a Taoist master living on the outskirts of Xijing and Meng Yunfang manages to get access to it. Meng Yunfang spends most of his time and money trying to own the book and to understand it. He is eventually able to do some simple deciphering, although this partial enlightenment is already perilous enough for him to lose part of his sight. With the help of Meng Yunfang, Zhuang Zhidie looks up descriptions of his own destiny and the destinies of the women he is sexually associated with. This episode provides subtexts to the destinies of its major characters, similar to the fortune telling of Jinghuan Xianzi in the ﬁfth chapter of The Dream of the Red Chamber. 6 Robert E. Hegel describes the retribution phenomenon in Ming–Qing writings in his ‘Unpredictability and Meaning in Ming–Qing Literati Novels’ (Hegel, R. E. 1994a: 147–66). 7 The comment in this paragraph is made both in relation to discussions in general on this issue and particularly to Chen Xiaoming’s criticism in ‘Zhen jiefang yihui gei nimen kankan !"#$%&&’ (Show you some true colours of liberation) (Duowei 1993: 22–48). 8 Samples of Tang Wanr and Huiming’s talks on the necessity and methods of pleasing men can be found on pages 123–6 and pages 484–5, 9 Zhuang relates to Niu Yueqing, Liu Yue and Tang Wanr as husband to his wife and concubines. In the case of a dispute between Niu Yueqing and Liu Yue, Zhuang actually suppresses Liu Yue and gives authority to Niu Yueqing. At the same time, he also asks Tang Wanr to comfort Liu Yue. Sexually he does not have much interest in Niu Yueqing and goes to bed with her out of a sense of husband’s duty. On the other hand, he frequently has intercourse with Liu Yue and Tang Wanr (331– 4). Tang and Liu also relate to each other as ‘sisters’ because of their common sexual liaison with Zhuang (328, 330). 10 See Zhuang Zhidie’s thoughts on Jing Xueyin on page 257 and Huiming on pages 350–1. 11 Zheng Yongfu traces the interactions between literati and talented nuns in his essay ‘Fojiao yu jindai Zhongguo nüxing !"#$%&’ (Buddhism and Chinese women in modern times) (Li Xiaojiang 1994: 213–29). 12 Liu , ‘willow’, is often used in proverbs associated with prostitution or with male–female courtship. For instance, ‘liuhu huamen !’ (gates of willows and blossoms), ‘liumo huaqu !’ (paths to willows and blossoms) and ‘liuying huayin !’ (shadows of willows and blossom). Another proverb, ‘yanghua shuixing !’ (willow blossoms ﬂow like water) is used to describe women who do not devote themselves exclusively to their designated sexual partners. In short, the character ‘liu’ is ascribed to Liu Yue as an indication of her sexuality. See Wang Tao et al. 1987: 763– 4, 1506. 13 Mao Bijiang (Ming), ‘Dong Xiaowan Xiang ’ (Portrait of Dong Xiaowan) and ‘Dong Xiaowan Zhuan !’ (Biography of Dong Xiaowan in Yingmei’an Yiyu !" (Memoirs of the Plum-Flower-Shadow Cottage) in Xiangyan Congshu ! (Fragrant beauty series), v.4, 4–5, 6–9. 14 Rey Chow observes that, instead of subversiveness, Chinese literature has produced many women who have asserted again and again Confucian cultural

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values. For further details see Chow, Rey 1991, especially the chapter on mandarin ducks and butterﬂies. 6 White Nights and sleepless in Xijing 1 For further information on Jia Pingwa’s personal situation and the reception of his publications after the publication of Defunct Capital see the following: Lei Da , ‘Wei wenxue er huozhe !"D’ (For the sake of literature) (Jia Pingwa 2002d: 360–1); Li Xing , ‘Jia Pingwa de wenxue yiyi !"#$%’ (The signiﬁcance of Jia Pingwa in literature) (Jia Pingwa 2002d: 362–8); Jia Pingwa’s interviews with Chen Zeshun (Jia Pingwa 2002d: 369–89) and Hu Tianfu (Jia Pingwa 2002d: 390–400). Jia Pingwa speciﬁcally mentions the difﬁculties he experienced in the past ten years with critics and loss of readership in mainland China and increased popularity outside China (Jia Pingwa 2002d: 392). In my random survey of Chinese readers, most of them know and admire Jia Pingwa but few continued to read his novels after 1993. My impression is that general readers in China do not know much about the six novels Jia Pingwa has published since Defunct Capital, if they have any ideas at all about his literary output in the past ten years. 2 After being dismissed from his employment in the city library for no reason other than the loss of power of his mentor in the city government, Ye Lang was outraged and he kept telling himself again and again: I must be in Xijing! I must remain in Xijing! (Jia Pingwa 1995a: 17). It is not clear why this has to be the case. Even if returning to his native village is not an option, one can think of going to other cities, or, if the local language is an issue for him, there are other cities in Shaanxi. 3 Guqin is the seven- or ﬁve-string Chinese zither with a history of more than three thousand years. It has been part of Chinese high culture and often associated with the literati, poetry and the practice of Taoism. Van Gulik’s monograph remains the most comprehensive introduction to the instrument and the cultural ideology that surrounds the qin music to date (van Gulik 1969). Website http:// www.silkqin.com (accessed on 2 October 2005) provides textual and audio-visual information on guqin and its music. 4 Jia Pingwa conﬁrmed that he had never read the novella of the same title by Dostoevsky in a telephone conversation with me in April 2004. Dostoevsky’s novella has been translated into Chinese and can easily be found on the World Wide Web at: http://www.mypcera.com/book/wai/no/t/tstyf/009.htm (accessed on 2 October 2005). 5 Mulianxi is the general name for the long or short pieces of drama or opera on the theme of a man named Mulian rescuing his mother from Hell. The scale and the length of the performance vary according to the need of patrons but the total sum of scripts for Mulianxi can add up to more than forty-eight episodes and it may take an entire week to perform. The original story came from India in Buddhist tales, which was introduced to China in the Tang dynasty (618 –907), and its adaptation into local operas appeared in the Northern Song period (970–1127). It is regarded as the most important and impressive ‘Buddhist epic of temptation, damnation, ﬁlial love, and salvation known in China for more than a thousand years and was performed through the country in many versions until the middle of this century’ (de Bary, W. T. and Lufrano, R. 2000, v.2: 93–4). Also see Zhang Yuezhong 1993: 235. For detailed studies of Mulianxi see Johnson 1985; 1989. 6 Bakhtin’s analysis of the literary carnival and the grotesque body can be highly relevant here. However, I refrain from conducting a Bakhtinian discussion of the text at this stage partly because it would take too much space to develop a meaningful engagement. I am also afraid that such a discussion would undermine my analytical focus on Jia Pingwa’s narrative cultural geography of Xijing as the

