Rebirth 2004: A lone figure in the literary world

Chapter 309: Unprecedented New Book Launch
"Happy magpie, happy new year! Dad went to the gold mountain to make money. He made millions of taels of gold and silver, and returned to build a house and buy land..."

After walking out of the "Sichuan Restaurant", the Taishan folk song that Boss Kuang recited to him for the last time kept appearing and echoing in his mind.

Just as Zhang Chao himself said, "Seeing is believing." This restaurant owner, who came to the United States as a teenager and settled in Chinatown for more than 50 years, provided Zhang Chao with a "Chinatown" that was completely different from what was described on the Internet or in books.

The origin, formation, prosperity and decline of "Chinatown" interpreted from the outside, whether academic research or media reports, are all based on the perspective of American national history and culture, emphasizing that the core of the "Chinatown" spirit is "confrontational", "conservative", "isolated" and "stubborn"...

But a few words from Boss Kuang woke Zhang Chao up——

"If the Americans don't pass the Chinese Exclusion Act, will the Chinese not build Chinatowns? Not only will they build them, but they will build them on a larger scale and with a larger population than they do now!"

“Chinatown is not America, but it is not China either. It is the imagined China and the imagined hometown of the Chinese who left China.”

“Don’t be surprised that Chinatown hasn’t changed in all these years. Since it is an imaginary city within a city, it will naturally remain in the imagination of the last generation of immigrants.”

"This restaurant was passed down to me by my cousin because his son is a lawyer. Now the person who is going to take over my business is not my son, but my son is working in the computer field. Those who left Chinatown never came back. What does this mean? We Chinese have a bright future!"
"So if Chinatown is gone, then it's gone. Young man, don't cry like those other writers. It's good that Chinatown is gone, because it means that all of us old, incompetent people are dead."

"As long as they have black hair, yellow skin, can speak Chinese, and two Chinese people shake hands, it is also a 'Chinatown'."

"Just treat this place as a tombstone. It's nice if someone comes to lay flowers occasionally. There's no need to talk about 'revival' - what's the good of 'revival'? After 'revival', will your descendants continue to open restaurants, laundromats, or run gangs?"

……

Boss Kuang's open-mindedness really opened Zhang Chao's eyes and refreshed his understanding of overseas Chinese.

In addition to hard work, diligence, and emphasis on education... these characteristics that have been talked about a lot, Zhang Chao also saw an extremely strong vitality - proud brute force, silent stubbornness, and paranoid stubbornness...

Is "Lin Rongsheng" in "Homeland" like this?

From San Francisco to New York, from an ordinary garment worker to the owner of a big store, what qualities did he demonstrate in this process?

How these qualities, through letters and words from fellow villagers, changed the spiritual world of Lin Xiaohai, his son, who was thousands of miles away across the ocean.

If the novel "Homeland" wants to show the migration history, family values ​​and hometown sentiments of the Chinese from a non-Western, non-American perspective as Zhang Chao envisioned, it is necessary to extract these characteristics from these living overseas Chinese.

The long and continuous national cultural heritage, which is unique in human history, is both a heavy spiritual shackle and fetter, but also a unique and powerful spiritual support and bond.

Leaving one's homeland and being attached to one's land, being tenacious and making compromises, being wise and righteous and being cold and utilitarian... this nation has experienced unimaginable hardships and also created unimaginable glory.

To present all of this in one work, especially in the form of a "science fiction novel", was an unprecedented challenge for Zhang Chao.

However, such a challenge only makes him feel excited now!

Zhang Chao did not rush back to the hotel, but went to "Ord St" here, found a barber shop, and spent $18 to get himself a one-stop "wash, cut and blow-dry" service.

Zhang Chao is about to attend a new book launch, so he needs to take care of his personal image.

While Zhang Chao was busy writing and preparing for a new book launch in New York, Yenching, and even the entire literary world, was also shaken by his three talks.

Although neither the publisher nor the TV station authorized any form of rebroadcast, thanks to the "Internet spirit", the three episodes were translated into Chinese and posted online on major video sites almost 12 hours after they were broadcast in the United States.

