On his Sina weibo account, Qiao Xiaodao (乔小刀) introduces himself simply as “a very amiable person”, but there is far more than that when it comes to his life experiences. His stories can make a good read. A welder when he first came to Beijing, he started his pursuit of dream in a dark basement, like most of the other drifters in Beijing. Starting from there, he has staged an installation exhibition with the waste materials he had collected, become an art editor, started his own design company, formed a band and released a well-received album etc. What a colorful resume! He has made fortunes as well as suffered from bankruptcy that brought him back to the basement.

Not only a dream seeker, Qiao is to most people a dream maker. He loves music, so he formed a band with his niece and released an album. He is interested in creative designs and products so he held individual exhibitions. He is devoted to helping others so he initiated the program “Weibo Zhi Yan” (微薄之盐, A Pinch of Salt) to support independent young musicians. Many found his experiences interesting and he has inspired people to join him. While Qiao’s stories appeal to more people, they start to encourage more dreamers.

Do not let money keep you from pursuing dream

“What the future looks like? I do not want to know. “–from a song written by one of Qiao’s friends

Like many others, Qiao has a lot of dreams. Also like many others, he has money concerns. In his book “Live A Good Life is Not Necessarily Expensive” (好的生活没那么贵), he wrote in the preface, “Money is the biggest obstacle when one is to start a business or plan to do something. How to lower the cost, save the time and human resources? Only by changing the set thinking pattern and knowing clearly where one’s strengths and resources lie can one find the nearest and most plausible path. Through pooling resources and execution, one can gradually grasp the dream in hands during the process of practice.” When Qiao took the first step toward his dream, he only had 400 yuan and his ID card. He got on a train heading for Beijing. The idea that sent him to Beijing was “Now that I am suffering at home, why not go suffering in the best place in China?” And in his mind, the best place in China is Beijing—the capital.

The early days in Beijing were not easy for someone who had such a meager amount of money. To survive in the capital, he had to take on various jobs as a manual laborer to keep life going on. For Qiao, the best way for him to realize dreams was knowledge. He took every job as an opportunity to learn new things and gain experience. Once he became skilled at one job, he turned to a more difficult one. He used to copy what aroused his interests in the bookstore onto a notebook and took it everywhere. It was the books on installation and abstract art that attracted him most. He was enormously impressed with art works made from wasted materials and he found those reminiscent of what he did everyday. Later he started collecting all the materials that could not be used anymore and study installation and abstract art at the same time. With his efforts, he came up with the idea of an exhibition showing all his works at the end of that year. His friends became the audience, among which were some underground musicians in Beijing. Although he did not stick to art in his career path due to economic concerns, it was a beginning of his artistic pursuits in various forms and brought him the courage and confidence to do something big.

Another possibility: to live a good life without too much money

Sometimes all one needs is to think out of the box and explore unusual ways to approach one’s dream.

It is true that one does need money to get things started, but it does not always have to be a large sum. With only 400 yuan, Qiao survived in Beijing and started his new life. Just like the art exhibition on which he spent only 500 yuan, his other achievement were as well low-cost and jaw-dropping. It is all about the pooling of resources and best use of what one already has.  His records include 3000 yuan for a documentary, 500 yuan for an art exhibition, 50 yuan for an outfit, and 35 yuan for a dinner for ten, etc. He became a living example to those who take adequate wealth as the prerequisite for a happy life.

Qiao Xiaodao and his niece

Among all his different identities, one of the most known is the ballad singer who formed the ballad group with his niece—Da Qiao Xiao Qiao (大乔小乔, Big Qiao, Small Qiao). Music has always been one of his loves and he particularly likes watching people playing guitar. He certainly hoped to sing for others with his own guitar. The first thing was to get to know about music. His more than 200 fragments of composition suggested how difficult it was for an outsider to do music. After several failed attempts to form a band with some of his friends, he stopped trying and decided to go solo for the moment. Later when Qiao performed for his family, his mother suggested that his little niece Qiao Munan (乔木楠) sings with him and this was how the group came into being.

After several performances, the group got famous and people started to ask for their album. The biggest challenge they were facing was where the money came from. Qiao Xiaodao made up his mind to make an album hoping to explore a way for other independent musicians who were struggling to stick to their music dreams and to attract more support. Thanks to his friends in the music circle, he managed to finish the recording of the whole album in a one-square-meter studio and the music video was also self-made, simple and rough. All the family members helped in the process of making the album. It was the success of such a simple album that led to the later more ambitious project.

Weibo Zhi Yan (微薄之盐)—A pinch of salt

Weibo stands for “small”; Yan stands for contribution and Weibo Zhi Yan stands for “a small contribution”.

The idea of “Weibo Zhi Yan” came from that Qiao wanted to help others but he knew well that his ability was limited. So he came up with such a name for his project. Supported by some of the entrepreneurs he became acquainted with, Qiao started to build the platform he had always been thinking of to pool resources to help independent musicians like him. Based in an art zone turned from a storage house, he found some friends and hired new hands. In this way the platform was established and Qiao and his people started to scout for talented musicians. The way the project works is that it help young musicians to achieve their goals such as releasing an album with the social network it has built. For example, it may introduce musicians to producers and publishers who are possible to provide support. They provide resources as well as show them how to tap into opportunities for long-term development.

Following the traditional Chinese philosophy that “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”, the project works towards the ultimate goal to help independent musicians to stand firm on their own feet and find their own paths. Qiao and his friends also made a project magazine to let more people get to know about it and attract more support from the society. As the project grows, so does the need for an even bigger platform. With an idea to provide these musicians a stage to shine, the Weibo Zhi Yan concert kicked off. Weibo Zhi Yan concert welcomes all kinds of music styles and is open to whoever is interested with a low threshold. Qiao compares Weibo Zhi Yan to a public lavatory where people from all walks of life come by. Strangers meet here and make friends. People come and go, leaving different stories.

One leg of his nationwide tour in Renmin University of China

As he thinks that money cannot stops one from pursuing one’s dream, Qiao also thinks that finance is not the prerequisite for non-profit initiatives. From a commoner to someone who helps people realize their dreams, Qiao lives a colorful as well as simple life. His life philosophy of thinking out of the box and use the ready resources to do things we want inspires the following of us to look back on our own dreams that have been postponed for various excuses. Now with his guitar, Qiao Xiaodao is busy meeting his fans in different cities for his 2012 A Inspirational Tour around China (2012励志中国行) and sharing his stories with them. Engaged to helping others with his limited power, Qiao Xiaodao and his stories might shed some light to those who also have big dreams but have not taken any actions yet.

