Author:
Ursula Panhans-Bühler
Critic, Curator and Professor of Kassel Fine Arts Academy

Cat - fish - melon, a new poetic dimension in Yang Jinsong′s painting

<!--Session data-->

Translated from German by Jacqueline Winter

When I wrote a commentary on Yang Jinsong's painting in autumn 2004, massive cats had suddenly begun to appear in his workshop on Beijing ' s outskirts- meaning, on his pictures; and they proceeded to dictate new kinds of composition, color and brushwork.

At that time, my essay ,” An Interplay of Poetic Scenarios“, concerned itself with Jinsong ' s art from his beginnings at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute.

His art then centered exclusively on a personal world of himself and his wife She Cai. Their portraits were surrounded by a tender confusion of ordinary things, which seemed to be taking over, crowding their tiny apartment on campus. A gaily wandering irregular pattern of bright colors appeared to provide optimistic contrast to their melancholy miens. Even after their move to Beijing , where Jinsong found a big new studio, the couple had managed to retain a mostly miniaturized presence on bigger canvases with isolated iconic motifs.

The appearance of the cat opened up a new dimension in Yang's work at that time, a tension between poles. I was very curious where this tension would lead him, and I said as much at the end of my essay.

If you look back now at the paintings of the last seven years, you can understand that the cat came to announce a dramatic break in Jinsong's work, which went on to be carried by a triad of the cat, the water melon and the fish, supported by a few other meaningful motifs, for example those battered single sofas or armchairs, those dark landscapes of lotus fields in nightly hues, or a close-up of a burning log fire. Finally there were new, bright and gigantic scenes, split into atoms of motifs.

And just as the first large cat leapt into pride of place from nowhere in October 2002, right onto a canvas of Huangjueping, Yang Jinsong's old neighborhood in Chongqing, those new visual metaphors drove out the narrow focus on one′s personal situation and opened up a view of China′s current situation, pressured by globalized economy, politics and culture.

Understanding of metaphors depends on a cultural framework. Individuals may be able to sharpen a personal focus out of their collective communicability, but they usually can't create their own isolated metaphors.

Therefore, Yang Jinsong's innovations should be recognized as all the more bold and surprising, as he takes the risk of establishing metaphors of his own, aiming at the nerve of current conflicts.

And maybe one can see that his effort originates in a fight against cultural desperation or resignation, as he tries to alert others to a critical view of the precarious social situation.

Therefore it seems desirable to intertwine Yang Jinsong's new methods with several strands that determine this situation: first, the tempestuous changes in China's economy, politics, society and culture; second, being dragged into a global capitalist process where nobody can really see where things are going, let alone set a course; third, the new commercial role of art as a “blue chip”, hampering its function as a critical mirror; and fourth, the individual artist confronting this situation, not wanting to be devoured by the mechanics of fashionable decoration. In the light of this tension I will once more attempt to follow the development of Yang Jinsong's art from 1997 to 2011 from a changed and dynamic viewpoint.

Yang Jinsong is now referring to traditions of calligraphy and ink painting, via the medium of his oil paintings. His work has also come into its own in watercolors, which are providing a space of experimentation for his change in the field of oils.

Drawings nowadays are not for preparation and try-out, and they are no intimate side-projects either. They are the medium of a lookout that circumvents a fixed and closed worldview, articulating open questions of our time. A fleeting association, a concept, an impression, hard to grasp and quickly forgotten, can be brought up by a drawing, as well as something brought up under the surface. To sketch is to open up a space that transcends manifest hints, to gain an immediate access to the sphere of feelings. When something fleeting comes up as the smallest common denominator of experience, viewers participate in the generation of a picture in a new way.

*

But let us first go back to an aspect of Yang Jinsong's earlier paintings- we may gain a new understanding of them in the light of his new approach. Jinsong and his wife first appear as a confidently dominant duo in the center of his compositions. They are leaning towards each other, but they are also separate beings. Soon they acquire a monstrous identity of symbiotic twins melting into each other, a stylization of elongated heads, their pale faces only separated by a sharp shadow. Flat as a playing card, they seem to be trying to defend themselves against the growing anarchist heaps of consumer goods, a lively and colorful siege surrounding the couple's castle. They had appeared more at ease when they had occupied little islands on bamboo stalks, in window openings of swinging pumpkins, or in a sea of tea or lotus leaves, in their own little natural refuge.

But the inverted proportions of large and small, of toys and the world of utility also touched their representation, and sometimes the pair seemed to drown in the throng of things, as if they had lost control of the incoming flood of objects. Apparently that which used to promise more comfort and pleasure began to show its dark side- a situation that literally seemed to become “hot” when in one of the new large paintings of 2003 an electrical cooker became the labyrinthine platform for the things and the couple; once connected, it could quickly destroy everything.

These paintings in their dynamic sequence could also be understood as a critical commentary to a changing cultural situation, in which overwhelming consumerization and advertisement, along with the new role of media and consumer propaganda, make you suddenly feel the loss of your own culture as a price to be paid. Yang Jinsong is younger than the generation fixated on a critical view of the past after the economic opening, which came out in a sarcastic Polit-pop, notoriously satirizing the overbearing style of Maoist propaganda, full of clichés that were remarkably successful in the western art context. This view of the past still has the generation of Yang's parents in its grip, because of personal traumas from the Cultural Revolution.

In a western context you could think of Pier Paolo Pasolini remarking that 20 years of Fascism had damaged Italian culture less than the spread of capitalist consumer society in the decades after the Second World War. The spreading of capitalist economy in China has not resulted in very explicit damage to designated cult objects of the cultural past. But old cities with their traditions have been radically razed for the rapid growth of the new Chinese megacities. The differences between urban and rural areas, between rich and poor, are accelerating as the cultural heritage mutates into alienated tourist sites. It would not be very surprising if Mao's portrait on Tiananmen Gate at the Forbidden City would be mistaken, by younger Chinese, for an advertisement poster by Andy Warhol. Maybe there is no other country in the world with such a thorough development in the last 30 years, a radical break with the past that needed at least 70 years in Western countries, not to speak of a longer period of preparation in the 19th century. For Yang Jinsong's generation, cultural memory and current development in their mutual incompatibility are painfully closer together than for any other generation before and after. This insoluble paradox seems to have become the driving force for the break in Jinsong's artistic approach. The cat, which he has called his self-portrait – you could also speak of a figure of identification – was the first in marking this break.

*

The cat, the water melon and the fish, these three big metaphors in Yang Jinsong's recent painting, do not appear together ; they are isolated topics. What they do have in common is that they are more than conventional subjects, as in genre painting or in still lives. Another common feature is that the surface of the painting does not have to be filled with color and motifs in every corner. Jinsong risks something a painter doesn't do very easily- that his paintings could be mistaken for large drawings. And as the double portrait of his wife and himself virtually vanishes, he builds up a new distance to his artistic topic. The tight private circle is broken up towards a further-reaching public investigation.

How did Yang Jinsong come up with these new metaphors, so charged with critical meaning? Let us take the cat first and venture a comparison with two famous appearances of cats in contemporary art. At the 1999 Biennale di Venezia, the South African artist William Kentridge, invited by Harald Szeemann, showed his animated film Stereoscope , with a cat in a leading role. The film represented the disparate state of South African society with a white businessman, caught up in his business deals and losing all contact with other people in his country, including his wife or lover. His torn state of mind is shown through an animated double screen, which is criss-crossed repeatedly by the cat. The cat moves between different sides of a split personality and a disparate society. When the conflicts, demonstrations and uprisings about the conditions of life and work are reaching a climax, the cat rolls itself up and becomes a bomb that explodes and destroys everything. Maybe Mr. Kentridge wanted to stress the untamable independence of this beautiful animal, whose dangerous energy comes to represent an invariable force of nature.

In 2002, the French film auteur Chris Marker begins a documentary about the appearance of a cat in Paris . The cat shows up on many walls, often difficult to reach, grinning toothily. The anonymous street artist who paints it sometimes adds the signature “M.Chat“. There seems to be a connection to the precarious political situation in France , where the right-wing candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen almost won the first round of a presidential election. This threat to democracy in the country was lessened in the second round. But the cat also witnessed the preparations to the American invasion of Iraq , instigated by President G. W. Bush after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. There were many debates and demonstrations in France about this at that time. At these demonstrations, the grinning cat showed up on signs and banners, saying “ faites des chats, pas de guerres“, ” make cats, not wars“. The cat thus becomes a symbol of humorous independence and individuality against inflexible politics. Unfortunately, says Marker, this independent attitude disappeared after a few years, along with its visual feline presence in the city.

Yang Jinsong's cat seems to pick up on this feral independence and its ambivalence, gazing at the viewer in an upright majestic pose, or arching through the whole picture as a dark animal, with fiery eyes and a red, bloody tongue in its open mouth. Sometimes the cat is rolled up and seems to be indifferent to everything, or it might be rearing up and regarding a helicopter like some strange kind of insect. In some pictures the cat rests like a mountain of rugged fur, in others it lounges lazily on its back. If you think of all those tiny dogs in China , overbred and completely dependent on the next available animal clinic, the untamable energy of these cats becomes even more eye-catching. They seem to be saying, “Just you wait.”

*

While Yang Jinsong's cat represents this untamable power, he lets the motif of the fish become a metaphor of the looming self-destruction of civilization. Western languages are used to fish as metaphors, for example when Pieter Bruegel draws a huge fish like a mountain range on the shore, disgorging smaller and smaller fish, while a fisherman climbs on the big one with his harpoon. The picture's title, Big Fish Eat Small Fish, means the exploitation and humiliation of the little people by the powerful. There are no such metaphors in Chinese. Fish are fish, although they may be prized at the family table or at a restaurant dinner with friends. Yang Jinsong's fish paintings are all the more unusual and exciting, showing plundered and destroyed fish in ever growing formats, up to a canvas of four and a half metres in length and 2.5 metres in height, a huge painting in three parts that was completed in April 2008 and has left the artist's studio only one time since then, to be presented in his solo exhibition in the Indonesian National Museum in Jakarta in December 2008.

If you want to define a metaphorical space for this iconographic motif in Yang Jinsong's work, you could hardly go back to traditional Chinese motives of living fish swimming happily in their natural environment. So we have to remember it is not only a destroyed, dismembered, maltreated fish, but also a stranded fish, a fish out of water, caught or strung up on barbed wire, and sparsely strewn with tiny emblems of political, economic or media violence like tanks, bulldozers, transport hooks, clearing vehicles, demolished houses or factories with smoking chimneys, TV-screens, helicopters, or broken passenger planes.

In Western metaphors, the shipwreck has become the metaphor of a failed civilization – from Turner to G é ricault's Raft of the Medusa, to Caspar David Friedrich, to Mallarm é 's poem “Un coup de D é s ...“ (‘Casting a dice will never abolish chance') and to a series of paintings and drawings by Martin Kippenberger in a late part of his career. Civilization losing out against the uprising of nature. But although Yang Jinsong's fish sees this kind of catastrophe as a failed harmony with nature, it would be too much of a shortcut to reduce the fish to the problem of a failure in protecting the environment. The shock of this fish metaphor goes deeper and is ingrained with a sensitive, intuitive perception of self-destruction in a globalized world, torn from economic and political competition.

The series of oils, starting in 2005, is accompanied by many water color paintings, from which you can plainly see the influence of traditional Chinese ink painting on Yang Jinsong's new picture concepts. While his cat playfully morphs into a mountain range only occasionally, the transformation of the fish motif into a general representation of nature requires the fish to apparently change into a landscape. There are different approaches. Either the brush strokes furnish the landscape dimension, or the fish is surrounded by the articulation of a genuine landscape. But in the latter case the fish becomes again merely a motif, and so the larger oils tend to tie in the brush strokes of the fish with an empty varnished background. Therefore I prefer these pictures, which concentrate the drama in the drawing of the fish, with very expressive, partly chaotic strokes. The melodramatic charge is not in a surrounding landscape, and the act of destruction shows up very directly. Tortured nature is represented in the gaping fish jaws; a state of exhaustion becomes a continuing process.

For four years, Yang Jinsong has been experimenting with new fish paintings, with new positions of the fish, a change in the surface from solid color to graphical drawing, torn up and charged with emotion. Yang Jinsong was also testing color hues. There are fish in black and white on a grey canvas, and other pictures with soft pink and grey hues on a brownish background. If you look into this process more closely, you can see two dangers – the hues of the painting should not become too beautiful, and the painting should not be taken over completely by outbursts of raw drawing. The grey-in-grey fish helped the painter towards a concentrated relation between form and color. He was able to anchor the stranded fish on the picture in the form of a mountain range, suggesting foothills in the lower margins and an endless stretch of 'landscape' at the top of the picture, while the fish at the core keeps the whole manifestation together dynamically.

Comparing the water color pictures with the oils shows us that that water color painting helped Yang Jinsong to integrate expressive moments of drawing into his oil paintings. They acquired a different density and a more acute emotional weight. This journey into traditional ink painting was not simply an attempt to resurrect old conventions. It was a means of furnishing his oil painting with a thematically relevant force, expressing the spirit of his time. If you see this development in contrast to his earlier period, you could say that a closed-up, self-contained form was broken. And so an enormously powerful drama was set free, which is present in the current social situation. Yang Jinsong's reflected artistic sensibility helps him to attain an emotionally accessible identity, behind the masks of a world plastered with advertisement designs and consumerism.

*

The fish paintings could also be, ironically, titled, “Grand Banquet”. Yang Jinsong has used this name for his series of water melons. In 2003 they were the last refuge of his domestic idyll, before they morphed into broken ridges. Now these side walls make the viewer - and in a recent painting from 2010, Jinsong and his wife themselves, seen from the back – seem to be standing in front of a new Great Wall. In 2004, in the sea of a greasy Chongqing hot pot, the production junk, consumer junk and control junk of a brave new world was swimming together in a wild mix of large and small. These allusions seem to have been swept up to the wet surface at the edge of a water melon slice, accompanied by other objects on the side slopes of the melon ridges.

We can also find two new motifs among these allusive items. Half-naked miniature prostitutes are crawling around on the sweet fruit, not very different in color, so maybe you don't see them at first glance. But above all there is almost always a dismembered doll; sometimes the head is torn off, or an arm and a leg. This doll also belonged to the junk on the easy chair, alluding to pompous furniture from the Mao era, since 2006. In contrast to earlier pictures with easy chairs, you get the impression of a recent destruction having caused this chaos on those threadbare sofas of a bygone time. But the dismembered doll on the melon mountains seems to contain yet another allusion, especially in combination with the prostitutes. At this banquet, the female in general is thrown on the side of wear and tear, of careless consumption – a discreet and minute hint, expressively shocking nevertheless.

W ater melons are very large fruits, predestined to be used as metaphors for the Grand Banquet of modern consumer society. But let us first think of their colors, green and red. It is a combination that may evoke, despite the juicier hues, at least in China , a memory of Chinese landscapes. Sichuan province, where Yang Jinsong comes from, is known for its red earth contrasting with green plants. You could also think of monuments of tradition, receiving tourist attention nowadays, like temples, monasteries and palaces with earthy colors, where this kind of color contrast is used for walls and roofs. Finally, you could think of a trivial transfer of these colors onto current mineral water bottles in China , for example in the brand “Nongfu Spring“.

*

The red sea of the melon slices as a landscape element is enhanced by pastel-colored, landscape-like surroundings of the melon ridge. The sparsely distributed things with associative meaning, lost all over the fish landscapes and melon ridges, as well as the examination of calligraphic tradition in the fish paintings, have prepared an altogether new kind of format, which can be seen in three big paintings from 2010. They don't have one large motif dominating the whole canvas; it is an exploding pattern of things that carries a contemporary world being lost in boundless infinity.

The first picture, finished in May 2010, still has the large fish as a structural landscape element, but the fleeting brush strokes of the parts in burgundy and silver-grey colors seem to be melting into the white background. All those watercolor sketches have contributed to this new lightness. Grey lines, which seem to denote either cables or parts of barbed wire, or both, paradoxically, are also structural elements and nuances of scenery, supplemented by smaller and larger distributed objects. The white background makes this fissured or dismembered landscape into a vague phenomenon, hard to define. The relations between its elements seem to be accidental, as if the painter wanted to show that in this modern world everything is situated or happening next to something else in a chaotic way, without any apparent logic. The viewer has to make up his own relationship between the artist on the left, who is looking at a tank across a smoldering fire. Maybe the tank is on its way towards him, and he won't be able to stop it. A terrorist on a monitor, toting a Kalashnikov, is connected by cable to a raw, torn-out heart in the front, a looming explosion. This could be a comment on the absurd interchange of reality and the world of the media. At the sides of the picture, the motifs are overlapping, be they a cigarette butt, an erupting volcano or a building from Tiananmen Square . And so the heterogonous associations could be going on forever into a space that cannot be concentrated in a single view any longer.

With this picture, drawing has acquired a new weight in Yang Jinsong's painting. The drawing elements enable him to show the chaotic disintegration of our world, and at the same time visualize the feeling of being torn apart and lost in this world. One picture title is a paraphrase of this new creative approach: “Travellers among Mountains and Streams” from October 2010, where the smoldering fire is a dark ridge delineating a larger scenic formation, while a raw, dismembered lamb has been distributed over the picture. We know the colors grey and pink from the first painting, and here they are supplemented by the changeable green of large lotus leaves. An astronaut in his white suit with his helmet closed is standing lost in the middle. We are not sure if he is just another motif in this torn world, or if he is a visitor from another world, looking – just like the viewer – quite accidentally at this strangely apocalyptic scene.

At this point it is time to speak of the particular beauty of these catastrophic worlds, which are manifestations of the artist's passionate wish to do something for this world. Ever since those fish, Yang Jinsong seems to be occupied with the paradoxical coexistence of beauty and terror. It is not easy to hold these two in balance. If one of them gets stronger than the other, the result would be either Kitsch or negative prophecy. This is why the best of those fish demand a certain hardness and discipline of color, and there is a balance between the verve of the drawing process and the blooming colors. The emotions of the painter in his experience of our reality cannot be separated from each other; they are joined to each other like the infinite ends of a parabola.

