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Yes, he made them for fun and not for guidance. Simple as put, he was often hired to select texts , etc and saw listing as a style. Anyways, it is notable that as a teacher he didnt gave his students lists of what to read.
As ralfyman, who said you must list something not personal like a list? You can listen to critics, but mostly, listen to another authors. If you listen to Neil Gaiman you will hear "Chesterton". Much better.
I actually grew up in Hong Kong - never in my life read Ming Pao once - yet fascinated with Jin Yong actually not while I grew up, but after I've grown up - first finished reading all his novels after I started working. Personally, I did not feel Ming Pao at work in his getting famous - he is popular to the extent that many bookstores do not put their titles out - you need to ask before you will be presented a packaged set.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Yes, Jin Yong is no Virgil - he clearly didn't think about destroying his work after finishing it. And because of his obsession with legacy, he also stopped writing wuxia novels when young.
Jin Yong is very Chinese in that the world he describes is NOT immoral - it could be a tough world with lots of killings, but the main characters always are struggling with what is right to do. And there is no Krishna as a God saying in the background that killing your kinsman is okay as long as it is your responsibility in life, nor the glorification of an Alexander.
One doesn't need to be a teacher or impose to students to exclude particular texts. A list from a famous author, anthologizing, and even editors' and publishers' decision on what to print are also factors involved in the same.Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
The only morality in his novels is "serving the people." or looking out for those caught in the struggles of China - he just lifted the concept from Water Margin and kept rehashing it with his xenophobic outlook on history, and his Han Chauvinist ideology.Quote:
Originally Posted by lawpark
The Chinese tradition has no morality, Chinese culture has pretty much never had an idea of morality, and Chinese governments, from ancient times to today have always been corrupt. He is looking for a heroism within there, well, I'll tell you where that heroism is, nowhere.
His father himself was part of the "scholarly elite," and as such, he has nostalgia for the time period, but any half-rate historian can realize the dream of China as a great scholarly country is fallacious, simply put, the scholar class always serves the rich in China, which is still the case, and gives a legitimization to the current government in power.
Now, his obsession with the heroism is always taken with a grain of salt - Guo Jing, the hero of his masterpiece, ultimately fails, though he is noble, as the Heroes in Water Margin do. Half of his other heroes retire from the world, his famed trilogy ends with the hero running off with a Mongol while a fascist regime sets on China. Others just leave the conflict, or kill themselves.
His world is problematic in that it still illustrates the contemporary flaws in China - but he supports a reigning power there.
He was, I believe, the first person to meet with Deng Xiaoping from Hong Kong. He supports a regime, and his fiction supports a regime - he is a king sellout politically, and does not hide it. How does that effect his fiction? Well, his fiction promotes the current regime's policy. He is very much involved in politics in his fiction, his fiction even illustrating development in communist Chinese history - his work is racist, it is xenophobic, and it is self-righteous. He himself even saw that, leading to him writing his last novel, but even that text is just another reaffirmation of how good Chinese culture is.
It's simple, you want a more well versed reading of Chinese culture, you read Dream of Red Mansions, or Jin Ping Mei, or a history book. World history right now is afraid to touch Chinese people, and Chinese historians are some of the most self-proud, xenophobic bigots around. They still teach that the west is responsible for the decline of China from number one, and we are the bad guys - that is what is taught in school in China. Why don't they teach how the Wong Merchants got loaded off of selling opium to China at an inflated price, or how the aristocratic class, which existed in China far longer than in Europe pretty much enslaved the local population, or how Chinese polygamy is still practiced to this day?
They don't for a reason - it's part of a propaganda model from a culture that is so self-important, and so afraid to criticize itself. The first real thinkers to do so have all been purged, Mao included. Now we have the Deng Xiaoping Jin Yong Model of historical and cultural discourse - China the Heroic, China the Beautiful, China the scholarly, China the fair, China the culturally rich, China the great - where is the criticism? Where is the person saying, if you are writing historical fiction, how is that woman able to walk when she would have been bound at the feet and forbidden to go outside just some 60 to 70 years ago, or, by extension, 15 years or so before the book was written. Where is the person saying at this time period, life expectancy was less than 30 for the vast majority of people. That doesn't factor in Jin Yong, and nor does it factor in Deng Xiaopingism which his ideology is matched with.
Really? Where are the anthologies of 100 years ago? And the publishers decisions that left out several of canonical authors?Quote:
Originally Posted by ralfyman
And really, lists from a famous author? Who Stephen King canonized? There is a work that he lists several horror influences, but where is all this importance? Well, Borges has a list, but if you read Borges, you already access the canon, so such listing as beginers guidance is meaningless.
You certainly does not expect that something that is lasting is determiend or helped by stuff that people forget in 3 years, do you?
Is it really that polygamy is still practiced in today's China? Do you have any evidence to share?Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Evidence？Just go to Beijing and take a look around, the whole culture is obsessed with it. They made TV shows (most removed) about it, and you see it on the street. It is not uncommon to see a Mercedes packed with 4 prostitutes in the back (who look like they are 16), or to see an old man anywhere picking up hookers. Likewise, culturally everywhere you go it is all people are talking about, so and so's 小三 (little three, slang for mistress). High divorce rates almost always point toward husbands having mistresses, and you see it everywhere.Quote:
Originally Posted by WymanChanning
Anywhere that business is done has prostitution linked to it - Karaoke bars, Bars, even fancy restaurants all have hookers at the go, seeing old men with young girls is not uncommon either, likewise, with the presence of migrant workers from the countryside, having a paid girl on the side has become common, especially in places like Beijing or Hangzhou, or other big cities.
Everyone knows it is there, it's just the government has decreed it is not to be talked about. The same way they told me in my text book that China has no gender discrimination.
I would say about 1 in 10 of the local students at my university would do sexual favors for men for money (all denying it, but you encounter them everywhere) and talking to people suggests it is the same in other institutions. Someone needs to be buying these women.
Likewise, my textbook told me that women are only worth something until they are 30, and that if a husband cheats and abuses her, the wife still should act to save her marriage, and not be selfish and divorce him. It's so ingrained in the culture it is ridiculous.
One need only look at how many old people are married to young women there to see what the problem is - 84 year old Nobel Laureate Yang Zhen, for instance, moved back to China and married a 28 year old student, having kids, and the Chinese public calls him a national hero - great example, some old bum having kids with his student, a national hero. And party members driving Ferraris packed with hookers (many poor migrant women from the country side) is another great example of the cultured, scholarly, equitable China. That's your culture without an ingrained sense of morality for you - basically a culture where anything is permissible as long as you have money.
Take Hong Kong for example, this from a 1996 clipping http://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/07/news/07iht-lunar.html
Or this article will give you a better breakdown http://factsanddetails.com/china.php...=4&subcatid=20
The real problem is this, in China women are seen as marriage material only up to age 30. IF one gets divorced, remarrying is almost always more difficult for the woman, and there is societal pressure on her to accept infidelity as a part of her marriage. Likewise, for men, there is nothing telling them what they are doing is the least bit wrong, and everything telling them they have a right to it. Once their wife hits 30, she is rather unable to go anywhere without her losing something, so he would technically have a free reign.
