The Fat Years
Page 30
“harmonized” off the net by the Web police: A reference to Hu Jintao’s idea that China is a “harmonious society.” It has become a verb with a satirical meaning—as here, to suppress—on the Internet.
the SS Study Group: “SS” has obvious Nazi overtones for English readers, and Wei Guo’s group certainly has fascist tendencies of the kind many older Chinese establishment intellectuals warned against in 2010. “SS” probably stands for Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss, two Western thinkers from whom youthful ultranationalists derive antiliberal and statist ideas.
state tutors: An archaic term from the days of imperial rule, referring to the emperor’s tutors. Here it is used ironically to indicate the similarities between Chinese Communist Party rule and imperial rule.
the New Whampoa Academy: Whampoa, or Huangpu, is a district in Guangzhou where the Nationalist Party (KMT/Kuomintang) and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) military officers were trained from June 1924 to 1928, before the academy was shifted to Nanjing.
politics is the art of distinguishing between the enemy and ourselves: In Mao Zedong’s 1957 speech “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People,” Mao distinguished between two social contradictions: “between the enemy and us” and “among the people.” This kind of Maoist thought is still part of the Chinese Communist Party’s thought and practice.
the politics of the ancient Confucian Gongyang School: The Gongyang Zhuan places particular emphasis on the thinking of respected rulers of the period, promoting the “One Great Unity” and “Bringing Order out of Chaos” points of view. To criticize this school of ancient thought could be seen as criticizing the Communist Party dictatorship.
appreciated by the government: in Chinese, guojia means either “the nation,” “the state,” or “the government.” China is a Communist Party state in which the Communist Party is both the government and the state.
we must identify our enemies and let our hatred rise against them: This way of thinking fits in with China’s increasingly aggressive posture, for example, in claiming the South China Sea as their “core interest” and initiating conflict with Japan (September 2010) over the Senkaku islands. This mind-set resembles that of Hitler’s Germany from 1933 to 1945—with Hitler’s goon squads and stormtroopers—and Japan’s ultranationalist bushido spirit from the 1930s to 1945.
PS: The “SS” in the SS Study Group refers to two Germans: Leo Strauss and Carl Schmitt, as mentioned in the note to p. 64. Strauss was Jewish and Schmitt was anti-Semitic and antiliberal.
White areas: As opposed to Communist Red areas, these were under the Nationalist (Kuomintang) government at the time.
wanted to write only about new people and new things: “new people and new things” is a Cultural Revolution phrase referring to the Maoist Communist utopian idea of remolding human nature to produce a new type of human being.
the complete works of Jin Yong, Zhang Ailing, and Lu Xun: Jin Yong is the pen name of Louis Cha (b. 1924), GBM, OBE, the most famous writer of martial arts fiction, many of whose works are available in English translation. He was a cofounder of the Hong Kong daily Mingbao.
Zhang Ailing: Eileen Chang (1920–1995) was a Chinese modernist writer and is regarded by many to be China’s finest writer of the twentieth century. Her short stories are most highly prized, but her novels have also attracted critical acclaim, many being made into feature films. Zhang’s Lust, Caution was translated by Julia Lovell in 2007 and made into a popular film by the Taiwanese director Lee Ang in the same year. Her writing is characterized by its domestic detail and nicknamed “boudoir realism.”
Lu Xun: The pen name of Zhou Shuren (1881–1936), a celebrated Chinese writer. His twenty-six short stories have been repeatedly translated, most recently as The Real Story of Ah-Q, and Other Tales of China by Julia Lovell (Penguin, 2009). He is considered to be the founder of modern Chinese literature and was also lionized by Mao Zedong as a great “revolutionary.”
Maotai: A powerful liquor produced in Maotai in southwestern China. It is distilled from fermented sorghum.
You can drink it without any worries: A reference to the many bogus products in China, including liquor and wine, such as that discovered in a major wine scandal in December 2010.
He was seeking an absolute self-reliance: This is Chinese Communist Party propaganda and not exactly what Mao did. While rejecting the West, China relied heavily on Stalin and the Soviet Union, until Khrushchev’s Twentieth Congress speech against Stalin made Mao worry that he might also be criticized in a similar way. After that, Mao tried to dominate the world communist movement, declared that nuclear war would be an acceptable option if only half the Chinese people were killed, and so on. His actions led to a Sino-Soviet break when Khrushchev ordered all Russian technicians out of China.
Qiong Yao, Yan Qin, Cen Kailun, Yi Shu, and Zhang Xiaoxian: Qiong Yao (Ch’iung Yao, b. 1938) was the most popular and prolific romance-novel writer in Taiwan for over thirty years, from 1963 into the 1990s. Many of her works have been made into feature-length films and television series. In the 1990s, her work began to be read on the mainland and she became one of the bestselling writers in China. Yan Qin, Cen Kailun, Yi Shu, and Zhang Xiaoxian are all popular Hong Kong Chinese writers of romance fiction who are very popular on the mainland.
The Bible says that when the world is full of masters, then the end of our days is in sight: Matthew 24:14, “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all the nations, and then the end shall come.”
Yang Jiang: The wife (b. 1911) of the celebrated scholar Qian Zhongshu, and a major writer in her own right. Her Six Chapters from My Life “Downunder” is a classic memoir of their difficult life on a farm during the Cultural Revolution, including an account of their son’s suicide.
we Chinese are not happy: A satirical allusion to the popular 2009 book China Is Not Happy (or Unhappy China) by Song Xiaojun and others that encourages China to seek world hegemony.
inedia: The ability to live without food, i.e., to fast. Fang Caodi is referring to Buddhist fasting traditions.