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Lv Bubu (picture from online resources)

The poet’s blog

Born in 1982 in Shangzhou, Shanxi, Lv Bubu (吕布布) started writing poetry at the age of 27. She pays attention to the art of poetry, which she believes can lead to inner transcendence. The poet’s original name is Lv Yan (吕艳). Lv Bubu’ reading spans a wide range and her favorite poets are Du Fu (杜甫) and Tsvetayeva. However, according to Lv, these poets have not directly led her path of poetry. She thinks the ideology is one of the standards by which a poem is judged and it depends on age, experience and the bottom line of writing.

我有温暖的葡萄酒

我没有仆人。
冬天来了，我自己酿制米酒
劈柴火，收起光洁亮丽的生活
在第一个寒冷的日子封好窗户
还有好天气，坐在微弱的阳光下
我又温暖的葡萄酒，打开诗集
花园里还有小男孩穿着薄薄的鞋子在散步
枯黄的竹林淌出稀疏的影子
不断有路人带着萝卜、大白菜还有辣椒经过
多少曲折与迂回
他们带回好行情
我坐在我的阳台上看着他们，我和他们一样幸福
我有温暖的葡萄酒。

I have warm wine

I have no servants.
I make rice wine by myself when winter comes
I cut firewood and hide a life that is shining and flashy
The window is sealed firmly the first day when coldness sets in
Thanks to the good weather, sitting in mild sunshine
I have warm wine and open a book of poetry
A little boy is taking a walk in the garden in thin shoes
Scattered shadows flow out of dried and yellow bamboo groves
From time to time people pass by carrying radish, cabbage, and red pepper
Through winding and detours
They bring back good news
I am looking at them on my balcony and as happy as they are
I have warm wine

冬日邂逅

像一个空有其表的干死的花，我说她。
我想摸摸她，从她的羊毛大衣到白手套。
但我没有。
我花时间看她。
我说我不记得了，她的眼睛
有无法估量的寒冷。
我说你不要笑，只要你笑
那灿烂的白色栅栏，就要将我阻拦
就要让我看到低处
我只能打开她的膝盖。
她不停地说话，笑了，她扬起小手
带远了我的视线，这一切发生在
这个冬季第一场清新的雪。

An encounter in winter

Like a dead flower with no water but only the appearance, I meant her.
I wanted to touch her, from her woolen coat to white gloves.
But I did not.
I spent time looking at her.
I said I did not remember; her eyes
Contained immeasurable coldness.
I said “don’t laugh”; once you laughed
The glittering white fence would stop me
Would direct my eyes to the lower part
I could only open her knee.
She kept talking, smiled, and raised her small hand
Leading away my sight; all this happened
When the winter saw its first crisp snow.

sources: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/micro-reading/dzh/2011-08-29/content_3633254.html

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In 2011, professor Wang gave a lecture in Peking University on the topic of Chinese science fiction. He related the three concepts in western literature—utopia, dystopia, and heterotopias to the study of Chinese literature and discussed two Chinese writers Lu Xun (鲁迅) and Liu Cixin (刘慈欣) from two different times. The following is an excerpt of his lecture on the development of Chinese science fiction in different periods of history.

Professor Wang divided his lecture into the following parts:

Late Qing Dynasty — the May Fourth Movement

First I need to go back to the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. At the time of late Qing Dynasty, fantasy or science fiction in a broad sense used to be a grand literary genre, which once played a meaningful role in a period of political and historical upheavals. Such a phenomenon gradually faded away after the year of 1911. After the May Fourth Movement, science fiction even became a sub-genre which was little known. The transformation is worth thinking about.

Liang Qichao (梁启超)

In 1902, in his magazine New Novel (新小说), Liang Qichao wrote On the Future of New China (新中国未来记). This was the starting point of our today’s discussion on science fiction. There were five chapters in On the Future of New China and he did not finish it. It was a projection of the year 1962, sixty years after the publication of the novel. At that time, China had already raised to a world power, with many other countries coming to pay tribute to China and admire the greatness of its civilization. The 72^nd generation of descendants of Confucius (which is not Kong Qingdong 孔庆东) gave a lecture on various kinds of prosperity and harmony in the world. Thousands of students from all over the countries came to the lecture. It was a world with advanced civilization and the ideal projection of Liang Qichao in 1902. However, it as a scientific fiction was quite superficial, using only temporal projection to illustrate his ideal for the future.

The novel was inspired by Looking Backward by American writer Edward Bellamy in late nineteenth century. Translated by missionary, the book was circulated among few Chinese intellectuals in the 1890s. The novel was adapted into On the Future of New China by Liang Qichao.

Lu Xun (鲁迅)

In 1903, Lu Xun , namely Zhou Shuren (周作人), who was then studying in Japan, was also greatly interested in science fiction. In 1903, Lu Xun translated two novels: one is Travel on the Moon; the other is A Journey to the Center of the Earth. In talking about Lu Xun’s  contribution to Chinese modern literature of today, it cannot be ignored that his experiment on literature started from the translation of foreign scientific novels. The origin of the two books translated by Lu Xun was actually the French writer Jules Gabriel Verne, who was extremely popular at the time in Europe. A Journey to the Center of the Earth and Travel on the Moon were respectively published in 1864 and 1865 and were both popular at that time. Lu Xun translated from Japanese versions and had many parts deleted from original plot. But the point is we had a student who advocated reform and who was full of imagination and curiosity to the outside world. They had already felt worried and indignant about current China and its traditions.

It is the imagination and narration that are significant in rebuilding our imagination of China and the world with a novel. After traveling to the moon and the center of the earth, the exchange between humanity and world had become an incredible adventure by creating a different space. Indeed, hundreds of years later, what Lu Xun did in 1903 has become a scientific feat in today. It has become an ambitious project to explore different places astrologically. In the process of human civilization, we are constantly searching for paradise and fairyland. But the civilization brought itself a flickering and direction. During such a historical crisis, “China can rise to prosperity”. Hopefully Chinese can rise up again, using our power to recreate China and the world. Such vivid imagination was the beginning of Lu Xun’s literature. However, our literature textbooks started with A Madman’s Diary (狂人日记), which is another dystopian imagination. The so-called source of science fiction which constantly influenced the China’s scientific narration was such foreign writers such as H. G. Wells who wrote Time Machine.

Other works

Some of these books became extremely popular at that time. One was The Suppressed Modernity (被压抑的现代性) that was popular during late Qing Dynasty. The earth was no longer habitable and we could fly to another planet by hot balloons. In The New Story of the Stone (新石头记), Jia Baoyu (贾宝玉) came to a civilized world after several rounds of life. This civilized world was harmonious and ethical, including everything. People from different classes lived equally and happily together and the technology was advanced. Jia Baoyu once had many incredible acts such as going on deep-sea expedition in a submarine, and flying toAfricafor hunting. The climax of the novel comes when Jia Baoyu went to the Expo, he met a great master of eastern civilization, whose name was Mr. Eastern Civilization, just like today’s professor Du Weiming (杜维明). Jia listened to him talking about the possibility of prosperity. The expo image is very funny and reminds us of spectacle social events such as the Shanghai Expo and Beijing Olympics. In such an occasion, we are actually having a heterotopian imagination which we cannot have in current society. It seems to be a vision that can be fulfilled, making such a society our reflective subject.

