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IS it Chen Danqing that is regressing(1) or is it that the times are regressing? He does not appear to be a man who likes to “move in accordance with the times”, vehemently calling for a great Renaissance, he shaved his head shorter than that of Lu Xun,(2) and scowls coldly at a world that appears to be in full swing. Is he really a loner? Facing the allure of power and fame and the systematic shackles of the academic and artistic world, he has bluntly and boldly demanded: “We need a space for freedom of speech; we need to build up the independent personalities of intellectuals!”
As an essayist and short story novelist, Lu Xun first appears to his readers as an “instigator”. As if echoing the distant world of Lu Xun, Chen Danqing inherited from him the “whip of language”, for as he interrogates our conscience he also spurs himself. When he encounters any form of irrationality, whether in education or city construction, he speaks out with a sense of justice and does not back down. In these parts of Lu Xun’s writings, the “instigator” and the “readers” express an intense and complex relationship between themselves. In a similar way, there exists a complex relationship between Chen Danqing and his readers. At one end, there is the rupture and cultural self-awareness of the instigator; and at the other, there is the reader who faces the dilemma and oscillation of the forces of the political system and of consumerism. This creates an interesting relation of opposites. In the trend of professional academics and the process of politicization, Chen Danqing, however, uses his independent actions to demonstrate the possibility of writing outside the system: As you advance I regress.
I never contemplated this intervention.
He Xi: In your books Tui Bu Ji (Regression Collection) and Tui Bu Ji Xubian (Regression Collection the Sequel), you actively intervene in public issues as a relatively individual artist. Do you believe that intervention is the responsibility of an intellectual?
Chen Danqing: No, I never consider this to be intervening. This always comes from you guys in the media; I have now been turned into a “prostitute”. Today I have to receive five customers, just like a madam, surrounded by customers. Afterwards, there are some people who have chosen me as a public intellectual, but I also feel that this is strange. China still does not have public intellectuals because public space has not yet emerged in China. What is known as public space is presupposed to be freedom of speech. The public and intellectuals alike should be able to, through any appropriate means, intervene in public affairs and public discussions; however this type of space does not yet exist. China only wishes it had public intellectuals, which is why we have some people who have been mistakenly labelled as such. At any rate I am not one of them and should not even be considered an intellectual. I have not received a complete formal education.
He Xi: Then what you mean to say is that none of this is your personal desire?
Chen Danqing: That’s correct. This has been cooked up by the media and has nothing to do with my original intention. I never thought that the media would consistently and increasingly come to look for me day and night. When I first returned to China, I thought that they would look for me on a few occasions and then that would be it. I never thought that it would be endless, especially concerning my resignation. When it came to the time for the publicity of the book, I was at first reluctant but afterward I just went along with it. I had to cooperate. If a publishing company publishes your book, you must sell it.
He Xi: You must have heard about the situation concerning Mr. Zhang Ming(3) from the department of International Relations at Renmin University of China? When you were interviewed by a journalist from a financial and economic newspaper, you said: “Every school, every floor and every office all have a professor or an associate professor who overtly or covertly are disgusted with their immediate supervisor.” Is what’s known as the “Ivory Tower” of Chinese universities really that dark?
Chen Danqing: The situation is not completely dark, nor completely clear, but situations are like that. America is like that as well. American universities are a whirlpool of power struggles; it’s just that their power structures are different from those in China, and maybe they are a bit fairer and more transparent. The room for circulation is much bigger than in China. There is no impartiality in China. There is a difference between a professor that is a party member and a professor that isn’t—this already is unfair. In reality, behind this, exists the problem of the distribution of political
power.
He Xi: In China’s situation, this is something difficult to separate.
Chen Danqing: That’s right. That’s why when I say that I’m speaking about the problem of education, in reality I’m not speaking about education—this is a national issue. I don’t understand education. My qualifications for being a teacher are very shallow.
He Xi: Education must be a tool of transmission for a country’s ideology. With this in mind, if education is misleading, then that is its original sin. From the perspective of a large production of education, education cannot erase the local stigmas of the government’s behaviour. Therefore, do you believe that there is a path of reconciliation? Or should all of us go and become artists and forget education?
Chen Danqing: This requires a change in political culture. In the West, even before the Renaissance in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, in the Middle Ages, there were universities. The universities during this time period came out of divinity schools but through the years have transformed into today’s modern concept of a university. At that time, in the West, theocratic control was comparable to the Communist party’s control over education today. We now live in a modern society and I believe that we will be able to promote this same kind of transformation.
He Xi: You have already resigned from
Tsinghua’s Department of Art. Are you still willing to teach students if they are really skilled painters?
Chen Danqing: No. There are too many people today that want to study painting: some are genuine about their studies and others just want a degree. I cannot attend to all of them. There are so many teachers nowadays, they won’t miss me.
He Xi: What is your work situation like these days after resigning?
Chen Danqing: I just resigned and got my own studio in Beijing. I still don’t have any plans for work, but I will have more time on my hands.
He Xi: Where?
Chen Danqing: In Beijing.
He Xi: Will you often come to Shanghai?
Chen Danqing: My father is in Shanghai so naturally I will often come back. My home is on Shen Xia Road, which was originally Huaihai Road and Shimen Road, so when I was young I probably rode my bike past here, at Weihai Road, a thousand times.