Notes 291 native place of community. Another reason is that since there has been so little publication in English on Jia Pingwa’s writing, a Bakhtinian reading of his works will have to wait. 7 Lei Feng (1940–62) was an orphan when the People’s Republic of China was established. He later became a driver in the People’s Liberation Army. Extremely hardworking and always ready to lend others a hand, he died in an accident while trying to help others. In 1963 he was promoted by the leadership of the Communist Party as a model Communist Party member and the entire nation was called upon to model their behaviour on the example of Lei Feng. In the 1990s as commercialism rapidly eroded the communist ideology, the CCP again called on the nation to learn from Lei Feng. Detailed information can be found in Lei Feng cidian (Lin Jiangong 1992) or at www.leifeng.com/leifeng (accessed on 2 October 2005). 8 In my interview with Jia Pingwa in December 2003, Jia Pingwa mentions his essay ‘On Turning Forty’ and these ideas again. 7 Earth Gate and loss of native place 1 By ‘social realism’ I mean the expression of social criticism through realist representation of social issues, especially social controversies. The difference between social realism and socialist realism is, in my opinion, the absence or the presence of a Marxist interpretation of human history and societal development. 2 Bonnie McDougall argues that Chinese writers tend to foster a closer relationship between the author, the narrator and the reader by giving the impression that the ﬁction is autobiography (McDougall, B. 2003: 9). As discussed in the introduction, this is often the case of Jia Pingwa’s novels and here is another example of such a deliberation to produce ‘authenticity’. 3 Feuerwerker’s exploration of the category of ‘peasant’ traces the etymological origin of the word nongmin () to its earliest appearance in Spring and Autumn Annuals (Chunqiu ) and its modern incarnation as a loan word from Japan around the turn of the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. She agrees with Myron Cohen’s assessment that nongmin became above all a ‘cultural and political invention’ and, for the intellectual elites of the May Fourth decades, to see the land-tilling rural population as ‘peasants’ was to mark them as ‘reservoir’ of ‘backwardness’, a major obstacle to the construction of a new society (Cohen, M. 1993: 158–9, 166; Feuerwerker, Y. M. 1998: 25–32). 4 I am borrowing the idea of ‘the invention of tradition’ from Eric Hobsbawm. He refers to ‘invented tradition’ as ‘a set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past. In fact, where possible, they normally attempt to establish continuity with a suitable historic past’ (Hobsbawm, E. and Ranger, T. 1983: 1). 5 I agree with Solinger’s assessment that at this point in time political citizenship for the citizens of the PRC is out of the question. While her focus of discussion is on social citizenship, I want to stress the relevance and importance of cultural citizenship. According to Delanty, cultural citizenship includes two equally important aspects – the cultural rights of individual citizens and the political institutionalization of such cultural rights. He argues that the most important dimensions of cultural rights are the rights and access to languages, including styles and forms of the dominant language, cultural models, narratives and discourses (Delanty, G. 2002: 60–6). Clearly, rural migrants in the Chinese city have been denied the right and access to nearly all of the above outlined by Delanty. Current scholarship on cultural citizenship is largely produced within the discourses of multiculturalism and ethnicity studies. In most cases, cultural

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citizenship becomes a contested issue only when migrants move and settle in another country after the attainment of political and social citizenship. Chinese rural migrants again prove the case as Solinger has put it: they are aliens in their own country. Michael Dutton conducts a preliminary study of the police presence in Chinese urban life based on case studies in Beijing (Dutton, M. 1999). However, both Dutton and Li Zhang observe urban policing from the vantage point of the city, although both are critical of the police practice. So far, I have not been aware of studies that critically assess urban policing from the perspective of rural migrants or displaced farmers. In Jia Pingwa’s ﬁction, there are frequent descriptions of the abuse of police power against rural people in the city. The episode in which the nipples drop off is used, understandably, to exaggerate the degree of chaos at the playing ﬁeld. Tad Ballew offers a detailed illustration of how far the general urban perceptions of rural people could be from reality, using the producers from the Shanghai television rural channel as an example in Chen, N. 2001: 242–73. Mo Yan , the pen name of Guan Moye , was born in a ‘rich-peasant’ family in the village of Gaomi, Shandong Province, in 1956. He lived in the village until he was twenty years old when he had the chance to join the People’s Liberation Army, in which he subsequently started his writing career. His series of stories of Red Sorghum Family (Honggaoliang jiazu !") (Mo Yan 1987) established his fame and enabled him to become a professional writer. Many of his writings are set against the background of his native village and he regards it as the place that gives birth to literature, for it has been the source of his creative inspirations. Hence he calls his home village ‘the native place of literature’ (wenxue de guxiang !") (Mo Yan 2003a). Recently, he has again raised the issue of the dichotomy between the intellectual and the masses (Lin Jianfa and Xu Lianyuan 2003: 1–3, 3–9). For him, as a writer, one chooses to be either the former or the latter and the demarcation is clear and simple – it lies in one’s attitude, whether one writes for the masses or as one of the masses. If one writes for the masses, one is assuming the position of an intellectual. These are two very different kinds of writers in his opinion, and they produce very different literary works. Despite Jia Pingwa’s strong condemnation of the measures taken by the state to develop modernization at the expense of the peasants who have always been the foundations of China’s national economy, he is ambivalent in his political stance. In my interview with him in December 2003, he says that it is necessary for the government to ‘sacriﬁce’ the peasants because he agrees with the supremacy of the modernization project. He would like to have seen the government give peasants fairer deals and treat them more gently. For Jia Pingwa’s self-identiﬁcation see I Am a Peasant (Jia Pingwa 1998b).

