MCLC: Han Han vs. Fang Zhouzi

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: anne henochowicz <annemh at alumni.upenn.edu>
Subject: Han Han vs. Fang Zhouzi
******************************************************

Source: Danwei.com 
(2/1/12):http://www.danwei.com/blog-fight-of-the-month-han-han-the-novelist
-versus-fang-zhouzi-the-fraud-buster/

Han Han the novelist versus Fang Zhouzi the fraud-buster
By Joel Martinsen

It’s been an exciting two weeks on China’s microblog scene. Megablogger,
rally racer, and novelist Han Han has been defending himself against
science writer Fang Zhouzi’s charges that he didn’t write some of his most
famous work.

Han Han (韩寒) closed out 2011 with a trio of overtly political blog posts
in which he laid out his views on revolution, democracy, and freedom.
Critics and supporters alike were surprised by the conservative stance
exhibited in the three essays, which seemed to be at odds with Han Han’s
track record of championing the rights of the general public against the
selfish interests of the wealthy and corrupt. Nationalist-leaning
commentator Liu Yang (刘仰) even suggested that the essays were written at
the behest of democracy advocates and foreign interest groups in an
attempt to step back from their open advocacy of a color revolution in
China while laying the groundwork for further meddling in the future.[1]

While Liu Yang’s argument received little mainstream attention, another
ghostwriting charge sparked the giant flame war that consumed Chinese
social media during the Spring Festival holiday week and culminated in a
Lawsuit.

According to Mai Tian (麦田), a blogger and tech entrepreneur, it was an
earlier transition away from personal issues and petty flame-wars and
toward social commentary that led him to suspect that Han Han the high
school dropout race car driver wasn’t the blog’s real author.[2] Mai Tian
bolstered his argument with schedule data that purported to show that many
of Han Han’s posts had been made during or shortly before races. Critics
countered that Han Han did not necessarily need to be in a state of zen
detachment the night before a race, and Mai Tian’s data collapsed when
other critics pointed out he had failed to account for schedule
alterations.[3]

Han Han’s early replies were entertaining in their earnestness and snarky
vulgarity. He provided a straightforward account of his blog-writing
habits to explain how he could post in between race events, and then
flipped Mai Tian’s reasoning around to cast aspersions on his sexual
prowess. He offered a 20 million yuan purse and the copyrights to his
entire oeuvre as a reward anyone giving conclusive proof of having
ghostwritten for him. And, perhaps unwisely, he took a few potshots at
Fang Zhouzi (方舟子), who up until that point had needled Han Han for a few
minor writing mistakes but had otherwise shown no great interest in the
argument.

Going up against Fang Zhouzi is a risky thing. A science writer better
known for his work exposing academic fraud and intellectual dishonesty,
Fang Zhouzi is a tenacious opponent who has an arsenal of online debating
tactics at his fingertips. He brings up questions one by one, beginning
with minor points that might seem trivial to explain or brush aside, and
then when his target takes the bait, he charges in with more evidence
showing a pattern of deceit. This technique, which he employed
successfully in 2010 to reveal Tang Jun’s worthless diploma [4] as well as
in a more recent campaign to completely discredit Luo Yonghao (罗永浩), a
popular internet personality who had insulted his wife, is how he went to
work on Han Han.

Concentrating on Han Han’s early work, he raised questions about two
essays written for the New Concept writing contest, a first step to
national popularity for a number of young writers, including Guo Jingming
(郭敬明) and Zhang Yueran (张悦然). Han Han’s participation in the contest
was 
marked by a procedural irregularity: he apparently failed to receive a
mailed notification of the second round of the contest and was called in
the following day to sit for a special essay topic. Had strings been
pulled? Was his first-round essay a fake? The notion that Han Han’s entire
literary career might have been built on a lie served as a good starting
point. Fang Zhouzi set about picking apart the essay, “Seeing a Doctor” (求医
). Here’s one point, which appears to contradict the notion that Han Han
wasn’t much of a reader, especially of foreign books:

<<“Seeing a Doctor” quotes lines from Turgenev’s Father and Sons and
Smoke, as well as referencing Freud’s The Psychopathology of Everyday Life
(in English) to support the notion that misreading a name is intended as
an insult. “Seeing a Doctor” cites details from two of Turgenev’s novels;
having them at one’s fingertips requires one not only to have read the
novels but to be fully familiar with them. Clearly, there’s no way it was
written by Han Han.>>[5]

An unwarranted conclusion, according to the findings of Vivo, a textual
sleuth (and Han Han foe) who tracked down both Turgenev references to a
footnote in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life; the 1988 edition of the
Chinese translation includes the title in English on the cover.[6]

Han Han himself wrote up several posts that explained the circumstances
behind the composition of the controversial pieces and sent sarcastic
barbs back at Fang Zhouzi. His father, Han Renjun (韩仁均), contributed a
few 
blog posts as well. Fang Zhouzi seized on details in these accounts and
played the role of cross-examiner to attack the credibility of Han Han and
his father by pointing out inconsistencies in their “testimony” (口供), and
then went further: the setting is more consistent with the late 70s than
mid 90s, and the symptoms described point to hepatitis rather than the
scabies ultimately diagnosed. Therefore, Han Renjun (who as it happens
published a few short essays under the name “Han Han” before turning it
over to his newborn son) is the true author.

Eventually Han Han announced he was preparing to sue Fang Zhouzi for
impugning his reputation, and had gathered a thousand manuscript pages to
demonstrate that he alone had written his books and essays, Han Han
pledged to bring out a facsimile volume of the original manuscript of his
debut novel, Triple Door (三重门), for the low-low price of 10 RMB. Other
writers voiced concerns about the difficulty of proving authorship. Even
the presence of a manuscript isn’t totally convincing: it could easily
have been copied off of someone else’s original work.

Arguing against Fang Zhouzi’s allegations were Han Han’s supporters, who
included Lu Jinbo (路金波), his friend and publisher, along with other
publishers, authors, journalists, and fans. Lending their support were
Fang Zhouzi’s many enemies, whose numbers tend to cut across normal
political lines. Fang Zhouzi’s support for GM food, skepticism about
traditional Chinese medicine, and fraud-busting attacks on scientists like
Xiao Chuanguo (肖传国) have won him a place on the nationalist left’s
“Traitor’s List”, but he’s also frequently at odds with the Southern Media
Group and other outlets that are seen by the left as pawns of western
cultural values. On Fang Zhouzi’s side were other journalists, prominent
commentators like Muzi Mei (木子美), and Han Han detractors, many of whom
felt that the young author’s reputation and influence had been inflated
far beyond what is normal or healthy for Chinese society.[7]

In the eyes of the Pro-Fang side, the Pro-Han side is a “consortium” (财团)
that includes Lu Jinbo’s publishing empire, the Sina social media
platform, the Southern Media Group, and Shanghai’s censors, who Fang
Zhouzi says slapped a media ban on the controversy. Other critics argued
that the conspiracy goes deeper than that, because Lu Jinbo is not Han
Han’s sole publisher. One poster on a lengthy Tianya thread devoted to the
controversy declared that China’s major authors have either remained
silent or come out in support of Han Han because they are scared of being
blacklisted by a coterie of publishers whose influence extends throughout
the industry.[8] Conspiracy theorists see publishing as a huge packaging
scam in which piles of rejected manuscripts are paired with authors whose
brand image is more marketable.[9]

Indeed, Han Han has a marketable brand image, and his work is carefully
packaged and promoted for the media and the general public. It’s a framing
that has set him up as an iconoclast, a spokesperson for the 1980s
generation, and someone who speaks the truths that everyone else is afraid
to mention. Even those who appreciate his populist appeal may find him a
lightweight rather than a “public intellectual,” and attempts to paint him
as a latterday Lu Xun (鲁迅) are more than a little ridiculous. But
rethinking the relative importance of Han Han as a voice in contemporary
social debate does not mean he has to be utterly demolished, or in the
words of critic Peng Xiaoyun (彭晓芸), that he is a “malignant cancer on
society”.[10] On the other hand, even taken in aggregate it’s hard to see
how Fang Zhouzi’s analyses contain anything libelous.