*

The development of Yang Jinsong's art also follows an inner personal logic, in addition to the artistic logic. We can see this from a few smaller new pictures. It is as if the painter would return to his old passions: to cover every last bit of the canvas and show the familiar motif of a couple in close embrace. But I think Yang Jinsong also puts a new kind of reflection up for discussion. He and his wife are seen from the back, in a boundless landscape, either in a sea of lotus or above the clouds, looking at an insular idyll far away: a small plot of land with a house, a window with their faces, as shadows or lit up dimly by a lamp. You see a wish imagined, and you also see that its fulfillment is very far away. And in between there is his field of occupation with contemporary experience of a warped globalized world.

The poetic logic in Yang Jinsong's painting has changed the direction of its view, but kept to its substance. The occupation with traditional ink painting has not led to an invocation of impotent forms of the past, a flight from the modern world. It has enabled suspense and tension between the past and the future. The small portrait of a black cat from 2008, reduced in a close-up to eyes and mouth, the black fur of the face cut by the edge of the painting, could be read as an apotropaic mask, set up with its glowing eyes and mouth in front of a present marked by deep conflicts, and by an absent-minded refusal to acknowledge them.

Ursula Panhans-Bühler

Beijing, June 2011

Translator:Jacqueline WINTER

<!--Session data-->

Some translations of Yan Jun’s poetry into English, French, Dutch and German

For current info on Yan Jun and his various sound projects, see http://mu.subjam.org/yanjun/.

Artspace China has a long interview from August 2011:　http://blogs.usyd.edu.au/artspacechina/2011/08/post_3.html　

Yan Jun’s poems have been translated into English, French and other languages for about a decade. Maghiel van Crevel’s report from a poetry event in Beijing, along with extensive translations, appeared online at the MCLC Reseource Center in 2003: http://mclc.osu.edu/rc/pubs/yanjun.htm, see also http://h1753510.stratoserver.net/w/The_Poetry_of_Yan_Jun

Yan Jun’s poems have appeared in various magazines, for example Cerise Press in Spring 2010 (http://www.cerisepress.com/01/03/shi-ke-and-yan-jun-innovative-poets-from-china)

There is a longer text by Yan Jun called Noise and the Apocalypse on the site “pangbianr” (http://pangbianr.com/noise-and-the-apocalypse/), with acoustic   accompaniment and references to the Chinese original in a Taiwanese magazine.

Yan Jun’s poetry was featured in the project Poesie in die Stadt: Chinain Germany in 2009. See http://www.bosch-stiftung.de/content/language1/html/24938.asp

The following poems were written between 2008 and 2010, and translated in 2010. See also my paper on Chinese literature from 2000 and 2010 (http://langmates.com/dujuan99/blog/3650/), which contains translations of the three poems Charter 09, April 25 and This Moment. My page Translation on erguotou.wordpress.com (http://erguotou.wordpress.com/translation/) has English and German versions of This Moment.

This Moment was recited by the author and presented with my English translation at the Rotterdam Poetry International Festival in June 2011. They also have many other poems by Yan Jun in Chinese, English and Dutch at 

http://international.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=19777&skin=pif

Four poems from 2008-2011 have appeared in the latest number of the German magazine Dianmo (July 2011, http://dianmo.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/dianmo_jul12_web.pdf, p.32/33

Two poems also appear at Lionel Marchetti’s site Lampe-Tempete: 
http://www.lampe-tempete.fr/sommaire8.html

Lionel has a few French translations at http://www.lampe-tempete.fr/yanyunLT8.html

The poems below are followed by the text Northern Roundworms by Che Qianzi. Northern Roundworms is actually a liner note for a new CD by Yan Jun.

14. Februar, Mit Vater im Krankenhaus

Feb. 14, Taking Father to Hospital

2月14日，和父亲去医院

We had breakfast. Took our medicine.

Battled with polluted air.

我们吃了早餐  吃了药

和污染的空气做斗争

Wir haben gefrühstückt.. Nahmen Medikamente.

Wir kämpfen mit verschmutzter Luft.

We got up early. To wait at the hospital

And recognize the ear doctor’s steps.

我们早起  在医院等待

辨认着耳科大夫的脚步声

Wir stehen früh auf. Um im Krankenhaus zu warten.

Wir erkennen die Schritte des Ohrenarztes.

We were silent. Sat in a row.

Stored our silence in the air.

我们沉默着  并排坐着

把沉默存进空气里

Schweigend sitzen wir nebeneinander

Und speichern die Stille ein in die Luft.

One day. Two days. With our hands behind our backs

Standing in the slow-moving elevator

一天  两天  我们背着手

在缓慢的电梯里站着

Einen Tag. Zwei Tage. Mit den Händen hinter dem Rücken

Stehen wir im langsamen Lift.

The scarf is new. The ice and the garbage are new.

We are listening to each other. Until we hear nothing.

围巾是新的  冰和垃圾也是新的

我们互相听  一直到听不见

Der Schal ist neu. Eis und Abfall sind neu.

Wir hören einander zu. Bis wir nichts mehr hören.

2008.02.14  Yan Jun, 2008-02-14  MW Tr. Febr. 2011MW Übers. im Febr. 2011

Febr. 18, Strindberg from Labrang

He heard of Beijing.      It made his ears ring.

Northern bicycles.        Slipped through the sky.

He heard of Labrang.     The monastic name rang.

Northern pancakes.       Covered with snowflakes.

He went to the cellar to watch underground movies.

And now he is old.         Doesn’t go anywhere.

Snow’s on the street.     Bicycle is downstairs.

Strindberg from Labrang.     Doesn’t hear anything.

Yan Jun                   Feb. 18^th, 2008 in LanzhouMW          Tr. Feb. 2011

2月18日，夏河的斯特林堡

他听到了北京  他是它的耳鸣

北方的自行车  在天空中滑过

他听到了夏河  法号响起了

北方的大饼  被雪花盖起来

他在地下室看地下电影

他老了  哪里都不去

雪在街上  自行车在楼下

夏河人斯特林堡  什么都听不到

2008.02.18，兰州

18. Februar, Strindberg aus Labrang

Er hörte von Peking      Das Sausen der Ohren

Das nördliche Fahrrad           Rutscht durch den Himmel

Er hörte von Labrang             Der Mönchsname klang

Der nördliche Fladen            Mit Schneeflocken drauf

Im Tiefgeschoß sieht er die Untergrundfilme

Er ist alt geworden                Geht nirgendwo hin

Der Schnee auf der Straße            Das Fahrrad im Hof

Strindberg aus Labrang         Hört gar keinen Klang

Yan Jun, 18. Februar 2008, Lanzhou

MW                Übers. im Febr. 2011

June 2^nd, A Peaceful Life

A peaceful life has never appeared

A thunderstorm never really came down

Except for the ceaseless      doubled dizziness

In the afternoon     tying       the girl who keeps screaming

Erotic as water

Water as water       in boiling water the moment of stillness

Another afternoon         the next afternoon

Passed without motion         has not gone away

Yan Jun, June 2nd, 2008

MW                Tr. Febr. 2011

6月2日，平静的生活

平静的生活从未出现

就像雷雨从未真的降临

除了无休止的  加倍的晕眩

在下午  捆绑  操着尖叫的姑娘

水一样的色情

水一样的水  开水的片刻宁静

又一个下午  下一个下午

静止般地经过  又从未消失

2008.6.2

2. Juni,  Ein friedliches Leben

Ein friedliches Leben ist noch nie erschienen

Als wär das Gewitter noch nie ausgebrochen

Außer der endlose doppelte Schwindel

Am Nachmittag              fesselt    das kreischende Mädchen

Wie Wasser erotisch

Wie Wasser, das Wasser              Das kochende Wasser, die Stille davor

Wieder ein Nachmittag         der nächste Nachmittag

Ohne Regung vergangen                       und doch nie verschwunden

Yan Jun, 2. Juni 2008

MW                Übers. im Febr. 2011

August 10

Apples fell from the sky

And backed up traffic

People fell from the sky

Inventing ice cream

Now is that time

Now the walnuts are ripe

The library’s finished

The key burning the red door is blue

And so we have met

Flying birds invent flying

Sneezing mysteriously          We raise our heads

Yan Jun August 10th, 2009

8月10日

苹果从天上下来

把交通堵起来

人类从天上下来

发明了雪糕

现在就是那个时刻

现在核桃成熟

图书馆竣工

蓝色的钥匙烧着红色的门

所以我们相遇

飞鸟发明了飞

我们抬头  神秘地打喷嚏

2009.8.10

10. August

Ein Apfel kommt vom Himmel herunter

Und hält den Verkehr auf

Die Menschheit kam vom Himmel herunter

Und erfand das Speiseeis

Jetzt ist diese Zeit gekommen

Die Nüsse sind reif

Die Bibliothek ist errichtet

Blaue Schlüssel brennen rote Türen

Also sind wir uns begegnet

Fliegende Vögel erfanden das Fliegen

Wir heben den KopfNiesen geheimnisvoll

Yan Jun    2009-08-10

MW         Übers. Febr. 2011

Northern Roundworms – Che Jianzi

北回虫

车前子

Translated by Martin Winter

1) Northern Roundworms

一．北回虫

Yan Jun has sent me e-mails with the following titles: “North”, “Recycling”, “Wormhole Chance Composition“. The contents of the attachments lacked any formal classification. I combined some parts of the titles and came up with “Northern Roundworms.” I just printed out these names. That was all. Now Yan Jun wants me to write a little explanation. The explanation follows: I pick up my “Modern Chinese Dictionary (Commercial Press expanded edition 2002)” and flip through it randomly, for example now I hit upon “low employment” – that’s a mistake, so I employ a lower page, like page 9. Page 9 has various syllables in different tones that sound like “an”, where “an” can mean “container”, “eat food from one’s hand”, “I, we, our (in dialect)”, “dibble holes for planting seeds”, “the first sound of a Buddhist mantra”, “so”, “another way to write ‘an’, meaning I, our, we in dialect”, “ammonium”, “to powder a wound”, “’an’ as in ‘bi’an’, a legendary animal drawn on the door of a prison”, “shore”, “lofty”, “press or push down with your hand”, “according to”, “note”. With these 15 words, I go into “Northern Roundworms”; at the ninth line it says “record”, so I record fifteen words: “meanwhile, passing cars lifting up a strong wind”. Including the punctuation, this sentence has almost exactly 15 syllables. “Chinese people always look outfor good connections”, and so I combine those 15 kinds of “an” with the sentence before, connecting them one by one: (container) mean- (eat from hand) while (I, me, mine), (dibble holes) passing (mantra) cars (so) lifting (ammonium) up (wound powder) a (prison sign) strong (shore) wind (press) and so on. “Recording means to kill the truth. Then you make it into a specimen, or meat cooked with soy sauce. And then you eat it, digest it, and absorb the truth.” If I don’t go according to the absorbed truth I had in mind – what isn’t true is below –

(container) mean (shore), a strong wind,

And if it’s not absorbed, it’s not meat in soy sauce, just meat cooked dark. But doesn’t this sound too much like Zen? Let’s digest it a little:

(container) mean strong wind,

And absorb it a little:

(container) mean wind,

And digest a little more:

(container) wind,

This is still too much Zen. I am against Zen in art. I promote antagonism. “I am doing what anyone could be doing.” “This is probably my basic principle.” “In regard to the truth, I don’t have to be a special person.” In regard to myself, I don’t have to be a particular “container wind”, so I flip through to page 825, for example – there are three syllables that sound like “lu” in fourth tone, meaning “to move the eyeballs” or “road” and a “lu” that means “to insult, humiliate”, but the character can also stand for another “lu”, which means “to kill, or to fight together”. With these three characters, I go back into Northern Roundworms, to Page 825, and stop at an empty space, because Northern Roundworms doesn’t have a page 825, there are only all these lines (1-9-9) on this paper I printed out. So I look for the 825^th character, which is “ji”, third tone, meaning “self”, or “sixth”, because it’s the sixth of the Heavenly Stems, used for counting years, hours and so on.

“Chinese will always like to be well connected”, so I let “self” come together with “eyeball-moving”, “road” and “insult”. One character getting together with three characters, this is a little excessive. “Of course this is altogether a different cup of tea with chicken feathers and garlic peel”, as we say. “Are these chicken feathers and garlic peels over here any different from those chicken feathers and garlic peels over there?” “Is there any difference between chicken feathers with garlic peels and chicken feathers with garlic peels? There is no difference. There is only a difference between chicken feathers and garlic peels.

颜峻(Yan Jun)他发来电子邮件：《北方（North）》；《回收（Recycling）》；《虫洞机遇作曲（Wormhole Chance Composition）》。附件作为形式没有等级内容。我把它们合作一起，并命名为《北回虫》，也就是说，我把《北方（North）》《回收（Recycling）》《虫洞机遇作曲（Wormhole Chance Composition）》打印在一张纸上。颜峻(Yan Jun)他要我写段说明。说明如下：我拿来《现代汉语词典（商务印书馆2002年增补本）》，随意翻阅，比如我现在翻到“低就业”——这是一个错误——应该是“第九页”——“第九页”上有“盦”“咹”“俺”“埯”“唵”“唵”“唵”“唵”“铵”“揞”“犴”“岸”“岸”“按”“按”——这十五个字，我就走进《北回虫》，走到“第九行”，停下，在“第九行”这一行“录音”，录下十五个字：

中间，过往的汽车掀起很大的风，   加上标点，正好十五个字。“没办法，中国人就喜欢搞关系……”，我让“中间，过往的汽车掀起很大的风，”和“盦”“咹”“俺”“埯”“唵”“唵”“唵”“唵”“铵”“揞”“犴”“岸”“岸”“按”“按”搞在一起。一个一个搞，关系：

盦中咹间俺，埯过埯往埯的埯汽铵车揞掀犴起岸很岸大按的按风，  “录音就是杀死真实。然后要么做成标本，要么做成红烧肉，吃掉，消化并吸收掉真实。”没有按照我意志吸收掉的真实——不真实在下面——  盦中岸，很大风，

没有吸收掉的肯定不是“红烧肉”，是“肉烧红”。这样，是不是也太有禅意？再消化一些：   

盦中大风，  再吸收一些：  盦中风，  再消化一些：   盦风，

还是太有禅意了。我反对艺术品中的禅意！我鼓吹艺术品中的敌意！“我做的事情都是人人可以做的。”“这大概是我的基本原则。”“对真实而言，我并不需要是一个特别的人。”对我而言，我并不需要是一阵特别的“盦风”，比如我现在翻到“第八二五页”——上有“睩”“路”“僇”——这三个字，我就走进《北回虫》，走到“第八二五行”，停下，在一片空地之上，《北回虫》根本就没有“第八二五行”，它（在我打印的一张纸上）只有“一九九”行。我开始找“第八二五”个字，这一个字是“己”，录下这个字：

己  “没办法，中国人就喜欢搞关系……”，我让“己”和“睩”“路”“僇”搞在一起。一个搞三个，有点奢侈。“当然这是另一些鸡毛蒜皮，”“这些鸡毛蒜皮，和那些鸡毛蒜皮有区别吗？”“鸡毛蒜皮和鸡毛蒜皮之间，没有区别吗？”鸡毛蒜皮和鸡毛蒜皮之间没有区别。鸡毛和蒜皮之间，有区别。

2) Chicken Feathers

二．鸡毛

One chicken feather: Always changing shape 一根鸡毛：它始终在变形，

One chicken feather with one chicken feather: Always changing shape, you can also say no sound is wasted,一根鸡毛和一根鸡毛：它始终在变形，也可以说没有声音是多余的，

One chicken feather with one chicken feather with one chicken feather: Always changing shape, you can also say no sound is wasted, together with anything you like called up inside your body, 一根鸡毛和一根鸡毛和一根鸡毛：它始终在变形，也可以说没有声音是多余的，以及随便什么你身体里被召唤起来的东西，

One chicken feather with one chicken feather with one chicken feather with one chicken feather: Always changing shape, you can also say no sound is wasted, together with anything you like called up inside your body, every kind of bastard is encouraging you, 一根鸡毛和一根鸡毛和一根鸡毛和一根鸡毛：它始终在变形，也可以说没有声音是多余的，以及随便什么你身体里被召唤起来的东西，每一个王八蛋都在激励你，

One chicken feather with one chicken feather with one chicken feather with one chicken feather with one chicken feather: Always changing shape, you can also say no sound is wasted, together with anything you like called up inside your body, every kind of bastard is encouraging you, and if you think about it, how can you not be moved to tears? 一根鸡毛和一根鸡毛和一根鸡毛和一根鸡毛和一根鸡毛：它始终在变形，也可以说没有声音是多余的，以及随便什么你身体里被召唤起来的东西，每一个王八蛋都在激励你，想到这你难道不热泪盈眶？

3) Garlic Peels

三．蒜皮

[Do you know why these Western avant-garde musicians love to throw dice? Because they are lazy, evading their duty, they don’t want to choose.][For improvisation, they always say you need to empty your self, – but what if I can’t make myself empty – then I just have to observe myself, and see how non-empty I am.][You set up the machine, throw the switch, and the self starts to interfere, no-one can pretend not to be around anymore.][Nobody is more special than other people.] 【你知道，为什么那些西方先锋派音乐家喜欢丢骰子吗？因为他们偷懒，逃避责任，不想选择。】【即兴演奏那件事，都说是需要把自我放空的，我放不空怎么办啊——那我就观察着我，看我是怎样的不空。】【架好了机器，摁下开关，自我就开始介入，谁也别假装不在场。】【没有谁比别人更独特。】

[…] Flipping through the dictionary ≠ throwing dice. […] Making excerpts ≠ emptying your self. But making excerpts = improvisation. […] So is improvisation always making excerpts?【】翻词典≠丢骰子。【】摘抄≠自我放空。但摘抄＝即兴演奏。【】那么，即兴演奏＝摘抄吗？

4) Chicken Eat Worms

四．鸡吃虫

“This“ ”This” “This” “This”“各个”“各个”“各个”“各个”

“Active”“积极”

“Oh” “cackling” “bricks” “all the way until” “squeaking”“哦”“咯咯”“瓦”“直至”“直吱”

“Squeak”“吱”

“Squeak”“吱”

“Squeak” “Creak”“吱”“唔唔”

“Cock-a-doodle-doo” – Chicken eat worms, and produce eggs.“喔喔喔”——鸡吃下的是虫，生出是蛋。

Aside from that, parts of the dictionary belong to vision and noise; any noise is also auditory writing. […]I have done a limited edition called “Che Qianzi: Recent Works”, which consisted of 20 pages ripped from “A Modern Chinese Dictionary (Commercial Press expanded edition 2002)”and bound into a separate volume. 另外，一部词典也就是视觉噪音；一件噪音也就是听觉文字。【】我做过一本限量版《车前子近作》，从《现代汉语词典（商务印书馆2002年增补本）》中撕下二十页，装订成册。

5) Writings

五．文字

Listen! Criticizing ears. Right now we are criticizing ears. 听！批判耳朵。正好批判到耳朵。

It’s not politics; it’s not economy; it’s not culture; it’s not art. Yes, sound: noisy. It is art; it is culture; it is economy; it is political. 不是政治的；不是经济的；不是文化的；不是艺术的。是，声音：噪音的。是艺术的；是文化的；是经济的；是政治的。

The animals can only be small animals. 动物只能是小动物。

Nothing heard by chance; just recorded by chance. 没有偶然听到的；只有偶然录下的。

Tools: Opportunities are the tools. 工具：机遇即工具。

Soul: The materials are the soul. 灵魂：材料即灵魂。

Avantgarde just means not timid enough, we need more of that. 先锋意味着还不够胆怯，需要做得更多。

Who can be more brave than the conservative, more blunt, more unscrupulous? In art. 谁能比保守更勇敢、更粗鲁、更肆无忌惮呢？在艺术上。

The decibel level of silence exceeding the noise, in China?沉默的分贝超过噪音，在中国中？

When you are about to wash your hands, the water screams – “left” “right”; washing your ears, you see the bottom of the great river: their face has booked a soft pillow on the riverbed. 洗手之际水发出尖叫——“左”“右”；洗耳的时候大河见底：它们的脸在河床预订了松软的枕头。

This is nothing unique, so we are very inspired.  一点也不独特，所以我们兴致勃勃。

Listen! Fortunately there is some inspired noise. 听！幸亏还有噪音是兴致勃勃的。

Written in Beijing in the morning of Jan 19, 2011, in the Mumu (Eye- wood) – Building.

