EP-096 严歌苓：人人都丑的时刻，要想不丑，必须勇敢 | 米拉蒂 | 审查 | 中国文学 | 华语文学 | 封杀 | 张艺谋 | 电影审查 |

Hello everyone, welcome to the Bumingbai Podcast. I am the host Yuan

Li. Yan Geling is one of the most accomplished writers in the contemporary Chinese literary world.

She was born in Shanghai at the age of 12. During the Cultural Revolution, she was admitted to the Chengdu Military Region

and worked as a dancer in the military art troupe for 8 years.

20 Yan Geling worked as a war correspondent on the front line of the Sino-Vietnamese War at the age of 30. Over the past

30 years, Yan Geling has written nearly 30 novels,

from the early girl Xiao Yu Tianyu

to the recent Jinling Thirteen Beauties, the Land Prisoner Yan Shi Youth

and a Woman's Epic Waiting for

Her Many of her novels have been adapted into film and television works that have won international awards.

She has long collaborated with the most famous directors in the Chinese film industry, Ang Lee, Chen Chong

, Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige and Feng Xiaogang.

In China, she is the darling of the media

and a very successful writer in the market.

During the 2020 New Crown Epidemic At the beginning,

Yan Geling published

an article criticizing the cover-up of the Wuhan epidemic, using the word "Tang Wan" to conceal it.

This led to the film censorship department asking director Zhang Yimou

to delete one second of the film's acknowledgment to the original author

Yan Geling. As a result, Yan Geling and his wife

began to defend their rights against the international distribution of the film.

Since then, Yan Geling has not stopped commenting on current affairs. In

February 2022, public opinion aroused on Chinese social media over the chained girl incident.

Yan Geling made people talk about the systemic issues of human trafficking and adoption

in a video connection with Zhou Xiaozheng, a scholar in the United States.

Zhou Xiaozheng said that China The government has a policy of human traffickers.

Chinese children adopted overseas must pay high prices.

They also said that Xi Jinping is a human trafficker.

Yan Geling agreed with his opinion.

She did not realize that the video would be broadcast directly.

She also suffered serious consequences because of it.

Her Weibo account was banned and her book was removed from the shelves.

The novel was The publication and re-screening

of the movie were banned and the book fan club's official account, which had tens of thousands of people, was stopped from being

updated. Even her name could not appear in the search results.

Yan Geling, who was banned from mainland China,

faced huge financial losses and troubles

, but she also It seems that she has entered another state of freedom.

The Xinge Media Co., Ltd. established by

her and her husband Lawrence Walker Wang Leren

published her novel Milady.

They also have plans to publish the works of other Chinese writers.

This is the first time that she does not have to face

the censorship system of the Chinese Communist Party. Written in Chinese,

this book depicts a group of Chinese intellectuals in the 1980s.

The content of the novel involves the Cultural Revolution, martial arts,

intellectual youths going to the mountains and countryside, and returning to the city

to reeducate through labor to crack down on spiritual pollution

until the June 4th Anmen Massacre in 1989, which

declared the end of the 1980s

. Yan Geling Hello,

let’s talk about Milady’s novel first.

You wrote about the 1980s through a group of intellectuals. They were

constantly pulling and arguing

between new attempts and old constraints.

Everyone was participating in an imagination about the future

. The future came to an abrupt end.

For you,

what is the main expression of

this novel about the 1980s

? The expression is that

Chinese intellectuals

are always pursuing freedom endlessly

and are always pursuing it. They are always confused and then

confused after gaining freedom.

And I was disillusioned when I lost my freedom

, so it seems that there is such a

process every time . You describe it in your book.

The freedom that suddenly came

at the end of the Cultural Revolution,

this kind of

bondage, is also omnipresent.

Just like the playwright Wu Keta mentioned in it

. The cadres of the Propaganda Department asked me to change the play

, and my hair turned gray

in about a month .

There was also the creative dilemma of the painter Mi Xiao, etc.

Was the 1980s a magical era?

In the end, why did these intellectual

artists seem to have no way out in the end ? Yes

, but some people will say

that the intellectuals of the 1980s wasted

that era. I don’t know what you would say.

Is there anything they could

have done

to make the end of that era less tragic?

I think

Chinese intellectuals have He has

this kind of concern for the country and the people

, and at the same time he is

very fragile and cowardly.