The first conversation with Stephen King, the "King of Horror Fiction," was generally felt to be "an old man and a young boy, a commercial exchange between two bestselling authors from China and the United States."

Later, the "mother tongue creation theory" caused quite a stir in public opinion, so it was generally treated coldly.

The second conversation with Chinese-American female writer Li Yiyun gave people a completely different feeling. Zhang Chao demonstrated strong cultural confidence and firm creative outlook, which completely refreshed the cognition of all followers.

The domestic literary community often looks up to Chinese writers who can write in English and are recognized by British and American book review circles. Although Li Yiyun's works have not yet been translated into Chinese after she became famous, the literary criticism community has already begun to study her and has many words of praise for her:

“Navigating the polarities of grief and resilience, loss and rebirth, with great candor and insight.”

“A talented novelist who tells stories with heart.”

"Her concern for her characters is like what we imagine God's concern for us: a self-annihilating, unsentimental love, a brutal concern..."

……

However, Zhang Chao sharply uncovered the halo surrounding this Chinese-American female writer who wrote in English, telling the world that behind these seemingly grand "masterpieces" was essentially just a girl who had not psychologically grown out of adolescence and was rebelling against her family.

Those profound reflections are more of a distorted psychological projection rather than truly grasping the core of the tragedy of fate.

Writing in English is a helpless escape, reflecting the fragile inner side of this "brave" woman.

During this process, Zhang Chao did not act aggressively, disregarding the other party's feelings, forcing the other party to "repent" or making the other party "angry", but gave enough understanding and tolerance.

To sum it up in eight words: gentle attitude, firm stand.

Although it is unknown what kind of changes Li Yiyun will eventually make in his own creations because of this conversation, Zhang Chao has undoubtedly sounded a wake-up call for the literary world - not all English writing and foreign recognition are worthy of worship. When evaluating a writer's work, it is best to take off the filter.

On the same night when the Chinese video of the second episode was released, Zhang Chao’s teacher Yu Hua published an article on his blog titled “I am a Writer”. Although he did not specifically mention Zhang Chao’s conversation, his words were full of support for his student.

When I first became a writer, people outside gave me many labels, the biggest of which was “the representative of avant-garde writers.” But I didn’t accept any of these labels.

I always think that I am a writer. If I have to add an attributive to this identity, I will only accept the two types of "Chinese" or "male". This is a part of me that I was born with and cannot get rid of. 】

【Because no writer will write for a genre. All genres, or certain defined writing styles, are limitations imposed by others for the convenience of studying me or my works.

A writer should not regard the limitations others place on you as limitations you place on yourself. 】

[When I first published "To Live" more than ten years ago, some friends were surprised because I was beyond their expectations. A pioneer writer in their eyes suddenly wrote a novel in the traditional sense. They didn't understand it.

I said, what's so incomprehensible about this? You can't call me a pioneer and I will just charge forward foolishly for the rest of my life, right? There is no such foolish writer in the world. 】

[My current writing principle is: when a certain topic fully excites me and makes me want to keep writing, the first thing I have to do is to find the most suitable narrative method for this topic as quickly as possible.

At the same time, I have to try to forget the narrative methods that I have mastered in my past writing, because they will interfere with my search for the most suitable narrative method.

……

Anyone with a discerning eye can see that the biggest problem with Li Yiyun’s writing is actually what Yu Hua tried his best to avoid – being defined and limited by others, and ultimately solidifying into a skilled but lacking in variety and vitality narrative, which is very dangerous for a writer.

Especially when this kind of "definition" and "limitation" often appears in the form of praise or intimidation, it has a particularly great impact on writers.

In addition to Yu Hua, many other people also participated in the discussion, but the focus was on the so-called "native language creation."

Some people have suggested that the "mother tongue" here does not necessarily refer to the modern Mandarin or modern Chinese. Many people's mother tongue is actually a variety of dialects. Using dialects to create works can often bring a different kind of vitality to the work.