2011-1-19，上午，北京，目木楼

<!--Session data-->

China und Literatur 2000 bis 2010

Martin Winter

Aktuelle Lage und Trends

Anfang 2010 wird aktuelle chinesische Literatur international vor allem mit Zensur und staatlicher Unterdrückung identifiziert. Ende März durfte Cui Weiping[1], Professorin an der Pekinger Filmakademie (Beijing Dianying Xueyan), eine geplante Reise zu akademischen Veranstaltungen in den USA nicht antreten. «Zweite Dichterin im selben Monat an der Ausreise gehindert» titelten internationale Medien.[2] Cui war davor durch mehrere Initiativen ausserhalb ihres Fachbereichs bekannt geworden, zuletzt durch eine Umfrage unter prominenten chinesischen Intellektuellen zur Verhängung einer langen Freiheitsstrafe für den Philosophieprofessor und Dissidenten Liu Xiaobo. Als Dichterin wurde sie jetzt offenbar nur deshalb erwähnt, weil sie China nicht verlassen durfte. Ein aktuelles Beispiel für ihre Lyrik sind Gedichte, die ihrem unlängst verstorbenen Kollegen Zhang Zao gewidmet sind, die sich etwa auch auf dem Blog der Dichterin und Schriftstellerin Hong Ying finden.[3]

Der erste zurückgehaltene Dichter war im März 2010 Liao Yiwu. Er wurde vor allem durch Reportagen und Erzählungen über Benachteiligte in der Gesellschaft bekannt. Ins Gefängnis kam er 1989 für die Lesung und Verbreitung eines Gedichts als Reaktion auf das Massaker in Beijing. Über ein Dutzend Mal wurde Liao bereits daran gehindert, die Volksrepublik China zu verlassen und internationale Veranstaltungen wie die Frankfurter Buchmesse 2009 oder das Kölner Literaturfestival im März 2010 zu besuchen.[4] Wer nun glaubt, in dieser Einleitung gehe es nur um einige Figuren, die im Ausland bekannter sind als in China, irrt: Han Han, der erfolgreichste Autor der letzten zehn Jahre in China und vielleicht der meistgelesene Schriftsteller der Welt, gibt regelmässig bissige Kommentare zu aktuellen Themen auf seinem Blog ab. Manche werden sehr schnell vom Server entfernt, das macht sie und ihren Autor nur noch populärer.[5]

In Notizen für die Rede auf einer Konferenz an der Harvard University, an der sie teilnehmen wollte, erwähnt Cui Weiping, dass man ihr auch eingeschärft hatte, Gedenkveranstaltungen am 3. und 4. März 2010 für den 1970 als ‹Konterrevolutionär› exekutierten Yu Luoke nicht zu besuchen[6], obwohl es in Beijing seit längerem ein öffentlich zugängliches Denkmal für diesen jung verstorbenen Schriftsteller gibt, der auch zu Beginn der 1980er-Jahre eine wichtige Symbolfigur war, in Zusammenhang mit den autobiografischen Romanen seiner Schwester Yu Luojin.

Dass man zwischen politischem Widerstand und Literatur, zwischen Dissidenten und Dichtern oft gar nicht so leicht unterscheiden kann, liegt unter anderem daran, dass viele Dissidenten, wie Liu Xiaobo und seine Frau Liu Xia sowie der 2004 von der Internet-Suchmaschine Yahoo verratene und zu zehn Jahren Gefängnis verurteilte Shi Tao[7] Gedichte schreiben. Ausserdem spielten Literatur und Kunst, besonders auch Dichter, zu Beginn der nun schon seit über dreissig Jahren bestehenden Öffnungs- und Reformpolitik eine wichtige Rolle. Einer dieser Dichter war Huang Xiang[8] der mehrmals jahrelang, offenbar hauptsächlich wegen der symbolischen ‹Aufmüpfigkeit› in seinen Auftritten, inhaftiert war und international erst in den letzten Jahren durch zweisprachige Ausgaben in den USA, wo er im Exil lebt, einem breiteren Leserkreis bekannt wurde.

Die Literatur der Volksrepublik China ist, wie das Land selbst, vielseitig und widersprüchlich. Es ist immer schwierig, die unmittelbare Gegenwart zu beschreiben, das gilt auch für die Literatur anderer Sprachen und Gebiete. Einige Tendenzen lassen sich dennoch wahrnehmen:

1. Soziale Relevanz ist wichtiger als je zuvor, und zwar in Abgrenzung zu staatlichen Organisationen. Reportagen, Essays und ähnliche Textsorten sind dementsprechend bedeutend.

2. Film und öffentlicher Diskurs werden, wie schon in den 1980er- und 1990er-Jahren, immer wieder in Zusammenhang mit Literatur wahrgenommen. Neu sind Künstlerinnen und Künstler, die sowohl schreiben als auch Filme drehen.[9]

3. Frauen sind in der literarischen Welt prominenter als früher.

4. Internet, Ausland und Exil sind ebenfalls wichtiger geworden. Heute gibt es nicht nur viele chinesische Autorinnen und Autoren in den USA, sondern auch in Frankreich, Deutschland und anderen Ländern. Nur einzelne Emigranten (wie etwa der Dichter Duo Duo, der inzwischen auf der Insel Hainan an einer Universität unterrichtet) konnten zurückkehren. Wegen der anhaltenden Zensur sind alle Schriftsteller, die in China leben, für eine freiere Verbreitung ihrer Werke auf Medien in Hongkong, Taiwan und anderen Ländern sowie auf das Internet angewiesen.

5. Die Ereignisse von 1989 und die Traumata der ersten Jahrzehnte der Volksrepublik sind im kulturellen Leben keinesfalls überwunden.

Es folgt eine Chronologie in Stichworten über die letzten Jahre, mit Veröffentlichungen, Autoren und Ereignissen, die als Beispiele dienen mögen. Anschliessend ein kleiner Exkurs zu der Frage, was in der aktuellen Literatur repräsentativ sein könnte. Dabei wird ein Text der Autorin Ma Lan, Redakteurin der Online-Literaturzeitschrift ‹Olive Tree› (Ganlan shu)[10] näher beleuchtet. Theoretische und literaturgeschichtliche Implikationen werden ansatzweise angerissen.

Überblick 2000 bis 2010

2010: Die Freiheit des Wortes ist weiterhin ein zentraler Streitpunkt. Darum geht es auch bei Liao Yiwu und Cui Weiping, die im März 2010 nicht ausreisen durften. Die enorme Popularität des Rennfahrers und Schriftstellers Han Han resultiert zu einem beträchtlichen Teil aus seinen respektlosen sozialpolitischen Kommentaren auf seinem Blog, die zwar schnell verschwinden, aber umso mehr zitiert werden, auch in internationalen Medien.[11] Wie bei den Olympischen Spielen 2008 in Beijing werden auch bei der Shanghaier Weltausstellung 2010 kritische Stimmen und vom offiziellen Rahmen abweichende Darstellungen eingeschränkt. Dennoch kommen gerade auch solche Stimmen in der internationalen Berichterstattung zu Wort.[12]

Die Dichterinnen Cui Weiping, Hong Ying und Zhai Yongming trauern auf ihren Blogs um ihren Kollegen Zhang Zao, der Anfang März in Deutschland verstarb, nachdem er ungefähr zwanzig Jahre im Ausland gelebt hatte. Zhai Yongming zitiert Thomas Bernhards Ausspruch, dass alles lächerlich sei, wenn man an den Tod denke.[13]

2009 war China ‹Gastland› der Frankfurter Buchmesse. Die dortigen Kontroversen hingen damit zusammen, dass es 2009 einige Jahrestage gab, die Spannung erzeugten und bündelten: Sechzig Jahre Volksrepublik, zwanzig Jahre 4. Juni 1989, fünfzig Jahre nach 1959, als im ‹Grossen Sprung nach Vorn› die grosse Hungersnot begann, und in Tibet ein grosser Aufstand ausbrach. Dabei wirkt sich 2009 gerade das offizielle Totschweigen des Massakers vom 4. Juni 1989 vor allem auch im kulturellen Leben besonders deutlich aus, mit verstärkten Medien- und Internetkontrollen und mit verstärkter internationaler Aufmerksamkeit für die Verhältnisse in China, auch für unterdrückte oder exilierte Schriftsteller. Dass Qin Hui, der brillante Kritiker des Wirtschaftswunders, und andere kritische Akademiker, darunter Cui Weiping, in China mit ihren von der Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung herausgegebenen Essays[14] bei der Frankfurter Buchmesse einige Aufmerksamkeit erregen konnten, hat mit der soziale Relevanz der Essays zu tun, die auch die Auswirkungen von 1989 nicht übergehen.

Auch 2008 erfuhr China verstärkte internationale Aufmerksamkeit und Präsenz, vor allem durch die Olympischen Spiele in Beijing und durch das Erdbeben in Sichuan, nahe Tibet, wo zuvor Unruhen ausgebrochen waren. Im Dezember wurde die ‹Charta 08› (08 Xianzhang oder 08 Xuanyan) initiiert, nach dem Vorbild der europäischen Charta 77. Der Charta-Gründer Liu Xiaobo wurde verhaftet. In Zusammenhang damit wurde das Gedicht ‹Charta 09› (09 Xianzhang) von Yan Jun im Sommer 2009 in Deutschland auf Plakatwänden im Rahmen eines Lyrik-Projekts im Vorfeld der Frankfurter Buchmesse verbreitet.[15] Im Frühjahr 2008 nahm der seit den frühen 1980er-Jahren international bekannte Lyriker und Essayist Yang Lian an Diskussionen über den Kalten Krieg und die Rolle der Literatur in Berlin teil.[16]

Anfang 2008 veröffentlichten mehrere Zeitschriften und Internetforen in China Umfragen unter Kritikern und Lesern zu den prominentesten Neuerscheinungen von 2007. Ein Buch von Yang Xianhui über ein Waisenhaus in den Jahren der grossen Hungersnot von 1959 bis 1961 lag in mehreren dieser Listen unter den ersten vier[17]. Cao Naiqians[18] Sammlung von Erzählungen, die auf Englisch unter dem Titel ‹There is nothing I can do when I think of you late at night›[19] herauskamen, ist ein gutes Beispiel dafür, wie bewegende Literatur über einfache Menschen abseits der grossen Städte manchmal doch sowohl in China als auch international grössere Aufmerksamkeit gewinnen kann. Liu Zhenyuns ‹Taschendiebe›[20] (Wo jiao Liu Yuejin[21], wörtlich ‹Ich heisse Liu Yuejin›) war 2007 ganz vorne unter den Bestsellern. Der Roman wurde erfolgreich verfilmt, ebenso wie sein Vorgänger ‹Mobiltelefone› (Shouji). Liu Yuejin ist die Hauptfigur von ‹Taschendiebe›, der Vorname Yuejin bedeutet ‹Grosser Sprung nach Vorn›, die Zeit der grossen Hungersnot, ein wichtiges Motiv in den Romanen und Erzählungen von Liu Zhenyun.

Auf den Bestsellerlisten von 2007 waren mehrere Frauen prominent vertreten, darunter Xu Kun[22], Ai Mi und Anni Baobei mit ihrem aktuellen Roman ‹Padma›. Ai Mis Buch ‹Hawthorn Tree Forever› (Shanzha shu zhi lian) wird 2010 von Zhang Yimou verfilmt. Zusammen mit ihren Kolleginnen Zhang Ling (aktueller Roman: ‹Gold Mountain Blues›, Jin shan) und Chi Zijian (aktueller Roman ‹The Right Bank of the Argun River› E’erguna he you an)[23] gehört Ai Mi 2010 zu den prominentesten chinesischen Autoren auf internationalen Buchmessen.

In den Jahren 2006 und 2007 gewinnt die Wanderarbeiterin Zheng Xiaoqiong[24] mit ihren Gedichten nationale und internationale Aufmerksamkeit. 2009 ist sie eine von zwei Frauen aus Festlandchina, die in Taiwan mit einem Gedichtband vorgestellt werden, im Rahmen der 1999 von Huang Liang begonnenen Edition mit Werken von Dichtern der 1990er- und der 2000er-Jahre aus China.[25] Die zweite ist Woeser, Dichterin und Aktivistin aus Tibet.[26] In seiner Rezension[27] des Gedichtbands von Zheng Xiaoqiong vergleicht Hung Hung ein Gedicht von ihr mit einem mittlerweile ‹klassischen› Gedicht von Yu Jian, der seit über zwanzig Jahren die chinesische Szene bestimmt.[28]

In der ersten Hälfte des Jahres 2006 erschien eine Schwerpunktausgabe der amerikanischen Poesie-Zeitschrift ‹The Drunken Boat› zur chinesischen Poesie.[29] Michael Day schrieb die Einleitung und koordinierte die Sammlung zusammen mit Inara Cedrins. Maghiel van Crevel steuerte einen Essay über einen Zyklus von Xi Chuan bei. Im Modern Chinese Literature and Culture (MCLC) Resource Center findet man, neben vielen anderen Texten, auch eine Gedichtsammlung von Leung Ping-kwan aus Hongkong aus dem Jahr 2005.[30] 2009 und 2010 wurde im MCLC Resource Center die Übersetzung einer Novelle von Wang Xiaobo publiziert.[31]

Poetry International Web publiziert online in Verbindung mit dem Poetry International Festival in Rotterdam, Simon Patton betreibt die Ausgabe für chinesische Poesie.[32] In den Jahren 2002 bis 2007 war diese Plattform besonders aktiv, mit Autoren wie zum Beispiel dem ikonoklastischen Dichter Yi Sha.[33] Von 2003 bis 2005 stellte Michael Day in Leiden ein Poesie-Archiv zusammen, mit viel Material von und zu Liao Yiwu.[34] Auf Chinesisch gibt es viele Poesie-Ressourcen im Internet, die bis in die unmittelbare Gegenwart reichen.[35]

2005 erschienen zwei Bücher, in denen sich theoretische Ansätze finden, auf die ich kurz eingehen möchte. Bei Dao ist (zusammen mit Mang Ke und Huang Rui) Gründer der Zeitschrift ‹Jintian-Today›[36] (verlegt von 1978 bis 1980 und seit 1990 im Exil). 2005 brachte Bei Dao sein Buch ‹Die Rose der Zeit› (Shijian de Meigui), über neun international berühmte Dichter des 20. Jahrhunderts und ihre Übersetzung ins Chinesische) in Beijing heraus. Der Titel spielt auf Rilke an, es gibt auch ein Gedicht dieses Autors mit demselben Titel, ‹Die Rose der Zeit›[37]. Ein Kapitel des Buchs ist über Boris Pasternak, wobei nicht verschwiegen wird, dass Pasternak, der sich oft für verfolgte Kolleginnen und Kollegen einsetzte, zunächst auch Lobgedichte über Stalin schrieb. Ein Abschnitt in diesem Kapitel über Pasternaks Leben und seine Gedichte ist dem russischen Formalismus von Roman Jakobson und Wiktor Schklowski gewidmet, der sich nach der russischen Revolution von 1905 entwickelte. Schklowskis Theorie der Verfremdung und seine Worte zur Unabhängigkeit der Kunst, in deren Farbe sich niemals die Farbe der Fahne reflektieren werde, die auf der Festung wehe, zielen in Bei Daos Verwendung nicht primär auf Pasternak oder andere russische Dichter, sondern auf Bei Daos Generation in China, und im Weiteren auf die Situation und die Problematik der gesamten neueren chinesischen Literatur.[38]

Ebenso wie Bei Daos Buch nimmt auch Yomi Braesters ‹Witness Against History›[39] Kunst und Literatur als eigenständig und als Antithese zu den Möglichkeiten von Geschichte und Geschichtsphilosophie wahr. Es ist ein Ansatz, der nicht nur mehrere Genres (inklusive Film und Publizistik) gemeinsam behandelt, sondern auch verschiedene Epochen und Örtlichkeiten (Moderne, Gegenwart beziehungsweise China, Taiwan) vereint - ein eigenständiger Zugang, der letztlich auf alle Sprachen und Regionen anwendbar ist. Braester verwendet viele gängige Theoriebildungen zur Kunst im Kontext der Traumata des 20. Jahrhunderts. Die Basis seines Ansatzes ist jedoch das, was Literatur und Kunst in konkreten Beispielen ausmacht, nämlich das, was in Texten oder Kunstwerken bei näherer Betrachtung jeglichen gängigen Interpretationen, auch jenen des Künstlers selbst, widerspricht. Bei Dao (mit Schklowski und Jakobson) und Braester gehen primär vom Text aus, bei aller Einbettung in und Wechselwirkung mit sozialen Faktoren.