If he finds out that

this risk is very great

for his own personal safety

, or for

the environment where

he

has just gained a little peace,

he will be so pitiful. Maybe

they have to take a lot of risks to do something that may have no result

or the result may be very tragic.

Many people choose not to do it.

Of course, this is not an

intellectual.

We can see that

Hollywood is doing the same thing,

and

Hollywood is also compromising.

Of course, I think

the 1980s

is a Chinese renaissance for me.

If it continues,

if policies don’t change like this

,

or if the Tiananmen incident of June 4th doesn’t happen,

if it continues It continues to this day.

I think Chinese intellectuals

, whether they are intellectuals or

artists , writers or painters, whatever

, if it is to

make the 1980s

the beginning of a renaissance for us

, it continues to this day.

I think that is What's amazing

is that I woke up and opened my eyes

for a moment

to see how free creation is. It's such

a fascinating

era.

So the reason why I write about this era

is that it is no longer gone.

It just goes by like this

. It's like a dream, yes.

I remember

when I met you

in New York two weeks ago,

I told you that

I thought this was a

very good novel.

Not only because you wrote in the 1980s

, but also because your writing style

was special. The 1980s

was when I

was reading novels as a child and teenager

, but there was definitely censorship,

but it was so free that

you could feel that the soul of the writer

was free,

and they wanted to push all kinds of

taboos. The red line

is that you can feel

that kind of lightness and freedom.

I feel that I haven’t felt it in a long time.

I am still in Milady.

One of the things I particularly like

is the concept of ugliness that you use,

which is the protagonist Mila

. I can’t stand ugliness.

I particularly like this sentence in your book.

You say that at a time when everyone is ugly,

you must be brave if you want to not be ugly.

What I want to ask is

why you use the concept of ugliness.

Throughout the book,

ugliness is the result of the system.

Or is it personal reasons

? Can individuals choose not to be ugly?

Of course

, I think

if you remain silent

when telling lies,

you are not ugly. You are not beautiful.

If you must speak

the truth at this time, you may be beautiful

because you have a kind

of saint. I think this spiritual

style

is beautiful.

So I think the

inconsistency in words and deeds,

external and internal inconsistency

, will cause the kind of twisting in people.

This twisting

is when people are not good-looking,

autocracy and this kind of dictatorship

will arise. It’s an ugly thing

, so everyone speaks in clichés, uses

highly similar language,

and uses highly similar expressions that

mix many, many concepts

with each other .

They are all inverted.

For example, betrayal

.

Why is betrayal good

? In fact, in

the entire development process of human beings

, betrayal is not a good word

. But betraying yourself is different. If

you betray the same kind

, it is not a good word.

Many times, this

concept is used. After turning

concepts upside down,

many of the long-term

beauties and ugliness

in our hearts will be overturned and

shuffled.

I still think of each

person today when he

reaches

out his hand to bribe.

How could the smile on his face when he

stretched out his

hand to accept bribes

be good-looking

? It must be twisted

and self-loathing.

He must feel that what he gives out

is your dignity.

It’s the dignity of the giver.

If there are too many moments like this

, will this kind of ugliness solidify and

become a part of his physiology?

Why do people say that things change with the heart? It ’s because you are always so naughty and always

mean what

you say and what you mean.

Internal and external conflicts

,

while doing this thing,

and at the same time despising

myself,

this kind of person and

this kind of ugliness have changed

from an abstract aesthetic concept

to a real thing

. I think it is impossible to live with

autocracy from an aesthetic point of

view. Let me read another passage from the book that

I also like very much.

You borrowed this

phrase from Mi Xiao.

In the ten years of the Cultural Revolution, many people, like me,

believed that they had committed bad

behavior, so they became sneaky and

obscene.

This forced the outside world on you. Who can live like a human being

after the ugliness

in the body

has been internalized

? I really like the concept of ugliness.

In the novel, you also wrote that

a very important liberation for

male intellectuals in the 1980s was extramarital affairs.

The woman in the book

"Divorce " had to have an abortion

because she was pregnant out of wedlock

and was maimed by the male world in the cruelest way. After that,

she opened her wallet and bedroom to the talented people.

Was there any ideological liberation for women in the 1980s?

I think there was.

Because many women are

like this when

they don’t have much financial resources.

