Chinese writing today unimpressive?

[horas]

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http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/shdaily_opinion.asp?id=302276&type=Opinion

Chinese writing today called unimpressive

By Wolfgang Kubin 2007-1-10

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/shdaily_opinion.asp?id=302275&type=Opinion

Junk reading and solid literature can coexist

By Wang Yong 2007-1-10

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[gato]

It probably has something to do with the fact that every publisher and media company in the PRC is government owned.

[wushijiao]

I think there are the obvious structural problems:

1) Government censorship, which not only bans good books from getting published, but also keeps people from reading good books, which makes them less refined readers.

2) The way reading is taught in schools is not conducive to fostering opinionated personal taste.

3) The “Cultural Revolution” generation, generally has a poor educational background in both Chinese classics and non-Chinese literature. Not only that, but in many cases, as parents, this generation actively encouraged their kids not to read for fun, because it took time away from studying for required subjects in school.

4) Piracy keeps the book market less profitable than it would be if it were strictly enforced.

Anyway, I’m not in a position to say what the state of modern Chinese lit is like because I haven’t read widely enough. My guess is that there is a lot of worthy stuff out there that hasn’t been discovered by the mainstream. I don’t know.

I think Yu Hua’s Brother’s下 was kind of interesting in the sense that it was almost universally deemed “trash” by every critic I read. And yet I didn’t read any critic that seemed to understand what his book was trying to say. As a metaphor of Chinese society since “Reform and Opening”, I thought it was fairly accurate. Anyway, it made me wonder about the state of literary criticism and writing in general. If someone is well-read enough to the point that they feel comfortable saying that everything on the market is trash, then that begs the question: why haven’t you written anything of value?

Also, if I am not mistaken, Germany has traditionally had a much stricter bifurcation of “high culture” and “low culture” compared to, say, the US. As far as I know, China also made that distinction. The problem is, as I see it, “high culture” was given an iron sledgehammer to the face by the likes of Mao, Deng, and all the leaders since him. On the other hand, the market has allowed “low culture” to flourish. In the US, so-called “low culture” usually steps up to the plate and produced some serious art, even if the majority is accurately seen as “trash” However, as I see it, so-called “low culture” in China can’t really deal with a lot of serious issues that would make it more challenging and art worthy, because then you are wading in the dangerous waters patrolled by the government. David Moser has a great essay on this problem:

http://www.danwei.org/media_and_advertising/media_schizophrenia_in_china_b.php

There's also more coverage of this on Danwei by Joel Martinsen:

http://www.danwei.org/trends_and_buzz/cultural_trash_yesterday_and_t.php

Just read how preposterous Liu Binjie's comments are. It is clear where the responsibility lies.

[shibo77]

I think not being fluent in a foreign language is bad for the writers, however those that do become fluent in a foreign language will either emigrate out of the country or not take up writing Chinese literature at all. Most of the writers who write very well in their native language are not fluent in another language, within China or outside China. Being fluent in a foreign language widens one's perspective of course, but that is simply because the language is spoken elsewhere, and it shouldn't be a hindrance to one's own writing skills in one's own native language. Not having a global perspective and not writing well are two different things. Also, I don't agree with the author that because of the poor translation of foreign literature, Chinese writers will simply dismiss them as poor writing. Writers are the first people to realise that if one really wants to read a foreign classic, one should read it in its original unabridged and native form. I think there are "trash" materials from every language in almost every country's literary realm, millions of books are published every year, it is very important for the reader to sift out the majority and leave the best for personal reading, if you are really interested in a good read, you should look for a publishing house dedicated to publishing works of literature, for example The Writer's Publishing House publishes some good works and also scholarly material from the study of the classics.

-Shibo

[windreed]

I think the most important reason is people are too lazy to think these days.

Great works always require great experience and thinking. Look at those great writers in the history, no matter he is in China or other countries, he has to experience sth or think a lot about life and whatever. Language is only a tool. What can be left in history and read by later generations are only thoughts and ideas. Nowadays,a lot of people even writers don't do much thinking because they don't have to and the society doesn't require them to. Another reason is that our traditional culture has been challenged by western culture since the around 200 years ago. People's attraction has been redirected since then. We haven't gain enough time to rebuild a new or recombined Chinese culture and of course we can't just give up to western cultures.

[Lu]

I don't think speaking or not speaking a foreign language has anything to do with it. For one thing, there's still quite a lot of good literature written in the US, where the people are far more monolingual than in China. Also, good literature was written in China (and other countries) in the past, when people not only spoke no foreign languages, but had no access to foreign books whatsoever.

[gato]

I think Kubin, the German critic in question, pointed out a real problem with modern Chinese lit but gave some highly implausible reasons why the problem exists.

Good literature is a result of a particular genius for the language, empathy, sensitivity, braveness, creativity, worldly experience, among other things. The ability to read a foreign language and read foreign literature may add to one's worldliness and give one some ideas about different uses of the language, but I think on the whole they are not that important for making a great writer. There have been plenty of writers who have the gift of gab in the PRC, but the system tends to grind people down who show any empathy, sensitivity, braveness, or creativity.