"Historical Dictionary of Modern Chinese Literature" by Li-hua Ying - Part 8 pot

as modern Chinese literature became increasingly realistic and utilitar- ian, Fei Ming’s subjective, personal narratives became somewhat irrel- evant and his name remained unmentioned for several decades until the 1990s, when his works reemerged from layers of dust. Buddhism, classical Chinese poetry, and modern Western literature informed much of Fei Ming’s work. Fei Ming was born in Huangmei, Hubei Province, an important place in the development of Chinese Bud- dhism because it was there that the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Patriarchs had practiced. Furthermore, the Fifth Patriarch was a Huangmei native. As a child, Fei Ming often accompanied his grandmother to the local temples. When he entered Beijing University in 1922, he was a frequent interlocutor with Hu Shi, who was writing a book on Zen Buddhism, and his teacher Zhou Zuoren was also a Buddhist. With a profound knowledge of Buddhist sutras, Fei Ming earned the respect of learned monks with whom he debated and shared ideas. He especially gravitated toward the ancient Chinese literary tradition that embraced the belief in simplicity and spontaneity advocated by Zen Buddhism as found in works by such preeminent poets as Wang Wei and Su Shi. While a student in the Foreign Languages Department of Beijing University, Fei Ming was exposed to symbolism and stream of consciousness, which coincided with some of the concepts embodied in Zen Buddhism and Tang poetry. What Fei Ming strove to achieve in his work was an artistic vision, a spiritual revelation, or a sensual image. His narrative is terse and compact, a feature that relates more to lyrical prose than to fiction, putting the emphasis on subjective feelings aroused through acute senses rather than mimetic descriptions of characters and intricate arrangements of plots. Noted for his economy of words, Fei Ming is cel- ebrated for his ability to convey, through a simple, unadorned language, a profound outlook on life and society. Fei Ming’s earlier works, such as the short stories in Zhulin de gushi (Bamboo Grove Stories) and the novel Qiao (Bridge), paint scenes of a pastoral life, often viewed from the perspective of an innocent child, or simple country person, whose heart is portrayed as pure, unclut- tered by worldly concerns and thus closest to the highest form of truth. Seeking peace and simplicity is at the core of these stories. Fei Ming’s later works Moxuyou xiansheng zhuan (Biography of Mr. Nothing) and Moxuyou xiansheng zuo feiji yihou (After Mr. Nothing Takes a Ride in a Plane) are in many ways portraits of his own life. Here Fei Ming’s pro- tagonist no longer lives in a utopian world as those in his earlier works 42 • FEI MING, PEN NAME OF FENG WENBING do; Mr. Nothing leads an ordinary life, going to the market, teaching Chinese, writing an essay, among other daily routines. What this charac- ter displays is a sense of total surrender, a sort of free flow, without any deliberate effort to achieve something, even freedom itself. Mr. Nothing is, after all, a manifestation of the Zen state of being. FEIFEISM (FEIFEI ZHUYI). Established in Sichuan in 1986, Feifei (meaning “no no,” a phrase coined by the group), represents a counter- cultural movement in poetry. Named after its journal, Feifei (Rejection), it includes a large number of poets scattered around the country. To be considered a Feifeist, a poet has to subscribe to the ideals promoted by Feifei, whose mission is to challenge the social and literary norms of the country. The Feifeist movement, which has flourished under ideological as well as market pressures, can be divided into two stages. The first, which lasted from 1986 to 1989, was characterized by its radi- cal, subversive stance made evident by its proclamation of anticulture, antisublime, and antirhetoric. In 1988, Zhou Lunyou, who cofounded the movement, published his most contentious essay, “Fan jiazhi” (Anti-value), in the third issue of Feifei, announcing the intention to wage a war against all forms of establishment. He advocated targeting culture and its privileged concepts such as beauty, harmony, symmetry, completion, truth, and style in order to carry out a systematic subversion of conventional semantics. To accomplish this mission, Zhou and his colleagues engaged in the invention of new words and the deliberate use of unseemly