This is not to say infidelity doesn't exist everywhere, but "supporting a mistress" in the Chinese sense is a very Chinese thing. Taiwan was infamous for it back in the day when the Chinese government really cracked down on it, but since they've started cracking down on it, and China has learned from example and has increased - with wealth come concubines if you will.
But then, prostitutes, marriage with young women, mistress, etc. are not exactly polygamy and not just in China, right? Hugh Heffner is Canadian right (or at least from reat Canadian nation people call America :D ) ?
he isn't married right now, he is just polygamous. There is a difference between a womanizer and someone who is married and supporting 3 other women, and whose wife probably knows everything and has society telling her it is his right.Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
But once again it is not a chinese thing, so much as a third world thing. I remember that Moscow and most cities in eastern europe are ridiculously full of prostitutes; if you are a young man they often find you rather than the other way round. I remember being in a club in Moscow and being offered sexual services from half a dozen different girls, that night in the same club.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
And keeping a woman on the side is not uncommon in europe, the only thing is that one needs more wealth to be able to pull if of in europe, but it is done. For example a famous Italian actor during the 60's had two wife, and children with them both, and he was open about it. The wife's new about each other and the public didn't overly criticize him for it, it was accepted because he was a rich and famous man and a rich and famous man may very well have several wives.
I guess maybe the shock might be stronger for you as I think that Canada and the USA are much more sexually puritarian and repressed compared to europe which is much more liberal. I mean one of the main attractions of Amsterdam is the prostitutes...And its no secret.
Another common example is that in America, university students don't use prostitutes as it is taboo - in my university and many universities in europe, students regularly visit prostitutes. Though this is more the Italians and French than the english, a middle class English student wont use a prostitute, a middle class french or italian one will, only the upper class english students use them for some reason. I find all these tidbits of anthropology fascinating. But I digress.
It's perhaps similar to other ideas of the developing world, but lets take it back a second.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alexander III
First of all, if someone frequents a prostitute, it is legal in many countries, or decriminalized. Secondly, if someone has a mistress, it is one thing, if a whole culture has one, it is another.
In general, if you had a second girl on the side, most Western women I think would divorce you for all you have as soon as they found out. Secondly, we are talking about people mostly in politics and business - in China it is illegal, yet all these politicians are doing it. They tell the world it doesn't happen, and they are harmonious, but anyone can see it - that's the real problem.
You say in Moscow you got propositioned at a night club - well, try China. Women are told by society it is not right for them to drink or smoke, or go to bars, so you can assume, unless they are a foreign person, that pretty much everyone in the place who is female and local is a prostitute, and people know this.
Likewise, it is not as systemic and hushed up in the rest of the world, and it is not so restricted to men - for instance, I am sure that women are as likely to frequent prostitutes as men in most modern countries - female sex tourism is also a giant industry, one need only go to Jamaica or Cuba, or Bali, or wherever.
To the next point is, for a university student, it is no big deal. To see a vulgar flaunting of money from people who are driving luxury cars with military license plates (basically means you are above the law and work for the government) loaded with hookers is a whole other story.
You need to see it to understand it - it isn't some old money womanizing, it is there new money vulgarity that says everything is permissible, and it is our right to have women, and it is the same culture that regards marriage as the purchase of a wife, and divorce as an ultimate shame to a woman. It's there on every level - if there are hookers in Moscow, that is a completely different beast - we are talking about whole cities with apartments filled with second and third wives.
The real problem I have with anything is just this propaganda that China feeds the world about how organized, polite, nice, and benevolent they are. They pretty much bought out the American academies now to praising them, and China criticism usually leads to ones career ending by never being admitted into China again. One who speaks out about social issues is generally silenced. The amount of control on what people no is staggering, even as it overlaps into what we know - when people talk about China, they talk of huge development, not of toilets without running water. There is such a facade of bull**** surrounding everything we are told in the west, that it makes us think we maybe are living in China.
Basically China is paying to feed us with this idea that they are these great humane scholars with a long benevolent tradition, rich history, and so on. We are supposed to buy into it, since it upgrades some rich guy's car, and hands him the cash to fill it with hookers.
I spent a year handed textbook after textbook of propaganda. The local textbooks for local students are the same, they also say a great many things about our countries, namely, Canada and Australia are for the taking, the US is a fallen empire because they are buying it, which makes China better than the US, and all sorts of other nonsense. We talk of Orientalism and Said, well, lets reapply it. We want a world Canon, well, who is included in the world - China, as my example, is promoting a national identity, but they know nothing of us other than that they want to rule the world - nobody, despite studying English since the beginning of elementary school, can speak English there - and yet you want to rule the world in English? You cannot even control your own education. Now we read them, call them part of our great books, which they are, but are they reading our great books? Do they even consider us people?
We were talking Jin Yong - What Jin Yong did was mythologize China, and make Chinese culture a universal thing - one can ignore people in the United States because you are Chinese and are better than those "Americans" - you don't think it exists, well minority Chauvinism totally does, and is caught in this whole issue.
If China came saying they want us to appreciate their literature, it is one thing, what they want is us to kiss their ***, since they are insecure about everything and need someone to pat them on the back every step of the way. That's basically what world literature is becoming - everyone pushing propaganda everywhere.
Jin Yong is the international Chinese author, but, by any western standard, he is a racist jingoist who is promoting an idea of China #1 which doesn't fit at all with any concept of history.
That is the point, polygamy does not imply in moral decadency, but often implies in marriage.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Anyways, I would just point, Prostitution are not commun in brazil, no more than United States. Obviously big cities present their prostitutes, of course, there is sexual tourism, but this is not a third world thing. Brazil still a high moralist country from the catholic point of view, mysognist to some point. Someone as Berlusconni here would be almost impossible.
I am sure, economic and social unequality is a huge factor for those conditions, but japan had a similar problem simple because the western sexual freedom was not a process that developed slowly in there, but of course, the young generation wanted to it and of course, spoiled it.
Well, Japan always had a long tradition of sexual markets. Prostitutes and sex slaves were pretty much always there, both male and female. They never really developed the idea of inequality or monogamy, but when women demanded more for their worth, Japan just turned its eyes to China, Taiwan and South East Asia. Likewise when more women got power and economic power, they turned their eyes to male prostitutes.Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
It's a rather strange system that doesn't value fidelity or monogamy - the culture believes in "pleasure for man" traditionally, with no concept of equality for women.
In the modern era there have been changes, but in general that has come from Western concepts being more and more accepted, especially after the US took over. In China, they have a weird time accepting it, and in Taiwan, which was traditionally modeled on the Japanese idea (since the takeover) they have now come well into embracing a Western idea of equality for women, and of monogamy.
Chinese people do not and seem to will not - why give up male privilege, we all know they kill many females at birth, so why is it surprising that they treat them like merchandise? Jin Yong is a great author, but he promotes this by generally declaring Chinese culture as all good, he promotes it, whereas Mao refuted it, but Mao got twisted, whereas he didn't so the synthesis is strange. You have two generations in China now who have grown up without knowing their immediate history. The country is ignorant, but is self proud, they quote Confucius when 40 years ago they were burning his iconography in the street, it's like they avoided synthesis by simply regressing back into feudalism with a new ingrained class system.
