The New Dominion

The Cultural Revolution is a sensitive topic inside of China’s borders, spoken of quietly, indirectly, or simply not at all.  And that is why I was surprised that the China Daily decided to put out a few words on English, a novel by Wang Gang set in Cultural Revolution era Xinjiang, just recently translated into English and slated for release in a few days.

What didn’t surprise me, however, was the forehead-slap-inducing way the China Daily obligingly tiptoed around one of the central themes of the novel, namely, that it sucked to be around during the Cultural Revolution.

Front and center, following the time-honored CCP of "shrugging off" a term they don’t like (see state usage of 所谓, translated into English as "so-called"), is the technique of putting quotation marks around the term Cultural Revolution and removing the capital letters, as if the accuracy of the words are in question and the referred-to historical event is unworthy of proper noun status. Every time the phrase is used it’s written like this.

Talking in Chinese about his best-selling novel, English, Wang describes life during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) as "constant war, real or imagined, and nothing to eat".

One time when I thought they were going to say "cultural revolution," they ended up saying "cultural reaction."

"When I learned English I found out about life, things I had not known up to that point. English represented the things we wanted but couldn’t get, like political culture and democracy," Wang says.

"We couldn’t get them then because of the cultural reaction and even since the reform and opening-up we haven’t got all of them."

I had to think about this one. Maybe "cultural reaction" is exactly what Wang said in the Mandarin interview, as in, the Chinese cultural reaction didn’t accept these types of Western ideological intrusions.  Maybe he said Cultural Revolution and when the article was rendered into English, there was a typo that maybe was corrected by spell check to "reaction." Finally, and this is the one that I’m going with, the censors didn’t like a quote that implied that a government sanctioned campaign would deprive the citizenry of things like democracy and political culture (both of which the CCP claims are being offered by them to the people today) and so they creatively edited the phrase to something that would still somehow make sense (see possibility number 1).

Also interesting is an extremely contrived and eyebrow-raising paragraph where the author assures us that Wang is as equally critical of Western capitalism as he is of circumstances during the Cultural Revolution.

He professes not to see any downside to this material progress and it is only toward the end of the interview that he admits that being overweight can be unhealthy, or that capitalism has its problems too, like the economic crisis.

Conspicuously missing, of course, is a direct quote. Oh, and also an explanation as to why the writer of this article feels compelled to "balance out" Wang’s literary criticism of of the Cultural Revolution with one of capitalism when the article has nothing to do with that and is about Wang’s book. I mean, seriously, being "overweight can be unhealthy?" What?

And so in analyzing this article I’m going from "most obvious" to "most subtle," and the last thing I’m going to point out is not in your face but frankly is the most insulting to both Wang and readers of the articles like myself. Wang is a serious writer, according to reviews I’ve read there are light-hearted and comedic tones to English but nonetheless the book as a whole is a serious exploration of a dark time in China’s history and a young boy’s way of finding purpose throughout it all. I’m glad that the article bothered to mention that Wang won a major prize for his work in 2005.

Nonetheless, it seems to be the articles driving aim to depict Wang as a sort of irreverent clown, who does things solely for the "shock value," the continuing implication being that he’s not serious or what he’s not talking about is not based on facts.

Author Wang Gang enjoys joking around, preferably over a drink or two, and it’s often hard to tell whether he’s being serious or just saying something for its shock value.

That Wang is a jovial, joking kind of guy is probably a fact to be reported on in a news article, but the second clause about "shock value" is definitely the writer’s own insertion. The article goes on to call Wang’s story "semi-mythical," ignoring a vital distinction between the words "myth" and "fiction," describes "poking at authority figures" as part of Wang’s character (as opposed to something that is justified and necessary), and ends the article declaring outright that Wang is a "contrarian." Yeah, contrarian can have positive connotations but in the context of the article it definitely seems like the idea is "the guy that says the opposite just to get attention."

Finally, there’s the title of the article itself, "Wang talks English but it comes out in riddles," which makes no sense even when put alongside the content of the article. Unless, of course, your goal is to depict some guy as a jokester who is just trying to rile people up for attention and "speaks riddles" for the sheer satisfaction of seeing someone befuddled (and so don’t believe anything he has to say about history in his mythical novel!).

For a more substantial exploration of English, I refer you once more to Bruce Hume’s thoughts at the Paper Republic, which includes an interview with the two translators. Or better yet, go buy the book make a conclusion about Wang Gang on your own terms.