Introduction
In my more than forty years of studying and reading Chinese no writer has captured my imagination as has Lao She. His insight, wit and clarity of vision for a better China is as needed today as when he was alive.
He was one of a handful of pioneer visionaries who saw the value of writing about the common people for the common people. He never wanted to do anything but write. He was not a “banner waving” revolutionary, but a man of high principles and ideals for all Chinese and China.
Lao She never joined a political party and took every occasion to point out the foibles of those in authority who abused the power of their position.
He was never in the military but he went where the troops were as the nation fought off the Japanese invaders. His poems, plays and short pieces of that period are not his best but they did help encourage the overthrow of the enemy.
One hundred years ago this year he was born. His work is appreciated today more than at anytime this century. To date Lao She is known only in the Chinese and Asian Study Programs of America’s large universities. It is long overdue for the English-speaking world to get to know him and his world -- A China that in some ways no longer exists.
Purpose: A desire to help in as Christian a way as possible to bring better understanding between the peoples of China and America. To make the Westerner more aware of the many things we hold in common with the Chinese. My 1978 founding of the Tao Foundation was dedicated to using this common ground for building better East-West relationships in the century ahead.
Britt Towery (bet@suddenlink.net)
Waco, Texas USA
May 6, 1999
Added Appreciation
During the eight years of preparing this book there are many colleagues and friends to whom I owe much. Many Chinese professors of literature in Nanjing, Beijing and the province of Shandong, as well as just plain “lovers” of the writings of Lao She, who have been most helpful.
I am grateful most to Lao She’s son, Shu Yi, and daughter, Shu Ji, both renowned writers in their own right, for writing the Preface. And for Nan Wang Wilson, Shu Ji’s daughter, for helping translate her mother’s and uncle’s words. The whole family have given me an insight into Lao She I could have found no where else.
Madame Lao She, Hu Jieqing, now in her mid-nineties continues to inspire the art world of Beijing. Her gracious gift of books and paintings ha
s helped make the Towery-Lao She Collection the largest outside of China and Japan. The Collection was begun to help students in modern Chinese literature and history in my classes at Baylor University.
In 1998 I donated the Lao She Collection to the Special Collections of the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas. The official opening of the Collection will be held in October, 1999, during an International Symposium on Lao She at Southern Methodist University. Professor Lisa Chang Ahnert, director of the Asian Studies Program, and Dr. Jasper Neel, dean of Dedman College, are sponsors of the symposium.
I cannot name all who have helped and encouraged through the years but I would be remiss if I did not mention Dr. and Mrs. Charles Ku, LaVerne and James W. Whitaker, and my lovely and patient wife, Jody, who for 50 years has been most understanding of me and my malady for the purchase of books (and all kinds of strange ideas). Erasmus said, “When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.” Jody’s patience, love and encouragement is without price.
Hands on help and encouragement have come from Peter Li of Rutgers University and William A. Lyell of Stanford University. I am thankful for Princeton University’s Perry Link for his kind words about the manuscript. My ever-patient editor, the late Joe B. Swan taught me “writing skills” as only he could do, humor and all.
I am grateful for the opportunity, after our years in Asia, to have taught at Baylor University. Such was made possible by men like former Baylor University President and Chancellor, the late Herbert H. Reynolds; retired Provost and the first director of International Education, John D. Belew; China-born Political Science professor, the late L. Gerald Fielder; Director of American Studies and English professor, James LeMaster; John Jonsson and Loyal Gould among others. Their appreciation of “things Chinese” made my six years at Baylor University a rich experience.
Any mistakes, oversights or errors in this book are mine. As I have said this book is not an indepth study, merely an introduction to the world of modern Chinese literature and especially the fiction of Lao She. Eventually I will post the entire book here.