expressions. Representing Feifei’s vision and aesthetics are Zhou’s own poems, in particular “Ziyou fangkuai” (Freedom Squares) and “Tou xiang” (Head Portrait), Yang Li’s “Gao chu” (The Summit), Lan Ma’s “Shi de jie” (The Demarcation of the World), and “Zu shi” (A Set of Poems) by He Xiaozhu. Since 1989, the Feifeists have adopted a new tactic, advocating “per- sonal writing” that calls for “pure Chinese language,” uncorrupted by Western influences. This nationalistic assertion emphasizes the need to shift away from the preoccupation with the West, which has dominated Chinese intellectual thought and expression since the beginning of the 20th century. The Feifeist poets see no need to esteem the great masters of the West; instead, they position themselves as perpetual innovators and each writing act is projected as a fresh beginning, a “zero point.” Chen Yaping, Chen Xiaofan, and Yuan Yong emerged as prominent members of the movement. Chen Yaping’s poems “Yingxiang sanbuqu” FEIFEISM • 43 (Trilogy of Influence) are particularly important in defining Feifeism’s position at this stage. FENG JICAI (1942– ). Novelist and painter. Multitalented, Feng Jicai has tried his hand at professional basketball, painting, the study of folk art, and a successful writing career launched in the 1970s with histori- cal novels. Driven by a desire to preserve the memory of the Cultural Revolution, the most important historical event in his lifetime, Feng wrote fictional accounts of the tumultuous era, including Pu hua de qi lu (A Strayed Path Covered with Flowers), Ah! (Ah!), and Ganxie shen- ghuo (Thanks to Life), exposing the devastating effect of blind political idealism on human relationships. He also collected real stories of people who suffered in the Cultural Revolution and published their experiences in Yibaige ren de shi nian (Ten Years of Madness: Oral Histories of China’s Cultural Revolution). Driven by the same historical impulse but writing in a completely new narrative style, Feng created Shen bian (The Miraculous Pigtail), a story about a legendary hero at the turn of the 20th century, and Sancun jinlian (The Three-Inch Golden Lotus), a tragic tale of a woman whose life reflects the contradictions and conflicts involved in the practice of foot-binding. Shen bian is a mixture of the picaresque and the realist modes and it has the characteristics of the classical Chinese historical novels with a Robin Hood–type hero. It is also a symbolic novel, with the hero’s pigtail representing both the backwardness and the tenacity of the Chinese. Sancun jinlian, by focusing on foot-binding, explores the complexity of tradition in society. The bound feet represent both suffering and pride in the lives of women who have internalized male- centered aesthetics and values. Feng writes in a seemingly effortless style that appeals to popular taste but also wins critical acclaim. See also ROOT-SEEKING. FENG NAICHAO (1901–1983). Poet and fiction writer. Born in Yo- kohama, Japan, to parents who were prominent members of the local Chinese community, Feng Naichao studied philosophy and art history at Tokyo University. While in college, he participated in the activities of a Marxist society organized by Japanese students, where he was ex- posed to leftist literary theories of the Soviet Union. In 1926, his poems began to appear in Chuangzao yuekan (The Creation Monthly). In the following year, invited by Cheng Fangwu, Feng went to China to edit Chuangzao yuekan and other progressive journals. He joined the Chi- 44 • FENG JICAI nese Communist Party in 1928. A founding member of the Left-wing Association of Chinese Writers, Feng edited the Chinese Communist Party’s journal Hong qi zhoukan (The Red Flag Weekly) for several years. After 1949, he held several relatively minor positions in the central government. In 1950, he was appointed vice president of Sun Yat-sen University and lived in Guangzhou till 1975, when he moved to Beijing to work as a consultant to Beijing Library. Among his creative works the most significant is his poetry collec- tion Hong sha deng (The Lamp with a Red Shade), published in 1928, which established his reputation as a symbolist poet. He was adept at using obscure imageries and the attention he gave to sound and color as well as the dark and gloomy sentiments expressed in his poems invoke comparisons with French symbolist poets, whose decadent aesthetics had a strong