He Xi: You cut your hair so short: is this in imitation of Lu Xun? I know you really admire Lu Xun. Wu Guanzhong(4) also said that his hero is Lu Xun. As a painter, where does Lun Xun stand in your mind and has he had any effect on your career?
Chen Danqing: No. His hair is much longer than mine. Lu Xun is a renowned writer. I believe that the two best twentieth century writers in China were Lu Xun and Zhang Ailing,(5) but actually both are artists. When they write it’s like they are painting a picture. Turgenev recommended that Flaubert read War and Peace; after reading it Flaubert’s remark was that Tolstoy was a first-class painter.
He Xi: Your thinking, in my opinion, is a bit pro liberalism. In which areas are you most receptive to Lu Xun?
Chen Danqing: This word liberalism is a word that I only heard once I returned to China. I didn’t know this was called liberalism because in New York this is something that is already outdated. Everyone there has something to say and all types of different voices and opinions are expressed freely. So while I was there I learned to do the same and was “corrupted”. Upon returning home I realized that this was liberalism. Yet liberalism is a specialized field just like romanticism and realism because it has a set of theories. In economics and politics there is liberalism, but is there liberalism in art—this I’m not too sure of.
He Xi: When was the first time you read Lu Xun?
Chen Danqing: My father read Lu Xun and Tolstoy, so when I was young, about 13 years old or around the time one graduates from elementary school, I would just take his books and read them.
He Xi: At that time Lu Xun’s image had already become completely manipulated.
Chen Danqing: Of course it was manipulated and politicized. Yet nonetheless, the main point is that his books are still his books. The True Story of Ah Q is still the The True Story of Ah Q.
He Xi: But the annotations are still the official annotations.
Chen Danqing: Then that’s ok. I read the versions from the days of the Republic of China, in traditional Chinese with the characters written vertically from top to bottom. Many classmates had them in their homes and were often borrowing and lending them. At that time my father had a magazine called Wenyi Yanjiu (Literature Research), which had a review of The True Story of Ah Q and Kong Yiji(6) inside, but at that time I didn’t understand anything. I think it’s very interesting that at that time I was reading...
[ End of sample | Please purchase the magazine for full articles ]
1. 陈丹青 Chen Danqing, born in Shanghai in 1953, is one of the country’s best-known realist painters in present day China, who reached fame in 1980 for a series of paintings of Tibetans. He lived in New York for some years (1982-2000) and now teaches, paints and writes in Beijing. Critical of higher education in China, his most famous writings are collected in two volumes called Tui Bu Ji [Regression Collection] and its Sequel Tui Bu Ji Xupian, Guilin, Guangxi Normal University Press, 2005 and 2007 first edition. [Editor’s note].
2. 鲁迅 Lu Xun, pen name of 周树人 Zhou Shuren (1881-1936), is one of the major Chinese authors of the twentieth century. Considered by many to be the founder of modern Chinese literature; he wrote in vernacular as well as in classical Chinese. A short story writer, editor, translator, critic, essayist and poet, he became in the 1930s the titular head of the Chinese League of Left-Wing Writers in Shanghai. After the May Fourth Movement, Lu Xun’s works exerted such a significant influence that he was celebrated by the regime after 1949. Though sympathetic to the ideals of the Left, Lu Xun never actually joined any political party. [Editor’s note].
3. 张鸣 Zhang Ming, born in 1957 in 上虞 Shangyu, 浙江 Zhejiang, was brought up in the Northeastern China and engaged as an agricultural worker and then a veterinarian. He got his doctorate in the Foreign and China’s Political Ideology at the Renmin University of China (RUC) and now serves as a professor and doctoral candidates’ tutor in the School of International Studies at RUC. [Editor’s note].
4. 吴冠中 Wu Guanzhong, born in 1919, is a contemporary Chinese painter of various aspects of China, its people, architecture, plants, animals, and of many of its landscapes or waterscapes in a style quite close to that of the Western impressionist painters of the early 1900s. He writes also on contemporary Chinese art. [Editor’s note].
5. 张爱玲 or Eileen Chang, born 张瑛 Zhang Ying (1920–1995) was a famous writer whose works frequently deal with the tensions between men and women in love, and are considered by some scholars to be among the best Chinese literature of the period. Her portrayal of life in 1940s Shanghai and occupied Hong Kong is remarkable in its focus on everyday life and the absence of the political subtext. [Editor’s note].
6. 孔乙己 Kong Yiji is a representative work in famous Chinese writer Lu Xun’s short story collection 呐喊 Na han (Call to Arms), published in 1922. Kong Yiji is also the name of the main character in the story that recounts the destitute outcome of a scholar, from the eyes of a young adolescent waiter at Xianheng Tavern, Lu Town (substitute for the author’s hometown, real-life Shaoxing). [Editor’s note].
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He Xi, original name He Yingyu, has had his articles published in the following publications since 2002: Tianya, Du Shu, Flower City, Fleur des Lettres (Hong Kong), Ink (Taiwan). He has also written and done translation work for Folida: Yiwei Nüshen de Huaxiang (Frida Kahlo: A Portrait of the Goddess), Bali Modeng (Fashionable Paris) and Yishu de Gushi (The Art Story) as well as many others. |
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| Issue 7.2 |
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Priceless Friendship
—Matteo Ricci’s Legacy
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