But then, Confucious is often burned, no? That is what hold him secure in the "canon", it is impossible to get him out of the game. And powerful groups tried.
I only suppose that China is a proud nation since ever. But not a pratical nation. It may seem to the core, not very pragmatic, a dictomy (like Zhang Zimou movies, for example, the obvious western take he can give, hong kong influence, a political propaganda that ends exotic...) of shorts. I have very few contact with chinese people, in Brazil they are almost "jews", in the sense of isolation, weird costumes, no integration with society and related to considerable criminal activities (more by the hong kong based groups). One of them, a clear smugler was married to a woman which ties to the imperial family, some short of offciial chinese language teacher here, proud of it, greedy for money and high-tech and yet, their two kids were already "sold" in marriage but they had no pretession to return to china due the lack of support...
This is a long post to reply to - hard to do after several more rounds of back and forth that has already happened. Will try to be as brief as possible.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- "Serving the people" - is actually very ancient, back to Confucius / Mencius etc.
- Xenophobic he is not, can you imagine anyone writing in Hong Kong being xenophobic?
- Han Chauvinist ideology - it was so in some novels, but Jin Yong clearly moved beyond that in his longest novels - Tian Long Ba Bu and Lu Ding Ji.
- Here I would just ask you to use your comparative literature reading.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- That would really be half-rate historian. In Chinese history (vs. some other histories), civil bureaucracy staffed by the scholarly have always OPPOSED the rich getting richer (there is different levels of success at different times). In China, if anything, the "rich" per se was never ideologically glorified until after 1900, or maybe even after 1978.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- Why is retiring a failure? Here again comparative literature perspectives is useful. Retiring is a theme with long tradition in Chinese literature. Different from the West, but why a failure?Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- And we were comparing Jin Yong with Red Chamber. This point hardly makes Jin Yong worse.
- Jin Yong novels were all written prior to 1971/72, essentially during the Cultural Revolution in mainland. In his last novel, Lu Ding Ji, "Religious Master Hong" was clearly written as Mao gone mad. He definitely did not support the Communist Government in his writings (if he did, he wouldn't first move to Hong Kong), and as someone who grew up in Hong Kong, you would know that nothing in Hong Kong could have become popular before around 1980s if you were explicitly Communist. Period.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- Many Hong Kong people didn't like what he did during the handover, (I am not one of those). His "sell-out" (if you call it that) and his novels were clearly done in two different periods.
- As said before, he wrote before Deng's time. And he was against Mao for sure. He did support Deng's China. Your statement is just hard to support timing-wise; unless you consider Deng's policies the same as Mao's policy - if you hold this view, please elaborate.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- He wrote from late 1950's to early 1970's - given those time of de-colonialization, for someone who can transcend nationalistic sense by 1971/72 was really not something to be ashamed of. And in your view, a Chinese writer could not be great if his writings affirm how good Chinese culture is?Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- In comparison with Red Chamber, you feel Red Chamber does not think Chinese culture is good in some sense?
- I have issues with propaganda Chinese text books, but I grew up in Hong Kong when British was in control. It was hard not to make the conclusion that some European (governments) have been bad guys. China's first defeat vs. Western powers, First Opium War. British had issues selling Opium in China. Were British themselves using Opium at that point? Why would it be an issue if a country decides to control how much Opium comes into its borders? Of course the British couldn't do it alone. But my guess (I am no expert of Qing history) is that the Qing government did not "knight" those merchants, as the British probably did to their own folks who helped in the Opium War.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- How did China "enslave" local population? That seems to be a Communist propaganda.
- On the polygamy point, there are many responses already.
- Jin Yong was well-liked because most people actually didn't agree with the level of over-criticism Chinese culture starting in the May Fourth movement that extended through Cultural Revolution. Jin Yong didn't side with the overly critical side of the intellectual current is hardly a valid criticism.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- You yourself mentioned in one prior post that just because US has feminist and racial past to deal with does not mean that every other cultures in the world need to confront the same issues of the same force to be considered "good".Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- Jin Yong wrote wuxia (i.e. imaginary kungfu hero) novels, where men usually were better even female had strong freedom of action and many paths to "the top" so to speak. Why does foot-binding need to come into the picture?
In ancient times the Chinese were extremely moral (Confucius, for instance). Nowadays because of changing monetary circumstances there is a lot of corruption – many people think it started largely after Deng Xiaoping's 改革开放.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- Chinese government is no doubt doing lots of propaganda, and paying to get some points across.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- With ability of critical thinking, you can clearly decide what you believe or what you do not believe.
- My personal experience after living in mainland China (on and off for 8 years) is that there is also so much money-backed propaganda behind much of what most normal people read or see on TV every day. Also in the same loudness that discourages truly critical discussions on many fundamental and significant issues.
- If anything, this is a problem of modern society.
- When did China want to rule the world? Even now I would say it is not anyone's objectives to do so. China has its own national border claims, and to some people maybe it is more than what it should own - but who decides that? And to rule the world? British clearly had such an ambition once, US also clearly tried to do that (you can see how US tried to set up the HQ of "United Nations" in New York City), but China?Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- Chinese tried to learn English - how well they came out is another issue, but clearly not because of lack of efforts or money spent. Why does that consitute a criticism?
- I have the most problem with the us and them mentality. World canon really should be for a contemporary person, who tries to understand great books in the world. What makes you think that they are not reading the Bible, or Shakespeare?
- "Do they even consider us people?" I recalled some British "scientists" at one point did not consider Indians truly "people" ... I would say some Chinese consider any westerners gods ...
- How is this different from some US people consider Canadians non-existent? In reverse, would a major author in US be non-canonical if he / she completely ignore the Chinese and/or the Indians?Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- It comes down to a very important question - to be accepted in the West as a World Canon, one needs to have a political view that is acceptable to some current western standard? Is the same standard apply to even ancient / medieval western writers?Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
I'll pick at this one first - is Confucius moral? Where do we get the idea he is moral from? From reading him, he is an elitist who favors hereditary rights, he is sexist, and he is militant, and has no philosophical basis - he supports an upper class, which was where Mozi got most of his criticism for him from (Confucius being rich (relatively), and Mozi being poor (arguably)). Now, he was part of the hundred schools movement - what of the other 99? Well Han Feizi seems the best example, since he and Confucius are complementary elements - for instance, Han WuDi, the great Confucian emperor was also the most militaristic and expansionist, leading to the collapse of the Chinese economy.Quote:
Originally Posted by cl154576
Likewise, the Ming Emperors who come in for the next stage of Confucian government were preaching confucius, and merely imposing the best level of control they could as an authoritative regime - the Qing Confucianists did that further, and better.
Confucius is a nice idea, but it is flawed, it justifies a sort of autocracy that assumes it is benevolent - lets face it, we aren't going to see omens now, and when have Chinese leaders ever led by example? It's a nice funny idea, but it has never been shown to work to do anything other then create a good excuse for autocracy - namely, purging political unrest as "unharonious" or whatever.