Fang Zhouzi has not set out the conditions under which he would be
convinced that Han Han had in fact authored all of the work he claims to
have written. However, in one microblog post he mentioned his willingness
to engage in a “face-to-face confrontation, open debate, or live writing
competition.”[11] How that would resolve the issue is unclear, but the
proposal recalls another online debate, in 2006, when the philosopher Li
Ming (黎鸣) challenged Fang to a duel to the death over the Four Color
Theorem and refused to back down.[12]

Fang Zhouzi’s arguments seem to rely on the unspoken assumptions that
everyone’s memory is perfect, so any discrepancies are clearly lies, and
every utterance, whether earnest or joking, braggadocio or
self-deprecation, is meant to be taken at face value. Fang Zhouzi gets a
lot of mileage out of a claim by Zhou Youbin (周筱赟) that Han Han hasn’t
read much since he was eighteen, implying that Han Han’s book aversion was
a lifetime trait.[13] Even a letter produced by Han Renjun in which the
young Han Han requests a list of books is brushed aside: “What do they
want to show by making these letters public? That Han Han was well-read as
a high school freshman? Buying those books doesn’t mean reading them, and
reading them doesn’t mean understanding them.”[14] The assembled evidence
is a little reminiscent of the approach taken by truthers and
creationists, the kind of distorted logic that Fang Zhouzi has dismantled
time and time again. At times, it’s hard to shake the feeling that he’s
really just taking the piss:

<<First look at the form of address. The first letter uses “father” (父亲,
fùqīn). This is naturally not a problem in a letter, but in the second
letter the form of address turns into “Dad” (爸爸, bàba). When an ordinary
person writes to their parents, the form of address is fixed, but in Han
Han’s two letters, written just 20 days apart (the first is undated but
according to the postmark it was sent on May 11, 1999; the second is dated
May 30), the form of address for his father changes. He’s a genius, so you
can’t expect him to have an ordinary person’s habits.

<<Then look at the signature. The signature on the first letter is “Your
son, Han Han”; the signature on the second letter is “Your son, Han.” When
an ordinary person writes a letter home, the signature is fixed as well,
but Han Han’s changes in letters written 20 days apart. And when an
ordinary person writes a letter, he won’t sign his own surname, but in the
first letter, there’s a complete surname and given name. The same old
refrain: he’s a genius, so you can’t expect him to have an ordinary
person’s habits.>>[15]

As in the best flame wars, Han Han PK Fang Zhouzi has been a comedy
goldmine. Quick wit, outrageous accusations, dodgy amateur textual
analysis, passionate debaters falling prey to the simplest of
conversational gambits – if I was a conspiracy theorist I’d wonder whether
Sina had engineered the whole thing to keep people refreshing their
microblog feeds over the long holiday.

A few examples:

* Publishing veteran Zhang Fang (张放) became a laughingstock due to an
analysis of Triple Door in which he mis-identified an English-language pop
song as a translation of classical poetry, and expressed amazement at the
author’s quotation of another arcane classical reference to “spring green”
without realizing it was a homophone for “I’m a big stupid ass.”[16]

* The illustrations in this post come from a series of amusing
dramatizations of the debate drawn by Rebel Pepper <http://btlajiao.com/>
(变态辣椒), a satirical online cartoonist. The strip at right illustrates
the 
Zhang Fang debacle [17]. One further up the page mocks Fang’s stubborn
insistence on incontrovertible proof.[18]

