The Harvard-Yenching Institute looks just like any of the other red brick buildings around Harvard. Except it also has two stone lions—door guardians in some Asian traditions—on either side of the path. Upon entering the building, I see a marble staircase that is pristine white, like the walls and hallway around it. The building is quiet, with only the faintest of voices coming from the Yenching Library. Each time someone walks across the tiled floor or a door opens, the sound echoes lightly in the halls. The space simultaneously feels sterile, like a hospital, and sacred, like a temple. Walking towards Professor David Der-Wei Wang’s office feels like a pilgrimage in itself.
That is, until he opens his office door somewhat frantic and apologetic because he needs another five minutes. He hasn’t had lunch yet. When he opens the door again he’s holding a container of Maruchan Cup Noodles. A sense of sympathy rises in me because he was eating ramen that many students avoid unless they have no options left. I wish I had Korean Shin Ramen to offer, a notch better.
Professor David Der-Wei Wang is the Edward C. Henderson Professor of Chinese Literature at Harvard and also has a joint appointment at Harvard in Comparative Literature. He is kind and welcoming, and makes me feel at home despite the earlier awkwardness about the noodles. (Professors of high esteem are human too.) His office is open and filled with natural light, which makes it a comfortable space compared to the immaculate hallways. A look around at his bookshelves gives a glimpse into his wide research interests in modern and contemporary Chinese fiction, late Qing drama, comparative literature theory, modern Taiwanese fiction, and Asian American and diasporic literature.
Wang came to the U.S. from Taiwan many years ago to pursue a M.A. and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at the University of Wisconsin at Madison after completing his B.A. in Foreign Languages and Literature at the National Taiwan University. Speaking about his love of Comparative Literature, Wang told me, “I thought it was fun. In a way it is a romantic vision to be able to compare and contrast and learn text from various cultural, national, and even continental resources.” His training in foreign literature and cultures laid the foundation for his future work and led him to realize that he couldn’t study Chinese literature independent of world literature. He says, “…[I] actually couldn’t do justice to studying Chinese literature without referring to world literature, because by nature, modern Chinese literature would be nothing without world literature.” He explains that the modern Chinese novel only came into being after the introduction of the European novel, which argues for the inherently Anglo-European nature of the discipline.
Wang is a lively conversationalist. Our discussion covers authors such as Mo Yan, one of the most prominent contemporary writers in China today. We talk about the literature and politics of his 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature and what that means for Chinese writers. We also discuss a Boston local and one of his good friends, the Boston University professor Ha Jin, who is currently exiled from China despite being a popular author on the mainland. We discuss the “Chinese-ness” of the Chinese-French émigré Gao Xinjian, currently based in Paris. Gao won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2000, but is mostly unknown in Mainland China due to ideological differences with the government. Speaking of these authors, Wang discusses the role of politics in literature, going beyond politics to note the continuing power of literature through today’s new forms, such as the internet novel.
Wang asks students of literature to look at literature beyond its established genre borders and in terms of its future potential. Unlike other China scholars I am aware of, he is optimistic about the role of literature in China despite the prevalent censorship, and I must say his optimism is contagious. Returning to the interplay of Chinese politics and Chinese literature at the end of our interview, he says, “Politics is a lively and even somewhat literary pursuit….” He calls the Chinese Dream—a Chinese version of the “American Dream”—mere poetic propaganda and considers censorship as just political literary analysis. The government can use literary elements and the people can use them as they wish as well. It’s fascinating to see where literature has been in the crossroads of the world and the national and in Western and Eastern perspectives. In the end, Wang tells us to “use our imagination” to define where it will go in the future.
EDITED TRANSCRIPT
Victoria Yu (VY): Speaking of the difference of Western and Chinese notions of world literature, while reading world lit, I feel that its performance. You have to portray a particular image of this country’s life and culture for it to be processed by the rest of the world because the ones choosing what goes into world is still coming from an Anglo-European lens.