I'll reply to the Jin Yong Comment in a moment, just thought I would nitpick that.
- Back to the original question, how does this aspect make Red Chamber better than Jin Yong?Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- This seems to summarize your view: Chinese culture is not good, Mao got it right. But please remember why the country is now ignorant of its immediate history, and why Confucius was burnt in the street, and how earlier China was labeled as "feudal".
- I can understand that in your one year in China, you don't like many things you see. Me neither. Remember several things though:
> In Chinese tradition history was used a lot to criticize the present (which often in history has not been easy to criticize without one being prepared to be sacrificed)
> Chinese literary tradition (before the past couple of generations) did not glorify the military successful, violence, or the material success as much as in other traditions. If you can think more about this point, your year in China might not have been wasted.
- Confucius might not be highly "philosophical" in the western sense, but his teachings emphasized how to act and how polical goals should be to make sure the people live (reasonably-)well.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- In what case was Confucius militant?
- Why is someone not "moral" if one supports hereditary rights? And Confucius seems to be keen to get his students educated so that educated folks with the right idea of government would be helping the governing of society. I would say the only thing Confucius was not was "revolutionary" in the military / violent sense.
- Let's look at say Plato or Socrates - elitist? yes; sexist? yes; supports an upper class? yes? Lives in Athens which uses slaves. Clearly not moral in your view.
- They reason you know of Han WuDi as a bad guy, is because Sima Qian, who is a Confucian-scholar, criticized WuDi's policies (not just personally because of the harm he did to Sima Qian himself), which as you say was military, expansionists, and led to economic collapse. Did we find an equivalent critic of say Alexander the "Great"? Did his teacher Aristotle say anything about that?
- Those preaching Confucius might not be nice regimes. But here is the danger of conflating the ideas with the regimes. Just like it should be clear by now that Marx's ideas should be separated from the Soviet regimes.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- So Plato is a nice idea? His idea in the Republic not flawed? What has really been shown to work? Dante? Nietsche?Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
[QUOTE=lawpark;1062867]This is a long post to reply to - hard to do after several more rounds of back and forth that has already happened. Will try to be as brief as possible.
- "Serving the people" - is actually very ancient, back to Confucius / Mencius etc.
- Xenophobic he is not, can you imagine anyone writing in Hong Kong being xenophobic?
- Han Chauvinist ideology - it was so in some novels, but Jin Yong clearly moved beyond that in his longest novels - Tian Long Ba Bu and Lu Ding Ji.
Even Tian Long Ba Bu maybe he is more accepting of non "Han" people, but he still has a wall around China to the last story in Lu Deng Ji, where he has his protagonist and the novels tenure essentially laugh in the face of Russians, and by extension the world. He never really got beyond the idea of China, though he moved away from Han racism (a product really of the Boxer rebellion not really ancient Chinese thought) toward Nationalism in the Jingoist sense, we can trust those Dali people now, and those Liao people (who were absorbed pretty much completely into China) but not those Russians, or Englishmen, or Portuguese, or whatever.
As for China wanting to rule the world - well, right now, for instance, Qin through Han Dynasties definitely, Qing dynasty, most likely, and Tang dynasty, maybe not rule but get tribute from. The general imperial system as set up by Han Wudi is that you give a present to people, and then they run and kiss your bum and kowtow to you. You pay people to kiss your a$$ essentially, which was the system of China up until the Brits decided they wouldn't bow - we are the best, we are the centre of the universe, there is only one son of Heaven and he is me, and you need to rub your face on the ground.
- Here I would just ask you to use your comparative literature reading.
- That would really be half-rate historian. In Chinese history (vs. some other histories), civil bureaucracy staffed by the scholarly have always OPPOSED the rich getting richer (there is different levels of success at different times). In China, if anything, the "rich" per se was never ideologically glorified until after 1900, or maybe even after 1978.
Yes, but in practice? How many got rich? How many wrote the exams for the sake of getting rich? How many fictionalized for power and wealth - aristocrats are one thing, but the Song dynasty saw the power of selfish games - that's where Jin Yong's most famous novel is born from - the fact that Chinese people, including scholarly class people, generals, and emperors, are more concerned with their own decadence and careers than the state of affairs. As for rich never being glorified, well, how many idioms do you know that involve with getting rich? What do people put on their doors every new year? What is Jin Pingmei about? What is the Imperial exam about, and what is blood about? The country developed monetary system quite quickly, do you mean to tell me nobody cared about getting rich? The merchant class of people in Chinese culture are the most ridiculed and loathed, that gestures to a sense of immorality and ruthlessness on their part - the modern equivalent would be landlords, and seeing as how in almost every major Chinese city there is a property bubble, I would think the issue is hardly over.
- Why is retiring a failure? Here again comparative literature perspectives is useful. Retiring is a theme with long tradition in Chinese literature. Different from the West, but why a failure?
They fail, and that is the lesson of the book, 碧血剑 would be a good example - the hero ultimately realizes his country is destroyed, and goes into exile - exile is the ending for almost all his major books, and it is almost always self-imposed. The heroes almost always fail at the end of the book, except in reaching maturity - his books are set in episodes of crisis in Chinese history, and the heroes go on the Good Chinese guys side, and retire when the Good Chinese Guys lose - Mongols, Manchus, Jurchens, even Western people in some cases - the whole idea of the genre of Wuxia fiction is about the Chinese paranoia with the Western enemy - the big white guy who comes to fight the kung fu master in all the movies - big white imperialism coming to destroy merry old China, or what they've disillusioned themselves is Merry old China anyway.
- And we were comparing Jin Yong with Red Chamber. This point hardly makes Jin Yong worse.
To compare them, I think Cao is better at painting the more nuanced concept of traditional Chinese culture - he is far more ironic, and post modern in that youcan look in there, even in the introduction, and find a sort of duality in everything, and a parallelism in everything - for instance, the funeral at the beginning and the funeral at the end, or the contrast between richness and poorness, women and men, there are contradictions which makes it a more rich novel rather than an amateurs work - that's why it's prized, since you can never really hold still with anything there, as it turns and it second guesses itself, and that it lacks an ending.
- Jin Yong novels were all written prior to 1971/72, essentially during the Cultural Revolution in mainland. In his last novel, Lu Ding Ji, "Religious Master Hong" was clearly written as Mao gone mad. He definitely did not support the Communist Government in his writings (if he did, he wouldn't first move to Hong Kong), and as someone who grew up in Hong Kong, you would know that nothing in Hong Kong could have become popular before around 1980s if you were explicitly Communist. Period.
Ok, lets discuss here the serialized editions - lets just say for arguments sake that he is best known not for the serial, but for the reprint in second edition.
Now, to take the first half - his career parallels Mao's Red China essentially. They share the same view. In terms of outward politics, according to a paper I read on the subject, Ming Pao refused to align itself with any viewpoint until really the cultural revolution, where they of course opted against Mao.