influence on Feng. In addition to these modernist poems, Feng also wrote some “revolutionary” verses that focus on exposing social injustice. His short stories, collected in two volumes that were published in 1929, exhibit strong modernist tendencies. FENG XUEFENG, A.K.A. FENG HSUE-FENG (1903–1976). Poet, literary theoretician, fiction writer, and member of the Lakeside Po- etry Society. Born in Yiwu, Zhejiang Province, Feng Xuefeng was a student at the Hangzhou Number One Teachers’ College when he joined the Morning Light Society, a literary organization founded by Zhu Ziqing and others, and began writing modern poetry. In 1925, Feng went to Beijing to study Japanese at Beijing University. Two years later, he joined the Communist Party and subsequently became a founding member of the Left-wing Association of Chinese Writ- ers and served as its party secretary. In 1934, Feng participated in the Communist Red Army’s Long March, and two years later he was sent to Shanghai to help run the underground party branch office. Dur- ing the famous debate of the late 1920s between national literature and defense literature, Feng stood firmly on Lu Xun’s side. He was critical of those within the Left-wing Association who declared that Lu Xun’s national literature was outdated and thus had become an obstacle for the advancement of revolutionary literature. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Feng was a leading critical voice in left-wing literary circles. After 1949, he held many important positions includ- ing president and editor-in-chief of the People’s Literature Press and vice president of the Chinese Writers’ Association. From 1954 to FENG XUEFENG, A.K.A. FENG HSUE-FENG • 45 1976, when he died of lung cancer, Feng suffered from a series of political persecutions and spent many years in prison. Feng was a prolific writer with many talents. Among his works are poems, lyrical essays, parables, fiction, a screenplay, and a large number of critical and theoretical works on modern Chinese literature, includ- ing critiques of Lu Xun. His poems written in the early 1920s during the Lakeside years convey an uplifting, bright outlook on life and love, filled with youthful enthusiasm and a palpable drive. His later poems written in 1941 while in prison express the strong convictions of a Com- munist revolutionary. He was the first person to write modern parables. Most noteworthy is his theoretical and critical work in which he lay foundations for socialist literary criticism. See also CIVIL WAR. FENG YUANJUN (1900–1974). Fiction writer. Born in rural Henan, Feng Yuanjun learned classical Chinese literature at a young age from her brother Feng Youlan, who would become one of the most influen- tial philosophers in 20th century China. After graduating from Beijing Normal University in 1923, Feng went on to receive her postgraduate degree from Beijing University two years later and her Ph.D. in liter- ary studies from the University of Paris in 1935. She taught Chinese literature at several prestigious Chinese universities, including Jinling University for Women, Fudan University, Sun Yat-sen University, and Wuhan University, and from 1949 to her death she worked at Shandong University. Feng began writing fiction in 1923, resulting in the publication of three collections of short stories, Juan shi (Xanthiums), Chun hen (Traces of Spring), and Jie hui (Destruction). These romantic tales decry traditional values and advocate rights for women to seek their freedom in love and marriage. The central conflict of these stories is usually between the young educated female protagonist who desires romantic love and personal liberty and her conventional parents. “Gejue” (Sepa- ration) is representative of such tales. On one side of the clash stands the heroine determined to rebel against an arranged marriage and pursue personal happiness at all costs and on the other is the collective will of her family equally determined to uphold traditional values. The heroine is forced to choose between her lover and her family, a conflict beyond any hope of compromise. The description of the sufferings inflicted upon her by this irresolvable clash forms the core of the narrative. Like most of Feng’s stories, “Gejue” is written in the form of letters, a conve- 46 • FENG YUANJUN nient tool to directly express the feelings of the narrator/protagonist. The first-person narrative is Feng’s preferred form