BET (bet@suddenlink.net)
Waco, Texas
China's Master Storyteller
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Lao She, China's Master Storyteller
LAO SHE, China’s Master Storyteller
By Britt Towery
Contents
Prefaces
Introduction
In Appreciation, Shu Yi and Shu Ji, children if Lao She
One -- Threshold of a New Era, 1899-1923
The Manchu Years
The Early Years
The Church Years
Two -- Chinese Stories from England, 1924-1930
The Philosophy of Lao Zhang
Zhao Ziyue
The Two Mr. Mas
Three -- Becoming a Writer, 1930-1937
Three books of short stories
City of Cats and Divorce
Camel Xiangzi
Four -- The War Years, 1937-1945
The Japanese Invasion
Patriotic dramas
Four Generations
Five -- The America Experience, 1946-1949
Cultural Exchange
The Yellow Storm
China Through American Eyes
Six -- Hope Abounds, 1950-1960 The New China
Stagecraft: Dragon Beard Ditch
and Teahouse
Seven -- The Human Comedy
Humor is a frame of mind
Humor, Chinese Style
Humorous Selections
Eight -- The Human Tragedy, 1961-1966
The Cultural Revolution
The Beginning of the End
The Death of Lao She: August 24, 1966
Appendixes
1. Ba Jin’s 1999 tribute to Lao She
2. “The Hidden Manchu Literature in Lao She’s
Writing” by Shu Yi
3. Translated story: “A Dog’s Morning”
4. Titles of Lao She’s Major Works
5. References
"Four Generations"
As the Japanese enter war-torn Peking (Beijing), Lao She is in Chongqing with the many refugees from all over China. He began writing what many consider his best work, a story of life under the Japanese. His book, "Four Generations Under One Roof," recounts a family's reaction and results. It is three books in one in English translated well by Ida Pruitt' 1952 under the title "Yellow Storm." She was Lao She's favorite translator and they worked on parts of it when he was in New York City at the invitation of the U.S. government. One of Ida Pruitt's best books is still in print, Stanford University Press.
Ida Pruitt was the only daughter of Southern Baptist Missionary C.W. Pruitt of Yan'tai, Shandong province, north China. C.W. was a contemporary with the more famous Lottie Moon. Ida was born in China in 1888 and knew the languages and customs as few foreigners. She worked for a time in social work of the most modern Beijing Hospital. The one John D. Rockefeller gave to China.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
The Humor of Lao She
A View of the Humor of Lao She (1899-1966)
by Britt Towery
Lao She (Shu Qingcun, Lau Shaw), one of the best loved and most highly respected writers of twentieth century China, spent his lifetime telling stories on paper much like the pinshujia in the marketplace and teahouses. He said he was not a novelist though his novel Camel Xiangzi (Luotuo Xiangzi or Rickshaw Boy) proves him wrong. He stoutly refused to be called a dramatist, though his play Teahouse (Chaguan) refutes this. He said more than once he was merely a “storyteller.” Lao She was right in that statement, for he was first and foremost a teller of tales. He brought the smallest matter, person or event into sharp focus with his natural humor and compassionate insight. The everyday things of the average person's experience took on new life with his pen. He was first and last a shuo pingshu ren, a teller of tales -- a storyteller -- a master storyteller.
From his first writings to his last he ridiculed the traditional approaches to life, the pseudo scholarship of those seeking only position and status. He felt a great deal of China's backwardness was a result of tradition, superstition, and a total lack of national pride. As a storyteller he revealed these challenges to those that would read. He was one of a handful of writers in mid-twentieth century China that helped to mold a writing style that spoke to all kinds of people.
He was blessed from an early age with the concept that love was far more important in human relations than was generally practiced. Such a view of life made it a very natural thing for Lao She, at the age of twenty-three, to become a Christian and receive baptism in the Gangwashi Church in Peking. He was gifted with the ability to relate the longings, love and inner hurts of the human creature. He studied and taught in Britain and in the United States as well as in China. Devoted to his hometown of Peking, he wrote about the city and its people more vividly than any other writer.
Chinese Classic Comedy
Lao She's humor was a reflection of who and what he was. He was the constant observer of human actions and reactions. He saw humor in the most common of people and events. He made those who gained wealth and position through foreign connections a favorite target. In the three decades of the 1920s, 30s and 40s young people and students in particular observed that there was wealth and power attached to the foreigner in China. Shining examples for the youth were in their President Chiang Kai-shek and his wife Song Meiling. They and their close associates became independently wealthy with their careful use of American foreign aid. Lao She's pointed humor toward those that looked Westward for fame and wealth is especially evident in his two most famous works: Camel Xiangzi and Teahouse.
One of the classical novels, The Scholars (Rulin waishi), thought to have been written by Wu Jingzi (1701-1754) is the first work of satiric realism in Chinese literature. The characters of the novel depend upon their success, fame, riches and rank to build themselves up and lord it over others, considering themselves to be far above the common people. The common folk in the story see through these inflated egos and ridicule them. Hence there is a strong flavor of humor throughout the book.