Professor David Der-Wei Wang (DW): It’s all too true because comparative literature as a field originated with a continental approach to “literature”. Even literature as a discipline emerged in the 18th century aesthetics with Schindler and Goethe. Secondly, you talk about the uneven development of world lit, inevitable, the orient, Asia, or any say, culture or nation of the second or third world will inevitable have to succumb to the paradigm to world literature with the world – first and foremost – based in continental Europe. That’s something literary critics of the past twenty-some years have tried very hard to take issue with.
Edward Said talked about Orientalism. Either orientalism is projecting the image/vision of the orient or self-orientalizaiton. China is not the only case of one that has to subject itself to tokenism. People have been criticizing tokenism for a very long time. You recognize it, now how do you overcome this fixation od and obsession with certain tokens such China has to have only one Lu Xun and Japan has to have one Kawabata Yasunari. So that’s one way of critiquing it. Fredric Jameson of Duke University, a famous Marxist theoretician, wrote about nations developing their national literature around the notion of national allegory. Jameson meant to be supportive to third world countries, but when he claimed that third world countries could only develop in national allegories, he inevitable worked himself into a corner.
Why can’t we develop our own modernist writing? Why can’t we develop some kind of writing Western writers even cannot imagine, even cannot allegorize, even cannot decipher what we are up to. “National” and “allegory” are both very Western terms. “Nation” was first conceived by Westerners and solidified by Westerners. “Allegory” is biblical and religious. I found it very questionable. So back to the issue of tokenism and it is still an issue of debate. It can work for someone or country’s interest. But sometimes it can be bad.
VY: On the topic of tokenism, I remember when Mo Yan won the 2012 Nobel Literature Prize. Activists blamed him for not advocating for the release of Liu Xiaobo and some literary critics were saying his writing wasn’t good enough.
DW: Mo Yan has been under so much pressure that he couldn’t produce anything new after 2012. That kind of tokenism was imposed upon him by foreign media and domestic expectations. It fits self-orientalization and self-exotification. However, I never understood why the Chinese were so eager about the Nobel. I bet 99% of the Chinese population has never read Mo Yan or even heard of him before 2012. I don’t believe Xi Da Da has ever any of his books.
VY: I remember suddenly his books were in every bookshop and even my mother was gifted a whole set of Mo Yan’s works, so now I have everything at home.
DW: In a way, I feel pleased – better than not winning the award. Chinese pride is being sort of being satisfied and Mo Yan did deserve international recognition. Literature still enjoys some kind of mysterious prestige in China, which is not bad although people don’t read about it. But people want to imagine how great literature really is. That’s a kind of tokenism. That’s what I mean about the proactive sense. The image of literature is really sacrosanct.
VY: So another thing I’ve been thinking about with the Nobel Prize is how literature is China’s push in recent years of the Chinese Dream, how the government has branded Mo Yan as the “First Chinese Nobel Literature Prize Winner” when there was Gao Xinjian before him in the year 2000.
DW: Gao Xinjian is definitely a Chinese writer. He wrote in Chinese. He’s still writing in Chinese. But for one thing, he didn’t and doesn’t agree with the Chinese government agenda. He was stigmatized primarily because of ideology. Literature is never that clean.
VY: I didn’t even know Gao Xinjian existed until I did an independent study to figure out the whole politics behind the Nobel 2012 situation.
DW: Exactly. I remembered Chinese media, backed by the government, came out to say when Gao Xinjian won in 2000 that the Nobel Prize was the most disgusting kind of award to the people of China. This is an award first established by European “Capitalists” and enterprises. And then in 2012, you read the Foreign Ministry’s announcement after Mo Yan’s winning of the Nobel Prize. This time, the Chinese government was thrilled. Either is extreme. If you really are confident in the power of your country, you don’t really bother about either praises or condemnations.
So to go back to where I was, literature was suddenly put on the spot. That’s great. It becomes something for contestation, for debate – better than nothing.
VY: Right. We briefly mentioned Ha Jin in the beginning and I sometimes feel that there aren’t a lot of writer that are who emigrated out of China that are well known. I can only think of Ha Jin and Yan Geling.
DW: Ha Jin, particularly, as an Anglophone writer, is the one and only Chinese writer who could really make it into the arena of English writing in the United States. 99% of his work touches upon political issues but definitely not radical. But Ha Jin is still denied entry visa back to China for political reasons. Which is really ridiculous because on one hand, the People’s Literature featured him.