and as such the focus of her stories is not on plot development but on the feelings and thoughts of the characters, often triggered by scenes that surround them, a common feature found in classical Chinese poetry and plays. An accomplished scholar in classical Chinese literature, Feng turned completely away from creative writing to focus on her academic work after the publication of Chun hen in 1929 and made a significant contri- bution to the study of traditional Chinese theater. Her scholarly publica- tions include Zhongguo wenxue shi (History of Chinese Literature) and Gu ju shuo hui (On Classical Chinese Plays). FENG ZHI, A.K.A. FENG CHI, PEN NAME OF FENG CHENZHI (1905–1993). Poet. Known for his sonnets, Feng Zhi was a meticulous stylist, a scholar-poet. His poems, mostly expressions of his inner thoughts, are philosophical in nature, no doubt affected by his post- graduate studies at the University of Heidelburg. A scholar of German literature, philosophy, and art, Feng favored works by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Rainer Maria Rilke, Søren Kierkegaard, and Friedrich Ni- etzsche, and existentialism particularly influenced his thinking. Feng began writing poetry when he was a student at Beijing Univer- sity in the early 1920s. His poems bear the marks of a strong influence by the May Fourth Movement. His first poetry collection, Zuori zhi ge (Songs of Yesterday), was published in 1927. From 1930 to 1935, while in Germany on a government scholarship, Feng put aside his creative work to concentrate on his Ph.D. studies. He resumed his literary career after he came back to China. Some of his best poems were written dur- ing this period. “Qi lu” (Strayed Path) is typical of his style: a meditative voice contained in a terse and compact form. Feng is well known for his sonnets modeled after the English genre. Besides poetry, Feng also wrote a large number of essays and two fictional works based on histori- cal figures: Wu Zixu (Wu Zixu) and Du Fu zhuan (A Biography of Du Fu). He was also a noted translator of German literature. FENG ZIKAI, PEN NAME OF FENG RUI (1898–1975). Essayist and painter. Better known as an artist, Feng Zikai graduated from Hangzhou Number One Teachers’ College. He studied music and art in Japan before returning to China in 1922 to work as an art teacher and editor. Feng rose to fame following publications of his paintings, cartoons, and essays. He continued to write and paint after 1949 while holding several FENG ZIKAI, PEN NAME OF FENG RUI • 47 official posts. His early essays aim to expose social evils such as hypoc- risy, selfishness, and vulgarity and to praise the innocence, purity, and intelligence of children. His later essays are characterized by humor and vigorous sentiments. – G – GAO JIANQUN (1954– ). Novelist and essayist. A Shanxi native, Gao Jianqun is a prolific writer, having published about two dozen novellas, such as “Yaoyuan de bai fangzi” (The White House in the Distance) and “Diaoxiang” (The Statues), and several collections of essays, including Xiongnu he Xiongnu yiwai (The Huns and Others) and Wo zai beifang shouge sixiang (I Am Harvesting Ideas in the North), and most signifi- cantly his novels about the ancient nomadic peoples of Central Asia. Gao lives in Xi’an and is the deputy director of the Shaanxi Writers Association. As one of a growing number of writers devoted to depicting the cultural landscape of China’s Loess Steppe in the northwest, Gao has produced an impressive amount of writings on the people and cultures of the region, most notable of which is Zuihou yige Xiongnu (The Last Huns), part 1 of his Trilogy of the Great Northwest, which also includes Zuihou de minjian (The Last Folk World) and Zuihou de yuan xing (The Last Long-Distance Trip). Zuihou yige Xiongnu centers on three genera- tions of one family purportedly descended from the Huns, a Eurasian nomadic people who once conquered the Chinese and the Romans but left behind no written record of their own history. How could such a powerful people disappear into the tunnel of time without a trace on the land they used to dominate? This novel attempts to answer that ques- tion by piecing together historical references, folklore, and an imagined family saga. With a sweeping introduction of the history and legends of the Huns, including their rise and fall in Europe, and a fictionalized account of the fate of two lovers, a Hun soldier