Now, to the next point, what is the China lost, and what does it mean to write in exile? Well, the first point, as an exiled author, he is overwhelmed with nostalgia, that is a given. Secondly, as someone living under British Hong Kong, I would argue he essentializes himself as Chinese, and tries to stamp a notion of universal Chinese identity - his forward to his last novel that he penned later about Wei xiaobao would agree with this. But who is he writing for? Well, namely Chinese people, and by extension, Chinese people in exile (be they in Hong Kong, or Singapore, or Canada, or Wherever). Seeing himself in exile, he glorifies a Chinese past created out of nostalgia and identity crisis, as well as a slight rejection of modernization (as you insist, comparison, I would bring Soseki's Kokoro into this).
As to your last point about supporting, he remained neutral until the outbreak of the cultural revolution, and even then reported obliquely, besides which, he controlled a nice chunk of the news.
- Many Hong Kong people didn't like what he did during the handover, (I am not one of those). His "sell-out" (if you call it that) and his novels were clearly done in two different periods.
True, but he rewrote them for a mass audience (China). Now we must talk about the second edition - the rewrite, the reconfiguration - he was not silent for the years afterward, there is even a third edition, he changed the novels as clearly to support the regime change - he could get his stuff in, so he polished it, and increased details, like adding a Brunei Chinese exile's return to war torn China at the beginning of 碧血剑. Or by making characters more nuanced and less cut and dry.
- As said before, he wrote before Deng's time. And he was against Mao for sure. He did support Deng's China. Your statement is just hard to support timing-wise; unless you consider Deng's policies the same as Mao's policy - if you hold this view, please elaborate.
No, I think the opposite, I think Deng's views are the same as the views held by such rulers as H. H. Kung, and quite close to those of Chang Kai-shek, or even holding closely with the Manchu court. He basically supported pure capitalism, but with a slow transition, and intense nepotism and corruption. He basically embodied all that Mao warned the party against before calling on the cultural revolution, and ironically, after the revolution failed, that's what happened.
- He wrote from late 1950's to early 1970's - given those time of de-colonialization, for someone who can transcend nationalistic sense by 1971/72 was really not something to be ashamed of. And in your view, a Chinese writer could not be great if his writings affirm how good Chinese culture is?
It is obsessed with it - it is obsessed with leaving historical details out, like how can a woman kick when her feet would have been bound, or how would someone like that have learned to read - these details are called history, a nuanced view would have made the fiction a lot more tolerable. And he never transcended nationalism, he very much encouraged it - he was the King nationalist of new China, meaning, you may be the few % of the population who isn't Han, but you are still within our borders which means you can grow crops for us. The same Han China that is engaged in cultural wars within its own borders but reaffirms them as part of the tradition, after all, Jin Yong's novels reaffirm them, and so does our history (a vague occupation only in name of most of Xinjiang during the Tang dynasty, and then a further vague annexation during the Qing, for instance) or a religious tradition sort of linked to Tibet, or a Buddhist tradition that kind of mirrors the tradition of Dali (who are part of China in most of his novels and he considers Chinese), or a culture that historically loved to absorb by genetics or the sword, causing things like the old enemy Jurchens, or the old enemy Mongols, or the old enemy Liao to not really be conflicting with his Nationalist agenda.
- In comparison with Red Chamber, you feel Red Chamber does not think Chinese culture is good in some sense?
I think Red Chamber is not a novel about China, but a novel about a household and an idea - nationalist ideas hide behind Chinese novels in the 20th century, but at that point I see nothing distinguishing it as "Chinese." As such, it has a cultural criticism, but it has no discussion really of nation, since nation is not a concept local to the time it was written (the concept really gets its shape after the first opium war, but solidifies with Han Chauvinism during the Boxer rebellion).
- I have issues with propaganda Chinese text books, but I grew up in Hong Kong when British was in control. It was hard not to make the conclusion that some European (governments) have been bad guys. China's first defeat vs. Western powers, First Opium War. British had issues selling Opium in China. Were British themselves using Opium at that point? Why would it be an issue if a country decides to control how much Opium comes into its borders? Of course the British couldn't do it alone. But my guess (I am no expert of Qing history) is that the Qing government did not "knight" those merchants, as the British probably did to their own folks who helped in the Opium War.
In essence, the Chinese government set 4 merchants as a council to deal with foreigners, holding a monopoly. Likewise, they cheated, and opium increased in demand. Europeans were at that period mostly eating opium rather than smoking it, but yes there was a domestic market. It's just the Chinese could not get enough of it, and became addicted - I would like to think that the emperor would have had to go through withdrawal if not for the English keeping him in good supply. The Chinese themselves were producing opium locally during that time period, but they couldn't grow enough to support themselves. As for not letting things in, well, they shut themselves off from the world, and the rest of the world said no - as far as history goes, China had ego problems and shut themselves off, so the rest of the world barged in half invited - there were enough people buying the opium, we all know - the market wanted their drugs, it wasn't that they just wanted to sell them - you try putting 30% of the male population of a country through withdrawal.
As for the war itself, the cost was something I believe like 500pounds of silver as a tribute to England for the first one, in compensation for the drugs dumped into the ocean in protest. Nothing much for China to handle. What really off set the population was the local markets undergoing trouble because of a failed feudalism, and, the local bourgeois looking for foreign ideas. England was as much welcomed as anything, but the Qing court could not adapt to a modern world, likewise, the rich folks in China would not let their populations adapt, and the squeeze on money tightened, leading to almost a necessity for immigration, be it legitimate or slavery. The Americans may have Shanghaied people to work on their railroad, but back home they would most likely have starved to death. The traditional feudalism long stopped being supportable, throw in a lack of mechanical advancement and you have a Malthusian situation.
As for the presence of the West, well it is exaggerated on all things but the opium. They were barely there, and had rather minimal influence - what hit China were plagues of rebellion and overpopulation, and they spiraled and their court kept playing polo and claiming to be the Sons of Heaven and the best place on the planet while their upper class kept on cutting from the lower class - I've been to 刘文彩‘s house, I've seen it. Likewise, the Empress Cixi, whose clothing took over a year to stitch, was said to never have worn the same thing twice - there was decadence, and extravagance, and serfdom, not unlike today.
- How did China "enslave" local population? That seems to be a Communist propaganda.
Not really, just read something like Mao Dun's Ziye, for instance. It's like this, there is not enough farm land, the taxes on farms are too high, and people are not really able to do anything but borrow - eventually, their standard of living deteriorates, meanwhile they get no advances. It's an economic diagram - there was clearly a peasant class, which exists today. The population is still more or less enslaved, only now it's harder to enforce (a Hukou is pretty much a ticket of serfdom, especially with the farms now pretty much unowned by the ones who make it). Even wage labour took forever to develop properly.
- On the polygamy point, there are many responses already.
- Jin Yong was well-liked because most people actually didn't agree with the level of over-criticism Chinese culture starting in the May Fourth movement that extended through Cultural Revolution. Jin Yong didn't side with the overly critical side of the intellectual current is hardly a valid criticism.