Die vielen Beiträge zur Filmgeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts in ‹Witness Against History› sind ein gutes Beispiel dafür, dass Film und öffentlicher Diskurs verstärkt in Zusammenhang mit Literatur wahrgenommen werden. In den letzten zehn Jahren sind noch viele andere Untersuchungen zur Gegenwartsliteratur und zur Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts erschienen. Der dominierende theoretische Ansatz der letzten zwanzig Jahre war die Methode von Pierre Bourdieu, wie sie etwa von Michel Hockx und Maghiel van Crevel verwendet wird.[40]

Das erste Kapitel in Bei Daos ‹Die Rose der Zeit› behandelt Federico Garcia Lorca und die Übersetzungen seiner Gedichte ins Chinesische durch Dai Wangshu. Bei Dao zeigt in diesem Kapitel, wie aktuell die Sprache dieser Übersetzungen ist. Dai war einer jener Schriftsteller aus der Zeit der chinesischen Moderne vor 1949, die nicht in erster Linie mit Politik verbunden werden. Man könnte ihn deshalb mit Shen Congwen assoziieren, und mit jenen Essayisten der 1930er-Jahre, die Charles Laughlin intensiv untersucht hat.[41] Bei Dao erwähnt in seinen Essays und Reportagen aus den 2000er-Jahren, soweit ich sie kenne, ausser Dai keine anderen Schriftsteller aus der Ära vor 1949.

Ebenfalls 2005 hielt das Musiklokal Yugong Yishan in Beijing zum ersten Mal eine grosse Veranstaltung zum internationalen Frauentag am 8. März ab. Neben Musik waren auch Film und Literatur prominent vertreten, unter anderem mit Gedichten der jungen Skandalautorin Chun Shu.[42]

2003 und 2004 waren zwei Bestseller zuerst in den Buchläden in China, und nach ihrem Verbot sowohl in Raubdrucken als auch in der internationalen Aufmerksamkeit und im Internet dominant. ‹Zur Lage der chinesischen Bauern› (Zhongguo Nongmin Diaocha) von Chen Guidi und seiner Frau Wu Chuntao wurde mit dem Ulysses-Award der Zeitschrift Lettre International ausgezeichnet, machte noch jahrelang durch Gerichtsprozesse in China Schlagzeilen und wurde in mehrere Sprachen übersetzt. Das Buch ist ein gutes Beispiel für soziale Relevanz nicht nur in der Literatur, sondern auch im Buchgeschäft, und für die Prominenz von Reportagen. ‹Vergangenes vergeht nicht wie Rauch› (Wangshi bingbu ru yan) von Zhang Yihe (über die ‹Kampagne gegen Rechtsabweichler›, Fan Youpai Yundong von 1957) gewann den Freedom to Write-Award des unabhängigen chinesischen PEN. Beide Titel erschienen auf Deutsch im Verlag Zweitausendeins. Anfang 2007 erschien ein zweites Buch von Zhang Yihe in China, mit Biografien von Darstellern der Pekingoper, es wurde ebenfalls bald verboten und war, wie das erste, ein Bestseller in unzensierten Ausgaben in Hongkong und Taiwan.

Zhang Yihe ist ein weiteres Beispiel für die Prominenz von Frauen in der heutigen chinesischen Buchszene. Zensur und andere Beschränkungen des gesprochenen und geschriebenen Wortes in China sind 2004 und heute ebenso präsent wie vor zehn oder zwanzig Jahren. Manche Beobachter wollen diese Situation leider nicht wahrhaben, ausser wenn sie bei Gelegenheiten wie der Frankfurter Buchmesse 2009 unübersehbar wird. Die Internet-Magazine Danwei, Paper Republic (und andere Online-Quellen wie ‹Make-Do Studios›) informieren regelmässig über den chinesischen Buchmarkt.[43] Die Make-Do Studios konzentrieren sich besonders auf Autorinnen und Autoren, die zuerst im Internet berühmt wurden, wie Anni Baobei und Murong Xuecun, dessen erster Roman 2009 auf Deutsch bei Zweitausendeins[44] erschien.

In den Jahren 2000 bis 2002 wurde Yin Lichuan mit ihren Gedichten und Essays in China, Taiwan und unter Poesiefans in anderen Ländern bekannt. Sie war um 2000 ein prominentes Mitglied der Dichtergruppe ‹Unterleib› (Xiaban Shen)[45], die in Weiterführung der anti-intellektuellen Position von Autoren wie Yu Jian, Han Dong und Zhu Wen auftrat. Zhu Wen veröffentlichte 1998 in der Exilzeitschrift Jintian und im Internet, im Rahmen des Projekts ‹Risse› (Duanlie), eine private Umfrage unter Schriftstellern, deren Ergebnisse (unter anderem die behauptete Nicht-Relevanz des offiziellen Schriftstellerverbands und ein Bruch mit der klassischen Moderne) auch in den 2000er-Jahren heftig diskutiert wurden.[46] Huang Liang dokumentiert diese Auseinandersetzungen um Poesie und Gedankenfreiheit ausführlich im Rahmen seiner Publikationsreihe mit Dichtern der 1990er- und 2000er-Jahre, die hier bereits mehrfach erwähnt wurde. Auch Maghiel van Crevel hat viel dazu publiziert.[47]

Vereinfacht gesagt geht es bei dem erwähnten Bruch mit der Überlieferung der modernen chinesischen Literatur vor 1949 vor allem darum, sich nicht auf Lu Xun, den prominentesten Schriftsteller aus dieser Periode, zu berufen. Lu Xun sympathisierte mit den Kommunisten und wurde nach seinem Tod von Mao Zedong für seine Kulturpolitik vereinahmt. Erst einige Jahre nach Maos Tod begann Ende der 1970er-Jahre wieder eine chinesische Gegenwartsliteratur zu erscheinen, die diese Kulturpolitik zumindest teilweise ausser Acht lassen konnte. Dennoch blieben die meisten Kritiker und Kommentatoren einer Interpretation der klassischen Moderne verpflichtet, die auf die politische Rolle von Kultur und Literatur zurückgeht, die traditionell vor allem mit den Ereignissen um den 4. Mai 1919 verbunden wird. Infolgedessen kam es in den 1980er- und 1990er-Jahren nicht nur von staatlicher Seite, sondern auch von Seiten oppositioneller Kritiker und Autoren (von denen die meisten nach 1989 ins Ausland gingen beziehungsweise im Ausland blieben) zu Erwartungen an die Literatur, die mit Lu Xun und der erwähnten politischen Rolle von Kultur und Literatur zusammenhängen. Zhu Wen und jene Autoren, die auf seine Fragen im Rahmen von ‹Risse› antworteten, wollten sich von solchen Erwartungen und intellektuellen Traditionen emanzipieren. Diese anti-intellektuelle Haltung von Yu Jian, Han Dong, Zhu Wen und anderen Dichtern war der Hintergrund für das Auftreten von Yin Lichuan und ihrer Mitstreiter in der Gruppe ‹Unterleib› um 2000.

Seit 2000 konzentriert sich Zhu Wen auf seine Tätigkeit als Filmregisseur. Seine Erzählungen sind in den letzten Jahren auf Deutsch und Englisch erschienen. Wie Zhu Wen hat sich Yin Lichuan dem Film zugewandt. Ihr zweiter Spielfilm ‹Knitting› (Niulang zhinü) wurde im Frühjahr 2010 auch in Beijing gezeigt.[48] Im Rahmen eines Lyrikprojekts von Literaturhäusern in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz im Sommer 2009 waren Gedichte von Yin Lichuan bei Lesungen und auf Plakatflächen präsent.[49]

Deutschsprachige Anthologien und eine Auswahlliste

Weiter oben habe ich im Rahmen des chronologischen Überblicks mehrere englische und chinesische Internetressourcen zur aktuellen chinesischen Poesie vorgestellt, unter anderem die im Frühjahr und Sommer 2006 erschienene Schwerpunktausgabe von ‹The Drunken Boat› und ‹China – Poetry International Web›. Im Folgenden geht es um deutschsprachige Sammlungen von erzählerischer Literatur.

Die 2009 erschienene Anthologie ‹Neue Träume aus der Roten Kammer›[50] enthält Erzählungen der Autorinnen Fan Wu, Yiyun Li, Xiaolu Guo, Sheng Keyi und Luo Lingyuan. Bis auf Luo Lingyuan wurden sie alle in den frühen 1970er-Jahren in China geboren. Mittlerweile leben fast alle dieser Schriftstellerinnen im Ausland, bis auf Sheng Keyi, auch von den männlichen Autoren der Anthologie leben drei in den USA. Deshalb schreiben die meisten dieser Autorinnen und Autoren auf Englisch oder auf Deutsch ihren Vornamen vor dem Familiennamen, und nicht umgekehrt, wie es auf Chinesisch üblich ist. Yiyun Lis Roman ‹Die Sterblichen› (The Vagrants) kam ebenfalls 2009 auf Deutsch heraus. Fan Wu, Yiyun Li und Xiaolu Guo schreiben mittlerweile auf Englisch, Luo Lingyuan schreibt auf Deutsch. 2005 erhielt sie den Chamisso-Förderpreis für ihren Erzählband ‹Du fliegst jetzt für meinen Sohn aus dem fünften Stock!›. Xiaolu Guo ist auch Filmemacherin.

Der grosse Anteil von Überseeautoren in ‹Neue Träume aus der Roten Kammer› erklärt sich zunächst einmal einfach aus aktuellen demografischen Gegebenheiten. Emigranten aus China und ihre Nachkommen sind heute weltweit noch viel zahlreicher als vor zehn oder zwanzig Jahren. Das erklärt eben auch den grösseren Anteil der Schriftsteller, die im Ausland leben und teilweise auch in anderen Sprachen als Chinesisch schreiben. Besonders nach den Ereignissen von 1989 stieg der Anteil der Schriftsteller im Exil. Auch 2009 auf der Frankfurter Buchmesse, mit China als Gastland, waren Dissidenten und Exil nolens volens die dominanten Themen (siehe auch die Anmerkungen zu Dai Qing). Dabei kam es kaum zu Diskussionen zwischen den Angehörigen der chinesischen Delegation und den Dissidenten.[51] Entgegen der Annahmen mancher Beobachter hört man in der literarischen Welt in China auch keineswegs davon, dass viele emigrierte Schriftsteller auf Dauer zurückgekehrt seien und in China gute Publikationsmöglichkeiten vorfinden würden. Manche Prominente wie Hong Ying, Ai Weiwei und Huang Rui sind zwar zurückgekehrt, die Romanschriftstellerin und die beiden Künstler bleiben aber (in unterschiedlichem Mass) weiterhin Figuren, die nur in Verbindung mit ausländischer Aufmerksamkeit in China existieren können.

Fünf von zwölf Autoren in der Anthologie ‹Neue Träume aus der Roten Kammer› sind Frauen, das ist ein guter Schnitt. 2003 gab Frank Meinshausen die Sammlung ‹Das Leben ist jetzt› heraus, mit vier Frauen von elf Autoren, die alle auf Chinesisch schreiben. Die vier Autorinnen sind Zhao Ning, Ma Lan, Anni Baobei und Dai Lai. Zwei von ihnen, Zhao Ning und Ma Lan, wurden im Deutschlandfunk mit Ausschnitten ihrer Erzählungen vorgestellt.[52] Dabei wird anhand der Texte deutlich, wie transitorisch das Leben der Menschen und auch der Künstler zwischen Stadt und Land, Staat, Alltag und Internet ist. Einflussreiche Stellen in Deutschland und in China zeigen sich im Deutschlandfunk begeistert von der Auswahl, gleichzeitig wird betont, dass es eine sehr subjektive und zufällige Zusammenstellung ist. Die Beiträge für ‹Neue Träume aus der Roten Kammer› und für ‹Das Leben ist jetzt› stammen zum Teil aus den 1990er-Jahren. Manche Details bilden deshalb nicht unbedingt die Wirklichkeit der 2000er-Jahre ab. Andererseits muss man sagen, dass die Verhältnisse der 1980er- und 1990er-Jahre auch 2010 in vielerlei Hinsicht präsent sind. Frank Meinshausen engagiert sich viel im literarischen Austausch und hat 2007 in China eine Anthologie mit Erzählungen junger deutschsprachiger Autoren herausgegeben, die zumindest unter Studenten sehr beliebt wurde.[53]

Wie repräsentativ sind alle diese Anthologien? Die Antworten werden je nach Generation und Geschmack variieren. Alle Erzählungen in ‹Neue Träume aus der Roten Kammer› und ‹Das Leben ist jetzt› bieten Einblicke in den chinesischen Alltag, manche handeln von Randexistenzen, jedenfalls haben sie soziale Relevanz. Qi Ges ‹Welt der Hundert-Meter-Menschen› (in ‹Neue Träume›) spielt in einer Zukunft, die von bekannten Motiven aus der Geschichte von Shanghai bestimmt wird. Diese Science-Fiction-Erzählung ist auch die einzige, in der Politik explizit vorkommt, in Gestalt des sagenhaften «Vorsitzenden Mao» als «furchtbarem Gott» auf einer geheimnisvollen «Roten Sonne». Allerdings könnte man auch sagen, dass die historische Erzählung aus der Ming-Dynastie von Li Dawei (ebenfalls in ‹Neue Träume›) über einen jungen Gelehrten im Verlies mindestens ebenso deutlich von Politik handelt. Li Daweis Beitrag zu ‹Das Leben ist jetzt› spielt in einem der chinesischen Literaturgeschichte gewidmeten Hochhaus und funktioniert umso mehr als Satire auf die Gegenwart, je mehr die zahlreichen Anspielungen Vergangenheit heraufbeschwören.

Von der Sprache und von der Erzähltechnik her sind alle Beiträge in beiden Anthologien relativ konventionell, mit Ausnahme von Ma Lans vertrackter Ehegeschichte ‹Gehörverlust›. Ma Lan wurde in den frühen 1960er-Jahren geboren und stammt aus einer moslemischen Familie in Sichuan. Sie emigrierte 1992 in die USA. 1995 hat sie die Zeitschrift ‹Olive Tree› (Ganlan shu) mitbegründet, die bis 2004 regelmässig im Internet erschien. In den letzten Jahren hat Ma Lan wieder einige Zeit in China verbracht. Sie schreibt auf Chinesisch, ist aber im Literaturbetrieb in China nicht integriert und wenig bekannt. Veröffentlicht hat sie vor allem in Exilzeitschriften und im Internet. Experimentielle und phantastische Literatur sind heute in China kaum gefragt, während Mitte der 1990er-Jahre noch ein Trend in Richtung avantgardistischer, postmoderner Texte beobachtet und vielleicht vor allem im Ausland auch als vorherrschend betrachtet wurde. Die Autorin Can Xue[54] war eine prominente Protagonistin dieses Trends. Can Xue hat allerdings, im Gegensatz zu vielen anderen, ihre experimentelle Schreibweise nicht aufgegeben. Ihre kafkaesken Geschichten kamen auch in den letzten Jahren in namhaften und weit verbreiteten Literaturzeitschriften in China heraus. 2009 erschien ihr Roman ‹Five Spice Street› auf Englisch.[55]

Jing Bartz, die als Leiterin des Buchinformationszentrums (BIZ) in Beijing den Auftritt Chinas bei der Frankfurter Buchmesse 2009 mitorganisierte, und Li Jingze, Chefredakteur der Zeitschrift Renmin Wenxue (Volksliteratur), haben 2009 auch eine Anthologie mit Kurzgeschichten grossteils junger Autorinnen und Autoren herausgegeben. Sie heisst ‹Unterwegs. Literatur-Gegenwart China›[56]. Hier sind zahlenmässig die Geschlechter völlig gleich verteilt. Fan Xiaoqing, Pan Xiangli, Jin Renshun, Ye Mi und Lu Min sind die Frauen; Li Shijiang, Fan Wen, Xu Zechen, Huang Tulu und Tian Er sind die Männer. Xu Zechen, der jüngste von ihnen, kam 2009 auch mit der Novelle ‹Im Laufschritt durch Peking› auf den deutschsprachigen Buchmarkt. Jin Renshuns Roman ‹Green Tea› (Lü Cha) wurde bereits mit dem bekannten Schauspieler Jiang Wen verfilmt. Im Gegensatz zu den Autorinnen und Autoren der Anthologien von Frank Meinshausen und Anne Rademacher leben jene der Auswahl von Bartz und Li alle in China und sind im Ausland weitgehend unbekannt. Die zehn Beiträge sind alle zwischen 2002 und 2008 entstanden, die Hälfte von ihnen sogar nach 2005.