Pangu: There are several myths about Pangu. In the prevailing one, Pangu (usually depicted as a primitive hairy giant with horns) emerged from a cosmic egg that had coalesced from the formless chaos of the universe. He set about creating the world, and separating Yin (the earth) from Yang (the sky).
Yandi: Another name for Shennong, the Divine Farmer, who was one of the mythological bearers of culture at the beginning of civilization. His main achievement, according to Han historians, was to have led humanity out of a state of hunting and savagery, toward agrarian utopia.
home church: China’s Christian population has swelled to around fifty million since the government began loosening controls on the practice of religion in the 1970s. Private gatherings have proliferated, and as the government requires Christians to meet only in officially registered places of worship, these are often cracked down upon by officials. The home was the original setting for the early church.
Mencius: Mengzi (Master Meng) is the Saint Paul of China. He upheld and greatly elaborated the philosophy of Confucius, as Paul did the religion of Jesus, and, in a sense, was the real inventor of Confucianism. He is most famous for the idea that man’s original nature is good, but it has to be taught to remain good.
the people’s Central Discipline Committee: The Chinese Communist Party’s internal policing organization, put in place because only the Communist Party investigates wrongdoing in the Communist Party.
old Laozi: Master Lao (the Old One) is the reputed founder of Daoism, an ancient Chinese tradition of philosophy and religious belief.
auntie and uncle: These words appear in Japanese in the original (obasan and ojisan) and are meant as terms of affection.
a Petöfi Club salon woman: Sándor Petöfi (1823–1849) was a Hungarian poet and leader of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. Petöfi circles or clubs were popular among intellectuals before the Hungarian Revolt of
1956. At various times in China, government or leftist leaders have denounced so-called Rightist groups as Chinese Petöfi Clubs.
We are all prepared to see the jade smashed to pieces: This means being prepared to die heroically rather than live in shame. It is a saying that dates from the seventh century: “A true man would rather be a shattered jade than a perfect pottery tile.”
Han: The name given to the vast majority (over 90 percent) of Chinese today. It is an ethnic term for a constructed “race” that is essentially, like the Europeans, made up of many “races.” The name comes from the Han Dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), the name of which came from the Han River.
a suspension of habeas corpus: The emergency situation described here has been the permanent situation under Chinese Communist Party rule ever since 1949, and still is. The British Parliament restored habeas corpus in March 1818. China has no habeas corpus law.
China’s Monroe Doctrine: The Chinese do not use the term “Chinese Monroe doctrine” (its application is the author’s), but it seems the Chinese party-state’s long-term plan is to surpass and replace the United States and European powers everywhere in the world. They would like to start by ejecting the Americans from East Asia, where they believe they should be the most important power, as they were in the imperial glory days. However, other nations in the area are keen to keep American military might in the area to defend them. The idea that the Chinese would make an alliance with Japan is pure fantasy—it would be a powerful blow against the United States.
Almost all of the economic planning described in He Dongsheng’s speech is accomplished or in the planning. China’s greatest successes have thus far occurred in Central Asia. They are also making headway in Africa and Latin America. Recently, the Chinese have begun to face the sort of anti-imperial, anticolonial resistance that Britain and France faced when they were imperial powers. He Dongsheng’s statements about making the RMB (renminbi) an international currency are, it seems, unlikely to happen.
basic agreement with recent works of nonfiction: See Mark Leonard’s What Does China Think? (2008), Richard McGregor’s The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers (2010), and Mark Lilla’s “Reading Strauss in Beijing: China’s Strange Taste in Western Philosophers” (The New Republic, December 8, 2010).
“an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one, the opposite of utopia”: Mac Dictionary definition of “dystopia.”
In a recent interview: Published in the Taiwan academic journal Sixiang (Reflexion, No. 17, January 2011). Translated by Josephine Chiu-Duke, from pp. 114 and 115.
China antagonized much of the world: See Minxin Pei, “2010 Was the Worst Year for Chinese Diplomacy Since 1989,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace pdf.
“Beyond economic and ecological indicators”: “The China Superpower Hoax,” Huffington Post, February 10, 2011.
reaction of the Chinese Communist Party state: Perry Link, “The Secret Politburo Meeting Behind China’s New Democracy Crackdown,” New York Review of Books blog, February 20, 2011.
Chan Koonchung was born in Shanghai and raised in Hong Kong. He has previously written several works of nonfiction, a novel, and short stories. This is his first novel to be translated into English. In 1976 Chan founded the influential City magazine in Hong Kong, where he was editor in chief and then publisher for twenty-three years. He lives in Beijing.
Michael S. Duke received his doctorate in Chinese from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1975. After thirty years of teaching, he is Professor Emeritus of Chinese and Comparative Literature from the University of British Columbia.
Julia Lovell teaches modern Chinese history and literature at Birkbeck College, University of London. She is the author of The Great Wall: China Against the World and The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China and writes on China for the Guardian, the Independent and the Times Literary Supplement. Her many translations of modern Chinese fiction include, most recently, Lu Xun’s The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China.
Table of Contents
Cover
Publisher Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Preface
A Note On Pronunciation
List Of Main Characters
Part One
1. Two Years From Now
2. Never Forget
3. From Spring To Summer
Part Two
1. Wandering Back And Forth
2. The Faith, Hope, And Love Of Several People
Part Three
Epilogue: A Very Long Night, or a Warning About China’s Twenty-first-century Age of Ascendancy
Translator’s Note
Translator’s Endnotes
About the Authors