One of the most impressive is “Ghostwriter Terminator,” which sends Fang
Zhouzi on a trip into the past to gather first-hand evidence of Han Han’s
chicanery. Discovering to his surprise that Han Han doesn’t show any
literary or athletic inclinations whatsoever, Fang Zhouzi decides to train
him, and in the process develops a fondness for the boy. With his
commitment to the mission in jeopardy, Peng Xiaoyun shows up…[19]

* It was probably inevitable that someone would write up an analysis of
the fraud perpetrated by Lu Xun:

<<In “Remembering Mr. Zhou Shuren,” Fujino Genkurou (that is, the Mr.
Fujino that Lu Xun once mentioned) writes, “Mr. Zhou was not tall. He had
a round face and looked like a clever man.” I have seen many paintings and
photos of Lu Xun, and there’s no way his face would be called “round.” The
average height of a Japanese man around the second world war was 1.6
meters. Baidu Baike records Lu Xun’s height as 1.61 meters, taller than
the average Japanese man. How would he be considered “not tall?” Could
there be such a difference in Lu Xun’s appearance between the time he was
a student in Japan (age 24-25) and later on? Or was the Lu Xun who studied
medicine at Sendai not the later literary giant Lu Xun? The question of Lu
Xun’s degree fraud deserves looking into.>>[20]

In my opinion, the funniest moment was probably unintentional. An
anonymous microblogger claimed to have been hired by Fang Zhouzi as a
ghostwriter and shadow moderator, and posted a signed contract as proof.
It was clearly a photoshop job, but when Fang asked Sina moderators to
delete the post, he was told he needed to provide proof that the contract
was fake. Outraged, he posted, “So I don’t know myself whether the
signature and contract are genuine?”

________________________________________
The following posts (in Chinese) are recommended for further reading:

* Immusoul (土摩托, aka science writer Yuan Yue 袁越) posted a measured
assessment of  Han Han’s behavior in “A Few Words on Han Han
<http://www.immusoul.com/archives/1970.html>” (说说韩寒);
* Ma Boyong (马伯庸), a humor novelist, examined Mai Tian’s initial
allegations as classic conspiracy theorizing in “How ‘Man-Made Han Han’
Builds a Conspiracy Theory <http://www.douban.com/group/topic/26915787/>”
(《从<人造韩寒>看如何构筑阴谋论》);
* tombkeeper wrote up a thought-provoking look at how Fang Zhouzi’s attack
on Han Han differs from his previous fraud-busting efforts in a blog post
<http://hi.baidu.com/tombkeeper/blog/item/08a935978641cf7354fb9607.html>
that takes its title from a line by Tang dynasty poet Liu Zongyuan (柳宗元)
that happens to include the characters Zhou and Han (孤舟蓑笠翁，独钓寒江雪);
* The China Daily published a lengthy piece on the issues involved in the
lawsuit: War of words set for showdown
<http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/usa/china/2012-02/01/content_14520658.htm>.

Corrections
2012.02.02: The article originally said that Han Han was offering a reward
of 10 million yuan, not 20 million. It also originally implied that Han
Han himself had claimed not to have been much of a reader in high school.
Notes:
Image at top from 21st Century Business Herald (21世纪经济报道), The
Han-Fang 
Fight: Who has gotten lost?
<http://www.21cbh.com/HTML/2012-2-1/3OMDM2XzM5ODE3OQ.html> (“韩方之争”：谁在迷
失？). 