Didn't agree, no they had a relapse, why give up? Why would a richer class ever give up their right? They didn't exactly have it bad in Hong Kong did they, especially when the mainland free'd up. The May Fourth movement is strange in that it failed completely - it was important, but in the end, there has been a huge reversal. As for not agreeing, he basically tried to take 阿Q and make a new one, his Wei Xiaobao, the cute, overly loyal, overly clever hero of his last novel - he tried to answer to Lu Xun. He wrestled with it clearly, since he was so freaking nostalgic, and patriotic, and heaven forbid this guy criticize. There is no nuance either, no irony, he wrote fiction as if it were written 200 years ago - no irony or metafictional level. It takes itself real seriously.
- You yourself mentioned in one prior post that just because US has feminist and racial past to deal with does not mean that every other cultures in the world need to confront the same issues of the same force to be considered "good".
True, but lets be honest, you saw what happened in 1989 when the tanks rolled in, the whole world did. China has forgotten it, since the benevolent ruler could never harm its population, and everything is equitable, but 16 year old kids roll down the window of their Benz and spit on the poor old vendors selling potatos for less than a dollar a day.
- Jin Yong wrote wuxia (i.e. imaginary kungfu hero) novels, where men usually were better even female had strong freedom of action and many paths to "the top" so to speak. Why does foot-binding need to come into the picture?
He wrote historical fiction. It's like writing an historical novel set in the Southern US during slavery times no racism, let alone slavery to talk of. IT cheapens the historical narrative, which is particularly dangerous given that the books are written with a semi-intention of inspiring nationalism and reaffirming a rich Chinese culture. You would think pointing out the bad things to get away from (things the May Fourth people were writing about) would be at least part of the agenda, but no, he cheats. We never had a sexist past, we are the most equal people in the world. Nothing happened here in 1989, or better yet, there is no inequality in China - yeah right people.
As a simple answer, I do not see any Plato institutes preaching around the world.Quote:
Originally Posted by lawpark
As a longer answer, yes, we know Marx is flawed, as is Confucius, an d as are Plato, Dante, and Nietzche's ideas. The problem is, Confucianism is professed as a state ideology, whereas Plato's works are dialogs. Confucius was a rather interesting philosopher, but his works have historical implications - his disciples made a trade off with Han Wudi, for instance, giving them charge over the country in exchange for giving him feudal control (the story goes they said you can be the medium between the world and heaven, but you need us to help you administer).
As for Confucius being militant, it is his conflicting views with Mozi, who was a pacifist, whereas Confucian thought doesn't rule out military command, nor military expansion as long as you are "holding with the will of heaven".
As for hereditary rights, well, true, so, for instance, if you are a woman your job is to birth men, if you are born in the low caste, you are basically worthless. The only way to become good is through education, well, if you work the field, good luck, your father worked the field, he wasn't educated, well I guess you're out of luck - that's Confucian thought tested.
I didn't say Han Wudi was bad, I was just pointing out his contradiction - he practiced Daoism at home (his mother was overly devout), gave Confucianists state control, and implemented policy and expansion of government (the first Han emperor to do so). His most immediate predecessor would be Qin Shihuang, the great militant - the difference is Han Wudi masks it as a benevolent son of heaven, that's what I am pointing to. How the ideology works as a mask.
I was pointing the parallel between that and the current regime. It is easy for Hu Jintao to call himself a Confucian, a scholar, someone for the harmony of the country, and a great humanist, with all the confucian bull**** to back it up, but in practice what is he doing? I am not trying to criticize the regime, namely point out that these things are not without checks, it's the confucian bull**** that irritates and the fact that there is censorship there and they call themselves harmonious.
My point was a direct attack on the propaganda system, and to talk about China's bull**** facade they sell to the world in the form of Confucian crap. We give excuse because they are not western, but if they want to play in the house, they need to be held to the same accountability. If we can call The Birth of a Nation a racist movie, why can't we call Jin Yong's novels? We talk of Orientalism, well lets talk of Occidentalism. We talk about our colonialism, lets talk of theirs. Nobody should be granted immunity, they already don't take criticism from themselves as it is.
We read colonial fiction, we see racism, well lets read Chinese fiction and see racism, lets read policy, lets read poetry. Lets see sexism there if we can see it in us, lets take the dark out - this is a world canon, world literature held to the same standards - you say Plato is a whack, I agree, but add Confucius there. You say Europeans butchered Africa, well add China to that equation. We talk of riots, of fascism, of propaganda, of all these issues that literature is so much a part of, and culture is so much a part of, well lets apply them to everything.
Jin Yong to me is a jingoist, and a chauvinist. You want to say he is a great author, lets put him through my butchering from a non Chinese viewpoint. What does he say about me?
If I don't spend my whole night responding, I would say - support for professorship in Platonic studies do take up lots of professorships in the West, and there are many courses in Philosophy who took up study of Plato. If Plato is in the canon (which he is), and to count Confucius out because he is not "moral" based on some criteria which also applies to Plato does not help.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- Not against the use of force does not mean being militant. So does anyone in the world now a pacifist like Mozi? On a relative scale, my point is that at least the ideals as written in the classical Chinese texts are list militant / chauvinistic than those in the classical western texts.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- So what does the modern western world do in terms of breaking down hereditary rights? Did they just hand off land and money? No, they try to get their public to be educated. Oh, that was just what Confucius did in a broad way. If your father lives in inner-city slump, your chance to become a Silicon Valley entrepreneur? Well, I guess you are out of luck too. The real world has not been just - neither Confucius, Marx, Mao, founding fathers of US, whoever have been able to fix. So what is the point?
- Ideology works as a mask - clearly a great problem. Here I would simply say that it does not just happen to China, or Communism.
It's not the same as China making institutions called the Confucius institute with clear state sponsorship and control.Quote:
Originally Posted by lawpark
One would think the true great thing of countries I do not like like the United States is the people's commitment to an ideal where people can become the king of Silicon Valley coming from nothing. That's generally in this world what equality means, and what countries try to do by providing state education, healthcare, and other problems. It's no wonder that Norway, for instance, is regarded as one of the most desirable places to live. Many Chinese people too have sought the shores of other countries for that exact same reason, to go from being a nothing to someone regarded as a person, an equal, who can better themselves. Grow up? Isn't that what the world is striving for, to allow this kind of equality?Quote:
Originally Posted by lawpark
I told you my problem is based on the Chauvinism, it's a similar criticism I apply to American policy, but because the actual literary tradition is unquestioned, I find myself required to raise the questions. There is no need to be on such a defensive. IT's like this, China, and its government right now preach how good they are because of their 5000 year long tradition, so why not deconstruct that? They preach confucianism, so lets ask what it is exactly they are preaching. Jin Yong has an idea of China, lets look at it.
Seriously, these are all legitimate questions.
- Jin Yong writing clearly has a Nationalistic element, but jingoist as in someone advocating extreme foreign policy? I would clearly disagree. The episode in Lu Deng Ji was really a entertaining episode reminding people that up till the 17th century, China was probably a much more civilized country than Russia - a fact in world history which I doubt most scholars now would disagree. If I recalled correctly, the novel's treatment of Kangxi's Jesuit advisors were not objectionable.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- Qin / Han might have wanted to rule the world, but Qin Shihuang and Han Wudi was clearly discredited in the tradition before the 20th century.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- Getting tribute in the form of first giving a huge present - was it that bad? Wasn't that also the US policy after WWII to support Germany / Western Europe (Marshall Plan) and the support to rebuild Japan? I would argue this form is better than the Roman peace, which require others to become subjects first.
