From the Cultural Revolution to the post-Mao era, the same experience of rusticated life, however, has received different literary treatment under different political circumstances

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Lai Fong Leung

Three Modes of Representation in Zhiqing Fiction

The "Up to the mountain and down to the countryside" movement from the late 1960s to the

mid-1970s which involved the rustication of nearly twenty million Chinese urban educated

youths (Zhiqing) has no doubt become the most important source of literary creation for

contemporary young writers. From the Cultural Revolution to the post-Mao era, the same

experience of rusticated life, however, has received different literary treatment under different

political circumstances. Evidently, Zhiqing Fiction has gone from the highly controlled

superheroic mode of propagandistic pseudo-literature to the denunciatory mode of mimetic

literature and then to the symbolic mode of modernistic literature.

I have chosen three works to illustrate these three modes of expression in Zhiqing Fiction.

All of them were written by former rusticated youths who are now well-known writers in

China. The first is Zhang Kangkang's The Demarcation (Fenjie xian) published in 1975, the

second is Zhu Lin's The Path of Life (Shenghuo de lu) published in late 1979 and the third

is Kong Jiesheng's The Big Jungle (Da linmang) published in late 1984. Coincidentally, these works are almost five years apart in their dates of publicafion, and hence they can represent the three stages of development in Zhiqing Fiction.

The Demarcation exemplifies the highly politicized works from the Cultural Revolution in

which rustication is presented as a revolutionary movement. The protagonist is portrayed as

a superhuman hero who leads other enthusiastic youths overcoming nature and struggling

against "class enemies" and "bourgeois thought" under the "guidance" of the Party. The Path of Life represents works from the literary "thaw" of 1979 and 1980 in which the negative side of rusticated life is exposed. The "politically backward" youths who need to be punished and

reeducated in Cultural Revolution fiction have become chief characters; and the villains are

no longer "spies", "class enemies" or "revisionists", but local cadres. One dominant theme

is the chief character's struggle for freedom in the oppressive milieu. The Big Jungle

represents those works from the mid-1980s in which the rustication theme is brought to a

higher artictic dimension through the use of symbolisms and more varied characterization and

structure. There are no obvious heroes and villains, and nature is not merely presented to be

overcome in order to show Party victory but carries many levels of meaning. The treatment

of rusticated life is not a simple eulogy or denunciation, but a synthesis of both. It is depicted metaphorically as ashes out of which a phoenix is reborn.

Yuan-huang Tsai

Narrative SelfReferentiality in Contemporary Chinese Fiction on Taiwan

For half a century or so readers and writers on Taiwan prefer to consider literature

representational, aimed at an imitation of the reality out there. Social realism has been a

predominant literary expression since the May Fourth Movement of 1919 and unseemly

perpetuated the destitute novelistic form based on traditional narrative techniques. Recentiy

writers like Ch'i-teng-sheng -t'^äi, Huang Fan lUL, and Chang Ta-ch'un ?5:^# begin

to experiment successfully with a new fiction that embodies authorial self-consciousness. This new fiction represents attempts at a rejuvenation of the novelistic form and a philosophical investigation into the concept of "reality" against the limitations of mimetic theory.

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The faith in the potency of language to represent the extemal world has led writers to assume the role as champions of social reformations. Likewise, the common readers are so inveterate in their belief in the power of language to offer in simulation a picture of the extemal world that they expect writers to mimic social reality. There is nothing wrong to ask a writer to be

the mirror of social conscience for the general public; nevertheless writing as an art is

degraded and becomes of no concem by and by.

In mid-1970s the cult of the "Back to Soil"-literature {hsiang-t'u wen-hsüeh Ä±^§) reduced narrative art to stark rigidity. As a result, the authorial-1 was often confused with the

narrator-I. Fiction that could merge with reportage was estimated over any novelistic

renovation: formalist experiments were denounced at the expense of social content. This one¬

sided view of the linguistic construct in fiction was so engrained in the frame of reference shared by both the reader and the writer that new dimensions of narrative feat (an unreliable narrative, for instance) were literally alien to their mentality. The aesthetic of a razzle-dazzle

narrative tour de force (e.g.. Ford's TTie Good Soldier, Nabokov's Pale Fire, Fowles's The

French Lieutenant's Woman) and the Borgesian magical realism (or that of Garcia Marquez)

was unheard of

Over the last three years, however, bold new experiments have begun to appear. In The

Letters of T'an the Beloved (T'an-lang te shu-hsin P^M(^^ia), Ch'i-teng-sheng employs

the time-honored form of epistolary fiction to record his stmggle as novelist. Through his

narrator-protagonist T'an the Beloved, the author seeks an emancipation of the novelistic form from classical realism. Disguised as T'an's billets-doux addressed to his girl friend, each part of the narrative takes the form of a diary entry and thus helps unfold the lover's personal crisis.