VY: I remember growing up reading some of his work.
DW: Yeah. The People’s Literature chief was just here not long ago. When he was here, the delegation really wanted to meet Ha Jin. Isn’t it funny that People’s Literature, as the number one national literary magazine, took the trouble to come here and meet with Ha Jin while another ministry, the Foreign Ministry, said, we don’t really want to let him in. It’s totally self-contradictory and it’s very sad for Ha Jin that even when his mother was dying the US Department of State, even the senators of both Massachusetts and DC sort of petitioned on his behalf, but no he shouldn’t be allowed to go back to China.
Is China penalizing a writer or is China penalizing itself? It’s really stupid, and bad, and negative image. They knew he was famous and that he wasn’t that harmful to 和谐社会 (harmonious society) and he somehow has been “harmonized”. So to be a writer, this is the other side of the story. It’s not easy.
Mo Yan has come a long way because he wants to be creative and independent. On the other hand, he wants to sell his books in China. And now he’s been made the Vice-Chair of the Writer’s association. Foreign media immediately came out and called him a sell-out. I’m very sympathetic to Mo Yan. It’s definitely easier to stay away in a foreign country than it is to find the line to balance censorship, knowing the history, and what the government can do. Indeed, while we celebrate Mo Yan, we don’t want to forget about Liu Xiaobo as you mentioned. Which is also a peculiar case of politics.
As someone who works in the field of Comparative Literature, I really want to address the multilayered contexts. It seems the government is afraid of literature. What does Liu Xiaobo have? And the Chinese Dream as you pointed out, it’s a very literary concept. The national leader is using literary rhetoric for national propaganda. Why not? But on the other hand, Mo Yan is a very intriguing story. So I have enormous respect for him. I was back in China last summer. Life for him really hasn’t been that great for him while trying to represent the country.
VY: It is a very hard country to represent.
DW: But as a literature student, you don’t want simplify questions like the questions you are raising. Instead, I think our capacity is to make everything as messy as possible. That’s our duty. We always think different kinds of thoughts. We somehow just think in multiple threads, which we should take pride of.
VY: What are ways for us make it more public knowledge so people can think about literature and the people that are representing it in a more comprehensive way?
DW: Well in China all writers are complaining about book sales going down. It’s never easy to be a writer, but believe me, it is easy to be a writer in China if you have a membership to a writers’ association. Because you have a minimum salary, you have all these social welfare benefits – not here. Here, you’re on your own. But I was trying to be sarcastic.
It is definitely more difficult to be a writer in China because to write is to seek freedom, to project yourself into the world of the imagination. However, you also have equally imaginative censors, who read between the lines and know your intent. So in that sense, when you talk about the politics of literature, I would say that’s a part of Chinese cultural history, but each period has its own way of policing literature. And each period has its own way of liberating the power of literature. You really learn how to appreciate the power – this is the perfect way to end, actually.
Literature is going strong. Just imagine how many people are creating internet novels? Just think about how many people are writing these Weibo blogs and Weixin micro-blogs, and taking on weird personas. Language has never been so active. So don’t confine yourself to the four genres of the stupid, narrow definition of literature. With Internet culture, everything has become possible. So I think the Chinese people try to have the mediation of literature through 文 (literature-ness) or even upbringing. So now, we’re at the other side of the story in virtual space. There is the ability to manifest.
VY: That’s good to hear because a lot of people I speak to whom study China have very negative views of Chinese censorship and the Internet.
DW: We can address that part but I’d rather address the liberating power of literature. Because we know the oppressive part, we know it too well. When we talk about China, we talk about it in such a socialist, communist country of totalitarianism da da da. But as a literature promoter here, when I speak on behalf of China given the fact that I actually come from Taiwan, I really don’t buy the ideological thing of China. But I think there must be an alternative way to address the issue – much more polemic and interesting.
VY: Well thank you so much and as a student of literature and international relations, I feel much more balanced.
DW: No problem, and again, politics is a lively and even somewhat literary pursuit as well. Use you imagination.