8 Old Gao Village and native place dystopia 1 This chapter refers to Jia Pingwa, 1998a, Gaolaozhuang (Old Gao Village), Xi’an: Taibai wenyi chubanshe. 2 For Jia Pingwa’s view on the disappearing ‘native place’ see my interview with him in Appendix 1. 3 For an understanding of Zilu’s character as shown through The Analects of Confucius see Lau, D. C. 1979: 196–292. 4 For further details on the Xixia see Ruth Dunnell ‘The Hsi Hsia’ (Dunnell, R. W. 1994). 5 For information on the history of Shanxi migration see An Jiesheng 1999 and Huang Youquan et al. 1993.

Notes 293 9 Remembering Wolves – the function of local events 1 Michel Hockx makes a convincing argument for a broader understanding of the category of xiaoshuo in the early decades of the twentieth century when translations of non-ﬁctional works were often presented as xiaoshuo (Hockx, M. 2003: 161). 2 Scott Romine offers a deﬁnition of ‘community’ which I ﬁnd useful in understanding Jia Pingwa’s writing: ‘a new deﬁnition of community: a social group that, lacking a commonly held view of reality, coheres by means of norms, codes, and manners that produce a simulated, or at least symbolically constituted, social reality’ (Romine, S. 1999: 3). 10 Poetry, essays and textual personality 1 ‘My Ancestors’ was published in Shikan, 1986, no. 8: 18–19. It is not collected in Blank or in other collections of Jia Pingwa’s writing as far as I know. 2 All poems but one, ‘Passing by Yulin Desert on the 12th July’ ( !"# !), from Jia Pingwa’s poem collection Blank have been reprinted in Jia Pingwa 1998c, v.13, including the postscript. 3 See plates in Jia Pingwa 1994j and in Feng Youyuan 1997. 4 ‘Street ballads’ are perhaps an appropriated rendition of the verses used in the narrative. The typology of such verses could be either and therefore they could also be called ‘folksongs’ or ‘jingles’. Some critics tend to regard the verses as jingles, as discussed in Wang Yongsheng 1994: 164. Jia Pingwa’s adoption of popular literary forms is similar to Lao She’s writing during the Sino-Japanese war period, although their ultimate purposes differ. Lao She was trying to deliver messages to the masses by using forms familiar to the ordinary people (Hung, Chang-tai 1994: 194 –201). Jia Pingwa’s writing can hardly be regarded as addressing his fellow villagers. Instead, he is aiming to reach a much wider audience, including overseas readers. He claims ‘as a national writer, [a writer] of course writes for the readers of his own nation. However, as a writer, he hopes that his writing can have longer legs (to be able to reach the outside world)’ (Jia Pingwa 1994j: 65). 5 Street ballads can be found on the following pages of Defunct Capital: Jia Pingwa 1993a: 3–4, 5, 6, 73, 133, 207, 234, 265, 291, 390, 437. 6 Poems and ballads as a means of expressing political dissent were common practice both in 1976 and in 1989, when popular manifestations of dissent became particularly acute. See Goodman, David S. G. 1981 and Barmé, Geremie R. and Minford, John 1988. In the years after 1989 there have been more ballads circulating and Jia Pingwa has incorporated some of these in Defunct Capital. 7 The term ‘essay’ is adopted here for ‘sanwen ’, a major genre in modern Chinese literature together with ﬁction, poetry and drama. It is generally agreed that there are two usages for the term sanwen, one narrower and the other broader. The narrower usage mainly refers to ‘literary’ or ‘artistic’ prose writing which has a stronger lyrical tendency with a focus on emotions and aesthetics, hence this genre is also frequently referred to as shuqing sanwen ! or lyrical essays. The broader application of the term refers to many types of writing outside the major genres of ﬁction, poetry, drama and reportage, such as wenlun (essays), zawen (miscellanies or essays), xiaopinwen (familiar essay), suipi (informal essay), youji (travels), huiyilu (memoirs), qianyan (prefaces), houji (postscripts), yanjiang (public speeches), shuxin =(correspondence) or zhuanji (biographies) (Hong Zicheng 1999: 150–4, 369–83; Jin Han et al. 1993: 118). In anthologies of Chinese literature in English, the term ‘essay’ has been commonly adopted as the translation for the