Journey to the West (Xi you ji) by Wu Cheng’en (ca. 1506-1582), a writer who was born in Huai’an, the same Grand Canal city where Zhou Enlai was born, introduced to the world China’s most famous “cartoon” character: the Monkey King. He was hatched from a stone egg and was a mischievous spirit that brought humor and chaos while helping the monk Tripitaka (Tang Sanzang) in the fictionalized story of how the Buddhist scriptures were brought from India to China in the mid-seventeenth century. In many ways the story is a satiric fantasy that reminds Westerners of the story of Don Quixote.
Lao She, though sharp with his barbs of satire, never lost sympathy with his characters. Lao She “considered himself,” according to William A. Lyell, Jr., “primarily a humorist (as distinguished from satirist) by character as well as by profession.” Lao She once described the humorist in this way:
Above all, humor is a frame of mind. We all know people who are overly sensitive and always approach things with a surcharge of emotion, never willing to make allowances for others... A person with a sense of humor is not at all like this... he sees the flaws in mankind and wants to point them out to others; however, he does not stop at merely spotting these flaws, but goes on to positively accept them. And thus everyone has something funny about him, the humorist himself being no exception; if we take this to an even higher plane, then the fact that man is limited to a hundred years of life at most and yet would like to live forever, is in and of itself an extremely funny contradiction given in the very nature of human existence. Thus our laughter carries with it an element of sympathy, and at this point humor ceases being merely funny and enters the realm of profundity.
You mo: Humor, Chinese Style
In a book that no longer exists, The Forest of Jokes, Chinese humorous literature began to appear. Twentieth century Chinese humor, like all of life, has come a long way.
You mo, is the Chinese transliteration for “humor.” The words were coined in Chinese after the English word “humor.” The literal meaning of the two words, you mo, is “charming in seclusion” and “silent.” They have practically nothing to do with humor but when pronounced almost sound like the English word humor. New words that are brought into Chinese this way are not supposed to have a meaning. The sound of the English word is transliterated into Chinese. It is not meant to be taken literally, but as a phonetic equivalent of the word or name for the Chinese reader.
You mo as a Chinese equivalent to the English word “humor” was coined by Lin Yutang in 1923. Lin Yutang’s approach to humor did not earn him any respect from the Nationalist government nor the love of the Communist and left-wing writers.
The more a people’s manners and social background are understood, the more easily it is to appreciate their humor. Often, as George Kao writes, what appears funniest to the Chinese is oftentimes (1) outside the realm of writing, (2) untranslatable even if in writing, and (3) unfunny to the Westerner even if translated. Much Chinese humor is a play on words that often defies translation.
Humor was a way for Lao She to get through his difficult days. Humor to Lao She was the gate leading to reality. His mental capacity to discover the ludicrous and absurdly incongruous ways of people, regardless of race, is unmatched by any modern Chinese writer. He could not only appreciate the suffering that people brought on themselves but could express it first by laughing at himself and then laughing at and with others. The times in which he lived were filled with so many kinds of ludicrous events that to stay sane one had to be able to laugh them off.
The humor of Lao She or any Chinese writer is better appreciated and enjoyed according to the reader's knowledge and understanding of the Chinese people's language, manners, social situation and literary heritage.
Lin Yutang, the master humorist, who did much of his later work in the English language, writes:
Thoughtful humor is based on the perception of human errors, incongruities, cant, and hypocrisy, which admittedly are shared by all of us. The comic spirit is that human understanding which, being higher than academic intelligence, rises above the confusion and self-deception of our common notions, and points its finger at life’s sham, futility, and follies. The true comic genius is really a higher, subtler, form of intelligence because it sees what the others do not see, and under the cloak of fun exercises the criticism of man's ideas.
And on a more serious note, Zbigniew Slupski writes:
As we know from Lao niu poche (The Rickety Ox Cart), Lao She was proud of his ability to make his readers laugh; nevertheless there are several remarks in Lao niu poche which reveal that he was not sure that he regarded laughter as his main goal. Lao She's humor, and especially the elements of burlesque in his work, had aroused criticism to which Lao niu poche supplies the indirect reaction of the author. In some passages he defends his humorous writing, while in others he agrees with the condemnation of ‘forced laughter,’ laughter at all cost.