Jing Bartz hat im Rahmen der Vorbereitungen für die Frankfurter Buchmesse eine Liste der 2009 von chinesischer Seite geförderten Übersetzungen veröffentlicht.[57] Darunter sind etwa Romane von Li Er, von dem Tibeter A Lai und von Liu Heng, der zu jenen Autoren gehört, welche die grosse Hungersnot von 1959 bis 1961 in ihren Werken verarbeiten. Interessant ist auch das Buch ‹Wir drei› (Women sa) von Yang Jiang. Yang Jiang hat bereits vor Bestehen der Volksrepublik veröffentlicht. Sie hat auch ‹Don Quichotte› ins Chinesische übersetzt. Ihr Ehemann Qian Zhongshu war einer der berühmtesten Schriftsteller und Gelehrten der chinesischen Moderne.

Auf der von Jing Bartz vorgestellten Liste findet sich auch eine zweisprachige Anthologie von chinesischen Erzählungen zeitgenössischer Autoren, von denen die meisten jedoch nicht in den letzten zehn Jahren entstanden sind. Herausgeber und Übersetzer des Buches sind Karin Hasselblatt und Katrin Buchta. Die Autorinnen und Autoren sind Feng Li, Mo Yan, A Lai, Ye Zhaoyan und Feng Jicai.[58]

Der Schriftstellerverband und die ältere Generation

Repräsentativ für die offizielle Seite der Literatur in China ist vor allem der staatliche Schriftstellerverband mit seiner Präsidentin Tie Ning. Sie gehört zu einer älteren Generation, die ihre gesamte Jugend in der Zeit der Kulturrevolution verbracht hat. Die Romanautorin Wang Anyi gehört auch zu dieser Generation, ebenso wie die Lyrikerin Shu Ting , die in den letzten Jahren vor allem Essays mit Erinnerungen an die frühen 1970er-Jahre veröffentlicht hat. Tie Nings Erzählungen spielen in der Regel in den alten Gassen von Beijing oder in Baoding (Provinz Hebei). Die Protagonisten sind meist einfache Leute, zu Themen werden auch Traumata und Todesfälle aus den 1960er-Jahren und früher.

Die 1980er-Jahre, in denen Tie Ning und Shu Ting bekannt wurden, erfuhren in den letzten Jahren verstärkte Aufmerksamkeit. Autoren und Protagonisten wie A Cheng traten mit Essays und Interviews über diese Zeit hervor. In der Folge verlagerte sich das Interesse zeitlich noch weiter zurück.

In der grossen Halle für die Delegation aus China bei der Frankfurter Buchmesse 2009 hingen viele Fotos von Schriftstellern an den Wänden. Darunter waren auch Shi Zhi und Mang Ke[59], die in den späten 1960er- und frühen 1970er-Jahren im Untergrund Gedichte schrieben, die von Hand kopiert und heimlich verbreitet werden mussten, und auf die sich mehrere Generationen von Dichtern berufen, wie auch Bei Ling[60], Verleger und Herausgeber der Zeitschrift Qingxiang (‹Tendency›), der seit 2000 im Exil lebt. Bei Ling stand zusammen mit Dai Qing, die für ihre Reportagen über brisante Umweltprobleme bekannt ist, im Mittelpunkt der heftigen Auseinandersetzungen im September und Oktober 2009 in Frankfurt. Diese Auseinandersetzungen führten, wie oben erwähnt, kaum zu Diskussionen zwischen Angehörigen verschiedener Seiten, etwa kritischen Autorinnen und Autoren und offiziellen Repräsentanten des chinesischen Literaturbetriebs. In China wurde zwar über die Frankfurter Buchmesse berichtet, es gibt jedoch nach wie vor nur sehr wenige kritische Zeitungen und Zeitschriften, wie Nanfang Dushi bao und Nanfang Zhoumo, die internationale Ereignisse mit Bezug auf China von verschiedenen Seiten beleuchten können.

Kontroversen zu Publikationsstrategien in den 1980er-Jahren zwischen Mang Ke und Bei Dao, den Herausgebern der legendären Zeitschrift Jintian-Today sind ein wichtiger Punkt in Huang Liangs Essay ‹Der Weg der Gedankenfreiheit› (Yizhi ziyou zhi lu)[61] im Theorieband seiner mittlerweile zwanzigbändigen Serie, welche Dichter der 1990er- und der 2000er-Jahre aus Festlandchina vorstellt. 2009 erschienen in dieser Serie, wie oben erwähnt, Gedichtbände der Wanderarbeiterin Zheng Xiaoqiong und der Tibeterin Woeser.

Gewalt, Moderne und Gegenwart

2004 erschien Thilo Diefenbachs ‹Kontexte der Gewalt in moderner chinesischer Literatur›.[62] Der Schwerpunkt des Buches liegt auf der Gegenwartsliteratur, wobei die Gewalt in der Literatur der Moderne und auch in der gesamten erhaltenen chinesischen Literatur einen interessanten Aspekt darstellt. Innerhalb der Gegenwartsliteratur konzentriert sich Diefenbach auf Autoren, die ausserhalb Chinas relativ wenig Beachtung gefunden haben. Darunter sind etwa Zhang Wei, der in China seit den 1980er-Jahren zu den bekanntesten Erzählern gehört, und You Fengwei, dessen Roman ‹Zhongguo 1957›, erschienen 2001, auf die Anfang des aktuellen Jahrzehnts zunehmende Beschäftigung mit der Verfolgung der sogenannten Rechtsabweichler (Youpai) hinweist.

International erfolgreiche Autoren wie Yu Hua, Mo Yan, Su Tong und Li Rui werden bei Diefenbach weniger intensiv behandelt, obwohl gerade Yu Hua und Mo Yan für drastische Gewalt in ihren Erzählungen und Romanen bekannt sind. Yu Hua hat Ende Mai 2009 einen kleinen Essay zum Massaker vom 4. Juni 1989 geschrieben.[63] Auch vier Jahre davor hatte er sich im Ausland, etwa in Singapur, zu diesem Thema und zu Gewalt in seinen Werken geäussert – man sei eben in gewalttätigen Zeiten aufgewachsen.[64] Die Gewaltszenen in seinen Romanen hat Mo Yan kürzlich bei einer Lesung in Wien in ähnlicher Weise kommentiert. 2009 erschienen gleich zwei Romane von Mo Yan auf Deutsch: ‹Die Sandelholzstrafe› (Tanxiang xing) und ‹Der Überdruss› (Shengsi pilao).

Hong Ying, Ma Lan und Gao Xingjian

In der Vorbereitungsphase für den Gastlandauftritt in Frankfurt 2009 führte Jing Bartz ein Interview mit Li Jingze, dem Chefredakteur der offiziellen Literaturzeitschrift Renmin Wenxue.[65] Beide wurden hier bereits im Zusammenhang mit deutschsprachigen Anthologien vorgestellt. Viele der oben erwähnten Themen kommen auch in diesem Gespräch vor. Insgesamt bietet es eine repräsentative chinesische Sicht der Entwicklung der chinesischen Literatur von den 1970er-Jahren bis heute. Der Begriff der ‹Aufklärung›, so wie ihn Li Jingze gebraucht, ist dabei sehr interessant. Die Aufgabe der Schriftsteller sei es, die Menschen «aus den Fängen der Ideologie zu befreien», sie «zum Gegenstand der Erkenntnis und Imagination (zu) erheben und nach einer Form und Sprache (zu) suchen, die unserer chinesischen Erfahrungs- und Lebenswelt gemäss ist.» Li Jingze knüpft mit diesen Vorstellungen direkt an die chinesische Literatur der 1920er- und 1930er-Jahre an. Ein solches Anknüpfen war eine wesentliche Bemühung in der Gedankenwelt der 1980er-Jahre, die infolge der Ereignisse von 1989 einen Riss erfuhr, von dem zum Beispiel Zhu Wen, wie oben erwähnt, in Untergrund-, Exil- und nichtoffiziellen Internetpublikationen eine Zeit lang sprechen konnte. Li Jingze darf als Chefredakteur der Renmin Wenxue diesen Riss selbstverständlich nicht explizit erwähnen. Stattdessen gebraucht er Schlagwörter wie Globalisierung und Popkultur. Dennoch sind viele der allgemeinen Betrachtungen in diesem Gespräch als Ergänzung und Hintergrund für die erwähnten Themen und Thesen sehr wichtig.

Jing Bartz und Li Jingze sprechen auch den grossen Anteil der Frauen in der heutigen chinesischsprachigen Literatur an. Dabei erwähnt Li etwa Lin Bai[66], die oben genannte Dai Lai und die Wanderarbeiterin Zheng Xiaoqiong. Die von Jing Bartz gestellte Frage, ob Hong Ying in China anerkannt werde, übergeht er hingegen. Das hat zumindest indirekt auch damit zu tun, dass Li die Geschehnisse und die Folgen von 1989 nicht ansprechen darf. Hong Yings erster Roman ‹Der verratene Sommer›[67] (Beipan zhi xia) entstand 1990 und spielt 1989 in Beijing. Die Entdeckung der Sexualität, die die Protagonisten des Romans erleben, steht im Kontext der beiläufigen Demaskierung der Gewalt und des alltäglichen Elends. Alle Romane von Hong Ying enthalten solche Momente. Die Protagonistin von ‹Der verratene Sommer› schreibt Gedichte. Hong Ying hat in den 1980er-Jahren als Dichterin begonnen und bis 2001 immer wieder Gedichtbände in China und in Taiwan veröffentlicht. Die Gedichte sind nicht ebenso spektakulär wie die Romane, sie erschliessen sich erst im Kontext, entziehen sich jedoch, wie auch die Erzählungen, in denen Homosexualität häufig vorkommt, gängigen Kategorien. Gerade dass man als Literaturredakteur der Renmin Wenxue im Jahr 2010 immer noch nicht über Hong Ying spricht, illustriert einen Teil ihrer kontinuierlichen Aktualität. Ein weiteres Beispiel für einen Roman einer weltweit bekannten Autorin, der auch 2010 noch nicht in China erscheinen darf, ist ‹Das Reispflanzerlied› (Yang ge) von Zhang Ailing. Der Roman erschien zuerst 1952 auf Englisch in Hongkong.[68]

Hong Yings Autobiografie war in den 1990er-Jahren ein wichtiges Buch, das erst nach der Übersetzung ins Englische auch in China in einer autorisierten, das heisst fast ungekürzten Fassung, erschien. Die Autorin wurde in der Zeit der grossen Hungersnot des ‹Grossen Sprungs nach Vorn› in eine Familie von Migranten in den Slums von Chongqing geboren. Inzwischen hat Hong Ying auch eine Fortsetzung ihrer Autobiografie veröffentlicht. Ähnlich wie bei der deutschsprachigen Literatur nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg definiert sich die chinesische Literatur nach 1976 an dem, was verarbeitet, und an dem, was verschwiegen wird. Der Bestseller ‹Der Zorn der Wölfe› (Lang Tuteng, wörtlich: Wolfstotem), sicher das erfolgreichste Buch der letzten zehn Jahre in China, ist vor allem eine Verarbeitung der Verschickungen, Arbeitseinsätze und Naturzerstörungen der späten 1960er- und frühen 1970er-Jahre. Hong Yings 2001 in China erschienener Gedichtband ‹Fische lehren Fische singen› (Yu jiaohui yu gechang), mit einem Vorwort von Che Qianzi[69], enthält zum Beispiel ein Gedicht für den bekannten, im Jahr 2000 verstorbenen Sinologen Helmut Martin.

Nachdem der im Exil in Frankreich lebende Gao Xingjian im Jahr 2000 den Nobelpreis für Literatur erhielt, beeilten sich manche, das überraschende Ergebnis als verfehlt zu bezeichnen. Gaos Sprache ist anspruchsvoll und vom Stil her mit den Erzählungen von Ge Fei aus den frühen 1990er-Jahren zu vergleichen. Ausserdem sehe ich die Bedeutung der Stücke und der Romane von Gao Xingjian durchaus in Zusammenhang mit anderen oben erwähnten Autorinnen und Autoren, deren Werke (zumindest zum Teil) in China nicht veröffentlicht werden dürfen. Wer die Gedichte liest, jene von Hong Ying und jene von Cui Weiping, und wer die Romane von Gao Xingjian auf Chinesisch liest, wird vielleicht nicht so vorschnell über zeitgenössische chinesische Literatur urteilen, wie es häufig geschieht.

Im Januar 2010 erschien Ma Lans Text ‹Wie wir einen Handschuh töten› in der österreichischen Zeitschrift ‹Fleisch›[70]. Die Geschichte spielt in der fiktiven Ortschaft Krummhalsmarkt (Waibozhen), deren Namen man auch als ‹Kleinstadt der Wendehälse› wiedergeben könnte. In der chinesischen Literatur gibt es viele solcher Gemeinden, man könnte etwa an jene in Bi Feiyus ‹Die Ebene› (Pingyuan) denken. Wie bei vielen Texten von Ma Lan ist es auch bei ‹Wie wir einen Handschuh töten› unmöglich zu sagen, wo die Evokation des chinesischen Alltags und der Zeitgeschichte aufhört, und wo die absurde, fantastische Form beginnt. Gedichte von Ma Lan und Hong Ying sind auf Deutsch und Englisch nicht ganz leicht auffindbar.[71]

Die Relevanz der erwähnten Tendenzen, besonders auch was das Internet betrifft, wurde im April 2010 durch eine skandalöse Geschichte um einen Parteifunktionär bestätigt, dessen Tagebuch seiner Affären in China im Internet die Runde machte und durch den eingangs erwähnten populären Autor Han Han noch weiter verbreitet wurde.[72]

Insgesamt habe ich mich bemüht, Autoren und Werke zu erwähnen, die bislang im deutschen Sprachraum noch nicht oder noch relativ wenig Aufmerksamkeit gefunden haben. Es handelt sich hier um keine systematische Übersicht, sondern nur um einige persönliche Beobachtungen. So ist auch die Chronologie zu verstehen. Die Frage, was repräsentativ für die heutige Literatur sei, wird im Kontext des Jahres 2010 aus der Sicht eines einzelnen Beobachters gestellt.

[1] www.bullock.cn/blogs/cuiweiping Stand: Juli 2010.

[2] www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2010/03/27/2003469029 Stand: Juli 2010.

[3] http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_46e98efa0100hci9.html Stand: Juli 2010.

[4] www.taz.de/1/leben/koepfe/artikel/1/einsame-seelen-wilde-geister Stand: Juli 2010.

[5] www.danwei.org/blogs/han_han_on_google_leaving_chin.php Stand: Juli 2010.

[6] www.bullogger.com/blogs/cuiweiping/archives/356650.aspx Stand: Juli 2010.

[7] http://news.boxun.com/news/gb/china/2010/04/201004090241.shtml und www.opendemocracy.net/arts-Literature/exiledpoets_3035.jsp (Gedichte von Shi Tao und Yang Lian), Stand: Juli 2010.

[8] www.icorn.org/articles.php?var=71 und www.baike.baidu.com/view/305864.htm, Stand: Juli 2010.

[9] Siehe unten über Yin Lichuans Bekanntwerden als Dichterin 2000–2002 und zu Zhu Wen.

[10] http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~nie/public/ Stand: Juli 2010

[11] www.chinahush.com/2010/05/20/han-hans-speech-in-xiamen-university-why-china-cannot-be-a-cultural-power/#more-6377 und www.rue89.com/chinatown/2010/02/04/pourquoi-la-chine-nest-pas-un-grand-pays-de-culture-par-han-han-136848 Stand: Juli 2010.

[12] www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126425172 Stand: Juli 2010.

[13] Siehe Zhai Yongmings Blog unter http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_518b17d40100h7ul.html Stand: Juli 2010.

[14] Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung (Hg.): Wie China debattiert. Neue Essays und Bilder aus China. Berlin 2009; www.boell.de/downloads/publikationen/Wie_China_debattiert.5MB.pdf Stand: Juli 2010

[15] www.yanjun.org/blog/archives/2173 Stand: Juli 2010.

[16] Sprache im technischen Zeitalter: Sonderheft 2008, S. 154–176 und 199–208.

[17] www.danwei.org/books/top_books_for_2007.php Stand: Juli 2010.

[18] german.cri.cn/401/2007/08/02/1@78761.htm Stand: Juli 2010.

[19] http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-14810-8/theres-nothing-i-can-do-when-i-think-of-you-late-at-night Stand: Juli 2010.

[20] http://german.beijingreview.com.cn/sz/2009-10/19/content_224638.htm, http://initiativgruppe.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/taschendiebe Stand: Juli 2010.

[21] http://book.douban.com/subject/2300636 Stand: Juli 2010.

[22] http://book.douban.com/subject/2135604 Stand: Juli 2010.

[23] http://paper-republic.org/brucehumes/twilight-of-chinas-reindeer-evenki-right-bank-of-the-argun-river Stand: Juli 2010.

[24] www.bjreview.com.cn/Youth_Literature_Enchantment/2009-07/01/content_204893.htm, http://paper.sznews.com/szdaily/20070614/ca2692129.htm und www.frauensolidaritaet.org/zeitschrift/fs_106_lipinsky.pdf Stand: Juli 2010.

[25] http://pots.tw/node/4014 Stand: Juli 2010

[26] http://twitter.com/degewa/status/5646062579 Stand: Juli 2010.

[27] http://blog.roodo.com/hhung/archives/11247669.html Stand: Juli 2010.

[28] Robert Hass über Yu Jian und Xi Chuan: http://believermag.com/issues/201006/?read=article_hass Stand: Juli 2010.

[29] http://thedrunkenboat.com/summer06.html Stand: Juli 2010.

[30] http://mclc.osu.edu/jou/abstracts/leung.pdf Stand: Juli 2010.

[31] http://mclc.osu.edu/rc/pubs/wangxb.htm und mclc.osu.edu/rc/pubs/wangxb2.htm Stand: Juli 2010.

[32] http://china.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_name=china Stand: Juli 2010.

[33] http://china.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=976 Stand: Juli 2010.

[34] http://leiden.dachs-archive.org/poetry Stand: Juli 2010.