294

8 9 10

11

Notes

term sanwen in the broader sense and the category includes all of its subgenres – for instance, David Pollard’s recent book The Chinese Essay (Pollard, D. 2000) and Martin Woesler’s monographs (Woesler, M. 2000a and 2000b). Since the late 1980s, many Chinese writers have been experimenting with the blending of ﬁction with the essay, and Jia Pingwa is one of them. See Jia Pingwa’s statements in an interview, ‘Xuechuang dawen: yu haiwai renshi tan dasanwen ! – !"#$%&’ (Answering questions: Discussing the ‘grand essay’ with an overseas scholar) (Jia Pingwa 2000c: 14–18). The ‘speaking about’ essays can be found in Jia Pingwa chansi meiwen ! (Jia Pingwa’s Zen essays) (Jia Pingwa 1998e). ‘Three records of Shangzhou’ (Shangzhou sanlu !) (Jia Pingwa 1995d, v.4: 1–189) is often used by critics and Jia Pingwa himself to refer to the three groups of essays on his hometown Shangzhou. These essays were published separately, as ‘First records of Shangzhou’ (Shangzhou chulu !), ‘More records of Shangzhou’ (Shangzhou youlu !) and ‘Further records of Shangzhou’ (Shangzhou zailu= !). In Chinese literary tradition prefaces and postscripts are often used for writers to express and exchange their views and hence they are important forms of literary criticism. See Stephen Owen, Readings in Chinese Literary Thought (Owen 1992: 9).

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Index

313

Index

Acheng 10, 11, 46 ‘After Junior High’ 30 Ahmad, Aijaz 285 n2 Ai he qing see ‘Love and Passion’ Alai 11, 14, 17 Allinson, Robert E. 288 n10 Atwood, Margaret 239, 288 n9 ‘The Auspicious Gravesite’ (Meixuedi) 45, 215 authenticity 214 –18; autobiography 4, 130, 136, 291 n2; ethnographic as real 216; fantastic as real 215; simple as real 216–18, 236 autobiographical writings 4, 29, 130, 136, 189, 207, 233–4, 274, 291 n2 avant-garde literature 11 Ba Jin 7, 76 ‘Bai Lang – the bandit’ (Bai Lang) 45 Bai Ye 64 Bailu yuan see White Deer Plain Baimaonü see White–Haired Girl Baiye see White Nights Bakhtin, Mikhail M. 116, 290–1 n6 bandit ﬁction 45–6, 284–5 n16 Barlow, Tani E. 288 n3 Before Midnight Scholar, The (Rouputuan) 88 Beijing 12, 17, 35, 141 Belles Lettres (Meiwen) 202, 210 Berg, Daria 174 Berling, Judith 288 n10 Best of Jia Pingwa’s Travel Writing, The 207–8 Bhabha, Homi K. 286 n2 Billingsley, Phil 284–5 n16, 285 n18 Bingwa see Soldier Boy Bingxiang baogao see Health Report Blank (Kongbai) 187, 189 Bol, Peter K. 22–3 Bourdieu, Pierre 169 ‘The Bride Carrier’ (Wukui) 45 Buddhism 88, 157, 160, 164, 215, 221 butterﬂies 81, 93, 110; see also mandarin ducks and butterﬂies ‘The Butterﬂy in Zhuangzi’s Dream’ 85–6, 288 n10 Can Xue 224 Cartier, Carolyn 143

CCP see Chinese Communist Party ‘Celebrities’ (Mingren) 207 Changhen ge see Song of Perpetual Remorse Chatterjee, Partha 211–12, 213 Chen, Nancy et al. 114, 141 Chen Xiaoming 12–13 Chen Xuguang 65 Chen Zhongshi 11, 19–20, 81, 214 Chen Zi’ang 56 Chinese Communist Party (CCP): agricultural policy 229–30; arts/literature policy 3, 5, 35, 36, 78, 198, 200, 218–19, 223–4, 239, 284 n10; criticism of Jia Pingwa 37–8, 48, 239; education policy 29; native place 7, 14, 15, 18–20; recognition of Jia Pingwa 42; role of women 94–5, 288 n3 Chinese cultural traditions: Defunct Capital 53–62, 216; didacticism 221; ethnography 216; ‘invented traditions’ 138, 156–7, 231, 291 n4; Jia Pingwa’s practice 33, 194, 205; in stories 213 Chinese literature: author–text relationship 4–6; classical poetry 7–8; didacticism 4–5, 220–1; ﬁrst-person narratives 4; glamorous women writers 4, 5, 282 n11; literary nativism 10–13, 14; mandarin ducks and butterﬂies 77, 287 n3; narrative tradition 4, 40, 180; native place 6–9, 14, 146; new revolutionary romances 79, 287 n5; political comment 5, 221, 222, 223, 224, 234; rootsearching literature 9, 11, 21, 22, 80, 92, 94, 190, 192–4; rural youth literature 4; scholar– beauty romances 72–3, 74, 75–6, 77–8; small talk (xiaoshuo) 3, 173–4, 217, 293 n1; state control 3, 5, 35, 36, 78, 198, 200, 218–19, 223–4, 239, 284 n10; Western inﬂuences 212, 220–1, 225, 228, 234–5, 237; women 94–5, 112, 289–90 n14; writers of the newly born generation 4, 5, 282 n11; see also nativism/ nativist writing Chow, Rey 93 95, 154–5, 213–14, 289–90 n14 cities 8–9, 136, 145, 224; see also urbanization; Xijing citizenship 142, 198, 291–2 n5 city literature 11–12 Cohen, Myron L. 31, 33, 212, 291 n3