- People wanting to become rich is one thing (can any system of thought / ideology stop that?); glorifying it in the tradition is another. There was no glorifying of entrepreneurs / industrialists who made it big - until really just 20th cenutry.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- The lesson about retiring is that pockets of conscience might not win against the tide of history, but does not mean that conscience would be completely lost or bad deeds eventually forgotten.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- Cao is of course good - all your points are good. But my original point is against you saying Jin Yong is sexist, which does not differentiate Cao from Jin - in fact in Jin Yong's world, because it is Wuxia (imaginary - no one takes them seriously as reflecting true historical settings btw), he has more leeway to give more prominent roles to female characters than Red Chamber (which is a novel set in a historical setting).Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- Here I think to support your points the burden of proof is in establishing that in the second edition the novels were modified significantly to cater to support the Deng regime.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- Agreed with you mostly here. But in this case, to say Jin Yong wrote to "support" the "current regime" (of Deng's), the burden of proof is in pointing out the significant changes in the second edition that does this; because clearly the first serialized edition was against the then "current regime" (of Mao's).Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- Wuxia is imaginary kungfu novel - the heroes don't need to earn money. And no one believe that you can point a figure and kill the others like with a gun. C'mon. It is like criticizing a Monty Python movie that it is not really medieval enough as people did not pretend to have horses by making similar noises with coconut shells in the middle Ages.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- Clearly Red Chamber cannot be nationalistic because the concept hasn't been developed in Europe, or if it has, it hasn't spreaded to China yet.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- But to count out anyone as a great author because he is nationalistic? That would disquality many 18th / 19th century Western and 20th century non-Western authors.
- Emporer Dao Guang clearly looked addicted in his portrait.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- US has drug demand, does it mean US government should just let it go in? Your argument hardly makes common sense.
- Let just assume China since Ming after Zheng He has shutted itself off (which really wouldn't be true because its silver base came from trade), and it were all reasonably well (with big ups and down, and at least on the surface) till end of 18th century. Then some Westerners come in with guns, trying to sell opium and claim that Chinese has a ego problem of not opening the door, wouldn't it actually make sense for people in China to think that the problems do start with the Westerners? Similarly, Romans did think the "barbarians" at gate were the problems. It is hard to argue that it wasn't.
It stopped being a sustainable situation because the "modern" world was being created, staring in the West - further supporting the view that the problem for China indeed started from the West. China was more established, of large scale and took longer to adapt. It have not adapted well - but it also didn't have the free continent and slave labor at its disposal in dealing with the transition.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- Was it that different from the difference in wealth between the British Royalty in UK vs. the Indian farmers at the turn of the 19th/20th century? Or between the Rockerfellers vs. the railroad workers at that time in US?Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- Well, many US households went broke, house prices went too high, taxes are also high, they were not able to buy their own home but to borrow, eventually they suffer. But this is NOT slavery.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- My personal view - you are reading it too seriously. Wuxia clearly is a non-serious form of novel; and Lu Ding Ji made it even less serious as a Wuxia. And if anyone writing in the late 20th century needs to be post-modern (similar to in arts in the 20th century - if you made art this not as distorted as what the Europeans felt as a result of the two world wars - you really shouldn't be considered to be in the leading edge), then, no Jin Yong was not; but his was not nearly as linear as some other popular Wuxia.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- If you talked to older people in Beijing - no one has forgotten about it. But why does that need to come into Jin Yong's novel discussion?Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- Wuxia is probably more like Harry Potter; by no means historical fiction.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
- Actually the novels are full of bad things about China - in fact, the world the heroes operated in are pretty bad.
I did end up spending my whole night responding. Time to call it off now.
The similarity is both uses taxpayers' money.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
I agree yours are reasonable questions to ask - but if they were to be real, they need to be based on more than just a general dislike of the current Chinese regime, and more than a general dislike as a result of being too immersed in propaganda that exists in the Western world. My defensiveness comes from your claim that the Chinese tradition is not moral becaue the reality on the ground is bad. I would say "equality" as in everyone could become king of Silicon Valley is as much a myth, an ideological propaganda as much as the Chinese sort.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Why not connect world politics with world literature? if we are talking about a world tradition here, doesn't world esteem play a roll? After all, Japanese texts are so available in English translation for the exact same reason - namely the occupying forces payed money into "studying" the defeated.Quote:
Originally Posted by lawpark
Yes, but the difference is this. Plato is not a state ideology, and academics do not agree on it. Confucius is not monolithic in interpretation, but the Chinese government funds a preaching of one set of views based on it for the purpose of spreading propaganda. Likewise, there is no freedom of media there, which means there is no accurate debate.Quote:
Originally Posted by lawpark
Hong Kong is different to an extent, but lets ignore there since in the grand scheme it's more confusing to look at Hong Kong in this picture.
As a reply to the seriousness, well, Jin Yong himself is obsessed with his seriousness. He even published in his Ming Pao a "classics of Wuxia" line up to try to get himself recognized as part of a tradition. As for the version, well, lets just deal with the second/third edition, as you said you have not read Ming Pao ever, which means you are getting him on a reprint anyway, we might as well look at the format is he most known by.
On that regard, what does he hold up most of all - firstly, heterosexual romantic love - the woman falls in love, and is married in the end to her husband, who generally by the end of the book is the most powerful living person or close to it, with the exception of Lu Deng Ji, where he just marries a series of women and never learns anything.
Themes of loyalty, of self-betterment, of questing, and of doing what is right dominate his work. That isn't bad in itself, except they always fail, or realize they are hypocrites, or march off into exile.
The problem with the Deng era is it comes after a time period that tried to break with feudalism, Jin Yong's novels attempt t glory that era - how does one go backward - well, it's easy, the whole system just lurched backward. The view of imperial China now is so warped we are stuck in a problem - the old feudalism is merely continued, and Jin Yong's novels do nothing to undercut it, as they never really support people's movements, or governmental change.
As for them being stupid novels, well I agree, but they are taken seriously, so lets move away from the serialized versions, which we know were sloppily written, and lets look at the published versions since they are what he tried to "preserve." He clearly took himself seriously, that is why it is fair to poke. He wrote historical fiction, he is using history, so let us look at what he screwed up with, and what he bent.
Even notions of romantic love are troubling to look at in classical Chinese thought - arguably the idea of romance is negative, whereas duty is more important, women of higher classes in much of when the books are taking place would not even be seen outside, and would probably see their husband right before he took her to the back room to hump (age 14 give or take).
Now, you have hero and heroine roaming this fictional world made up of fancy, then we can only hope to understand the construct as something out of an allegory or a game, it's troubling to read it seriously since it is so absurd. Likewise he cannot map out time, so the distance and time lapse in his novels are out of whack, which causes in a headache. Even the setting then feels strange as it is confused.