[35] www.Shigeku.org, http://hi.baidu.com/ddpoem und www.poemlife.com Stand: Juli 2010.

[36] www.jintian.net/today Stand: Juli 2010.

[37] http://lyrikline.org/index.php?id=162&L=0&author=bd01&show=Poems&poemId=1809&cHash=0c4dbcf520 Stand: Juli 2010.

[38] Bei Dao 北岛: Shijian de Meigui 时间的玫瑰 (Rose of Time). Beijing 2005, S. 198–200.

[39] Braester, Yomi: Witness Against History. Literature, Film and Public Discourse in 20th-Century China. Stanford 2005. Siehe auch http://books.google.com/books?id=fiXWV6kaIMEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=yomi+braester&cd=1 Stand: Juli 2010.

[40] Siehe weiter unten, im Zusammenhang mit Yin Lichuan und Zhu Wen.

[41] Laughlin, Charles: The Literature of Leisure and Chinese Modernity. Honolulu 2008.

[42] Siehe http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-03/16/content_425356.htm Stand: Juli 2010.

[43] http://danwei.org, http://paper-republic.org und www.makedostudios.com Stand: Juli 2010.

[44] www.zweitausendeins.de/suche/?ArticleFocus=2&ord=-1&alpha=1&cat=all&q=Murong%2C%20Xuecun&CT=1 Stand: Juli 2010.

[45] www.wenxue2000.com Stand: Juli 2010.

[46] Huang Liang 黃梁: Dixia de Guangmai 地下的光脈 (Lichtpuls im Untergrund). Taipei 1999, S. 26ff.

[47] Van Crevel, Maghiel: Chinese Poetry in Times of Mind, Mayhem and Money. Leiden und Boston 2008.

[48] www.ucca.org.cn/portal/activitie/view.798?id=425&lang=en&menuId=0 Stand: Juli 2010.

[49] www.de-cn.net/mag/lit/de4812617.htm Stand: Juli 2010.

[50] Meinshausen, Frank / Rademacher, Anne (Hg): Neue Träume aus der Roten Kammer. München 2009.

[51] www.taz.de/1/leben/buchmessetazde Stand: Juli 2010.

[52] www.dradio.de/dlf/sendungen/buechermarkt/220030 Stand: Juli 2010.

[53] Meinshausen, Frank (Fanke 樊克) (Hg.): Hongtao J 红桃J (Herzbube). Deyu xin xiaoshuo xuan 德语新小说选 (Neue deutsche Erzählungen). Shanghai 2007. Siehe auch http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_517cf0ab0100fk4b.html Stand: Juli 2010.

[54] www.china.org.cn/english/NM-e/150961.htm und http://web.mit.edu/ccw/can-xue Stand: Juli 2010.

[55] www.villagevoice.com/2009-04-22/books/is-can-xue-the-bruno-schultz-of-modern-china Stand: Juli 2010.

[56] Bartz, Jing und Li Jingze (Hg.): Unterwegs. Literatur-Gegenwart China. Düren 2009.

[57] www.peking.buchinformationszentrum.org/de/news/01222/index.html Stand: Juli 2010.

[58] Feng Jicai, Ye Zhaoyan, A Lai, Feng Li und Mo Yan: Gela wird erwachsen und andere Erzählungen aus China. Zürich 2009. www.chinabooks.ch/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=4410 Stand: Juli 2010.

[59] http://eastbaltimoremuse.blogspot.com/2008/10/hand-of-poet-world-literature-today.html Stand: Juli 2010

[60] http://lyrikline.org/index.php?id=162&L=0&show=Poems&author=b05&cHash=9b383caff6 Stand: Juli 2010.

[61] Huang Liang: Dalu Xianfeng Shiji: Dixia de Guangmai. Taipei: Tangshan chubanshe 1999 S. 5f.

[62] Diefenbach, Thilo: Kontexte der Gewalt in moderner chinesischer Literatur. Wiesbaden 2004.

[63] http://songjiuchenggong.blog.163.com/blog/static/922695002009557328238 und http://hk.myblog.yahoo.com/timtimholiday/article?mid=856&fid=-1&action=prev Stand: Juli 2010.

[64] www.epochtimes.com/b5/5/9/4/n1040759.htm Stand: Juli 2010.

[65] www.peking.buchinformationszentrum.org/de/news/00462/index.html Stand: Juli 2010.

[66] www.chinaculture.org/gb/en_artqa/2005-10/20/content_74700.htm Stand: Juli 2010.

[67] Neuausgabe: Hong Ying: Der chinesische Sommer. Leipzig 2005.

[68] Chang, Eileen: Das Reispflanzerlied. Düsseldorf 2009. Siehe auch www.spiegel.de/kultur/literatur/0,1518,644905,00.html und http://quarterlyconversation.com/the-peoples-writer-how-eileen-chang-remains-relevant-by-not-writing-political-fiction Stand: Juli 2010.

[69] Hong Ying 虹影: Yu Jiaohui Yu Gechang 魚教會魚歌唱 (Fische lehren Fische singen). Guilin 2001.

[70] Ma Lan: Wie wir einen Handschuh töten. In: Fleisch 14, Januar 2010; siehe auch http://www.literaturuebersetzerforum.de/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=31 Stand: 15. Juli 2010

[71] http://poetrysky.com/quarterly/8/quarterly-8-malan.html, www.poetrysky.com/quarterly/quarterly-6-hongying.html und luofulin.blogspot.com, sowie http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/dujuan99nihon/30885878.html Stand: Juli 2010.

[72] www.welt.de/die-welt/politik/article7145008/Die-pikanten-Enthuellungen-des-Herrn-Hanfeng.html Stand: Juli 2010.

<!--Session data-->

<!--Session data-->

Chinese Literature 2000-2010

Current events – trends – chronology – examples

1) Current events

This presentation is based on my article on current Chinese literature for the Swiss festival Culturescapes, which is about China this year. A book with all the texts on Chinese art and literature written for this festival is scheduled to come out in September 2010[1].

China has an ancient tradition of poetry in close connection to philosophy and politics, from Confucius, who promoted the Book of Songs, to Qu Yuan (3rd century BC), a poet whose death is remembered each year at the Dragon Boat Festival. As we all know, this festival in June is mostly about Boat Racing and eating a sticky rice dish wrapped in bamboo leaves. Like all traditional Chinese festivals, Duanwu Jie is an occasion to get together with family and friends. But everybody who is connected to Chinese culture also knows that this festival originated with a poet, who was frustrated with his sovereign and his kingdom. For this year’s Dragon Boat Festival in mid-June 2010, two leading newspapers in Hong Kong and Taipei, Ming Pao and Lianhe Bao (United Daily News) printed an article on the jailed philosophy professor Liu Xiaobo. This essay was written by the poet Bei Ling 20 years ago, in 1989, right after June 4th, the crackdown on the demonstrations in Beijing[2]. Liu Xiaobo had been one of the Chinese intellectuals who were working or studying abroad when they were surprised by the demonstrations in China. He was one of the few who returned to take part in the democracy movement. After the crackdown, he was arrested and jailed. Like many of his friends, and also his wife Liu Xia, Liu Xiaobo has been writing poetry since the 1980s. Shi Tao, the reporter who was betrayed by Yahoo! in 2005 and sentenced to 10 years in jail, is also a poet[3].

In the first half of 2010, Chinese literature has largely been identified with censorship and repression. At the end of March, Cui Weiping, professor at the Beijing Film Academy, was barred from attending a series of academic events at Harvard and other institutions in Northern America. In headlines in international media, Cui was called the second poet in a month who had not been allowed to leave China[4]. She had been known outside of film circles for writing articles on civil society, and for initiatives like a survey among intellectuals about their personal reaction to the recent 11-year prison sentence for Liu Xiaobo. This time, because she could not leave the country, Cui was finally recognized as a poet, it seems, at least for a larger audience. The second poet who was barred from leaving China in March was Liao Yiwu. He was jailed in 1989 for a poem that was written on June 4th, the day of the massacre in Beijing, and subsequently transmitted by radio abroad. Liao’s stories from the bottom of Chinese society were briefly allowed to be published in China in 2000. He has been hindered more than a dozen times from attending international literary events.

Zhang Zao, a well-recognized Chinese poet who stayed abroad out of his own wish in the last 20 years, died in Germany in March 2010. He was mourned by Cui Weiping, who wrote poems to him on her blog[5]. These poems in turn were praised by the poetess and bestseller novelist Hong Ying on her blog[6]. Zhang Zao was also mourned on the blog of Zhai Yongming, the prominent poetess from Chengdu[7]. Zhai quoted Thomas Bernhard’s dictum that everything becomes ridiculous when you think about death.

In 2009, Liu Xiaobo, Liao Yiwu and Bei Ling all found themselves in international headlines. Liu Xiaobo was in jail again and was prosecuted for his Charta 08 (modeled after the Czech Charta 1977). Liao Yiwu was invited to the Frankfurt Book Fair 2009, where China was the guest of honor, but he was not allowed to go. Bei Ling had been exiled from China in 2000. He was also invited to Frankfurt, but at the last minute he and Dai Qing were told not to attend certain events in Frankfurt after all, to placate the official Chinese delegation. Dai Qing is a veteran in reportage and political activism. She is especially well known for her reporting on the Three Gorges Dam. Because the German media picked up their case, Dai Qing and Bei Ling found themselves in the spotlight in Frankfurt, along with censorship, exile and repression in China. One of the books by Chinese authors that still got some serious attention at the fair was an essay collection edited by the Heinrich Böll Foundation, featuring articles by leading academics in China, among them Qin Hui, He Weifang and Cui Weiping. These essays are about the rule of law, the downside of the economic miracle, and other contentious topics[8].

China as the guest of honour at the book fair in Frankfurt was a motor for translations into German. There was a list of books that were partly funded by the Chinese side.[9] Li Dawei (born 1963) was one of the authors who were translated into German 2009. It was a translation from English into German, because Li has been writing fiction in both Chinese and English. He was already present in two short fiction anthologies that came out in German in 2003 and 2009. Along with Qi Ge’s (born 1971) science fiction ride into a future full of explicit reminisces of Shanghai’s 20^th-century history[10], Li Dawei’s story of a Ming Dynasty prisoner was one of the most memorable stories in the 2009 collection.[11] China Wenxueshi Building, the story from the 2003 collection, is full of references to authors and books of Chinese and Western literary history. But it also works as a satire of contemporary work units and bureaucracy.[12]

In 2009, the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949 was celebrated, and 30 years of economic reform were also proudly remembered. There was no official commemoration of the events of 1989, but there were many essays and discussions published abroad by Chinese writers like Yu Hua[13] and many others. In Germany, the demonstrations of 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall were celebrated in November 2009. Ai Qing (1910-1996) visited Berlin in 1979 and wrote the poem The Wall (Qiang). In November 2009, this poem was quoted on many blogs in China[14]. It is one of his most famous poems, and also among the works mentioned by Tie Ning, president of the official Writer’s Association, in a speech to celebrate the poet’s 100^th birthday in March 2010[15].

Cui Weiping could not attend the academic events at Harvard and other places in the spring of 2010, but she has published some notes for a speech she had wanted to make there on her blog. One point in these notes was that people told her not to go to commemorative events held in Beijing on March 3rd and 4th 2010 in Beijing for Yu Luoke (1942-1970), a writer who was executed as a „counter-revolutionary“ in 1970. Yu Luoke was a rallying symbol for young writers in 1980, in connection with the autobiographical novels of his sister Yu Luojin (born 1957). Yu Luoke was exonerated in 1979, and there is a public statue in his honour in Beijing. But apparently he is still considered dangerous[16].

2) Trends

Literature and politics have been very closely connected in China the last 100 years. Poetry was especially closely connected with dissent in the 1970s and before (e.g. at the Tian'anmen incident of 1976). Poetry was also closely tied in with the launching of the Reform and Opening policy in 1978. Bei Dao, Mang Ke and Huang Rui started their literary journal Jintian (Today, 1978-1980 and since 1990 in exile). The poet Huang Xiang from Guizhou is said to have put up the first posting on the Democracy Wall in Beijing in December 1978[17]. Anyway, the activities of Beijing Spring were very much about publishing freedom[18]. The Democracy Wall lasted only one year, until December 1979.

The Taiwanese critic Huang Liang has been documenting the poetry of Mainland China in the last 20 years in a series of books. A theory volume in the series that appeared in 1999 includes Huang Liang’s own essay Yizhi ziyou zhi lu (The Road to Freedom of Thought)[19]. Huang starts on this road with nonsense-poems by one of the two sons of Guo Moruo, who were both killed in the Cultural Revolution. Huang Xiang, Bei Dao and Mang Ke are also quoted, and shown to be relevant for many younger poets who came to prominence in the 1990s and later. In 2009, Huang Liang's series has featured the mingong (peasant-laborer) - poetess Zheng Xiaoqiong and the Tibetan blogger and poetess Woeser (Wei Se in Mandarin)[20].

These latter two female authors are part of a trend - female writers becoming more prominent in the last ten years. Even the president of the official Chinese Writer's association is a woman - Tie Ning, whose stories and novels are about ordinary people in the streets of Beijing and Baoding (Hebei Province). The stories by her that I remember are about uncomfortable memories and deaths in the 1950s and 1960s. It's not reportage work exposing the government, but it is also not Socialist Realism - just interesting literature. These stories of Tie Ning are not from the last ten years, but there is also a recent trend in a similar direction - social relevance (Liao Yiwu is a good example). Other trends are film work by writers (e.g. the poetess Yin Lichuan and the poet and novelist Zhu Wen), combinations of Internet, international connections and exile, and the continuing appearance of 1989 as well as other more or less taboo topics from contemporary history.

Zhu Wen has received renewed attention abroad because his stories from the 1990s have come out in new editions in English and German. Although Zhu Wen lives in China and has been making films for the last ten year, he is part of a continuing trend in which exile, diaspora and publishing abroad have become important in the last 20 years. In 1998, Zhu Wen published a survey in the magazine Jintian, founded by Bei Dao in exile in 1990. This survey among writers in China became well known because of topics such as the official writer’s organizations and the influence of modern Chinese literature form the 1920s and 1930s on contemporary writing. Most participants said they found state organizations irrelevant and denied being influenced by established modern masters like Lu Xun. Since Zhu Wen has withdrawn from writing, maybe one could speak of “innere immigration” (resistance from inside rather than exile). (Zhu Wen’s survey is quoted in toto in Huang Liang’s above-mentioned essay)

In 2000, Gao Xingjian, who had immigrated to France in the second half of the 1980s, received the Nobel Prize for Literature. In April 2010, Gao was honored at a literature congress in Taiwan that was attended by many old friends of his, among them Wang Meng, the former Chinese minister of culture.[21] In June 2010, an article by Ma Sen, who had also come to the congress, appeared in Lianhe Bao (United Daily News, Taipei).[22] Ma Sen recounts how Gao had come to the attention of foreign scholars in the 1980s and how the Nobel Committee eventually came to know him. At the end of his article, Ma Sen declares himself at a loss as to why China would not invite Gao back and would not allow his works published. In a reply, also published by Lianhe Bao[23], Bei Ling says that Gao does not want to go back to China, and does not want to publish his works there, because he doesn’t want to make compromises with censorship and politics.

Many Chinese writers who have immigrated to other countries, mostly to the US, are now writing in other languages than Chinese, mostly in English. Ha Jin is the most famous example. Many of these émigré writers are women, such as Fan Wu, Yiyun Li, Xiaolu Guo and Luo Lingyuan. The first three of them now write their given name before their family name – in Chinese their names would be Wu Fan, Li Yiyun and Guo Xiaolu. Guo is also a well-known film director. Yiyun Li’s novel The Vagrants has won high acclaim in the US and was translated into several languages. Recently, she has translated and edited a sample of Shen Congwen’s letters.[24]

The main part of this presentation, based on the article for Culturescapes, is a chronology in reverse - from 2010-2000.

E.g. the years 2003 and 2004 are marked by the two bestsellers Chinese Peasant Report (Zhongguo Nongmin Diaocha, by Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao, translated as Will the Boat Sink the Water)[25] and Wangnian bing bu ru yun (Past years do not fade in the mist) by Zhang Yihe, about the Anti-Rightist-Campaign of 1957. Both books were initially available in bookstores, and sold in millions on street markets for years after they were forbidden, according to the authors. Two of the three authors of these two bestsellers are women.

These last examples show that literature in China in the scope of this observation is not only concerned with novels and poetry. The main point is the continuing connection between literature and politics, against a background of very few critical voices in the media and other institutions in China. This connection was highlighted last year at the Frankfurt Book Fair, where the exiles and dissidents, among them Gao Xingjian and Yang Lian, became ever more prominent as the German organizers tried to give face to the official Chinese delegation by excluding exiles and dissidents from some events. Yang Lian had already taken part in an international podium discussion among writers in Berlin in spring 2008 on the Cold War and the role of literature[26].

Chinese literature of the 1990s and 2000s is often called commercial and superficial, compared to the 1980s. But even very popular authors like Hong Ying and Han Han are popular largely because of their critical stance towards contemporary history and society.[27] Other bestseller authors like Yu Hua and Mo Yan are known for very stark scenes of violence, often set in recent history. Another bestseller was Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong (Lü Jiamin), documenting the destruction of the environment since the 1960s and 1970s[28].

3) Chronology

So let us go on with the chronology in reverse, from 2010 and 2009 to 2008 and 2007. At the beginning of 2008, several magazines and Internet portals in China conducted surveys about new books that appeared in 2007[29]. A book by Yang Xianhui (born 1946) about an orphanage in the years of the great famine 1959-1961 was among the top four in some of these lists (in terms of several different criteria, see the articles quoted by Danwei, see footnote). Another prominent book was Cao Naiqian’s story collection There is Nothing I Can Do When I Think of You Late at Night. Cao Naiqian has been working as a policeman in a small city for decades. Liu Zhenyun’s novel I am Liu Yuejin was definitely among the top-selling books in 2007. The novel was also made into a very popular film, just like its predecessor Cell Phone (Shouji, 2003/2004). The given name Yuejin in I am Liu Yuejin means [Great] Leap Forward, the time of a great famine (da jihuang), an important motive in Liu Zhenyun’ novels and stories.