314

Index

Cohen, Paul A. 237 commercialization 3, 93, 281 n6 community 213, 293 n2, see also Old Gao Village concrete–abstract technique 153–5, 162, 169, 173 Confucianism 160 cosmopolitanism 11, 13, 225–8 critical biographies 28, 275 cultural citizenship 142, 291–2 n5 ‘cultural idlers’ 54, 58–9, 62–7 Cultural Revolution 29, 32, 35 culturalism 14 Dai Jinhua 155 ‘Darkie’ (Heishi) 39, 95–6 death 234–5 Defunct Capital (Feidu) 34, 50–71, 81–93, 97–112; banning 38, 48, 284 n11; Chinese cultural space 53–62, 216; controversy 47–8, 62–3, 72, 93, 98, 104; ‘cultural idlers’ 54, 58–9, 62–7; deaths 234; double objectiﬁcation of women 103–6; female domesticity 94, 97–9, 106–9, 112; female sexuality 97, 99–108; femmes fatales 100–3; French translation 2; intertextuality 129–30, 199, 207, 217; language 109–12; markets 62–3; mother ﬁgures 81, 100; names of characters 81, 83, 85–6, 91, 100, 110, 111; national allegorization 52–3; poems 195–6; Shaanxi folksongs 197, 199–200; ‘social idlers’ 58, 59, 286 n3; story and characters 50–2, 55–62, 68–70, 90–1, 191, 213; street ballads 197–9, 293 nn4–6; supernatural phenomena 58, 68–70, 102, 215; talented scholar 81–2; urban life 67–8; writing and ‘soft’ masculinity 82–5; Xijing 50, 52–3, 66, 71, 144, 149; Zhuang Zhidie: literati associates 58–62; negative Bildungsroman 85–9; private space 55–8; self-denial 89–91; sexuality 72–3, 81–5, 88, 89–91, 92–3, 104–5, 289 n9 Delanty, Gerard 291 n5 Deng Youmei 12, 15, 17–18 ‘Diaries in the South of the Yangtze River’ (Jiangzhe riji) 208 Ding Fan 13 Ding Ling 17, 18–19 Dostoevsky, Fyodor Mikhailovich 116 Dream of the Red Chamber, The 75, 88–9, 108, 199, 286–7 n1, 288 n11 Duara, Prasenjit 150 Duowei 47, 65 Dutton, Michael 292 n6 Earth Gate (Tumen) 48, 131–49; characters 131–6, 148, 215; native place 148–9; peasants 136–8, 140, 142–5, 147, 148, 149, 213; story 131; urban hostility 141–5; war of resistance 136–40; Xijing 131, 143–5, 149 Edwards, Louise P. 286 n1 Eryue He 10 essays (sanwen) 1–2, 3, 35, 37, 38, 41, 186, 201–10, 236; ‘grand essay’ 210; literary

criticism 209–10, 221, 237, 294 n11; the self 202–5; society 205–7; terminology 293–4 n7; therapeutic function 202–3; travel writing 207–9, 237 ethnicity 142 ethnography 22, 174–5, 207, 213–14, 216, see also Old Gao Village; Remembering Wolves experimental writing 11 the fantastic: popular beliefs 124, 215; supernatural phenomena 58, 68–70, 102, 162–5, 178–9, 215, 235 Faulkner, William 168–9 Fei Bingxun 64, 187, 193, 201, 203, 275 Feidu see Defunct Capital femininity see women Feng Jicai 12, 15, 17–18 Feng Youyuan 275 Feng Zikai 186 Fenghuangge (Phoenix Pavilion) 29 Feuerwerker, Yi-tsi Mei 145–6, 291 n3 ‘First Records of Shangzhou’ 21, 22, 34, 38 forbearance 238 Friedman, Edward 18 Fruehauf, Heinrich 12 ‘Full Moon’ 34, 35, 36, 133, 238 Fuzao see Turbulence Gao Xiaosheng 145 Gaolaozhuang see Old Gao Village Ge Hongbing 5 gender identity 91, 206–7; see also masculinity; women glamorous women writers 4, 5, 282 n11 Golden Lotus 85, 100 Goodman, Bryna 7, 167–8 Guan Moye see Mo Yan Guang Weiran 91 Guangshan 45 ‘Guanyu nüren’ (‘On Women’) 206–7 ‘Guanyu xiaoshuo yuyan’ (‘On Narrative Language’) 210 Haddon, Rosemary 7 9, 11 Haizi 193 Han Feizi 221 Han Luhua 54 Han Shaogong 11, 15, 16, 224, 229 Hao Ran 19 ‘Harvest Home’ 193–4 Hawking, Stephen 239 Health Report (Bingxiang baogao) 24, 34, 35, 48–9, 209, 218–19, 231, 234 Hegel, Robert E. 103 ‘Heishi’ see ‘Darkie’ Hengtang Tuishi [Qing] 56 Hobsbawm, Eric 156, 291 n4 Hockx, Michel 293 n1 homesickness 7–8 Hong Kong 41, 48 Honggaoliang jiazu see Red Sorghum Family Honghu see ‘Red Fox’ Honig, Emily 142

Index Hsia, C. T. 220 Hu Heqing 27–8 Hu Wenfu 48, 221 Huainianlang see Remembering Wolves Huanghe dahechang (Yellow River Cantata) 91–2 Hunan 19 I Am a Peasant (Wo shi nongmin) 6, 30, 31, 283 n3 ‘I Am Not a Good Son’ (Wo bushi ge hao erzi) 27, 238 ‘Idlers’ (Xianren) 128, 206, 286 n3; see also ‘cultural idlers’; ‘social idlers’ Imbot-Bichet, Geneviève 2 intellectuals 64, 87, 146–7, 155, 205, 222, 224, 286 n5, 292 n9 intertextuality 128–30, 157–8, 186, 199, 207, 217 interview with Jia Pingwa 220–40 Jameson, Fredric 22, 285–6 n2 Jia Pingwa: ambition 29, 30, 238; birth and naming 27–8, 240; Chinese cultural practice 33, 194, 205; criticism of 37–8, 47–8, 113, 239, 290 n1; ‘double identity’ 32–3; family 26–7, 56; inferiority complex 30; intellectual 33, 205; language 24, 25, 161, 233; National Professional 42; ‘peasant’ identity 6, 29–34, 36, 146–8, 291 n3; personal life 48, 186; physical appearance 30; professional writer 37; social concerns 186, 239; student 28–9; travel 41, 207–9, 237; see also critical biographies; interview with Jia Pingwa; literary career of Jia Pingwa Jia Pingwa’s Essays 188 Jia Yanchun (father of Jia Pingwa) 26, 27, 31, 189–90, 283 n3 Jiang Fan 97 Jiang Xin 62–3 Jiangzhe riji (‘Diaries in the South of the Yangtze River’) 208 ‘Jifu’ see ‘Mourning My Father’ Jin Yong 10 Journey to the West 75–6, 157 Kang Sheng 61, 286 n4 Kang Youwei 61, 224, 286 n4 Kinkley, Jeffrey C. 7, 9, 10, 11, 16 Kongbai see Blank ‘Ku Mairong’ 123, 191 Lai Daren 21, 28, 32, 113, 275 language 221–2; Defunct Capital 109–12; female linguistic identity 109–12; Jia Pingwa 24, 25, 161, 233; literary language 210, 236; Old Gao Village 161, 233; Shaanxi 161 Lao She 7, 10, 12, 15, 17–18, 145, 293 n4 Lee, Leo Ou-fan 9, 41 Lei Feng 127–8, 291 n7 Li Bai 8, 208 Li Jianjun 167

