MCLC: Pathlight and Peregrine (12,13,14)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: jiwei xiao <jiweixiao at gmail.com>
Subject: Pathlight and Peregrine (12)
*******************************************

Ron, my comment was not directed towards you. I did not see your post
until this morning, as everyone else did on the list. Acutally I think we
draw the same conclusion without knowing what each other was writing, that
is, the context is not irrelevant to the discussion about the reception of
a writer, espcially in Gao Xingjian's case.

I realize that I probably sounded too condescending in my previous posts
urging Bill and Lily to not dismiss the issue of Gao's French citizenship
and other aspects of the larger context. My post might have offended some
people on the list. But I did feel that Julia Lovell, who was referred to
at the start of this debate, would be a good reference on this particular
issue. I also hope that before joining the fray, we could all follow the
thread to avoid miscommunications. By insisting on the "fact," I am not
stating my own position. So why take this as an evidence of my sympathy
for the Chinese government's position? The reception of Gao Xingjian in
China should and can not be reduced to the government's official line. I
was actually thinking more about Chinese intellectuals and writers, how
they see Gao Xingjian. You can't say that all of them have been
brainwashed by the government--that would be a convenient argument.
Anyway, I think the misunderstanding that we are having now on this list
sometimes has nothing to do with intelligence, but bias.

And I find that, in arguments and debates about China today in the West,
the Chinese government is already a dead horse. You can't beat it more
dead. So maybe we should turn our attention to something else that's going
on--the position of Chinese (or Chinese-speaking) writers in the world
literary system and how the workings of that system affects how they write
and how they are received in China and the West. That interests me more,
personally. Here I consider the word "citizenship" no longer as just a
term of legal status. But I will say no more (unless you make me:)) --so
many others know more about this and argue better. Plus, this luxury of
posting so frequently and explaining oneself on the list is soon to be
gone.  

Jiwei

===========================================================

From: Bill Goldman <billgoldman at mac.com>
Subject: Pathlight and Peregrine (13)

Jiwei Xiao wrote: "That Gao Xingjian was not a Chinese citizen in 2000 is
not a "point" but a fact. This fact has definitely affected how his
winning of the Nobel Prize was and is received in China. You have  to ask
why it is so--someone wrote a whole book about it. Maybe there is a more
complicated story than you'd like to think."

I don't know what I "like to think", though hope it is whatever is true.
Whatever anyone would "like to think" about the motives of the Nobel
judges in awarding Gao the Prize when he was settled in France and as it
were an 'established' dissident, the fact is that the work for which he
was awarded it had been written in China when he was a citizen of China
and its subject-matter was/is the thoughts and customs of Chinese citizens
who lived in the remote Chinese countryside. As I understand it, the award
of the Prize was initially welcomed in China, until the word went out from
the Party that it was disapproved of (as Gao refused to be told by the
Party what to write and what not to write). Overnight, the chorus of
welcome from Chinese universities changed to silence or hostility. Gao's
"story" has been "complicated" by political interference from an
authoritarian government, as anyone can see who looks into the matter. A
better idea might be to read Ling Shan and decide what one thinks of it,
irrespective of what some Party apparatchik says.

Bill

============================================================

From: Jon Kowallis (j.kowallis at unsw.edu.au)
Subject: Pathlight and Peregrine (14)

How can we forget about Nobel Prize winning author Liu Xiaobo in all this
technical discussion about who is and who isn't Chinese? I am Australian
but I am also American. Nationality, culture, identity and heritage can
never merely be boiled down to a legal question of citizenship.

Jon