Chang Ta-ch'un, on the other hand, explores the retellability of history. In a short story

entitled "The Walker" (Tsou lu jen ifeföA) and a novel in progress To Stab a Horse (Ts'ü ma S!l,t§), he renders out of some deadened facts a subjective fiction that invites critical scmtiny. A more radical trial is made by Huang Fan, who substantiates the idea that writing is to create a Spielraum, a parodic lexical playground that awaits the reader's participation to secure a meaningful configuration.

These writers provide an altemative to the threadbare realistic mode of expression. Although a just estimation of their contribution remains to be made, the consolation they offer to the young intelligentsia in this island nation is too significant to be overlooked.

J.S. LiN

Rise Above the Ashes: "Nu Ts'ai" and "Jen Tao Chung-nian"

This paper explores two outstanding contemporary Chinese stories, "Nu T'sai," and "Jen Tao

Chung-nian," which deal with two morally upright but socially innocent protagonists for

whom the authors, Tung-fang Po and Ch'en Jung, created a gallery of homodiegetic narrators

who are artistically designed to bravely voice the authorial concem over the deplorable

characters' tragic suffering. The philosophical positions assumed and narrative modes invoked in these works continue the traditional Chinese literary pragmatism.

Formalistically speaking, after a few very brief opening remarks, the heterodiegetic narrator

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in "Nu Ts'ai" immediately retreats to the far background and becomes, along with his fellow Chinese exchange students, an audience, leaving a second character at the same scene to take over the narration in the autodiegetic mode. The formal realism created in the story projects a sense of historiosity which is reminiscent of the traditional Chinese Ch'uan-chi tales.

The autodiegetic physiologist-narrator continues the story with a six-line paragraph

specifically devoted to expound Pavlov's "Theory of Conditioned Reflex,"and to attribute the

slave-protagonist's tragic suffering to the notorious bygone feudal order which has

conditioned him in his earlier years. The ideological stance revealed herein should be

interpreted not so much as the physiologist-narrator's oversimplification of human affairs (as often criticized in the fictional world, i.e., Wang Wen-hsing's "Ming-yun fi Chi-hsien") as his staunch opposition to unquestioned acceptance by any human being of a sin uncommitted hitherto, namely, inborn slavery.

Phraseologically , the Chinese word "Nu-tsai" has an inherent derisive connotation. The author

powerfully enriched the story, however, by tuming the protagonist into a sympathetic

character through delineating his steadfast stmggle to redeem his human dignity which is

deprived even before he is bom. The respect and love incurred appropriately override any

negative mannerism traditionally possessed by the slave-type protagonist, i.e.. Ah Q. The

irony achieved is remarkably powerful.

"Jen Tao Chung-nian" is primarily narrated by a sympathetic soft voice in the heterodiegetic

mode with Dr. Lu Wen-ting, the ophthalmologist-protagonist as the focalizer, through whose

consciousness or semiconsciousness the narrative is filtered. The narration is particularly

characterized by a narrative mode which smoothly merges the voice of the heterodiegetic

narrator and the mental process of the protagonist into a single f)erspective which is realized

often as an involuntary outburst of sigh that generates effects of poignant immediacy and

quickly arrest the reader's empathy.

Like Chiao Ta and Liu Hsiang-lian in the "Dream of Red Chambers," Ch'en Rung created a group of memorable homodiegetic narrators in her "Ren Tao Chung-nian," among them the chief internist, the Director of the hospital, the Chief Ophthalmologist, the wife of the Vice-

Minister, the patients, and Dr. Lu's good friend-colleagues, Drs. Liu Hsueh-yao and Chiang

Ya-fen.

Indeed, it is through Liu Hsueh-yao, who, acting like the drunk Chiao Ta in "Hung-lou

Meng," speaks up honestiy in intoxication and in ironic as well as sarcastic tone on behalf of the middle-aged intellectuals to voice their strong criticism of the bleak social milieu in Mainland China.