315

Li Jiefei 12 Li Rui 10 Li Xing 275 Li Zhang 141, 292 n6 Li Zicheng 178 Liang Qichao 224 Liang Shanding 150 Lin Yutang 186 literary career of Jia Pingwa 1–4, 26, 34–49; 1973–82: short stories 34, 35–8, 241–52; 1983–6: novellas 3, 34, 38–9, 252–6; 1987–92: consolidation 34, 41–7, 256–61; 1993–4: controversy 34, 47–8, 261–3; 1995–2004: re-emergence 34–5, 48–9, 264–71, 290 n1; 2002 onwards 35, 271–3; author–text relationship 5–6; prizes won 35, 36, 41, 42; readership 2, 48, 228; works 1–4, 276–80; see also autobiographical writings; essays; novels; poetry; stories literary criticism 209–10, 221, 237, 294 n11 literary depth 220–2 literary nativism 4, 10–13, 14, 174, 217; see also nativism/nativist writing literati 64–6, 67, 87, 108, 109, 286 n5 Liu Bang 8 Liu Heng 7 Liu, Lydia H. 212, 285 n2 Liu Qing 19 Liu Shaotang 12 Liu Zongyuan 237 Local Accent (Qinqiang) 35, 48, 219, 229 localism 22–3 Lodge, David 239 Louie, Kam 73, 287 n2 ‘Love and Passion’ (Ai he qing) 36, 284 n9 Lu, Sheldon Shiao-peng 54, 217 Lu Xun 4, 7, 9, 10, 15–16, 77–8, 145, 168, 186, 212, 224, 229 McDougall, Bonnie S. 4, 291 n2 magic realism 70, 215; see also supernatural phenomena Mair, Victor H. 173 mandarin ducks and butterﬂies 77, 287 n3 Mao Bijiang 111 Mao Dun 7, 76 Mao Zedong 61, 148, 286 n4 masculinity: and cultural roots 80–1; macho masculinity 80–1, 92; male inadequacy 92, 93, 165–7, 171, 179; penis envy 84–5, 166; ‘real men’ 80, 92; and self-denial 89–91; and self-discovery 86, 87–8; ‘soft’ masculinity 72, 73–6, 77–8, 79–80, 81, 82–5; wen-wu paradigm 73–4, 287 n5; workers and peasants 77, 78 Mei Lanfang 74 Meiwen see Belles Lettres Meixuedi see ‘The Auspicious Gravesite’ Meng Fanhua 46–7 Mianmian 5, 226–7 Millett, Kate 105 ‘Mingren’ (‘Celebrities’) 206 Mo Yan 7, 11, 17, 22, 81, 146, 292 n9

316

Index

modernization 13, 92–3, 149, 174–5, 212, 224, 227, 292 n10; cities 9, 136, 147 Morning Songs (Zaochende ge) 35, 36 ‘Mourning My Father’ (‘Jifu’) 23, 27, 190 Mu Tao 32, 155, 203, 275 Mulianxi 117, 120–2, 290 n5 Munro, Donald 288 n10 ‘My Ancestors . . .’ (Wode zuxian . . .) 187, 190 ‘My Father’ (Wode fuqin) 27, 189 names, signiﬁcance of 203; in Defunct Capital 81, 83, 85–6, 91, 100, 110, 111; in Earth Gate 132, 136, 148; Jia Pingwa 27–8; in Old Gao Village 157, 158; in other works 43, 128–9; in Remembering Wolves 171, 180; in White Nights 115, 116, 118 Nanguo biij (‘Notes on Travelling in South China’) 208 national allegorization 52–3, 285–6 n2 national identity 14–15, 91–3, 211–12, 213–14 native place: CCP view 7, 14, 15, 18–20; disappearing 150; dystopia 150, 165, 170–1; Earth Gate 148–9; homesickness 7–8; Jia Pingwa on 228–32; and literary nativism 10–13, 14; in modern Chinese ﬁction 6–9, 14, 146; and national myths 13–15; poetics 211–14, 217–19; Remembering Wolves 150, 170–1, 174; travel writing 207–8; White Nights 126 native-soil literature 11, 12 nativism/nativist writing 11, 12, 13–15; of Jia Pingwa 20–5, 33, 39, 41, 42–4, 46, 150, 217, 232–3, 236; the local 150; national frontier 15, 16–17; north-west ofﬁcial nativism 15, 18–20; southern villages 15–16; urban popular 15, 17–18; see also literary nativism nature 235–6 neo-realist novels 11 new revolutionary romances 79, 287 n5 Notes from the Highlands (Shandi biji) 36 ‘Notes on Reaching Sichuan’ (Ru Chuan xiaoji) 208 ‘Notes on Travelling in South China’ (Nanguo biij) 208 novellas 3, 34, 38–9, 252–6 novels 1, 39, 42–6, 285 n20, 290 n1; see also Defunct Capital; Earth Gate; Health Report; Local Accent; new revolutionary romances; Old Gao Village; Remembering Wolves; scholar–beauty romances; Turbulence; White Nights Numinous Number of Master Shao, The 102, 289 n5 October 36 Old Gao Village (Gaolaozhuang) 48, 150–69, 191; aesthetics of narrating a community 167–9; community degeneration 165–7; historiography and community 156–61; intertextuality 157–8; language 161, 233; location and community 161–5; narrative forms of community 152–6, 213; story and