However, some people objected, arguing that most of China's literary classics since ancient times were written in the form of "common language". Although there are occasional excellent works in dialect writing, they are very limited in terms of ideological depth and dissemination, especially in expressing the "great era".

At this time, on a small website called "Longtang.com", a netizen with the ID "Du Shang Ge Lou" was not convinced. He said that he was going to write a novel in Shanghai dialect, and he could also write about the life scenes and changes of the times of a generation of "Shanghai Ning"...

The third episode of the dialogue is what everyone is most concerned about. Both literary circles and ordinary book fans know more or less about the "discord" between Zhang Chao and Kiran Desai. Especially under the shadow of "racial discrimination", everyone is curious whether this dialogue will be as hot as "Mars hits the Earth".

The result was beyond everyone's expectations. Not only did Zhang Chao and Kiran Desai not have any language conflict, but Zhang Chao even dominated the conversation to a large extent.

Especially after Zhang Chao pointed out that the literary circles in Britain and the United States use awards to "tame" immigrant writers into a narrow subject trap and solidify the plight of immigrants into a "cultural landscape" to embellish their mainstream culture, the distraught expression on Kiran Desai's face made everyone sympathize with him.

At the same time, Zhang Chao's view also caused great controversy in the domestic literary circles.

A Chinese writer who just won the "National Book Critics Circle Award for Best Novel" did not thank the winner, but instead began to criticize the literary award for its implicit purpose of cultural domestication. What is he doing?
Shouldn't he have said, "Thank you to the National Book Critics Circle for giving me this award, and then I would also like to thank my book fans, thank you to my parents, thank you to my teachers, thank you..., thank you..., I love you..." - Oh, I went to the wrong set, this is not Hollywood.

At least you should show some minimum respect and talk about your literary ideals and creative concepts.

Why are you complaining about this?

So, will Zhang Chao accept this award or not?

All this will be revealed at the upcoming press conference for the second part of "The Great Doctor".

Time quickly came to the day of the press conference for the second season of "The Great Doctor", April 4th, US time, the second day of the Easter holiday.

The main building of the New York Public Library is a magnificent neoclassical building. Its gray granite exterior walls are solemn and dignified. There is a lion statue on each side of the front, named "Patience" and "Perseverance" respectively, which are said to be the symbol of the New York spirit.

At this moment, two huge "curtains" were hung on the huge square stone pillars on both sides of the main entrance of the main hall. The left one was mainly dark red, torn into tatters, with many bullet holes and charred burn marks on it, like a flag that had just experienced a brutal war;
The right side is pure white, with the silhouettes of the three protagonists of The Great Doctor, Sun Xi, Fang Sanxiang, and Yao Yingzi, wearing different doctor uniforms, arranged alternately from top to bottom. Each of them is looking into the distance, with compassion and determination...

In the open space in front of the two giant posters, there are two rows of display cabinets, which contain various common medical devices from the first half of the 20th century specially collected by the publishing house, as well as old photos reprinted from Chinese museums, libraries and archives.

Walking along the display cases, you can enter the main hall of the library, which is also the main venue of this conference. The towering stone columns, exquisite murals and magnificent ceiling decorations in the hall show strong European classical aesthetic characteristics.

This place has also been newly decorated. Two giant book models of "The Great Doctor" are erected in the middle of the hall, the first one at the back and the second one at the front.

In front of the book model is the podium and Zhang Chao's autograph booth. Below the podium, there are 10 rows of 200 seats on each side, for receiving media and book fans. The aisle in the middle is reserved for book fans.

Outside the library, hundreds of readers had gathered waiting to enter, excitedly discussing what kind of surprise Zhang Chao would bring them this time...

Zhang Chao stood in the preparation room on the second floor, looking through the window at the arrangement below. David Miller sighed, "I'm afraid only Rowling or Martin would have such a standard for publishing a new book."

Then he added: "Let me confirm the process with you again, and then we will present the awards first..."

Zhang Chao suddenly said: "I have a better idea. Why not put the award ceremony at the end? I have a surprise for everyone..."

(End of this chapter)