and a Han woman who are believed to be ancestors of the main characters, the novel proceeds to provide a geohistory of the region in the 20th century, from the Re- publican period to the post-Mao era, focusing on the early decades when the Communist Party was building its Soviet-style base in northern Shaanxi. Loosely based on local archives and folklore, the novel depicts the harsh natural environment and difficult living conditions that mold 48 • GAO JIANQUN the resilient and restless character of the people. Zuihou de minjian was first published as Liuliu Zhen (Liuliu Township), about a mediation of- fice that settles conflicts and arguments among the townspeople, rang- ing from small thefts to criminal cases. From these civil cases, a rich tapestry of cultural traditions is revealed. Zuihou de yuan xing combines the narrative techniques of a martial arts novel and a detective story to tell an entertaining tale of intrigue and adventure, with events triggered by the discovery of a female corpse dug out from the grave, which travels for seven days on the road before finally being returned to the woman’s husband. A more historically based work is Hu ma bei feng—damo zhuan (No- mads’ Horses and the Northern Wind—History of the Great Desert), an epic novel that deals with the rise and fall of ancient nomadic peoples in central Asia, including the Shanshan kingdom with its capital in Lou- lan, an oasis town founded in the second century B.C. that flourished for 800 years before vanishing into the sand, the Western Xia kingdom (1038–1227), and Genghis Khan’s mighty empire. The novel recreates the interactions between the Han Chinese agricultural society and the nomadic culture, portraying the latter as the force that helped sustain the Chinese civilization by periodically pumping fresh blood and energy into the Han culture whenever it began to show signs of decline. GAO XIAOSHENG (1928–1999). Fiction writer. Born in rural Jiangsu, Gao Xiaosheng began writing poetry, fiction, and plays in the 1950s, which, instead of attracting critical attention, earned him a rightist label in 1958. He was sent back to the countryside for reform through physi- cal labor until 1979 when the party’s new policy returned him to his old post. In the 1980s, two of his stories earned him national recognition, “Li Shunda zaowu” (Li Shunda Builds a House) and “Chen Huansheng shangcheng” (Chen Huansheng’s Adventure in Town), both dealing with the changes brought about by Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms in the Chinese countryside. Li Shunda is an honest peasant whose modest ambition to build a house for himself and his family is repeat- edly thwarted by unpredictable political campaigns including the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, which result in the dev- astation of the country’s economy and morality. Experience has taught Li valuable lessons and when the new era of economic reform arrives, Li, now a smarter man, knows how to work the system. Chen Huansh- eng’s transformation, from a simple workhorse who never questioned GAO XIAOSHENG • 49 authority to a man learning to become his own master, is emblematic of the difficulties that accompany the Chinese peasantry on their jour- ney toward selfhood in the new era of economic reforms. A son of peasants, Gao is keenly aware of both the strengths and weaknesses of Chinese peasants. He understands that the reforms offer the peasants unprecedented opportunities but they also pose serious challenges to the peasants’ traditional way of thinking. Gao captures their sense of disorientation and fear. His stories, noted for their detached humor and ironic overtones, offer a scathing condemnation of capricious govern- ment policies and poke fun at the peasants’ lack of consciousness. GAO XINGJIAN (1940– ). Playwright, fiction writer, critic, and painter. The winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize for literature, Gao Xingjian is widely credited with introducing “absurd theater” into China’s dramatic performance. In addition, a small brochure he wrote on narrative tech- niques in modern Western literature stimulated discussions in the 1980s on modernism and led to a pervasive experimentation in fictional nar- ratives in China. Gao was born in Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province, when his family was fleeing from the Japanese invasion. He studied French at the Beijing Institute