characters 150–2, 157, 158–9; supernatural phenomena 162–5, 215 ‘Old Man’ 192–3 ‘An Old Woman’s Story’ (‘Yige laonüren de gushi’) 187, 191–2 ‘On Narrative Language’ (Guanyu xiaoshuo yuyan) 210 ‘On the Way to Xinjiang’ (Xilushang) 208, 237 ‘On Turning Forty’ (Sishisui shuo) 130 ‘On Women’ (Guanyu nüren) 206–7 ‘One-sided Love’ 188 opera 74–5, 216, 287 n4 outlaw heroes 40, 45, 134, 284–5 n16, 285 n18 ‘A Pair of Socks’ 35 peasants 147, 212; Earth Gate 136–8, 140, 142–5, 147, 148, 149, 213; Jia Pingwa 6, 29–34, 36, 146–8, 291 n3; Jia Pingwa on 223, 224–5, 229–30; masculinity 77, 78; as ‘Other’ 145–7; urban discrimination 140–5, 147–8, 212–13, 230 Peking Opera 74 Phoenix Pavilion (Fenghuangge) 29 Pigsy 76, 157–8 poetry 186, 187–200; classical Chinese poetry 7–8; criticism 187; Jia Pingwa’s classical poems 187, 194–6; lyrical poems 187–9; narrative poems 189–94; in novels 195–6; Shaanxi folksongs 197, 199–200; street ballads 197–9, 293 nn4–6 Poetry Journal 187 postmodernism 218 Pregnancy (Renshen) 42, 44–5 publishers 3, 5, 35, 42, 281 n5 Qian Zhongshu 186 Qingchun zhi ge (Song of Youth) 78–9 Qinqiang see Local Accent Qinqiang (as Shaanxi local opera) 59, 71, 120, 216 Qiu Huadong 12 ‘quality of the people’ 222–3, 224 Rambling in the Mountains 42, 45 ‘Red Fox’ (Honghu) 128–9, 281 n5 Red Sorghum Family (Honggaoliang jiazu) 81, 292 n9 regionalism 11, 13 ‘Regretting the Past’ (Shangshi) 77–8 Remembering Wolves (Huainianlang) 48, 68, 170–85; deaths 234; ethnography of Shangzhou 175–9; human-nature relationship 171–2, 179, 180–1; metamorphosis 182–5; names of characters 171, 180; native place 150, 170–1, 174; native subjectivity 180–2, 183; recording events as key to locality 173–5, 176, 213; stories 170, 172–3, 176–8; supernatural phenomena 178–9, 215 Renshen see Pregnancy Renwen jingshen xunsilu 281 n6 Romine, Scott 168–9, 293 n2 root-searching literature 9, 11, 21, 22, 80, 92, 94; poetry 190, 192–4

Index Rouputuan (The Before Midnight Scholar) 88 ‘Ru Chuan xiaoji’ (‘Notes on Reaching Sichuan’) 208 rural youth literature 4 sanwen see essays scholar–beauty romances 72–3, 74, 75–6, 77–8 self 202–5 self-discovery 86, 87–8, 130 semiotics 54 Shaanxi 18, 19–20, 21, 50; folksongs 197, 199–200; languages 161; travel writing 207–8 Shandi biji (Notes from the Highlands) 36 Shang Yang 21 Shanghai 8–9, 225–6, 282 n12 Shanghai Baby (Shanghai baobei) 9, 225, 226 Shanghai Literature 239 ‘Shangshi’ (‘Regretting the Past’) 77–8 Shangzhou: Jia Pinwa’s nativist style 20–5, 33, 39, 41, 42–4, 46, 150, 228–32, 235; language 24, 25; travel writing 207–8; Zhoucheng 32–3, see also Old Gao Village; Remembering Wolves; stories Shangzhou 24, 39–41 Shangzhou: The Story Continues 24 Shangzhou sanlu see ‘Three Records of Shangzhou’ Shao Yong 289 n5 Shen Congwen 4, 7, 9, 10, 11, 15, 16–17, 186, 229 shi vs. xu 153–5 Shuo qingke (‘Speaking about Dinner Parties’) 206 Sima Qian 8, 21, 203 ‘Sishisui shuo’ (‘On Turning Forty’) 130 ‘Sky and Earth’ 188–9 small talk (xiaoshuo) 3, 173–4, 217, 293 n1 social and economic change 33–4, 42, 44, 114, 135, 136 social class 125–6, 142, 143, 222–3, 224 ‘social idlers’ 58, 59, 100, 115, 128, 286 n3 social realism 135, 148, 149, 205, 291 n1 society 205–7, 222–3, 239 Soldier Boy (Bingwa) 35, 36 Solinger, Dorothy J. 136, 141, 142, 291–2 n5 Song of Perpetual Remorse (Changhen ge) 9, 225–6 Song of Youth (Qingchun zhi ge) 78–9 space and place 142–4, 145; Chinese cultural space 53–62 ‘Speaking about Dinner Parties’ (Shuo qingke) 206 ‘Speaking about Tea’ 194–5 stories 35–8, 95, 123, 213–14, 216–17, 236, 240, 241–52; bandit ﬁction 45–6, 284–5 n16 Stories Overheard (Tinglaide gushi) 217 street ballads 197–9, 293 nn4–6 Su Shi 203 Su Tong 11, 15, 16, 224 Sun Jianxi 155, 239, 275, 281 n5, 284 n9, 284 n11 Sun Li 12 Sun Simiao 21