Now as for characters, I didn't say he was misogynist particularly, I just don't think he understands women at all. His characters are ridiculous, intentionally perhaps, but it doesn't work to his credit. In general, the female leads function as romantic sidekicks who are kicked into a nationalist drive by their others - with the exception of only a few novels, his texts all deal with nationalism, one of the protagonists of one of his novels is female, I have not read it, and it is not one of his most famous ones. In general, his books are about men going out into the world, finding a romantic sweet heart, and saving the country to an extent, before retiring in disgust, or removing themselves from the conflict.
Since nationalism and national identity are so central to his thought, then lets look there first, and apply that to his resurgence on the mainland, as the first to shake Deng's hand, and the first to welcome reunification. What does it mean for him to have this ingrained Chinese identity that is universal - a Chinese cultural "gene" if you will that transcends borders and makes people better. That is my question, what is he meaning by that. It gives a weird impression that Chinese people are all alike, but having been to all ends of the country, I can tell that is hardly true, much less applicable for those in different countries. What then does he mean? Where is he going with his idea?
I heard Chinese believe in nothing but money nowadays, I believe it is true. From the ancient time till this day, China is a place lack a sort of religion that every one could easily worship. They do have the Buddhism and Confucius, but they are more for upper class and well educated people and too fuzzy to be understood. What JBI said about the "Polygamy" means mistress, which is different from prostitution. The former is more evil than the later. It crushes family and cultivates corruption. I guess "Mistress" is quite a spectacle in China now. Whether in developed or developing contries, whether regarded as legal and illegal, it is certain that there are many cities in the world have prostitutions not only China, which is ok, especially when it is managed decently as a business.
I'm not referring to works that will remain in what should be an ever-growing list or anthologies that should last. It's that works are excluded, and teachers are not the only ones doing that.Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
Well, you already mentioned Borges, if not the claim that by reading Borges, one can "already access the canon." In which case, you implicitly gave a list. It's just it contains only one name: Borges.Quote:
And really, lists from a famous author? Who Stephen King canonized? There is a work that he lists several horror influences, but where is all this importance? Well, Borges has a list, but if you read Borges, you already access the canon, so such listing as beginers guidance is meaningless.
That's not my point. My point is found in my previous message.Quote:
You certainly does not expect that something that is lasting is determiend or helped by stuff that people forget in 3 years, do you?
Teachers are quite influential, but the point is that such anthology are almost irrelevant. Either excluded or included. The anthologies respect first the rules of market, not of aesthetics.Quote:
Originally Posted by ralfyman
And? I am not denying the lists. I am saying those guides are not so relavant, as they say almost nothing about anything. There is no real conection when you read a list that may put together Voltaire, Edward Gibbon, Goethe, Schiller, Diderot, William Beckford, Samuel Johnson and they do link enough to make a list.Quote:
Well, you already mentioned Borges, if not the claim that by reading Borges, one can "already access the canon." In which case, you implicitly gave a list. It's just it contains only one name: Borges.
Your point is that such lists works as a travel guide. I point it not so great. The lists have no clue or path to which place you should turn. Even the most famous of them, Bloom canon, is impossible (and lazy, as he resume several authors with a complete works edition) and easily replaced by some classic section on a library. And he is not canonical at all, therefore his influence wont last as his classics. Right now, he is even missing something, as Harry Potter can be find in almost all libraries and the books you can borrow is a stronger influence than the books Bloom or any critic listed to make money with self-help (yes, because it is boil down to it) be a good reader list.Quote:
That's not my point. My point is found in my previous message.
It is ok to connect world politics with world literature, but if you link "world esteeem" based on current Anglophone media ideology, ultimately you just get token recognition that the rest of the world exist (unimportantly), as in the most historical survey of old-school world history (like those by J.M. Roberts), or world philosophy, or world literature, or world art history, etc. If one consider that satisfactory, there is no need to really talk about further making world canon truly more worldwide.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Secondly, if we talk politics, let's apply the same type of criticism to all potentially canonical texts. Say, why didn't Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky criticize selfdom? Why is it ok that the Red Chamber is not against feet binding when it was happening right then, but not ok if Jin Yong wrote with a moderate nationalism right after de-colonization?
Third, ultimately, I believe Harold Bloom has a little bit of a point in that ultimately, the "school of resentment" (essentially studying the canon with just politics) can only go so far - and the problem with using world politics to screen world literature ends up just excluding the non-western texts from the view of most layman, and as such enforces continuity of a western canonical domination the texts in which are known to contain as much "bad politics" as those excluded. How is that constructive?
The aesthetics of world culture would be hard anyways, not just anyone can "get" chinese ancient music.
Because what you say about China can be very offensive.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Where exactly did you stay there? China is too diverse to generalize the way you do in some of your comments.
Also, if you were to nitpick with every country in the world the way you do with China, what country would come out entirely clean?
He is not ragging (not a proper word, but cant think of la mote juste right now) at the fact that china has problems, the problem and I agree with JBI is that China is unwilling to look at itself in the mirror, while it scrutinizes everyone else in their mirrors. JBI is railing against the Hypocrisy. And in the most part I agree with him, from when I spent some time in China I saw a lot of what he seems to have seen as well. Of course China has plenty of good, but its determination to pretend that the bad doesn't exist and it never has, and how it has mind-washed generations into actually thinking that, is infuriating - especially for a westerner who has grown up with different notions of what society should be, and different notions of individual liberty and freedom.Quote:
Originally Posted by cl154576
However I will say I think the problem is not so much China as it is Communism. I mean yes China has a history of being a vainglorious nation and xenophobic - but so much of the hypocrisy which is infuriating with the present day China is a staple refuse of all communist regimes, which have held power in the world.
However I think the cristism of JBI against Jin Yong, to me seems unfair. Your criticism of him appears mostly politically infused. I mean Tolstoy in War and Peace completely warped history for a nationalistic agenda. He conveniently forgets to mention how the russian army was the most barbarous, raping and pillaging wherever it went, on a scale which most European armies found disgusting and would never dream of doing. Instead of the barbarous army led by ineffectual leaders who held power only due to nepotism - Tolstoy focuses on showing us the national bravery and Valor of the russian soldier which is much more noble and honorable than those Operational Germans, Vain French and Excitable Italians.
Also he describes Alexander as a beautiful angel and genius oppressed by the men around him, and Napoleon as a vile and base man. Historically this is all poppycock. Napoleon was a tactical Genius and had immense influence upon europe, while Alexander was an immature and ineffectual leader who wanted to play soldier, and was to weak willed to ever make decisive choices.
This is all historical manipulation for a nationalistic agenda, and also one of the greatest novels ever written.
Most people in Chinese cities at least aren't as mind-washed as it might appear to outsiders. They realize that the government is lying to them, and sometimes they know the truth too, only they're not allowed to show it (for instance in the case of the recent train crashes). No adult I know in China is happy with the government but no one dares to complain either.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alexander III
Also, as a passing note, most governments conceal some of their history, maybe just not as much.
I find the Chinese government infuriating, but I don't think it's fair to call the entire culture corrupt or immoral, or that "Chinese believe in nothing but money nowadays" ... That's some people, and that's a stereotype. It's impossible to generalize like that with a whole nation.