1. [1] Liu Yang (刘仰): Color Revolutions and Democratic Freedom
<http://www.wyzxsx.com/Article/view/201201/285236.html> (辞旧迎新《韩三文》：
花儿革命与民主自
由). ↩ 
<http://www.danwei.com/#to-blog-fight-of-the-month-han-han-the-novelist-ver
sus-fang-zhouzi-the-fraud-buster-n-1>
2. [2] Later, Mai Tian expanded his doubts to encompass Han Han’s entire
body of work: The mystifying thing about Han Han is that he wrote the
astonishing Triple Door when he was sixteen, but the totally ordinary 1988
the age of nearly thirty. Isn’t it peculiar for an author’s writing skill
to decline rather than advance over the space of more than a decade? Other
than Han Han, where in the world can you find an author like this? ↩
<http://www.danwei.com/#to-blog-fight-of-the-month-han-han-the-novelist-ver
sus-fang-zhouzi-the-fraud-buster-n-2>
3. [3] See ESWN’s translation
<http://www.zonaeuropa.com/201201a.brief.htm#009>. ↩
<http://www.danwei.com/#to-blog-fight-of-the-month-han-han-the-novelist-ver
sus-fang-zhouzi-the-fraud-buster-n-3>
4. [4] Danwei.org: Faked credentials, a ghost-written autobiography, and a
diploma mill 
<http://www.danwei.org/scholarship_and_education/fang_zhouzi_tang_jun.php>.
 ↩ 
<http://www.danwei.com/#to-blog-fight-of-the-month-han-han-the-novelist-ver
sus-fang-zhouzi-the-fraud-buster-n-4>
5. [5] Fang Zhouzi (方舟子): Analysis of “Genius” Han Han’s “Seeing a
Doctor” 
<http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_474068790102dx40.html> (“天才”韩寒作品《求医》
分析). ↩ 
<http://www.danwei.com/#to-blog-fight-of-the-month-han-han-the-novelist-ver
sus-fang-zhouzi-the-fraud-buster-n-5>
6. [6] Vivo, 2012.01.27, 18:32
<http://photo.weibo.com/2657309934/talbum/detail/photo_id/3406516709395274>
, 2012.01.27, 19:11
<http://photo.weibo.com/2657309934/talbum/detail/photo_id/3406526469426366>
. ↩ 
<http://www.danwei.com/#to-blog-fight-of-the-month-han-han-the-novelist-ver
sus-fang-zhouzi-the-fraud-buster-n-6>
7. [7] The English-language Global Times calls Han Han a “god-like
opinion-leader” in the Feb 1 editorial “Challenge to Han Han is improving
public debate 
<http://www.globaltimes.cn/NEWS/tabid/99/ID/694055/Challenge-to-Han-Han-is-
improving-public-debate.aspx>,” which portrays the controversy as one of
clashing opinions and curiously does not refer to authorship issue at all.
↩ 
<http://www.danwei.com/#to-blog-fight-of-the-month-han-han-the-novelist-ver
sus-fang-zhouzi-the-fraud-buster-n-7>
8. [8] Qi Dafu (祁大夫): “Let me explain the behavior of the big-name
microbloggers” 
<http://www.tianya.cn/publicforum/content/free/1/2370770.shtml> (我给你们解释
一下大
V们的表现吧). ↩ 
<http://www.danwei.com/#to-blog-fight-of-the-month-han-han-the-novelist-ver
sus-fang-zhouzi-the-fraud-buster-n-8>
9. [9] For example, in “A plagiarism gang behind Triple Door!
<http://hi.baidu.com/1947john/blog/item/da965ecfa0647123f9dc6109.html>” (《三
重门》背后有团伙涉嫌抄袭！) Zhao Youbin (赵幼兵) claims that a sheaf of
manuscripts 
submitted to a publisher in 1993 turned up later as part of Han Han’s
Triple Door and Hong Ying’s Daughter of the River. ↩
<http://www.danwei.com/#to-blog-fight-of-the-month-han-han-the-novelist-ver
sus-fang-zhouzi-the-fraud-buster-n-9>
10. [10] Peng Xiaoyun (彭晓芸): “Han Han hijacked for the literary road