In The New Era (新纪元), during a war in 1999, Hungary was trying to decide between western calendar and Chinese almanac and began fighting with each other. China interrupted by sending troops to Europe. The generalissimo led a troop of battleships pulled by crocodiles, beating all the western powers badly. Such imagination based on strong racial and national nationalism was very shocking at the time (around 1910).

Works of this type were popular at the time. Both utopian and dystopian orientation created a new imagination and space, provoking and disturbing Chinese of that generation with the question how to confront approaching disasters of the nation in real life. The Revolution of 1911 indeed resulted in a subtle confrontation with so-called utopian, dystopias, and heteropian phenomena in science fiction.

The May Forth Movement — 1949

It is weird that science fiction suddenly disappeared after the May Fourth Movement introduced the notion of Democracy and Science into Chinese intelligentsia. Arguably, if the society had experience modernity, the new generation of intellectuals should have become more interested in either positive or negative utopian literature. On the contrary, the literature we read today is all about realism. Until today, we are stilling spreading the omnipotence and perpetuity of realism. It is a subtle reflection on the historical situation of that time. Why is such genre missing? One possible explanation is that in face of national disaster and in the concern for the country, people have no time to imagine another space whether it is possible or not.

• A Lisi’s journey in China (阿丽思中国游记), by Shen Congwen (沈从文), 1929

The book was inspired by Alice in Wonderland. Shen depicted aChinain late twentieth century with all kinds of ridiculousness that even A Lisi was shocked after coming toChina. It was a small experiment on dystopia.

• Diary of the Ghost Land (鬼土日记), by Zhang Tianyi (张天翼), 1931

It adopted the genre of “ghost stories” from Ming and Qing Dynasties, but he made the various ghosts ludicrous and the story was not at all scary. The story goes that a mortal of the secular world went to visit the underworld and saw all kinds of weird and ridiculous scenes he had read in literature. Various incredible, tacky, mawkish, violent and weird literary scenes made a spectacle in the world of ghosts. Zhang Tianyi used the underworld to investigate the ridiculousness and inequalities in the real world.

• A Tale of the City of Cats (猫城记), by Lao She (老舍), 1933

In A Tale of the City of Cats, an astronaut went on an expedition to the Mars. The spaceship had an accident and he arrived at a country of cats. Citizens here would save their “faces” at all costs. They consumed “” every day and their minds were always unclear. They grew up in such an environment. In face of the impending disaster, they still had fights with each other. The prospect of a nation was clear. Compared with the previous two in structure, the book has a more comprehensive reflection and imagination of dystopia.

• Eighty-one Dreams (八十一梦), by Zhang Henshui (张恨水)

The book was published during the Anti-Japanese War. It reflected various kinds of absurdity in an “Anti-Japanese society” under the government of Kuomintang through the interpretation of dreamland. Although Anti-Japanese War was an initiative of the whole country, Zhang Henshui did see the negative side such as corruptions during the War. He constructed a dreamland to liberate himself from his own criticalness to some extent—it probably was just a dream. This was another work of dystopia.

From the perspective of modern literature, these are just a small part in of an insignificant genre. However, there was another genre of “narration” other than novels. Either ideological narration or public and political narration had a lot of utopian imagination.

• Social Structure of Beauty (美的社会组织法), by Zhang Jingsheng (张竞生)

Writer of “History of Sex”, Zhang Jingsheng seems to be a very bad figure. In the middle 1920s, he wrote “Social Structure of Beauty”, imagining a surprisingly perfect Chinese society. In particular, people were most impressed with what he came up with as “Lover System”. Since marriage was so boring, it was better to have a “Lover System” so that people could enjoy more romantic relationships. Choosing what to wear every day made people have headache. The country could produce a kind of clothes that people could wear everyday and was easy to clean as well. Therefore people could dress beautifully with the same clothes and were no longer bothered by what to wear. The book actually can be read as a novel, which is even more interesting that the dystopias mentioned above.

• Da Tong Shu (大同书), by Kang Youwei (康有为)

Kang Youwei (康有为)

Kang Youwei started writing the book in 1880, but the book had been circulated among the literati in the Kang family. In 1913, several chapters of Da Tong Shu were published in print. The book wasn’t published in its entirety until 1935. It was an important discussion or narration on utopia. He imagined that the world had no countries. There was one central government elected by the people. There was no family and men and women could not live together for more than one year. No matter how much they loved each other, there were more people who they should love. So one had only one year to express your love to the other and needed to move on to next stage. The growing of children was extremely important, so it should be taken care of by the country with public care house. Schools of different levels were pre-arranged and one just needed go from one to another. Employment, hospitalization, and retirement were all arranged. In the end, when one was ready to go to the heaven, things were arranged, too. One would be immediately be cremated after death. Right next to the crematorium was a fertilizer plant. The whole life of people was made the fullest use. It was a perfect world of great unity. Thus in the wild utopian imagination of Kang Youwei, there were radical traditional Chinese ideas of livelihood, as well as anarchy and other western political concepts. All of these made a interesting story. It was difficult to define it as a subtle argumentation. I think its narrative process is worth rethinking about. The worked appeared in 1935, almost half a century later than Kang Youwei started writing.

Kang Youwei’s Da Tong Shu even had great influence on the “On People’s Democratic Dictatorship” (论人民民主专政) by the great Mao in history (毛泽东). Mao in this declaration mentioned the great world of the Da Tong Shu. There was an ideological connection between the two. It is important to notice that in 1958 when people’s commune movement began, Mao Zedong was indeed partly inspired by Kang Youwei’s Da Tong Shu.Interesting historical materials suggest possibilities of exchange between different eras and political ideals. The utopian potential seems to exist in narration or political writings. In comparison, what we usually read in novels are the possibilities of dystopia.

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After 1949, there was a period of science fiction in its broadest sense. But at that time, “science” was controlled by an ideological and political rhetoric and a way of knowledge acquisition. Thus it was inconceivable for many politically correct figures to put together science fiction and science in a certain historical background. Science fiction could only play an auxiliary role under the premises of scientific popularization and study. Writers were not allowed to have imaginative explorations into various utopian and dystopian futures. Therefore science fiction was indeed limited and became a kind of propaganda literature.