317

supernatural phenomena 58, 68–70, 102, 162–5, 178–9, 215, 235 Taiwan 11, 48 Takakura, Ken 80 talented scholars: in Defunct Capital 81–2; in scholar–beauty romances 73–6; talented communist scholars 76–7, 78–80 ‘Talking Big at the Age of Fifty’ (Wishi dahua) 204 Tang Xiaobing 8 Taoism 85–6, 87, 153–4, 160–1, 169, 173, 179, 215, 221, 288 n10 ‘Three Records of Shangzhou’ (Shangzhou sanlu) 24, 38–9, 207, 217, 237 Tian Zhenying 64 Tinglaide Gushi (Stories Overheard ) 217 translations: of Jia Pingwa’s works 2; of Western literature 37 travel writing 207–9, 237 Tumen see Earth Gate Turbulence (Fuzao) 2, 34, 41, 42–4, 96, 134, 213, 215, 235 United States 41 urban literature 11, 12, 17–18, see also Defunct Capital urbanization 133, 135, 139, 140–1, 147, 229 van Gulik, R. H. 74, 287 n1 Wang Anyi 11, 225–6 Wang, David Der-wei 11, 228–9 Wang, Jing 37 Wang Xiaoming 281 n6 Wang Xinmin 275 Wang, Y. C. 286 n5 Wang Yongshen 201, 209 Wang, Yuejin 89 76 Wang Zengqi 10, 17 Wasserstrom, Jeffery N. 282 n12 Water Margin 75, 158 Weihui 5, 9, 225, 226, 227 ‘The Wheat Is Ripe’ 193–4 White Deer Plain (Bailu yuan) 19–20, 81, 214 White-Haired Girl (Baimaonü) 79, 287 n4 White Nights (Baiye) 48, 113–30; business culture and corruption 126–8; country man/ Dostoevskian hero 114 –15, 116–18; elite culture 119–20; intertextuality 128–30; names of characters 115, 116, 118; popular art and culture 120–4, 216; popular beliefs 124; residences and status 123–6; story and characters 113–16, 120, 122–3, 191, 213; urban myths 118–19, 215; Xijing 113, 114, 117–18, 144 Wo bushi ge hao erzi see ‘I Am Not a Good Son’ Wo shi nongmin see I Am a Peasant Wode fuqin see ‘My Father’ Wode zuxian . . . see ‘My Ancestors . . .’ Woesler, Martin 3 women: Defunct Capital 94, 97–112; domesticity 94–9, 106–9, 112; double

318

Index

objectiﬁcation 103–6; effect of urbanization 133; femininity 75; femmes fatales 100–3; gender identity 91, 206–7; linguistic identity 109–12; maternal roles 81, 100; as narrator 132; Old Gao Village 159–60; political discourses 99, 288 n3; in PRC literature 94–5, 288 n3; sexuality 97, 99–108; sisterhood 133; village women 95–7 works of Jia Pingwa 1– 4, 276–80 Writers Association 35, 224, 239 writers of the newly born generation 4, 5, 282 n11 Wu Guozhang 63– 4 Wu Liang 62–3 Wu Song 182 Wukui (‘The Bride Carrier’) 45 Wushi dahua (‘Talking Big at the Age of Fifty’) 204 Xia Yan 18 Xi’an 29, 31–2, 33, 52, 53, 114; see also Xijing Xi’an Daily 35 Xi’an People’s Publishing House 35 Xianren see ‘Idlers’ Xiao Xialin 53, 63, 97 xiaoshuo see small talk Xie Youshun 155 Xijing 32, 52; Defunct Capital 50, 52–3, 66, 71, 144, 149; Earth Gate 131, 143–5, 149; White Nights 113, 114, 117–18, 144 Xilushang see ‘On the Way to Xinjiang’ Xu Zhenya 287 n3 Yan Xueshu 233 Yang Hucheng 61

Yang Mo 78 Yang Shenggang 155 Yellow Earth 200 Yellow River Cantata (Huanghe dahechang) 91–2 ‘Yige laonüren de gushi’ see ‘An Old Woman’s Story’ Yu Dafu 76, 186 Yu Hua 5, 22, 224, 234 Yu Jian 37 Yuval-Davis, Nira 91 Zao Shuli 18–19 Zaochende ge see Morning Songs Zeng Lingcun 201 Zeng Zhennan 64 Zha Jianying 89 Zhang Ailing 7, 186 Zhang Chengzhi 14, 15, 17 Zhang Henshui 17 Zhang Xianliang 79–80 Zhang Yimou 154–5, 156, 213–14, 231, 233 Zhao Shuli 146 Zhao Yuanren 61, 286 n4 Zhong Benkang 155 Zhongshan 38 Zhou, Kate Xiao 33, 136 Zhou Libo 19 Zhou Xiao’e (mother of Jia Pingwa) 26, 27, 283 n4 Zhou Zuoren 186 Zhoucheng 32–3 Zhu Hong 20 Zhu Zhiqing 186 Zhuangzi 85, 234

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Neoliberalism and Culture in China and Hong Kong: The Countdown of Time (Routledge Contemporary China Series)

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Politics in China Since 1949: Legitimising Authoritarian (Routledge Contemporary China Series)

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Consumer-Citizens of China: The Role of Foreign Brands in the Imagined Future China (Routledge Contemporary China Series 60)

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