Yang Xianhui had published a related book in 2000, about a labor camp for prisoners from the Anti-Rightist-Campaign (Fan youpai) of 1957, called Jiabiangou jishi (Report from Jiabiangou). Paul Foster has reviewed a collection of stories from Jiabiangou in English that came out in 2009[30]. Foster relates that Jiabiangou jishi was called China`s Gulag Archipelago when it appeared in 2000. Another book on prisoners from the Anti-Rightist-Campaign was the novel China 1957 (Zhongguo 1957) by You Fengwei, which came out in 2001.[31] At about the same time at the beginning of the decade, Liao Yiwu`s stories on people from the bottom of society were briefly available in the book stores. Yang Xianhui is not the first author who has written fiction and reportage on labor camps. Zhang Xianliang, who spent decades in a labor camp, published the novel Half of Man is Woman in 1985. Some of the stories in Han Shaogong’s Gui qu lai, which came out in the same year, are also set in prison camps. A book on the subject of prison camps in contemporary Chinese literature came out in 2006: The Great Wall of Confinement. It has been reviewed by Maghiel van Crevel.[32]

Now let us get on with the bestseller lists of 2007, collected at the beginning of 2008. Some of these lists featured several female authors, like Xu Kun, whose novels and stories are set in China’s northeast, Ai Mi and Anni Baobei (latest novel: Padma). Ai Mi’s novel Hawthorn Tree Forever (Shanzhao shu zhi lian) is currently being filmed by veteran director Zhang Yimou. Other female bestseller authors of the last two years are Zhang Ling (Gold Mountain Blues – Jin shan) and Chi Zijian (The Right Bank of the Argun River - E’erguna he you an). Jin Renshun (born in 1970) is also among the most prominent authors of the last few years since her novel Green Tea (Lü Cha) was made into a film starring Jiang Wen, one of China’s most famous actors.

2007 and 2006 was the time when the above-mentioned female peasant-worker Zheng Xiaoqiong (born 1980) gained national and international recognition. Zheng was one of two female poets from the Chinese mainland who were published in Taiwan in 2009 in Huang Liang’s series of mainland poets of the 1990s and 2000s, as mentioned above. The Taiwanese poet and director Hung Hung has compared a poem by Zheng to an already classic poem from the early 1990s by Yu Jian (born in 1954 in Kunming).[33]

Yu Jian is one of two Chinese poets from the last 20 years who are most prominently featured by Robert Hass in his essay in The Believer that came out in June 2010.[34]

This brings us to 2006 and a contemporary Chinese poetry feature in the American online magazine The Drunken Boat, where Yu Jian is also among the most senior poets.[35] The Drunken Boat’s Spring/Summer edition of 2006 was almost entirely devoted to poetry by Chinese authors, with big sections for Hong Kong, Macau and overseas authors, like Leung Ping-Kuan and Ha Jin. This collection was coordinated by the Latvian-American scholar Inara Cedrins, together with Michael M. Day, who wrote the introduction. An interesting detail is the inclusion of poets from many regions of China, and from minorities. The Tibetan poetess Woeser (Wei Se in Mandarin), mentioned above in connection with the Mainland Poetry Series in Taiwan, is a good example.

Xi Chuan (born 1963) is the second poet in Robert Hass’ above-mentioned article, representing a younger generation that came to prominence in the 1990s. Xi Chuan is also a prominent poet in Inara Cedrins’ Drunken Boat collection. Ms. Cedrins translated a cycle of Xi Chuan’s poems into English, and Maghiel van Crevel wrote an accompanying essay. The Drunken Boat feature is maybe the most prominent and extensive collection of current Chinese poetry in English, at least on the Internet. A more recent book of translated poems from China was edited by George O’Connell at The Atlanta Review[36]. Poetry International Web, the online magazine of Rotterdam’s Poetry International Festival, has a China section conducted by Simon Patton.[37] It was most active in 2002-2007. One of the authors presented by Patton was the iconoclast Yi Sha (born 1966).[38] Michael Day has collected a contemporary poetry archive, which includes lots of material by and on Liao Yiwu, for example.[39]

The Internet has been used for publishing and disseminating literature since the second half of the 1990s. Anni Baobei, mentioned above in connection with the bestseller and most important books lists of 2007, first became popular with stories she posted on the Internet in the late 1990s. One of the earliest online literary magazines was Olive Tree (Ganlan Shu), which was active until around 2004[40]. It was mostly kept up by Ma Lan[41], a female author from a Moslem family in Sichuan, who immigrated to the USA in 1992.

One of the main points in Robert Hass’s report from poetry events in China in the 1990s and 2000s is a sort of contradictory anxiety among the poets. They need the awareness of their work from abroad, but they know that this awareness comes from their underground status in China. On one hand, Yu Jian and Xi Chuan needed to differentiate themselves from the famous poets of the generation before them, which were labeled Menglong (obscure or misty) poets - Bei Dao, Mang Ke, Guo Lusheng (Shi Zhi), Shu Ting, Duo Duo, Yang Lian and others. Yu Jian’s poems were deliberately ordinary, all about everyday life, no national allegory at all. But try as they might, the emerging poets of the 1990s in China could not shake off the connections between politics and literature.

Xi Chuan was one of the founders of the literary magazine Tendency (Qingxiang), which was revived by Chen Dongdong, Bei Ling, Meng Lang and others in the early 1990s. Tendency is one of the stations on the above-mentioned Road to Freedom of Thought (Yizhi ziyou zhi lu), the introductory essay by Huang Liang to his contemporary mainland poetry series. In the summer of 2009, Xi Chuan chose works by contemporary poets for a project in Germany that included poems on large-scale posters in public spots, in place of commercial advertisements. These actions were accompanied by readings in many cities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland[42]. Two of the poets thus featured were the above-mentioned Yin Lichuan and the poet-musician Yan Jun (born 1973). Yan Jun’s poem is called Charta 09 (09 Xianzhang)[43]. The title refers to Liu Xiaobo’s Charta 08. Charta 09 was presented in a public performance in Beijing at the 798 art galleries.

Xi Chuan was among the writers selected by the authorities in Beijing for the Chinese delegation at the Frankfurt book fair 2009. The walls of the great hall for the guest of honor in Frankfurt were decorated with many portrait photos of Chinese writers. Among them were Shi Zhi (Guo Lusheng, born 1948) and Mang Ke (born 1950), who were instrumental in the underground literature of the 1970, as mentioned above. Shi Zhi started to circulate poems in 1968.[44] His most famous poem was Xiangxin Weilai (Believe in the future), which was criticized and suppressed by Jiang Qing (Madame Mao). These poems, which had to be copied by hand, have been very important for several generations of poets, among them Xi Chuan and the exiled poet Bei Ling, who has tried to continue the publication of the magazine Tendency after Chen Dongdong was arrested in 1998. Tendency (Qingxiang) is now a publishing house, run by Bei Ling in Taiwan.

We have now covered mostly the last few years of the first decade of the 21st century. From 2009 and 2010 we have not only looked back at the Noughties and the Nineties, but also glimpsed at 1968 and the 1970s in China, and we have noticed the role of poetry in the 1980s. Remembering the 1980s, and then the 1970s, was a trend in the second half of the 2000s.

In my article for Culturescapes, 2005 is marked by two books, Rose of Time (Shijian de meigui) by Bei Dao and Witness Against History by Yomi Braester[45]. It would take too long to talk about them now in detail. Let me just say a few words. These two books are dealing with the question of how to analyse and interpret literary texts, or more broadly speaking, art, and also how to talk about authors and epochs. So I will also use them in reading the examples in the next (and final) chapter.

Bei Dao had been living in exile since 1989. In 1990 he began to publish Jintian (Today) again, the legendary magazine from 1978-1980, the time of Beijing’s Democracy Wall. In the early 2000s, interviews with and then also essays by Bei Dao cropped up in China. Rose of Time is about nine internationally well-known European poets of the 20th century and the translations of their works into Chinese. Bei Dao also wrote a poem called Rose of Time.

One chapter in Bei Dao’s book is on Boris Pasternak. Bei Dao acknowledges Pasternak’s support for other writers, but also mentions his early praise of Stalin. One section in the chapter on Pasternak is devoted to Russian Formalism, founded by Roman Jacobson and Viktor Shklovsky after the revolution of 1905. Bei Dao quotes from Shklovsky’s theory of alienation and from his words on the independence of art, saying that the colour of a work of art would never reflect the colour of the flag that is flown from the castle walls.[46]

Like Bei Dao, Yomi Braester thinks of art and literature as standing on its own, and as a sort of antithesis to History and its philosophies. Braester covers many genres, including film and what he calls „public discourse“. He also covers many different periods and locations (China, Taiwan, modernity, the 1990s). But most importantly, Yomi Braester has found his own theory of art. You could basically use it for any language or region. Witness against History employs many theories of literature that confronts the traumata of the 20th century. But the author shows that in close inspection, a work of art can always contradict established interpretations, including those of the artist himself, or herself.

Bei Dao (with Shklovsky and Jakobson, in the example above) and Braester do analyse the social context, the social factors around the artists and their works. But their primary objects of observation are the texts, the works of art. This is nothing new per se –there have been many critical movements and theories with the text as their primary focus; collectively they are often referred to as hermeneutic. What distinguishes the books by Yomi Braester and Bei Dao is that they do acknowledge the literary theories of the 20^th century which came out of the traumas of the recent past. They also focus on the social context of the texts, but their primary focus is on the texts. This distinguishes them from many scholars who have employed the domineering theory of the last 20 years, the method of Pierre Bourdieu. This method, which amasses lots of data around the publishing life of the authors, has been used with interesting and important results in the field of modern and contemporary Chinese literature, namely by Michel Hockx, Maghiel van Crevel and Michael M. Day. Maghiel van Crevel has recently brought out a book on Chinese poetry of the last 30 years that covers many of the poets mentioned here, and many other important poets, trends etc.[47]

The first chapter in Bei Dao’s Rose of Time is on Federico Garcia Lorca and the translations of his poetry into Chinese by Dai Wangshu from the 1930s. Bei Dao respects and admires Dai’s translations. The language and the rhythm of the Chinese versions is often very close to the original. The translations of modern European poets in the 1930s, -40s and -50s had a lot of influence on several generations of Chinese poets. There is a great variety of forms in modern Chinese poetry. The enormous interest in European and American poetry has led to many different formal developments. Rose of Time exhibits Bei Dao’s formal virtuosity and belies any claims that modern and contemporary Chinese poetry is mainly just free verse.

Zhang Zao is also one of the poets whose translations are used and discussed by Bei Dao. Zhang Zao took his PhD 2004 in Tübingen, Germany with a dissertation on the development of Chinese poetry in new forms and against the social and political background from 1917 to the 1980s and early 1990s.[48] Bei Dao quotes and discusses his translations of Georg Trakl.

In 2003, to go on with the chronology, Maghiel van Crevel reported from a poetry reading in Beijing in the time of SARS, with the poem Against All Organised Deception by Yan Jun performed visually and acoustically.[49]

And now this reduced reverse chronology is almost done. If you want to go a little further back, you can take a look at the website that originated in the infamous Lower-Body-movement of the year 2000[50]. One of the stars of this movement was the poetess and movie director Yin Lichuan, who was also one of the poets in the project of poetry on billboards in Germany in the summer of 2009, accompanied by readings, as I mentioned above.[51]

4) Examples

a) Cui Weiping

Cui Weiping

Uncle Zhang Zao Left This World[52]

-- a dialogue with my daughter

You sent Mama a message

Uncle Zhang Zao left this world

You say

this is your first time

you have a concrete memory

of someone who died

You say

Uncle Zhang Zao

has done nothing but

loving poetry and wine

maybe also loving girls

he was really not a bad guy

I say, child

not because he had anything bad in him

did he leave this world

Life is always

very fragile

and unstable

You say

Mama, I'm scared!

Life is so lonely

Life takes leave from life

without any sound

I say, child

death is also

a praise of life

isn't it?

That you can die

that you can be injured

that you can be lonely

confirms you're alive,

isn't it?

You say

you always thought

he was living in Germany

occasionally he would come back to China

and you'd see him at some kind of dinner

I say

Uncle Zhang Zao

took with him a small piece of your life

but in your memory

you have kept him whole

Zhang Zao

be content

tonight a mother and a daughter

are hurt and inconsolable

for you and everything fragile

and fair

2010-03-10

Tr. MW, August 2010

This is a very simple poem. There are no complicated issues of verse and rhythm, at least at first glance. The contents are also very simple. A mother and a daughter talk about a friend, who just died. The mother is the “I” of the poem, who quotes the daughter – “you say” and also her own words. She tries to answer her daughter’s queries.

The title Uncle Zhang Zao Left This World could also be rendered as ‘Uncle Zhang Zao (has) passed away’. I must confess that I am still not sure which is better. The message in the beginning is an SMS, it is really a short message, only five syllables – “Zhang Zao shushu qu shi”. Shushu means uncle. And qu shi means to pass away. Qu is to go, to leave, or to remove. Qu nian is last year, the past year, for example. Shi in ‘qu shi’ means ‘world’. Writing an SMS in English about a friend who just died, maybe you would write ‘X passed away’, rather than ‘X left this world’. But actually, I’m not sure, as I said.

Reading this poem makes me think of many other poems, mostly addressed to people who have passed away. I am thinking of poems and stories by Ma Lan, for example and also of works by other authors dealing with violence and personal memories. Ma Lan’s Spoken in the Year of the Cock[53] is addressed to an older sister of the speaker, who died in the Cultural Revolution. The speaker relates that the ashes of the sister are lost, because the crematorium was hit by a flood. Maybe this accident provided an impulse for writing the poem – especially if the poem is autobiographic. Many poems in many languages at any time are autobiographic, at least to a certain extent. Many poems in many languages are also about the act of writing poetry, or more specifically, about how the poet, or the “I” in the poem, came to write this one poem or poetry in general. Ma Lan’s Spoken in the Year of the Cock is such a poem. The last stanza reads: “If not for you, my sister/ Could I have become me?/ Where did it come from, this ponderous destiny?/ As if dreaming a dream outside the universe”. The “ponderous destiny” (juda de yinyuan) of the penultimate line also occurs in Ma Lan’s Muslim Grandmother.[54] Actually, there it is a “juda de mingyun”, a giant fate. Cui Weiping’s poem may be autobiographic, but it isn’t about poetry per se.

In a poem that is dated at the beginning of 1979, Ai Qing addressed a Czech friend who had passed away more than two years earlier[55]. Ai’s language is very simple. There are some rhymes. But the whole poem feels very direct, just like everyday speech. In this respect, Ai Qing’s poem to his Czech friend and translator Dana Štovíčková-Heroldová is comparable to Cui Weiping’s poem on Zhang Zao’s death. But Cui’s poem is only about very private reactions to her friend’s death, she doesn’t really talk about him at all, how they met, how they came to be separated, what happened in between, and so on. All these concerns are there in Ai Qing’s poem. He says that his friend never said anything bad about China. Cui Weiping’s poem also sounds very much like everyday speech, but it is very private, there is hardly any background at all, and there isn’t anything connected to politics.

The enormous changes that occurred in China since the end of the 19^th century have had some comparatively well-known effects on Chinese literature. Poetry and fiction were expected to contribute to social and political issues, and time and again they were both expected to become tools for political ends. Literature had to be invented again and again. Fiction and poetry were remodelled after images of foreign literature. Essays and reportage were also influenced by foreign writing, in their language as well as in their subject matter. Zhang Zao describes the main developments in poetry from 1917 all the way to the 1980s and the early 1990s I his dissertation (in German), as mentioned above.

So is this poem by Cui Weiping directly influenced by any of these trends? I don’t think so, actually. It is a very ordinary poem. Maybe Chinese literature has returned to some comparatively more ‘normal’ state since the last big upheaval after 1976. But I would need to examine may more examples from the past 10 years to make any such claim. Cui Weiping is not a very representative poet; she is not connected to poetic movements, circles or magazines, as far as I know. So this poem may have no representative value for the poetry of the last ten years. But maybe it does, to a certain extent, represent a connection, an aspect of literature, contemporary culture and society.

Zhang Zao’s own poems are rather complex, but very often there are lines in colloquial, everyday speech interwoven into the rhythm of each piece. Some examples in Chinese[56] and in English[57] can be found online.

b) Yan Jun

Now for a closer look at a few recent poems by the musician-poet Yan Jun, who was one of the poets selected by Xi Chuan for the poetry-on-billboards-project in Germany in the summer of 2009.

Charta 09 - Yan Jun[58]

Charta-Sonnet
(electric guitar, small marshall-speakers, voice recitation)

I demand to abolish the automatic ticket-control on the subway, and insist on ticket control by hand till the end of time;

I demand the election of the president of the USA by all mankind;

I demand measures for stricter birth control: encourage homosexual marriages and discourage heterosexual marriages with fines;

I demand an amendment to the constitution: abolish all commas, colons and semicolons;

I demand to get rid of Mahjong and KTV bars, to arrest everyone who walks their dog at five in the morning, and to install regular poetry readings at police stations;

I demand the abolishment of art, and a change of life;

I demand to pour salt into wounds, and poison drinks, and a cold butt stuck into every excited face;
I demand to construct two enormous speakers in the green hills at the bank of a stream and hold a concert of noise without any audience;
I demand that you and I stay together, forever, and never to part;

I demand to remember, these black blossoms, and the glittering stars above the bicycle change into a few young faces;

I demand to reprieve the locked-up words, to reprieve "your mother’s cunt", and also "President Jiang Zemin";

I demand to demand, to forbid what's forbidden, abolish abolishing, to ridicule satire, and have those who have nothing to do and just pour out their heart at you tied up and gagged;

I demand to break into song at the entrance of hell, and to sleep on the bus;

I demand to break the silence, to keep the peace...