A sinologist in Germany Wagner once studied the science fiction of the 1950s. Mr. Zheng Wenguang (郑文光) contributed to early science fiction after 1949. Mr. Ye Yonglie’s (叶永烈) “The Little Smart Wondering into the Future” (小灵通漫游未来) in the early 1980s was the most popular science fiction ever. Such science fictions were mostly categorized as popular science books and more important ones belonged to children’s literature. In the many years of the creation and practice of science fiction, once it was categorized into children’s literature, the issue had the nature of group, family and children, which was a very ridiculous situation.

Chinese science fiction was dwarfed by the voluminous western works of the same genre. Mr. Han Song (韩松) once said, “If you tell other you write science fiction, you will feel insignificant. How can you be compared with those great guys like Yu Hua (余华), Su Tong (苏童) or Wang Anyi (王安忆)? Science fiction forms a sharp contrast with realistic literature. The graduate students of Professor Wu Yan (吴岩) in Beijing Normal University belong to the department of children’s literature. It you want to study science fiction, you have to go to the department of children’s literature. These children are really not simple.These great “children” who were over fifty or sixty years old still kept writing science fictions in contemporary times.

Zhang Xiguo (张系国)

Born in mainland, Zhang Xiguo grew up in Taiwan and lives inUSA. In the seventies and eighties, he wrote a large number of science fictions. He is a Doctor of Philosophy in electronic computing. His works include “Five Jade Plates” (五玉碟), “Flying Soldier in the City of Dragon” (龙城飞将), and “A Feather” (一羽毛), which are a trilogy series. It imagined the crossing of time and space, future of the universe, and exploring different planets, etc. But he put the story in late Qing Dynasty and around the time of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom , making a interesting phenomenon in the shifting of time and space.

The generation of Liu Cixin (刘慈欣)

Liu Cixin

Liu’s douban site

Liu Cixin has become a phenomenon in mainland literature circle during the past five or six years. He is an engineer, as well as a figure who is famous, exemplary and standard in the field of science fiction but little known in literary field. It was in the Niangziguan power plant where he works that he wrote powerful science fiction. Liu began writing San Ti (三体) in 2006, before which he had already had more than ten years of writing experience, including the work Ball-shaped Lightening (球状闪电).

San Ti Trilogy

“San Ti” refers to the three stars in the endless universe and sky. They have created a new living environment that differs from the earth as a result of mutual gravitation. In such a star system exist so-called “San Ti people” (三体人). There is no fixed law to follow due to gravity effects, unlike the seasonal changes on the earth. In that world, there are only two systems of time. One is called “Eternal epoch” (恒纪元), in which time goes in a regular way. The other is called “Chaotic epoch” (乱纪元). People have no idea about when the “Eternal epoch” or “Chaotic epoch” would begin. “San Ti people” live in a extremely unstable time system, so they have acquired the ability to handle variable situations constantly. With such ability, they have to be calm, crafty and treacherous to deal with impending crises. For them, morals and ethics are produced by people on the earth who are idle and rich. In the world of “San Ti”, unbounded rationality expanded to an absolute cynicism and their technology and civilization are far advanced than the earth.

First, there is a female scientist Ye Wenjie, whose father was executed wrongly during the Cultural Revolution. As a result she developed an absolute pathetic and cynical attitude toward humanity with a total lack of confidence. In revenge of her father, she secretly got in touch with “San Ti people” with her scientific power and invited them to destroy the current world. The problem thus came that how can human beings fight against “San Ti people”. The only opportunity is a period of 400 years which it takes for “San Ti people” to arrive on earth. The 400 years is fair enough for people on earth to take defensive measures. In the novel, people from different fields across the world join each other to fight against “San Ti people”. Our visionary leaders have already predicted in 1960 that creatures from foreign planets might come to attack Chinese someday. So there is indeed the grand red side that great men are there. But on the other hand, “San Ti people” is after all a very evil force and it is unknown what the results will be. So there is another quite solemn clue that no matter how hard you fight back, it will end up nothing left. Perdition is the ultimate fate of the earth. However, before the “San Ti people” come, we have to leave some proof of our efforts, so there are astounding descriptions.

The problem thus came that how can human beings fight against “San Ti people”. The only opportunity is a period of 400 years which it takes for “San Ti people” to arrive on earth. The 400 years is fair enough for people on earth to take defensive measures. In the novel, people from different fields across the world join each other to fight against “San Ti people”. Our visionary leaders have already predicted in 1960 that creatures from foreign planets might come to attack Chinese someday. So there is indeed the grand red side that great men are there. But on the other hand, “San Ti people” is after all a very evil force and it is unknown what the results will be. So there is another quite solemn clue that no matter how hard you fight back, it will end up nothing left. Perdition is the ultimate fate of the earth. However, before the “San Ti people” come, we have to leave some proof of our efforts, so there are astounding descriptions.

In the process of defense, Liu Cixin asks a profound question. He no longer discuss the issues such as the direction of China, the rise of China, the existence of automatic mechanism inside the Communist Party of China. His question is: beyond the current concerns over China, as Chinese, are we able to response to Chinese civilization in a broader sense or even the world’s and universe’s civilizations?

Here he is revealing a powerful, Kantian and spectacular confrontation between humanity and the infinity. As a writer who is rarely seen in the latest ten or twenty years, Liu Cixin has great imagination into the future. Such imagination leads to nowhere, though, because the capacity of humanity makes it impossible to survive. At last, when “San Ti people” come nearer, human world is compressed our three-dimensional world into a two-dimensional with a “Er Xiang Bo” (二向箔), like the picture created by Zhang Yimou (张艺谋), in which our three-dimensional world was compressed into the subtlest two-dimensional civilization. How spectacular scene that is! All humanity, constructions, and civilizations are compressed with only death left. With everything disappearing, how can we keep our civilization? At the historical or universal cross, what judgment would the one or two great men make? Should we act like “San Ti people” who work in conspiracy and change the destiny of humanity with absolute calmness and rationality? Should we continue our belief that has shaped our civilization and continue our unavoidable tragedy? There are many moral concerns involved. In addition to the exaggeration of universal landscape and spectacles, there is a more profound of Liu Cixin on the antinomy that “what make humanity”.

The second part of the story Dark Forest (黑暗森林) talks about one type of surviving law. In the Dark Forest (黑暗森林) of zero morality, how are we going to keep the precious residue of humanity’s moral ideas? There is no solution. In the last part Dead End (死神永生), humanity’s destiny came to the end. How can we keep our last dignity? Here Liu Cixin raises an even more profound question.

In addition to humanity’s yearning for and reflection over universe, and humanity’s helpless ethnic confrontation with infinite darkness after conflicts, Liu Cixin also emphasizes one power the humanity can be proud of even after the extinction of “San Ti people” or the universe or humanity itself. This is human imagination. The imagination enables humanity to write poems and literature. Thus all in a sudden, he becomes quite lyrical and uplifted in that humanity cannot be completely controlled by computers, “San Ti people”, or various black powers of the universe.

