《十個詞彙裡的中國》

Was intrigued by the friend's photo of her coffee, and especially the book she was reading. It was Yu Hua's 'China in Ten Words' (余華的《十個詞彙裡的中國》). Made a mental note to read it. Finally hauled ass to the bookstore to grab it, and a couple of other titles.

There's an English version, competently translated by Allan H. Barr. However, that cover illustration is so fugly till I refused to get that, even though it'd mean finishing the book hours faster. Bought the original version in Chinese, then blinked. It's first published in Taiwan, which means it's to be read in the traditional Chinese up-down instead of the simplified script left-to-right. FINE. This is going to be painfully slow, but I can do eeeeet.

The writer has chosen not to publish his book in China. The content is made up of his experience and criticism of the political and social systems, and of the leaders in the Chinese society. Yu Hua grew up through the Cultural Revolution. He uses ten words to write ten chapters/essays on- People, Leader, Reading, Writing, Lu Xun, Revolution, Disparity, Grassroots, Copycat, and Bamboozle. (人民、領袖、閱讀、寫作、魯迅、差距、革命、草根、山寨、忽悠) These ten words portray his understanding of China. The words are also products of his experiences and rigid definitions which have been thought as 'dogmatic'. (Read reviews here, here, here and here.)

In the Foreword, Yu Hua writes, ”我希望能夠在此將當代中國的滔滔不絕，縮寫到這十個簡單的詞彙之中；我希望自己跨越時空的敘述可以將理性的分析、感性的經驗和親切故事融為一體”. He tries to highlight the socio-economic gap between citizens now, the educated intellectuals, and the elite leaders, and their different perceptions of their country. He tries to portray the life in the provinces and how people's behavior is demarcated by the vastly different value systems of individual provinces.

It's not a China I want to know, yet it's the familiar China that keeps making news headlines in an untrustworthy, horrifying manner. His last 2 essays 'Copycat' (山寨) on counterfeit goods, untrained professionals pulling a fast one, etc, and 'Bamboozle' (忽悠) on the brazen tactics of duplicity, scams and fraudulent ways, do nothing to dispel that notion. In fact, they emphasize how this is the way of life in China so that people could get ahead. In a country of this many people, who really cares about the others?

My favorite essay/word is 'Lu Xun' (魯迅). In a nutshell, the author Yu Hua travels to Oslo for to deliver a speech at a conference, and somehow, links to a tail image of Norway's national airline- acclaimed 19th century Norwegian playwright and poet, Henrik Johan Ibsen (1828 - 1906). Several of Ibsen's works were considered scandalous in his day. (You'll be familiar with 'A Doll's House', 'Hedda Gabler' and 'St John's Night'.) In this book, Henrik Ibsen is juxtaposed to Lu Xun, whose name became more than a simple noun during the Cultural Revolution. Yu Hua hates Lu Xun, probably with a passion, and declares the ancient writer to be the only writer he hates. School textbooks during the Cultural Revolution, were restricted to reading the works of 'poet' Mao Zedong and writer Lu Xun. There were no other choices. Though hailed as a leader by Mao Zedong, Lu Xun never joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and eventually, his much-admired works that seemed to inculcate questioning of the norm, became the epitome of what the CCP feared. The ending of this chapter says a lot in its short lines:

我告訴挪威的聽眾：當一個作家成為了一個詞彙以後，其實是對這個作家的傷害。 

我的演講結束後，奧斯陸大學歷史系的Harald Bøckman教授走過來說：“你小時候對魯迅的討厭，和我小時候對易卜生的討厭一模一樣。”

This translation is my own, just for you readers interested in this post. :) 

I told the audience in Norway: when an author becomes a word, [lexicalized?], it is in fact damaging to the author. 

When my speech ended, Professor Harald Bøckman from the History faculty at the University of Oslo walked over and said, "Your hatred for Lu Xun as a child, is identical to mine for Ibsen."

And here is Allan H. Barr's official version, for propriety.

When a writer is reduced to a catchphrase, he is bound to be the worse for it. 

It did not come as a complete surprise, then, when a Norwegian historian came up to me after my talk and said, "I used to dislike Ibsen in just the same way."