Living in the West has the advantage of access to everything from good to bad as long as you have money, but one disadvantage is being somewhat cut off from Chinese literary scene. Thus I was excited when NYT recently talked about a Chinese living in Montreal having his novel translated to English published. His name is Xue Yiwei. He immigrated from China to Canada on a skill visa 15 years ago. He published about 13 works, with 10 in China, and is very popular in China but little known in the West. The recently translated book is called “Dr. Bethune’s Children”, and it excites literary world in the West. While no publisher in China after 7 years of effort dare to publish it because it deals with 2 taboo subjects of CR and TAM, I do hope China will allow it to be published soon. It is time to revisit those events 50 and 38 years later to show confidence and draw lessons from history.
After I read the article, I immediately downloaded the book from Amazon and finished reading it in 1 weekend. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in China or Chinese literature. Unable to get the Chinese edition here in New York, I ordered it from Hong Kong by mail, hopefully I can read it soon.
The author was asked by publisher in China to write a biography of Dr. Bethune as he has access to archives in Montreal. After studying the archives he was unable to write it, but instead wrote a series of letters to Dr. Bethune as one of his millions of children from China. The questions he asked deal with life and death, tragedy and comedy, public persona and private anguish, parents and children, sex and emotion, in other words, philosophical questions eternally asked by philosophers. He constructed 2 characters both ended tragically to symbolize the 2 events, yet he didn’t really blame the government directly but treated them as historically inevitable, just as Dr. Bethune must go to China and died there. He skillfully interwoven events and interactions from China to Canada, from 1938 to 1976 to make you feel real. The juxtaposition of his personal struggle against loneliness and Dr. Bethune’s loneliness makes it unforgettable. For I, Mr. Xue, and even President Xi are all Dr. Bethune’s children, and by inference also Mao’s children.
Nobel Prize for Literature has been very much a political game. I think only about 10% of the winners in last 60 years since WW2 are worthy the prize, certainly not the Chinese winners. After reading only one book by Xue Yiwei, I think he may truly deserve one.
It’s more than a week since the close of 19th Chinese Communist Party Congress. It’s obvious big news in China, with commentators explaining and expounding its significance and vision for the future. With the release of many documentaries before the opening showing the achievements during the past 5 years. (Those who are interested can easily access them from YouTube.)
For readers in U.S. who are interested in world affairs and gather their news from the main stream media it might as well nothing has happened. Obviously Trump and Weinstein scandals dominated the news. Even NYT and WP barely covered the events in Beijing. When they did spare some space to discuss it, it’s the usual suspects. Authoritarianism versus the exceptionalism of democratic West, even though daily news emanated from Washington D.C. belies the truth of total moral and political failures here. When those China experts from academic circles are quoted they mentioned the personnel changes in Politburo, the failure of anyone in the standing committee in the 50s, so that implies no successor to Xi was named, or Xi’s intention to serve longer than 10 years. And finally the military threat implied by a strong China, be it South China Sea or Asia in general.
After being here in U.S. for more than 50 years, it still caught me by surprise the ignorance displayed by Americans in science and geography, but the elites are of such low quality astonish me to no end. I have served in jury duties and attended small claim court. I find lawyers are ignorant of basic math, logic, and even common sense. Certainly unlike those lawyer shows on TV like Perry Mason. A country that produce Mark Twain, Jack London, and Edgar Snow now have few writers and philosophers that are valued. We might be in the terminal stages of the decline of Roman Empire. (U.S. Empire.)
For me, Xi’s message is obvious and magical. China Dream will become a reality. 2 fifteen years stages to reach prosperous strong SOCIALISM China by 2050. Emphasis on “Serve the People”, Mao’s calligraphy adorned all those documentaries. Marxism integrating with Chinese characteristic values. A green future with green covered mountains and clean waters are the real gold and silver mountains. Poverty elimination for shared prosperity for all. Any Chinese that knows Chinese history will applaud the ancient vision of clean non-corrupt officials serving the people. It may be beyond the understanding of those China experts based on individualism and not society in general.
Mainstream media were already conforming to America’s censorship towards any ‘unfriendly’ messages against them. Perhaps the last known frontier towards free speech is the internet and it is going down also. Recently representatives from Twitter, Google, and Facebook are called to Capital Hill because of ‘Russian Propaganda.’
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/facebook-twitter-google-reps-grilled-senate-about-russian-propaganda-n816121
Many Westerners grilled China for their censorship efforts towards Western Media but now America is doing the same. While it is understandable that China censors news that is anti-China, these American internet companies were grilled not necessary because of Anti-America news.
Most ‘themes’ of the news were about content supporting Texas secession movement Anti-Muslim Jesus for Trump, Miners for Trump, and etc… were nothing about Russia at all. These ‘ads’ were blamed for trying to separate America but it is no different than what Trump was doing all along during his campaign during 2016, but Trump were a stronger voice to separate America than what this ‘Russian Propaganda’ could ever do.
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