of Foreign Languages and worked as a translator for the China International Bookstore. During the Cultural Revolution, Gao was sent to a reeducation camp and could not publish his writings until 1979, when Deng Xiaoping’s reforms brought more freedom for the country. Gao rose to fame as an innovative dramatist while working for the Beijing People’s Art Theater; from 1982 to 1986 he wrote and produced a series of trend-setting plays, which were largely influenced by Bertolt Brecht, Antonin Artaud, and Samuel Beckett, including Juedui xinhao (Signal of Alarm), Chezhan (Bus Stop) in collaboration with Liu Huiyuan, Ye ren (Wild Man), and Bi an (The Other Shore). The antispiritual pollution campaign in 1986 halted his creative endeavors and Gao was forced to take a 10-month hiatus during which he embarked on a walking tour in the mountains of southwestern China. Gao left China in 1987 and settled in Paris, sup- porting himself with his paintings. After the government’s crackdown on the Tian’anmen Prodemocracy Movement in 1989, Gao wrote a play, Taowang (Fugitives), denouncing the brutality of the Com- munist regime. The play landed him on the blacklist of the Chinese government, which declared him persona non grata. 50 • GAO XINGJIAN Since the 1990s, Gao has written and directed a number of plays, including Shengsi jie (Between Life and Death), Duihua yu fanjie (Dialogue and Rebuttal), Zhoumo sichongzou (Weekend Quartet), Yeyoushen (Nocturnal Wanderer), and Bayue xue (August Snow), some of which were originally written in French. Nearly all of Gao’s plays, particularly those written since the 1990s, and to some extent his nov- els, contain an introspective character who often steps outside himself or herself to examine the meaning of subjectivity, thus constructing a type of nihilist view on language and consciousness. Although Gao’s plays have been staged all over the world, only three have ever been performed in China. Gao has written two novels. Ling shan (Soul Mountain) is a medita- tive narrative recording a journey through space and time in search of a spiritual anchor. The book, which reflects his 1986 trip to Sichuan, was begun in 1982 in China and finished in 1990 in France. His autobio- graphical novel, Yige ren de shengjing (One Man’s Bible), deals with the inner turmoil of a political exile through his relationships with two women. See also SPOKEN DRAMA. GE FEI, PEN NAME OF LIU YONG (1964– ). Fiction writer. Native of Jiangsu Province with a Ph.D. from East China Normal University, Ge Fei built his reputation as an avant-garde writer with intellectual prowess. He came into fame in the 1980s with his experimental stories, particularly Mi zhou (The Enigmatic Boat) and Hese Niaoqun (Flock of Brown Birds), which are regarded as representative texts of the Chi- nese avant-garde movement. He developed a style characterized by its circular movement and its tendency for abstraction, inspired in part by the works of Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. He also deliberately leaves out key elements in the plot, complicating the meaning of the text. In terms of language, Ge Fei retains much of the Chinese classical heritage with its stress on lyricism and refinement. Ge Fei’s novels written after 1990 are more accessible but still bear the traces of his early experimental fiction. In Diren (The Enemy), a mystery novel in which the main character tries to find out who set the fire that destroyed his family’s business many years ago, the perpetra- tor is never identified but the characters mysteriously die one after the other. Yuwang de qizhi (The Flag of Desire), a philosophical rumination, deals with man’s vulnerability, alienation, fear, and loneliness. Ge Fei’s latest novel, Renmian taohua (A Beautiful Face Like a Peach Blossom), GE FEI, PEN NAME OF LIU YONG • 51 . lasted from 1 986 to 1 989 , was characterized by its radi- cal, subversive stance made evident by its proclamation of anticulture, antisublime, and antirhetoric. In 1 988 , Zhou Lunyou, who cofounded. Party and subsequently became a founding member of the Left-wing Association of Chinese Writ- ers and served as its party secretary. In 1934, Feng participated in the Communist Red Army’s Long. voice in left-wing literary circles. After 1949, he held many important positions includ- ing president and editor-in-chief of the People’s Literature Press and vice president of the Chinese Writers’