While Ch'en Jung's supple style of narration is at its best in depicting the gentle-hearted

ophthalmologist's simplistic inner life, it imparts a tinge of meekness and serenity in her

characterization of the said ophthalmologist-protagonist, and imbues the narrative with an

immense tragic relief in symbolic terms. Its invocation of an agelong concem over man's

stmggle in a rigid, socio-political order is extremely effective.

Both Tung-fang Po and Ch'en Jung seem to draw literary inspirations from the similar wealth

of resources in terms of philosophical persuasions and narrative modes: through their

homodiegetic narrators, the implied authors honestiy speak from the traditional Chinese

intellectual's conscience. If there is any hope of improvement for mankind, their works seem

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to imply we ought to leam from the tragic sufferings inflicted upon the innocent victims, illiterate or literate alike. Only by so doing, could we rise above the ashes and cherish the hope of arriving at the eventual harmony.

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Mamoru Chishö Namai

On Säntaraksita's Refiitation of <Ahetuväda>

Säntaraksita on Jätakamälä XXIII. 27

Äryasüra (4 C), a well known Buddhist poet, refuted an < ahetuvädin >, i.e. those who do

not admit any cause of things, in Jätakamälä XXlll. The new point of issue brought by him

into the Buddhist tradition is this: the refutation was made from a logical point of view, and

it conveys some problems of logic which introduced new arguments on the meaning of

"hetu". Äryasüra criticized, "One who denies the causes by reasoning, does he not demolish his own tenet? Or, if he uses reasoning, what could he do with his tenet not supported by any reason?" (v. 27). Säntaraksita (8 C), with later advanced Buddhist logic, investigated this criticism again in Tatrvasamgrcdia IV, answering to an < ahetuvädin > who argued against

Äryasüra. Kamalasila (8 C.) quoted this objection in Tattvasarngrahapaüjikä as follows:

"Even when one asserts with reason that there is no cause, why should he demolish his own tenet? Because what he asserts is an indicative reason (jfiäpakahetu), while what he denies is the productive cause (kärakahetu)." This counter charge could be expected by Buddhists,

because they already knew about these problems concemed with the difference of

<vyanjanahetu> and < kärakahetu) in the tradition of Buddhist logic.

Säntaraksita's criticism of < ahetuväda > is not only answer to the objection, but also explains both the < hetu-sädhya > relationship and <hetu-kärya> relationship, supported

by Dharmakirti's (7 C.) criticism as found in Pramäiiavärttika II.179ff. The theory of

< anupalabdhi > is also mentioned as opposed to the opponent who states < nonexistance of a thing > by mere < nonperception of the thing >.

When we analyse the process of reasoning, there should be found the mle of causality.

Äryasüra pointed out that < ahetuvädin > could not infer by a reason that < all things have no cause > . In this case, the assertion (pratijüä) of the opponent is < there is no cause> , however this knowledge of < having no cause > (sädhyä) is actually derived from the reason (sädhana). Äryasüra criticized that < ahetuvädin > could not deduce the assertion by the reason of < nonperception of cause >. In this case also, the new knowledge of < not having cause > is derived from the knowledge of non-perception of cause. So in these two cases the

deduced knowledge depends upon each of the causes. The first is argued in Jätakamälä

XXIII. 27, and the second is mentioned in Jätakamälä XXIII. 29, and treated by Dharmakirti

in Pramäriaviniicaya 1.2, when he opposed Bärhaspatya's <pratyaksäikapramänaväda> .

Säntaraksita seems to have tried to integrate these traditions of argument.

The argumentation was formulated by Kamalasüa as follows (transi. by G. Jha):

Those things whose production is restricted to occasions when certain other things are there must be regarded as < having cause> . For instance, one's own cognition of the

probandum which appears only when the probans is there.

The same is the case with the lotus and other things.

(Hence they must be regarded as < having cause >).

This is based upon the reason of the nature (svabhävahetu).

In the light of the advent of Säntaraksita, ÄryaSüra's argument comes to be significant in its tme meaning. Following after this criticism of Säntaraksita, some commentators interpreted the Äryasüra verses.

A. Wezler/E. Hammerschmidt (Hrsg.): Proceedings of the XXXII International Congress for Asian and North African Studies, Hamburg, 25lh-30lh August 1986 (ZDMG-Suppl. 9).