He wrote a special novel called Cloud of Poetry (诗云). After the earth was taken control by creatures from foreign planets, there was only one thing left that could not be controlled and was created by humanity–poetry. A foreign creature was very curious and wanted to copy what humanity did. He even gave himself a pen name–”Li Bai” (李白). He tried everything he could to steal the most mysterious and most incredible creativity of humanity–writing poetry. “Li Bai” created a nebula hundreds of millions long by permutation and combination of all the literary resources. But he still did not grab the key to writing good poems. The human he captured had a less advanced civilization than foreign creatures, but he was the only one who can tell what is poetry. As for the collection of quadrillions of characters made by computer, he said that was not poetry.

Therefore according to Liu Cixin, the last hope for human civilization is literature. This is a great honor for literature. In this sense, the tension beneath all the wonderful narration in Liu Cixin’s novels comes from the absolute fantasy on the basis of popular science knowledge, the moral principles that made humanity who they were, and expectation for humanity’s imagination. In the end of the novel, everything was gone with the only museum left by human being on Pluto. The earth was gone, together with other things. Such imagination made people wonder whether their future would be like this after reading and feel lost. It is because what we hope is the most utopian imagination of the rise of the country and a magnificent future. In this aspect, Liu Cixin has a broader vision and make us understand that there are much more things in such an infinite universe that we do not know and can continue to explore as human beings.

However, there is a problem in time. If Liu Cixin had already know the destruction of humanity, why would he write a novel called “San Ti”? The name of the novel was Memories of the Earth (地球往事), which used the tense of future perfect to project the what had already happened. He always tells us that there are many dimensions of the universe. The dimension we are in may be another possibility, in which we have already avoided the ultimate disaster. But the projection of life or time is not a simplified logic narration with progressive development. As a scientific enthusiast and researcher, he felt the power to tell us the possibility of infinite expansion.

In 1989, Liu Cixin wrote a novel called China 2185 (中国2185). The story goes that in the year 2185, the ruler of China is a 29-year-old woman. However, one thing happens. A hacker-like figure steals into the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall and replicate Mao’s brain with the most leading-edge technology and creates a new virtual entity. This entity becomes the biggest challenge to our president–the great man is back. What is more terrible is that the brain of a common people is also replicated into a virtual entity and is constantly be replicated. As a result, there are thousands of brain replicas of the same person, becoming the biggest nightmare of humanity. They establish a Republic of Huaxia and the Internet is a chaos. The president is petrified in face of a challenge with multi aspects. In the end what she does is to cut off the power and the whole (virtual) world disappears all of a sudden. Although the Republic of Huaxia only lasts several hours in the cyberworld, it has been 600 hundred years in their world. However, the president ends everything through the operation of the power in one minute. So Liu Cixin is interesting in that his vision is not confined to the current world and he explores various phenomena in politics and history.

Other important works

The subway system of Beijing is advance and convenient. But in the story Subway (地铁) by Han Song (韩松), we are told that the subway is a dystopia. In such a space, we crowd in the train and who know what will happen in next second? The subway takes us into a special and profound undergroud space. In the novel, Han Song’s depressive, even decadent and cruel imagination explodes.

In 2066: Wondering to the West (2066年之西行漫记), China has already risen to a great power in the year 2066. America, however, is not so lucky and has a second civil war.Chinaplays an important role here. Wondering to the West has a historical origin based on Edgar Snow’s Red star over China. It is a subtle confrontation between the red memory and imagination of the future.

In Taiwan, Yi Geyan (伊格言) wrote Dream Eater (噬梦人), telling a story of human brain competing with computer.

It is hard to define Hostel of West Xia (西夏旅馆) by Luo Yijun (骆以军) as a science fiction. But in the broadest sense of today’ heterotopia, it created a most sexual, decadent, and strange hostel with the name of West Xia. It had historical origins. In every single room of the hostel, there would be incredible things happening. The visit of every guest became the most mysterious and usual story. As a Taiwanese writer who belongs to the second generation of another province, Luo Yijun has a deeper historical projection. In the eleventh century, West Xia was a small state and had a short-lived civilization between Liao and Song Dynasties. It later disappeared completely. He used such a literary reference to project the life of Chinese on Taiwan Island. There is also a touch of self pity. But more importantly, he emphasized that in such a strange world, people coming to and leaving the hostel and their short stay suggest a kind of agitation, anxiety, and imagination of a new civilization.

Dong Qizhang (董启章) from Hong Kong is a typical withdrawn otaku and the only thing he does is writing novels at home.A Complicated History of Time (时间繁史) is one of the works in his enormous writing project. The relationship between humanity and robots is no longer an issue here. We are indeed living in a world of robots and whether we are robots ourselves is unknown. In the process, he projected the history of Hong Kong and the ideas of someone from Hong Kong. The climax in A Complicated History of Time happens when in the year 2097 after a deluge, Hong Kong is submerged. In a dilapidated library on a small mountain top, a girl named Victoria is still in charge of the fragments of Hong Kong’s history. It is known that Victoria has something to do with the history of Hong Kong. But the girl is a robot and has to be winded everyday, otherwise times stops here like all the other civilizations that have disappeared. The novel is still being written.

Chen Guanzhong

Chen Guanzhong (陈冠中) is from Hong Kong who now lives in Beijing. The name of the novel is An Era of Prosperity (盛世). The novel is about things that are happening soon. The story goes that with a inviting prospects, a lot of weird things happened in Beijing in 2013. After another worldwide economic panic, China was saved from dangers by the leading of senior officials of the country and rised to an even greater power, becoming the biggest country in the world. However, from that day on, every citizen in Beijing have big smiles on their faces. And there was a specific term to refer to Beijing citizens–”high”. Everything looked so great and people could not be happier. Nevertheless, at that time, when student in the Chinese department of Peking University had classes about Yang Jiang (杨绛) and Qian Zhongshu (钱钟书), they did not know who they were anymore, as well as the Wansheng Books Garden (万圣书园). The history of China started from the year 2008 when the Beijing Olympics took place. This is an obvious dystopian novel.