If he likes this man,

she can blatantly be his mistress, right?

Then maybe she becomes his mistress

, or maybe she changes from mistress to wife and enters the house.

I think this is all because At that time

, in the 1980s,

I first felt that

divorce was not something to be embarrassed about.

I remember that

when my parents

talked about divorce when I was young,

I felt that it was a thunderbolt.

I felt that they were going to kill me. Becoming

a fringe element among children,

someone who

is looked down upon and insulted by,

is an outlier.

I have seen children whose parents have divorced.

They seem to be born short. People

have the feeling that

they are short or short, and they

are always uncomfortable in the group of children.

I'm not very able to hold my head high

, but in the early 1980s,

many uncles and fathers began to divorce

and have extramarital affairs.

They all began to think that love is innocent.

I love it. I

often say it in my mouth.

Some people love it a thousand times.

Every time is true.

Some people love only once in their life.

That one time is not true.

Of course, I think this is a kind of rebound.

Human nature will rebound.

The lower you press

it, the more intense it

will be and the more lethal it will be

. This kind of lethality will kill

their children, families

, or some members of society,

their friends,

there is no way to do it, human nature is what it is, and

you can’t talk about this kind of backlash.

If you don’t let it happen,

you think about the whole kind of thing after 49 years.

The behavior of men and women is always turned into

the most despicable mistake

to criticize.

In the 1980s,

after ten years of the Cultural Revolution, this group of people

had been pressed to

the point where the spring had been pressed to the bottom and

then rebounded like

when their humanity exploded.

That kind of power is that

I think I can completely understand it.

A friend who attended your book

signing and talk at

the San Francisco City Library

said that the originally scheduled venue was full

and had to change the venue.

Is this a situation you have ever thought of

at the venue ? Some people said that it was

because you broke with the CCP

that they drove an hour or two to see you.

I would like to ask how

the relationship between you and readers

has changed since you were banned.

I don’t think I have. Break with it

, break with me,

break with you, and if

you criticize it, it will think that you have broken with it.

I am so untouchable.

I feel that everything can be criticized

. How can there be a correct answer

if I don’t

criticize

? It can counter criticism.

No one will talk to you like this

.

It was actually the

first time

I went to San Francisco that I had an idea.

I was at my mother-in-law's house for the holidays

, and then I thought that

none of my works could be published in mainland China.

It was published in Redwood Forest,

a literary magazine in San Francisco.

Later, I said that I would come to San Francisco soon and

I would come to collect my royalties.

It was just symbolic.

Then they said

that coming to San Francisco would be great.

How about we do one? At the meeting,

I said, let’s do it.

I said, I’ll also sign some books.

For a new book

, I only have about five

or six days to prepare it

and then transport the book from Vancouver

because it’s printed there. The result of the approval

was like this

, so there were only seats for fifty people

and there were no people.

Why couldn't they fit in?

Then they moved to another hall.

I don't know if they

came to see me

because of my breakup

or because they broke up and I was broken up.

I don’t know

because no one told me so

, but I feel that

it is actually someone

who uses writing to express some of

my thoughts.

It is actually impossible for such a person

to shake a political power.

Why are you so

afraid, right?

Why do you want me ?

The whole name needs to

be removed from the Baidu Encyclopedia. I

think this whole approach

is very

pushing me to a place where it seems that

I am a close enemy.

In fact, this is not the case.

But

in fact, my pursuit of the whole life

is more transcendent.

I think what

literature will leave to the world

will leave to future generations

some historical figures

with more aesthetic value,

right

?

And it is to use better Chinese characters.

I pursue Chinese characters

to make them better

and write them into a

Chinese that is worthy of being passed down.

Because I think Chinese characters are a mess.

In

fact, the goal I pursue is

very good.

It is not

politics. You can turn it upside down and turn it upside down

. Today, these so-and-so

were beaten down

and someone else came up again.

Then this politics is

often subverted,

right?

And I think culture and art are

eternal values.

I want to ask about

your book. In the past,

it could easily sell hundreds of thousands of copies

. Million copies of

Youth have sold two million copies

, right?

Can you ask

Milady about the sales?

This is a book published by

you and your husband’s publishing house.

I think my own sales

plus online sales are

also good. It’s just over 5,000 copies.

How

long have you been writing it ?