<http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_6780dfbb01010cca.html>” (被“绑架”上文人之路的
韩寒). ↩ 
<http://www.danwei.com/#to-blog-fight-of-the-month-han-han-the-novelist-ver
sus-fang-zhouzi-the-fraud-buster-n-10>
11. [11] Fang Zhouzi (方舟子), 2012.01.27
<http://www.weibo.com/1195403385/y2Lnu9FX8>. ↩
<http://www.danwei.com/#to-blog-fight-of-the-month-han-han-the-novelist-ver
sus-fang-zhouzi-the-fraud-buster-n-11>
12. [12] Danwei.org: A theorem, a crank, and a duel to the death
<http://www.danwei.org/scholarship_and_education/a_theorem_a_crank_and_a_du
el_t.php>. ↩ 
<http://www.danwei.com/#to-blog-fight-of-the-month-han-han-the-novelist-ver
sus-fang-zhouzi-the-fraud-buster-n-12>
13. [13] Zhou Youbin wrote, “In 2009 I said Han Han was a modern Lu Xun. I
need to read to be enlightened, but reading Han Han never reads, yet he
can speak like a Lu Xun or a Hu Shi. Han Han is a genius,” and “Actually,
starting from the age of 18, Han Han did not read any books. His thoughts
are entirely innate.” Zhou retracted this claim once Han Han posted about
his reading habits as a student. See Fang Zhouzi (方舟子), The literary
ability of “genius” Han Han
<http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_474068790102dwzs.html> (“天才”韩寒的文史水
平). ↩ 
<http://www.danwei.com/#to-blog-fight-of-the-month-han-han-the-novelist-ver
sus-fang-zhouzi-the-fraud-buster-n-13>
14. [14] Fang Zhouzi (方舟子): 2012.01.29
<http://www.weibo.com/1195403385/y2ZituIKY>. ↩
<http://www.danwei.com/#to-blog-fight-of-the-month-han-han-the-novelist-ver
sus-fang-zhouzi-the-fraud-buster-n-14>
15. [15] Fang Zhouzi (方舟子): Han Han’s two strange letters
<http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_474068790102dx6i.html> (两封奇怪的韩寒家书).
↩ 
<http://www.danwei.com/#to-blog-fight-of-the-month-han-han-the-novelist-ver
sus-fang-zhouzi-the-fraud-buster-n-15>
16. [16] Zhang Fang subsequently deleted his analysis and offered a
non-apology <http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4c1c19620102dubu.html>. The
pertinent parts of the original piece can still be found on Han Han’s
blog:  In answer to spring green
<http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4701280b0102e0hj.html>(答春绿). ↩
<http://www.danwei.com/#to-blog-fight-of-the-month-han-han-the-novelist-ver
sus-fang-zhouzi-the-fraud-buster-n-16>
17. [17] Zhang Fang comic by @biantailajiao: 2012.01.28, 12:56
<http://t.qq.com/p/t/15266051426393>. ↩
<http://www.danwei.com/#to-blog-fight-of-the-month-han-han-the-novelist-ver
sus-fang-zhouzi-the-fraud-buster-n-17>
18. [18] Cartoon by @biantailajiao: 2012.01.27 ↩
<http://www.danwei.com/#to-blog-fight-of-the-month-han-han-the-novelist-ver
sus-fang-zhouzi-the-fraud-buster-n-18>
19. [19] Ghostwriter Terminator comic by @biantailajiao: 2012.01.29, 21:43
<http://t.qq.com/p/t/53172106102755>. ↩
<http://www.danwei.com/#to-blog-fight-of-the-month-han-han-the-novelist-ver
sus-fang-zhouzi-the-fraud-buster-n-19>
20. [20] Fang Chigui (方尺规) via Han Han’s blog: Casting Doubt on Lu Xun
<http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4701280b0102e0l4.html> (质疑鲁迅). ↩
<http://www.danwei.com/#to-blog-fight-of-the-month-han-han-the-novelist-ver
sus-fang-zhouzi-the-fraud-buster-n-20>