There was a group of people who were not able to have fun. They were not satisfied and wanted to know the reason for the happiness of Beijing citizens. They unexpectedly kidnaped one the leaders of the country. The leader was not wearing hair that was dyed black, nor dressed decently with a face glowing with health. He had few hair and was exhausted, but he was a man of high taste and wore an Armani suit. His children had been sent abroad at an early time. But he knew his responsibility for Chinese people and worked hard in the real sense. There is a marvellous monologue in the novel. I could not believe that one person could deliver such a long paragraph when I first read the novel because I thought it was already out of the limit of a novel. But when I read for a second time, I realized the point of the novel was not how “high” Beijing citizens were, but how the leader used a tender, rational, and nostalgic tone to tell us his responsibility to China. He talked about how he governed the country, that he knew the conflicts between the new leftists and the liberals. He said their conflicts were not problematic. He let they fight against each other and they were all under his due consideration. He would stop them at a certain time. He also talked about that under the circumstance that politics, academics, and philosophy intertwined with each other, they came up with a new body of citizens. The most fundamental thing for the new body was to forget–how to forget. Moreover, there was a great secret.

The writer Chen Guanzhong was not simply a Hong Kong journalist who criticizes China. As a matter of fact, he has profound love toward and deep concerns about China. This is another way of reflecting on China, but not starkly criticizing the current political power. He is against classicism. As a Hong Kong citizen living in Beijing, how can he create a heterotopia through the novel instead of simple utopia or dystopia? How to reflect China’s future in a position on the fringe? How to confront with the political leaders of the country with his literary voices? He is not meant to simply criticize, but to re-present , through the novel, the costs of a magnificent future of China and the efforts needed to make up for all the consequences we would not like to see.

At the end of An Era of Prosperity, the leader told the kidnappers: you are so disobedient. The country is pretty good, but why do you still isolate yourself?

I would end with what Lu Xun has said:

I would not like to go the heaven where there are things that make me unhappy; I would not like to go to the hell where there are things that make me unhappy; I would not like to go to the golden world in your future where there are things that make me unhappy.

As an intellectual writer, how can we make use of our limited literary imagination or the unlimited imagination of Lin Xinci, constantly create a new way, a vision, and an expectation for possible heterotpias between utopias and dystopias. In the system from Lu Xun to Liu Cixin, there were a lot of evidences or new suggestion to the future of China.

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With the summer vacation coming to an end, it is time to pick up books again. The market is ready to address various needs of book lovers. The 18th Beijing International Book Fair (BIBF) which opened in suburb Beijing from August 31 to September 4 has seen good deals and indicated a booming market for the book business.

The BIBF was started in 1986 and has become an important publishing conference with an international prestige. It covers activities including copyright trade, book trade, cultural events, exhibitions, and etc and has become the largest book market in the world by volume and the second largest in terms of purchasing power parity (The New York Times). It is one of the top four international book fairs with the other three being the Frankfurt Book Fair, the London Book Fair and the BEA Book Fair.

The 18^th BIBF was held at the new China International Exhibition Center with more than 2,000 publishers from 60 countries and regions. The exhibiting area of 53,600 ㎡ was divided into five sections: Domestic Publications, Overseas Publications, Digital Publishing, Library Purchasing and Delivery, and Domestic and Overseas Periodicals. According to statistics, there has been 2,953 copyright trade agreements reached with foreign publishers—a 24.13% increase from last year, among which there are 1,652 copyright export and co-publishing agreements—a 17% increase from last year. The import agreements reached 1,301, resulting in a ratio of import to export of 1:1.3.

Digitisation of the publishing industry

An important feature of this year’s BIBF is the vast digital publishing section which spread over an area of 10,000㎡. With a tide of digital publishing flooding the market, the global publishing industry is undergoing tremendous transformation. The digital publishing section provided a platform for both Chinese and foreign digital publishing units. The section displayed e-book readers, new technologies of digital publishing, editing and processing for digital publishing, and new technologies and products fro POD (print on demand).

With more and more people reading on their mobiles, e-book readers and ipads and more publishers turning to e-books, the industry is rapidly transforming from paper to digital. Publishers are seeing huge potential in the market. However, there remain problems such as pricing and copyright issues. Publishers should focus more on content and the market is yet to be further regulated.

Growing appetite for Chinese literature on one side

“For a while everyone was publishing and reading books about the Cultural Revolution or the countryside and the older and well-known Chinese writers such as Mo Yan (莫言), Yu Hua (余华), Su Tong (苏童). And there are a lot of rural themes connected with the Cultural Revolution,” said Eric Abrahamsen, the founder of Paper Republic and a literary translator. However, that used to be the scene of Chinese literature in the world. With rapid growth of China and enormous changes taking place here, the world also start to see the Asian giant in other different perspectives.

According to Eric, there is a kind of feeling that some of the foreign publishers are already tired of that category of books and start to look for something new. The problem, however, is that nobody is quite sure what the “new thing” should be. For a while there has been an excitement about young beautiful female writers writing about drugs, sex and rock’n'roll and their adventures in the city which the readers get tired of pretty quickly. Eric also points out there seems to be a general interest in fictions written by younger writers about Chinese cities, urban life and a new China.

While readers and publishers in foreign countries start to seek for contemporary topics in new Chinese literature, the reason behind is a fast-growing world power that has been constantly arousing people’s curiosity. Talking about how Chinese literature is received in Netherlands, Bas Pauw from Dutch Foundation for Literature said, “What Dutch readers really would like to read is contemporary fiction of China. Novels about China, the changes that China is going through at the moment and the growth the country is experiencing are what fascinate Dutch readers a lot. They are keen on reading more about Chinese society and how it is evolving, growing, expanding and changing.”

A burgeoning domestic market on the other

While foreign readers are trying to know more about Chinese society through Chinese literature, domestic readers are also eager to read more about the world. Thirty years since the Reform and Opening-up Policy, China has had a stronger and stronger presence on the world’s stage. Chinese readers’ curiosity about the outside world has been ever expanding. According to Bas Pauw, “When we first came to BIBF, there was something like ten Dutch books in Chinese translation. And now there are over a hundred with some fifty new titles published during the fair. That is a big step”.

The fair has attracted publishers from more than 60 countries across the world and foreign writers came to the fair with their books to have face-to-face time with Chinese readers. The presence of prestigious international publishing houses are an indication of the increasing importance of Chinese market. As China further develops, it will be more interested in the worlds and would like to know the diversity of different cultures.

Against a background of globalization, the appetite for literature from different cultures is growing both domestically and globally. While Chinese readers are reading more and more international literature, more and more Chinese writers are reaching out to international readers. When talking about the Amsterdam Book Fair in Netherlands, Bas Pauw said, “we  would very much like this to be an exchange of two literatures, not just a showcase of Dutch literature.” As the world and China advance forward, more exchange in literature is to be seen in the future.

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SeeChina team went to the 18th Beijing International Book Fair on September 2, 2011. The BIBF ran from  August 31 to September 4. This year’s BIBF was held at the China International Exhibition Center. The exhibiting area was 15,000 square meters larger than last year’s and wan divided into four major sections: domestic publication area, oversees publication area, digital publication area and periodical area and library purchasing. SeeChina interviewed the founder of Paper Republic and translator Eric Abrahamsen and Bas Pauw from Dutch Foundation for Literature and invited them to talk about literary exchange between China and the world.