I’ve been writing it

on and off for about a year.

Let me tell you that

this book

is available on Amazon overseas.

I really think

everyone should support it.

Those of us who write overseas

can write freely.

Then let’s

talk about the censorship system.

In Milady,

a large part of

intellectual life

involves propaganda and censorship.

One of the very important plots

is Milady’s father Mi Xiao.

He is a painter.

He found that although his works

won awards,

he could not get out of

the constraints imposed by the propaganda framework on his creation. He

could only paint

people without souls.

I want to discuss

how this invisible censorship system

works. You who quietly

killed the souls of creators

and the spiritual life of Chinese people

have had to face censorship

in the past few decades

whether you were writing novels

or participating in film production.

How did you convince yourself at the time?

Have you ever struggled?

Looking back at

you now How do you explain yourself?

Can you

give us one or two examples to share?

I think Mi Xiao is

the kind of person I am afraid of entering.

In fact, it is a kind

of solution.

How much do you create

because you have no way to

get rid of this kind of thing?

What kind

of

eyes,

facial expressions and muscles does

the hero

give you in the elephant's invisible form

?

Then

that's what

you have been thinking about for so many years,

starting from the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art.

There are many images of

workers, peasants and soldiers.

You remember

the one

in front of the Beijing Film Studio,

the one that looks like a forward move

, holding up ears of rice

, and that of a farmer.

There are also

the ones in

front of the museum. It’s

the kind of aesthetic that lasted for decades,

right?

Once that kind of aesthetic turns into

a stereotype

and frames you,

my father later said that

I didn’t want to write anymore

because he said that I couldn’t write about

people

of your generation,

right ? I can’t paint people of your generation

, so he said I stopped,

so he also felt

that he wanted to get rid of it.

If I

am not very conscious now

and want to get rid of it myself

, then I am also afraid that I will

become my father in the future. Is that

right

? He thinks that people of their generation

have a tone

, a kind of exposure

, a

kind of temperament

, and they can

tell at a glance that this era

is completely incompatible

with all the literature in the world. Can you? For example

, let’s say you

have been writing

since the 1980s and 1990s , right?

In fact, things like Tianyu

are very open-minded in your writing.

Then gradually,

did you get to Jinling Thirteen Hairpins

and then

Is there a change

in the censorship system

after

2010

? Do you need to consider more things

when writing ? I don’t feel it

, but I will tell the editors

what words they change. When I drop it,

I will keep giving me this consciousness

, that is, this kind of writing

is not welcomed by them

, and it is best not to write it,

right?

For example,

what do you remember?

For example, it is

the He in this youth.

Xiaoman

He Xiaoman's thing is that

he took

the red sweater that his mother was going to give him to wear

, and then he

gave it to his sister. He later gave it to his sister

, then he took the sweater

apart and dyed it black and

then put it on one side. As he was dyeing it,

he thought

in his heart , "

I will make you red, I will make you red, I will make you red."

He thought that I was

this kind of person, which was a pointed

insinuation,

so this kind of thing was

me. In fact, he was referring to the red

color of the sweater. Well, in fact, it doesn’t

mean that this kind of word can’t be used.

Then it means you

, he just said that it gradually

enters your subconscious.

What should you do when you write,

right?

Then I jumped out and said that

this may not be possible.

That may not work no matter what,

then it is your

most free and comfortable state

, especially being free and

comfortable is actually the best

state of

a creative person who is engaged in creation

. Which

way is it

? Panic, right?

This makes you feel uncomfortable,

right? So

how can you create accurate and

natural things when you feel uncomfortable?

For example, what about the movie?

You have also participated in many such

creative meetings

as screenwriters of many such movies. We actually know

that he can’t make movies

Censorship is even stricter

because

many people

don’t care about novels that much.

Of course, being a screenwriter

has more restrictions, right?

The most difficult

thing is probably TV movies

because they have a wide range of contacts.

So it's usually the director's will to

do whatever the director wants, right?

The director has to do it

, and it's not me who has to do it,

it's the director's job

to break through the content . Then the director says this paragraph

and the following section talks about

how these places need to be re-revised.

Sometimes

the director does it. If you change it yourself

, sometimes you ask the screenwriter to change it for him.

Then

you have passed several levels. When

it comes to me,

it is

basically a state of numbness.