Conversations

With Dissident Chinese Writers

(First published in Washington Post Book World, spring 2008)

Although both Ma Jian and Xiaolu Guo fall under the rubric of "dissident Chinese writers," in other ways they are unlikely figures to be sharing the same interview. Ma Jian is a 54-year-old man, for one thing, while Xiaolu Guo is a 34-year-old woman. MJ is Han while XG belongs to one of China’s 50 minority groups. In addition, they have different styles: he is prolix and sweeping, while she is more spare, personal, mischievous. Neither writes purely political novels -- both light up their pages with warm intimacies -- but for the purpose of this chat we stuck to politics.

DAR: You each live in the London, yet you both write about your homeland. Are you personas non grata in China?

MJ: My work has been banned in China since my first book about Tibet, "Stick Out Your Tongue" (1985), became the target of an enormous government campaign in which all copies were destroyed.

So you can’t return?

MJ: I can return but I can’t publish or speak out. It’s a grey area: If I meet with someone there they will be monitored.

Is it different for you, XG, being a filmmaker as well as novelist?

XG: Yes, film censorship is much stricter than literary censorship. There are only 200 official films a year, so none of my films have ever been shown there. My art criticism and film theory were received all right, and my two latest novels ("20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth," "A Concise Chinese-American Dictionary for Lovers") will be published there soon. I’m not sure if the sex will be censored.

It is possible to be a dissident writer within China?

XG: In name only. The party will assign you that classification, so those who call themselves dissident are [actually] part of the system. No independent stratum exists for a writer who wishes to speak out.

MJ: There is a tradition of artists being servants of the state, part of the propaganda machine. State-sanctioned professional writers have adapted to this situation; the way they survive is to avoid politics or write historical books, and even there corruption will be confined to the lower echelons. They have no freedom to talk about China as it really is.

XG: At the same time, the great works of Chinese literature historically were by artists who wrote critically from outside the system. These are the works that have lasting value.

Traditionally, American readers have had some difficulty in understanding the Chinese mentality. "Inscrutable" is the old-fashioned word that used to be applied. Why do you suppose that is?

MJ: The Chinese have many sides to them, at least three or four. They will show one face when having a drink in the bar, another at another time. It’s not duplicity, its many-sidedness, [a recognition that] the world is not black and white, as Americans prefer to think.

Is it a good thing for a writer to have this multi-dimensionality?

XG: It depends on who you are. It can be a powerful thing for one artist but for other artists it can damage and kill them. Dishonesty can become part of their inner personality.

Given our Western freedoms, can there be such a thing as a dissident writer here?

MJ: If you can speak and publish then you have your voice, that’s already a privileged position. You are not a dissident.

Neither of you were necessarily destined to be dissidents. In your youth, Ma Jian, you painted propaganda posters for the government, the same job held by your father, XG. When did you become aware that there were issues you needed to speak out against?

MJ: When I went to Tibet in 1985 I was struck by the disparity between propaganda and reality. There were [Chinese] soldiers with machine guns behind the plants. I came to understand that [Tibetans] live in a daily prison. The Chinese are restoring many monasteries, it is true, but they themselves destroyed them.

XG: My background is Muslim minority so that already gave me insight.

When you first encountered the West, were you surprised?

MJ: I had a sense of alienation even before Tiananmen Square (1989) but only a vague notion of what freedom was. When I first came to the West, I was overwhelmed by the possibilities of being able to speak my mind and have open discussions. The political fear in me evaporated and I felt my spirit open.

XG: It’s different for me because of our ages. My generation was born at the end of the Cultural Revolution, when any illusion or faith was smashed. During the open period of my growing up, we read Western books instead of traditional Chinese literature.

MJ: We read Western books growing up, too: Hemingway and Faulkner.

XG: But we read Charles Bukowski. For a young artist to read Bukowski, that made you an outcast. The rebelling became more about finding your inner voice, less burdened by historical responsibility.

So the difference between you is that one reads Faulkner and the other Bukowski?

MJ: That should be your title! It is very charming!

What would have happened to you if you’d stayed in China?

MJ: I would have been sucked in like other writers who stayed, writing crap commercial stuff. I wouldn’t have been able to maintain mortal integrity and freely express my vision of the world.

So is it lonely to be a Chinese writer in the West?

MJ: It’s a double loneliness: intellectual as well as physical. When I first came to the West I lost all points of reference, like a pig in a sheep pen: he won’t die but he won’t live happily.

XG: There is a comfort in being part of a communal society. We do everything together. But for me the void is not so intense because I can write in English.

What of the future?

MJ: Wherever we go in life, our destiny is always China. We could end up physically in Europe but spiritually, China.

On a personal note, if I may. I was also in Tibet in 1985, when you Ma were painting propaganda posters. How would you have reacted if you had met me at that time and place?

MJ: I grew up thinking America was the enemy, so I would have brought you to see one of my posters and invited you to share a bowl of dog food.

As some sort of inscrutable test?

MJ: Exactly.