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In the July 4 edition of New Yorker this year, Evan Osnos chose Han Han (韩寒) as the character of Profile in this issue. The author had previously featured the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei (艾未未) in Profile, too. The New Yorker correspondent, who has lived in China since 2005 and has focused on a wide range of Chinese issues, points out in the article that Han Han has heralded a “Han Dynasty” in China. This 29-years-old Chinese young man is having an enormous influence on today’s young generation in China.

From the perspective of a foreigner, Osnos sees “a rare brand of humor” in Han Han. He is absolutely right. A writer who has published more than 10 works, Han Han has the ability to ridicule the reality by telling the story in his unique way. His sense of humor manifests itself in his books and essays, which his readers are quite familiar with. It often happens that one laughs through an entire book of his. One of the reasons is that his novels always overflow with word play, dirty jokes and sharp sarcasm. Apart from being funny, Han’s novels also have a sense of absurdity in the plot, which comes from his keen observation of the reality. With a second reading and deep reflection, one can find that the absurd plot usually has its origin in the reality. For instance, the ludicrous coincidences sometimes may serve as a reflection of the vagaries in life.

Apart from being a writer for the most part, Han also carries a wide range of various other titles including essayist, blogger and even race-car driver. He now has a highly controversial presence in contemporary Chinese society due to his audacity to speak out and criticize the government and its policy. His blog, one of the most sough-after in China, has become another battlefield where his mostly dissent voice concerning sensitive social and political issues can be heard. As pointed out by Osnos in the New Yorker article, Han’s personal position is “highly ambiguous”. On one hand, his acute observation and incisive comment have attracted masses of followers who are mostly young people. His blog on politics has drawn more young people’s attention to what is happening in China at present. On the other hand, his outspokenness has incurred criticism from other writers and intellectuals. Han had several vigorous online debates involving some other influential celebrities in different fields.

Starting as the winner of the New Concept (新概念) Writing Test and a drop-out from senior high school, Han Han became famous as one of the post-80s writers. His first book Triple Door (三重门) was published in 2000. It is a scathing satire of Chinese educational system. The book sold out immediately after it hit the shelves and was even adapted into a TV drama. Han Han dropped out of school in the first year of senior high school. He has become a best-selling writer ever since the publication of Triple Door . For most of the time a writer, he dabbles into other fields from time to time. He participated in car race competitions and even released an album once. Nevertheless he never gives up his writing. It is ten years later that his latest book, 1988: I Want to Talk with the World (1988：我想和这个世界谈谈), came out. The novel was first published in serial form in the magazine Party (独唱团), for which Han Han (韩寒) served as the editor in chief. However, the magazine did not make it to a second issue.

1988: I Want to Talk with the World

The novel tells a road trip taken by the narrator with a pregnant prostitute driving a car named 1988. It consists of a flurry of encounters and flashbacks of past stories along the way. Hailed by many as Han’s best novel ever, 1988 has been considered as a “road novel”, which has the original pattern in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. However, Han himself denied such categorization. Speaking of the novel’s genre, Han said, “It does not matter that whether it is a road novel or not since the idea is old-fashioned. What matters is that you have fun with it. Moreover, I always think that movies can be classified while good novels cannot. I have my own way and style of writing a novel and I don’t need others to tell me how to write a normal one. These are the meaning of my existence in the world. I do not mean to be different; I just want to be able to recognize myself.”

The trip unfolds from the perspective of the narrator who claims himself as “I” in the entire book. The narrator came across his trip partner in a sauna hostel, a pregnant prostitute named Shanshan (姗姗) who came to the narrator without being summoned. The two, who got caught by the police, later kept each other’s company through the rest of the journey with one failed attempt by the narrator to ditch the hook. They went on the trip in 1988-the car’s name-without a clear destination and shared life stories with each other along the way.

While the narrator had flashbacks of his life, readers saw various characters come and go in the journey of the narrator’s life. There were heroic brothers whom the narrator looked upon as hot-blooded idols, childhood bullies whom he bore resentment against, as well as women who taught him lessons by cheating on him.

The pregnant prostitute Shanshan, whose presence in the novel is just second to the narrator’s, sometimes carries a philosophical meaning in her seemingly illiterate talking. As a practical woman who has only one thing in her mind—to give her baby a bright future, her words overflow with whimsical plans which sometimes serve as sharp satire of the society.

In 1988 Han Han has dropped some of the absurdity in the plot that he has applied in previous works and some of the hilarious word play which he has been famous for. The plain narration of sheer facts suffices to indicate the essential absurdity and tragedy of life. While listening to the narrator and Shanshan taking turns to tell stories in their lives, there is always a sense of individual powerlessness that could be felt.

Although there is overwhelming depression suffusing the story and the novel feels like an elegy of Idealism. The author does leave the reader lights of hope at the end of the novel as he wrote:

After all I am one of those shrouded behind them. They go first, and I would take care of poker cards that have fallen out of their pockets because they run too fast. I am always running in the air pierced by them. Nevertheless the resistance that I confront is no weaker. It is just that they have collided into every single high wall that I may dash into and have fallen into every single gully that I may fall into.

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Among all provinces in China, Yunnan is a blessed one. Not only because it enjoys the richest mixture of ethnicities and flora and fauna, but also because it has many devoted writers and poets carving out the depth and pulses of its history and people, for example, Lei Pingyang (雷平阳), a computer-defying writer who has won most of China’s top literary prizes with his verses of “narrow and paranoid love” for this province.

Lei’s love for Yunnan is a infiltrating one, one can only understand it in a context where most people of such a maddening world often rely on amplifying if not hollowing rhetorics for daily expressions:

我只爱我寄宿的云南，因为其他省/我都不爱；我只爱云南的昭通市/因为其他市我都不爱；我只爱昭通市的土城乡/因为其他乡我都不爱……/我的爱狭隘、偏执，像针尖上的蜂蜜/假如有一天我再也不能继续下去/我会只爱我的亲人——这逐渐缩小的过程/耗尽了我的青春和悲悯。

——《亲人》(《雷平阳诗选》)

I love my dwelling place Yunnan only, because the other provinces/I don’t love; I love Shaotong City in Yunnan only, because the other cities/I don’t love; I love Tucheng County in Shaotong only, because the other counties/I don’t love……My love is narrow and paranoid, like honey on tip of a needle/if I cannot continue this one day/I will love my relatives only—such a gradually dwindling process/exhausts my entire youth and compassion.