Tr. MW, July/August 2010

Thanks to Marc Hermann, who translated this poem into German!

On his blog, Yan Jun provides the following comment: „About politics, as in At this Moment (Ci ke), in Charta Sonnet and in Against all organized deception (Fandui yiqie you zuzhi de qipian): I regard these poems as political action, not as political poems. Either all poetry is political poetry, or there are no political poems. Because poetry per se is already a form of political action. I have no crying politics, to make people high, no politics for a statue.“ (from the author’s comment to Ci Ke[59]).

What is “a cold butt stuck into every exited face”? To stick a cold buttock into an excited face, or cold buttocks into flushed faces (zai re lian shang tie leng pigu) is a contemporary Chinese expression, meaning to cold-shoulder someone. So maybe I should have used ‘cold shoulder’ instead of ‘cold butt’. This is what Marc Hermann did in his German translation. The verse with this ‘cold butt’ in the original and the ‘cold shoulder’ in the German translation on subway billboards and other places for public advertisements in Germany was noticed also by Chinese readers.[60] The ones I have noticed talking about it on the Internet were rather bewildered by this rude phrase in colloquial Chinese on a billboard in the middle of Germany.

Seventh dolphin, April 25 - Yan Jun[61]

Let us say I'm a dolphin

Asleep through the songs in the underground parking

I am whistling

Out of the phone comes an echo of rain

High-heel shoes passing over my head

Like sunflower seeds knocking on heaven

2010.4.25

Tr. MW, July 2010

Compared with Cui Weiping’s poem above, these pieces by Yan Jun are a bit more modern – in the sense of art that recalls the words of Shklovsky, quoted by Bei Dao, which I’ve mentioned above. The first one is also more political – maybe Cui Weiping doesn’t need to write political poems, because her actions outside of the realms of art and science have enough to do with politics already. But I don’t know very much of her political work, so I can’t make a comprehensive judgement. Anyway, Yan Jun’s dolphin-poem doesn’t sound very political either. “Either all poetry is political poetry, or there are no political poems.” Bei Dao would agree, probably.

Now comes the third example, the poem Ci ke (This Moment), written just before China's national day 2009. On Oct. 1st 2009, 60 years of the People's Republic of China were celebrated with military parades in Beijing.

This moment

Recited at the Zurich Literature Institute. Maybe my only poem this year with a real title, not just a date. Some magazine abroad asked for a piece on 60 years of PR China, 300 words on China’s past, present and future.

At this moment China has no borders, no morning melodies, TV station paralysis, one billion people wake up from under their skin; others enter from a different space;

At this moment there’s no future, ignore the past, future hasn’t ever happened, past’s been swallowed, past belonging to this moment, now the past is born again;

At this moment the weepy news warrior sits down with her dog-faced crew for dinner, and suddenly drops dead, exposed in the light of capitalist democracy, Samadhi on ice cream;

This moment is China without government, the traffic lights instruct my life;

No renovations at this moment, no demolishing this moment, and the past is humiliation, `this the time to drink amnesia, and spit out what was forgotten;

Beijing changes shape this instant, possibility itself;

At this moment the party and the people have nurtured each other, so they are both organic, they have washed each other, hugged and cried in the art of the media;

At this moment you only hear static, the Flying Spaghetti Monster sanctified Tian’anmen;

This moment is a naked guy from antiquity who went to teach in the west, he booked a plane ticket for tomorrow, which got cancelled, so he’s stuck in this moment, becoming a Buddha;

There's momentous joy this instant, Instant Cola, instant company's bankruptcy, we drink tea so we're immortal

2009.9.23

Tr. MW, July - August 2010

The last verse is translated rather freely. Cike cijian le, cike kele, cike gongsi daobi, women he shui de yong sheng. At this moment it’s great here (so I don’t want to go back, as the captured son of Liu Bei says in the Sanguo Zhi), this moment is to be rejoiced (kele is a ancient expression that means to rejoice, but it is also the transliteration of Cola), this moment(‘s) company goes bankrupt, we drink water and attain eternal life.[62]

The Flying Spaghetti Monster is an Internet phenomenon that originated in 2005 in opposition to compulsory teaching of Creationism in US-schools.[63] The Chinese Wikipedia entry for Flying Spaghetti Monster has two titles. One is a direct translation; the other one literally means Apsara Ramen Religion (Feitian lamian shenjiao).[64] Yan Jun uses the slight variation “feitian miantiao shenjiao”. Miantiao means any kind of pasta. The verb before ‘Tian’anmen’ in the original is “jiachi”, a Buddhist term variously rendered as ‘to bless’, ‘blessing’, ‘protection’, ‘talisman’ etc. in different usages. There is the particle ‘le’ after ‘jiachi’, so the action has already happened; Tian’anmen has already been consecrated by the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Tian’anmen is the southern entrance into the former imperial compound in Beijing, as opposed to Di’anmen in the north. Tian’anmen is often rendered in English as The Gate of Heavenly Peace; this is also the title of a book by Jonathan Spence (1981)[65], a film documentary and a website about the 1989 protests on Tian’anmen Square[66]. In Chinese, the gate (Tian’anmen) is a very common place name in Beijing, with or without reference to the square south of the gate that was greatly enlarged in the 1950s.[67] In English, the word Tian’anmen alone is less often used than ‘Tian’anmen Square’, usually without the apostrophe in the middle of ‘Tian’anmen’. So I’m not sure if it wouldn’t be better to replace Tian’anmen with ‘Tiananmen Square’ in the translation.

When I first read the poem, I translated this verse for myself as ‘at this moment you only hear noise, the Apsara Pasta Sect has entranced Tian’anmen (and its surroundings)’. I didn’t know about the Flying Spaghetti Monster. On his blog, Yan Jun provides a footnote with the Chinese Wikipedia link for Feitian lamian shenjiao (Apsara Ramen Sect). Shenjiao is often used for any kind of new religion or –ism, this is why I immediately thought of ‘sect’, and of the most well-known contemporary Chinese sect, Falun Gong. In 1999, adherents of Falun Gong partly surrounded Zhongnanhai, the part of the old imperial compound that houses residences of government leaders.[68] Zhongnanhai is close to Tian’anmen and to the Forbidden City.

Poems like Charta 09 and This Moment are hard to translate. In the originals, there is a kind of rhythm, but it is very hard to pin down. Is it necessary to understand all the references to all kinds of contemporary events and phenomena? What about the expletive in Charta 09, and the reference to the former president of China? I think this line refers to censorship, specifically to Internet censorship. Access to many internationally well-known sites has been blocked in China for years. This practice has increased in 2009. Lists of banned words are periodically circulating.[69] And because banned expletives became associated with other banned words, they changed into imagined animals.[70]

The examples for locked-up words are missing in the German version of the poem, which was quoted on billboards in Germany in the summer of 2009. Such international exposure of these “locked-up words” was probably considered too risky, as opposed to a small public performance in a Beijing art gallery in front of rock-fans and the presence of this poem on a blog. Anyway, the line works also without the explicit examples – maybe it’s even better if you have to think for yourself which words could be “locked-up”.

Actually, all these references tend to deflect from the sound of the poems. The dolphin poem, on the other hand, can be enjoyed without having to know why the dolphin is there in the first place. Yan Jun’s blog is a diary; most entries are not poems, but reports from concerts and other events. There is a context to the poems, but it should be possible to appreciate their sound and rhythm first. This is definitely possible with Cui Weiping’s poem, and with the Seventh Dolphin, I think. I hope it is also possible with the other two poems, at least to a certain extent.

Cui Weiping’s poem was written in commemoration to a friend. It is one of several texts from the first half of 2010 mentioned at the beginning of this essay. Every year before and after the first days of June, Internet sites are monitored especially closely in China. Poetry forums tend to become inaccessible, to prevent poems and discussions on events of 1989. On June 5^th, 2010, a poem by Zhao Siyun appeared on the website Poem Life (Shi shenghuo)[71]. It was translated[72] by Michael M. Day a few days later, and disseminated on an Email-list. The Poem Life page was later closed, but at the end of August 2010 it was available again. Like Cui Weiping’s Uncle Zhang Zao, Zhao Siyun’s June Fifth uses simple words and sentences. There is a distinct structure, characterized by the repetition of certain phrases. Many lines are of equal length. Certain characters are repeated at the end of several lines, creating patterns of sound and meaning. Like Cui Weiping’s Uncle Zhang Zao, Zhao Siyun’s June Fifth is in many aspects an ordinary poem.

[1] Culturescapes China. Chinas Kulturszene ab 2000. Basel: Christoph Merian Sept. 2010. See http://culturescapes.ch/publication_112 (accessed 2010-09-07)

[2] Lianhe Bao June 20, 2010. See http://mag.udn.com/mag/world/storypage.jsp?f_MAIN_ID=235&f_SUB_ID=4595&f_ART_ID=255134 (accessed 2010-07-30)

[3] See http://www.opendemocracy.net/arts-Literature/exiledpoets_3035.jsp (accessed 2010-07-30)

[4] See http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2010/03/27/2003469029 (accessed 2010/7/30)

[5] See http://www.bullock.cn/blogs/cuiweiping/archives/98700.aspx (accessed 2010-07-30)

[6] See http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_46e98efa0100hci9.html (accessed 2010-07-30)

[7] See http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_518b17d40100h7ul.html (acessed 2010-07-30)

[8] Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung: Wie China debattiert. Neue Essays und Bilder aus China. Berlin 2009; s.a. http://www.boell.de/downloads/publikationen/Wie_China_debattiert.5MB.pdf (accessed 2010-07-30)

[9] See http://www.peking.buchinformationszentrum.org/de/news/01222/index.html (accessed 2010-09-07)

[10] Original story title: Shengao yibai mi de shijie (The world of 100 meter tall people)

[11] In: Meinshausen, Frank/ Rademacher, Anne (ed): Neue Träume aus der Roten Kammer. Munich: dtv 2009

[12] In: Meinshausen, Frank: Das Leben ist jetzt. Neue chinesische Erzählungen. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 2003

[13] See http://songjiuchenggong.blog.163.com/blog/static/922695002009557328238/ (accessed 2010/8/23)

[14] E.g. http://www.bullogger.com/blogs/xujimin/archives/347295.aspx (accessed 2010-08-23)

[15] See http://www.chinawriter.com.cn/news/2010/2010-03-25/83941.html (accessed 2010-08-23)

[16] http://www.bullogger.com/blogs/cuiweiping/archives/356650.aspx (accessed 2010/7/30)

[17] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Wall_Movement (accessed 2010-07-30)

[18] http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%A5%BF%E5%8D%95%E6%B0%91%E4%B8%BB%E5%A2%99, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_Spring & http://bjs.org/ (accessed 2010-07-30)

[19] Huang Liang: Dixia de guangmai (Underground light-pulse). Taipei: Tangshan Chubanshe (Tonsan Publications) 1999

[20] See the review in POTS (2009-12-17): http://pots.tw/node/4014 (accessed 2010/7/30)

[21] See http://gb.udn.com/gb/www.udn.com/2010/7/9/NEWS/READING/X5/5713758.shtml (acc. 2010-09-06)

[22] See http://www.udn.com/2010/6/25/NEWS/READING/X5/5685001.shtml & http://www.udn.com/2010/6/26/NEWS/READING/X5/5687208.shtml (acc. 2010-09-06)

[23] See http://www.udn.com/2010/7/2/NEWS/READING/X5/5699439.shtml (acc. 2010-09-06)

[24] "An Irrelevant Writer: Yiyun Li Introduces Shen Congwen" [Includes translations of 17 letters from Shen Congwen to his wife Zhang Zhaohe]. A Public Space 10 (2010): 201-225

[25] See review in International Socialist Review 52, March-April 2007: http://www.isreview.org/issues/52/rev-china.shtml (accessed 2010/7/30)

[26] Sprache im technischen Zeitalter: Sonderheft 2008, p. 154-176 and 199-208

[27] One of Han Han’s speeches: http://www.chinahush.com/2010/05/20/han-hans-speech-in-xiamen-university-why-china-cannot-be-a-cultural-power/#more-6377, http://www.rue89.com/chinatown/2010/02/04/pourquoi-la-chine-nest-pas-un-grand-pays-de-culture-par-han-han-136848 (accessed 2010/8/9)

[28] http://mclc.osu.edu/rc/pubs/reviews/choy.htm (accessed 2010-08-09)

[29] http://www.danwei.org/books/top_books_for_2007.php (accessed 2010-08-09)

[30] http://mclc.osu.edu/rc/pubs/reviews/foster2.htm (accessed 2010-08-09)

[31] See interview with You Fengwei on Renmin wang: http://www.people.com.cn/BIG5/wenyu/223/2110/2747/20030106/901811.html (accessed 2010-08-10)

[32] http://mclc.osu.edu/rc/pubs/reviews/vancrevel.htm (accessed 2010-08-09)

[33] http://blog.roodo.com/hhung/archives/11247669.html (accessed 2010-08-09)

[34] http://believermag.com/issues/201006/?read=article_hass (accessed 2010-08-09)

[35] http://thedrunkenboat.com/summer06.html (accessed 2010-08-09)

[36] See http://www.atlantareview.com/page59.html (acc. 2010-08-16)

[37] http://china.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_name=china (acc. 2010-08-09)

[38] http://china.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=976 (acc. 2010-08-09)

[39] http://leiden.dachs-archive.org/poetry/ & http://michaelmartinday.blogspot.com/ (acc. 2010-08-09)

[40] See http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~nie/public/, for example (acc. 2010/8/9)

[41] For Ma Lan’s poems in English, see http://luofulin.blogspot.com (acc. 2010/8/18)

[42] The project was called Poesie in die Stadt: China. See http://www.bosch-stiftung.de/content/language1/html/24938.asp (acc. 2010-08-18)

[43] http://www.yanjun.org/blog/archives/2173 (acc. 2010-08-18)

[44] In 2005, Shi Zhi received the poetry prize of Renmin Wenxue (People’s Literature), along with Haizi, who killed himself in 1989. See http://www.teachercn.com/Zxyw/Gzdyc/2006-7/8/20060108174955642.html (acc. 2010-08-30). About Haizi, see Crevel, Maghiel van: Thanatography and the Poetic Voice: Ways of Reading Haizi. In: Minima Sinica 1/2006, p. 90-146

[45] Braester, Yomi: Witness Against History. Literature, Film and Public Discourse in 20th-Century China. Stanford 2005. See http://books.google.com/books?id=fiXWV6kaIMEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=yomi+braester&cd=1 (acc. 2010-08-30)

[46] Bei Dao: Shijian de Meigui (Rose of Time). Beijing 2005, p. 198–200

[47] Crevel, Maghiel van: Chinese Poetry in Times of Mind, Mayhem and Money. Leiden and Boston: Brill 2008

[48] Zhang Zao: Auf der Suche nach poetischer Modernität: Die neue Lyrik Chinas nach 1919. See http://deposit.d-nb.de/cgi-bin/dokserv?idn=972321098&dok_var=d1&dok_ext=pdf&filename=972321098.pdf (acc. 2010-08-26)

[49] http://mclc.osu.edu/rc/pubs/yanjun.htm (accessed 2010-08-10)

[50] http://wenxue2000.com (acc. 2010-08-10)

[51] http://www.de-cn.net/mag/lit/de4812617.htm (acc. 2010-08-10)

[52] http://www.bullock.cn/blogs/cuiweiping/archives/98700.aspx (acc. 2010/8/10)

[53] http://luofulin.blogspot.com/2009/03/poetry-by-ma-lan-spoken-in-year-of-cock.html (acc. 2010/8/10)

[54] http://luofulin.blogspot.com/2009/03/poetry-by-ma-lan-muslim-grandmother.html (acc. 2010-08-10). See also http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/dujuan99nihon/28675794.html (acc. 2010-08-10)

[55] Ai Qing: Zhi wang you Danna zhi ling (To the soul of my deceased friend Dana). In: Xiandai shiba jia shi (Poems of 18 modern masters), ed. Yue Hongzhi. Beijing: Zhongguo Wenyi 1991, p. 632

[56] http://www.shigeku.org/xlib/xd/sgdq/zhangzao.htm (acc. 2010-08-26)

[57] http://www.shigeku.org/shiku/ws/zg/zhangzao.htm (acc. 2010-08-26)

[58] http://www.yanjun.org/blog/archives/2060 (acc. 2010-08-10)

[59] http://www.yanjun.org/blog/archives/2233 (acc. 2010-08-10)

[60] http://obasic.net/the-chinese-braunschweig-advertisement-on-the-street-side & http://bbs.anti-cnn.com/archiver/tid-187391.html (acc. 2010-08-18)

[61]http://www.yanjun.org/blog/archives/2387 (acc. 2010-08-10)

[62] Cf. the original poem at http://www.yanjun.org/blog/archives/2233 (acc. 2010/8/27)

[63] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster (acc. 2010-08-27)

[64] http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh/%E9%A3%9E%E5%A4%A9%E6%8B%89%E9%9D%A2%E7%A5%9E%E6%95%99 (acc. 2010-08-27)

[65] Spence, Jonathan: The Gate of Heavenly Peace. The Chinese and Their Revolution 1895-1980. New York: Viking Press 1981.

[66] http://www.tsquare.tv/ (acc. 2010-08-27)

[67] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square, http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh/%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%97%A8, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen,  http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh/%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%97%A8%E5%B9%BF%E5%9C%BA (acc. 2010-08-27)

[68] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong (acc.2010/8/30)

[69] Wikileaks material on censorship in China: http://www.peacehall.com/news/gb/china/2010/08/201008061432.shtml (acc. 2010/8/30)

[70] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grass_Mud_Horse (acc. 2010-08-31)

[71] http://www.poemlife.com/ReviewerColumn/zhaosiyun/article.asp?vArticleId=59898 (acc. 2010-08-31)

[72] See http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_54b574bb0100irr4.html (acc. 2010/8/31)

<!--Session data-->

<!--Session data-->