                                              —Relatives (Collection of Poems of Lei Pingyang)

Lei’s “narrow love”, however, is most deep and filled with heart-wrenching pain. In one of his most memorable and striking poems “Elegy for Father” (《 祭父帖》),  he murmurs the struggling life of his parents and country fellows plagued by war, famine, ignorance, social unrest and imposed political pressure, and bitterly concludes:

……他的二儿子/我试图给他写句墓志铭：“他的一生，因为疯狂地/向往着生，所以他有着肉身和精神的双重卑贱！”/这个念头终被放弃，我将它写在这里，如果可能/不妨作为我将来的墓志铭。他这个农夫/和我这个诗人，一样的命运，难以区分 

…his second son/me, had intended to write an epitaph for him: “his whole life, with a fanatic/desire for survival, is but inflicted with double humility in both body and spirit! ”/but this idea was finally abandoned, and I am writing it down here, which may possibly/serve as mine as well. He as a farmer/and I as a poet, have the same destiny, hard to tell apart.

Lei Pingyang is extremely sensitive of China’s rapid urbanization and the sense of loss for people’s hometowns and roots. And in search of a “true sense of homesickness, with the quality of the bright moon and autumn wind”, he once said he “would rather become a cacoon man, nestled in homesickness.”   

在坟地上寻找故乡

酒又多喝了。山地上的宴席
一个人，消受不了
那么多的虫声和星光。隔着厚厚的红土
我和下面的人说话，野草疯长
从野草和土丘间的空隙
眺望几公里外，我生活过的村庄
那儿灯火通明，机声隆隆，它已经
变成了一座巨大的冶炼厂
一千年的故乡，被两年的厂房取代，再也
不性雷，也不姓夏或王。堆积如山的矿渣
压住了树木、田野、河流，以及祠堂
我已经回不去了，试探过几次
都被军人一样门岗，拦截在
布满了白霜的早上。就像今晚
以后的每一年光明，我都只能，在坟地里
推开草丛，踉踉跄跄地寻找故乡

Looking for hometown in the graveyard

Drank too much again. A banquet on the mountains/I alone, cannot digest/so many cricket sound and starlight. Across the thick red earth/I speak with those underneath, while the wild grasses grow fanatically/From the crevices of wild grass and dunes/looking into a few miles away, the village that I once lived in/now with myriads of lights, roars of machines, it has/become a gigantic metallurgical factory/A thousand years of hometown, replaced by two years of factory, never/to bear the surname of Lei, or Xia, or Wang. Slags piled like hills/covered trees, fields, rivers, and ancestral halls/I cannot go back anymore, I tried a few times/but kept away, by guards like soldiers/in mornings full of frost. Just like tonight/every daylight of every year to come, I can only, in the graveyard/push aside the tall grasses, staggering, looking for my hometown.

Like the image of ancestral halls, many poems of Lei Pingyang are related to specific Chinese cultural phenomenon, such as this one, concerning film projectors in Chinese countryside, a profession dating back to the Cultural Revolution:

从曼赛镇去阿卡寨，只需要
几个小时的时间，我们却走了整整两天
见到溪水，香堂人光着身子，钻了
进去。时间像一条鱼，在水芹菜
的叶子下面，张合着小小的腮
路边的橄榄已经熟透，克木人知道
有一颗，是悬挂在树上的天堂
时间，在舌面上，缓缓地
由苦变甜。白云是傣族人的表姐
清风是傣族人的姑妈，路边的竹楼上
这一个傣族人，麂子肉和鲜竹笋下酒
喝醉了。时间，是一张大的芭蕉叶
羞着他的脸。基诺人，有着石头
一样的沉默，他的耳朵，却一直关注着
雨林里的动静，不知是什么鸟
叫了一声，他便像一支射出的响箭
时间，被他带走了，很久才从
一只死去的白鹇身上重返人间
整个旅程，只有谦卑的布朗人
静静地守在我身边。我们坐在山头
看落日，看老挝丰沙里烧荒的狼烟
暮投一座古老的缅寺，我睡着了
他才离开，他在我的梦中赕佛
身子紧贴着尘埃。时间，在贝页经里
跪了下来，几双隐形的手，按住了
时针、分针和秒针。我们一行人
还有拉拉祜和哈尼，山野之上
他们都有着各自的相好，时间
奔跑的马蹄，被他们移植到了肺腑里
我这个汉人，多想飞速地抵达阿卡寨啊
催促，埋怨，焦虑，像个疯子
最终的结局，我一个人上路
多次迷途，天黑前，才找到自己的流放地

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Published by Writers Publishing House (作家出版社) and can be read through the following link:

http://vip.book.sina.com.cn/book/index_132986.html

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Laotsu Bhodidharma

I am not a follower of Tao or Zen – in fact, if I were, then by the stringent ideas of these creeds, I would not even be writing this article: according to one, you should be achieving the understanding that my article tries to pass on through your own meditative efforts, while according to the other, the forces of the cosmo would naturally make it happen without me doing anything to force it. You could look at analogous cases like a capitalist spending money on propagating the virtues of free enterprise – he should be using his capital to seek the highest return. The Warring States philosopher Yang Zhu was more consistent: he promoted Selfishness as the guiding principle of life, on the hard to refute premise that if everyone does the best for himself, then society as a whole is improved. He left behind no books - if he wrote books and taught students, he would be helping others, hence violating his own principle of selfishness.

The great proponent of Tao was of course Laozi, an archivist at the Zhou royal court during the Later Spring-Autumn period, somewhere during 600 to 500BC. We have virtually no biographical information about him, just brief mentions in several ancient texts. Zhuangzi mentioned him most frequently, but as a sage-hermit figure appearing in fragmentary fables, which tell us nothing about him as a physical person; Hanfeizi discussed Laozi in rather “academic ways”, thus also not being very helpful for biographic purposes. Mentions in several Confucian texts are somewhat more concrete, showing him as Kongzi’s mentor. However, the idea that he was only a mythical or composite figure, and the book Daodejing was written by a later author, was put to rest definitively when a copy of the book was excavated in a Warring States tomb during the 1970s, showing that the book could not have been written later than early Warring States and most probably existed much earlier, though it received some minor editing to end up in the current standard form. The discovery also confirms that Laozi was smoe kind of government official, since the availability of writing material was highly restricted during the Spring-Autumn period and books from that age and earlier were all official documents of one kind or another.

Given the author’s status, Daodejing was not a book about mysticism, religion or even philosophy, but about politics; (It is also useful to point out that 德 “de” originally meant something like “grace” in “X, by the grace of God, King of Y”, i.e., divine mandate.) however, its political views derive from certain ancient mystical ideas, which I show in the following diagram of various ancient Chinese artifacts

folowed by something more Western

the commonality between east and west is the serpent that swallows its own tail, or in the words of Keats the poet: in my end is the beginning.

In the West, the Uroboros serpent was at least 3600 years old, its first kno

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