Lin Yutang is right on target when he defines humor as being born of realism. Lin wrote, “Humor is born of realism; and the Chinese are an unusually realistic people. Humor is born of common sense, and the Chinese have an overdose of common sense.” Lin Yutang, born in Fujian province in 1895, graduated from St. John's University in Shanghai in 1916 and was teaching at Qinghua University in Peking when Lao She was completing his studies at the Normal University. Lin Yutang, the master of humor, founded the humorous fortnightly Lu yu (The Analects) in Shanghai in 1932. Lin might even have been thinking of Lao She when he wrote that “A humorist is often a defeatist, and delights in recounting his own failures and embarrassments.” Lin Yutang and Lao She both were humorists that proves the truth of this statement.
According to George Kao one of the minor American myths about China is that the Chinese people possess a sense of humor somewhat akin to American humor. Kao goes on to say the difficult thing about this myth is that it is at once so true and so hard to prove. Kao goes on to say that the basic difference of Chinese and American humor has been best summarized by Judge John C. H. Wu, that “whereas Westerners are seriously humorous, the Chinese are humorously serious.” The Chinese are a more irrepressible people than many and that may be what makes their humor seem like the American humor.
As has been noted, fellow writers urged Lao She to leave off his humor back in the early 1930s. He tried it with Great Ming Lake and City of Cats and learned he could not write without humor. It was not something he created but was part of his being as much as eating and breathing.
His next novel, Divorce, was humorous. He wrote about the novel Divorce in Lao niu poche: “I decidedly hope that I am capable of arousing storms of laughter and making people really happy...”
According to George Kao Charlie Chaplin found a ready response in Chinese audiences. “Chinese humor, to a greater degree than that of any other people, sees the ludicrous in the pathos of life. It is the result of a philosophical reaction to adversity coupled with innate optimism about the future.”
Dave Barry, columnist for the Miami Herald, feels that humor is born out of the ordinary. He said, “I think humor comes from noticing that the world is already strange and weird and scary, and laughter is a mechanism for dealing with it.” Lao She's humor was not in jokes or ‘funny stories.’ He found value in being able to laugh when all around him appeared to be falling apart. He had an uncanny ability with language to reveal the warts and quirks of overly pretentious humans and their often weird activities.
After City of Cats, Lao She learned the importance of humor in his writing. He returned to what was more natural and real to him: humor. As Paul Bady says, Lao She's work “re-took its natural course: Divorce marked a return to Peking and to humor, but to a humor more mature; a humor which confined itself frequently to irony.”
Lao She's time in England was a rich experience in humor for him. There he discovered the English essayists and humorists, especially writers like Samuel Johnson and Jonathan Swift. These men had a natural humor that fit perfectly with that of Lao She. The spoken language that American Mark Twain was able to put on paper became a challenge to Lao She. Local color-humor was a hallmark of Mark Twain, and his work was well-known in the China of Lao She's youth.
On the 50th anniversary of the death of Mark Twain the literary circles of Peking had a meeting honoring the writer. Lao She's speech on Mark Twain was later printed in the September 6, 1960 Renmin Ribao (The People's Daily). He titled his speech, “Mark Twain, the exposer of the gold dollar empire.”
Humor, in order to be profound, supposes a sympathy within a laugh. As Thackeray says, “The humorous writer professes to awaken and direct your love, your pity, your kindness, -- your scorn for untruth, pretension, imposture, -- your tenderness for the weak, the poor, the oppressed, the unhappy.” Paul Bady is of the opinion that Lao She incorporates this definition of humor by Thackeray in his writing.
Life in the real world was never easy for the merry Manchu. His humor highlighted the weaknesses of the wealthy and powerful; likewise through humor he revealed the strength of the honest, poor and the commonplace. Life may not be kind, and usually is not for the less fortunate, but that is no reason to despair. The old Chinese saying puts it best: “The moon is not always round, the flowers do not always bloom, and some may never live happily ever after.” That is the way life is, don’t despair! The ancients knew this. For example they could use humor when someone tried the impossible: yuan mu qiu yu -- “its like climbing a tree to look for a fish.” But the climb may be the relaxing exercise needed!
Sharing Humor through Short Stories
Lao She’s novels have all appeared in English but few of his short stories. Of the many he wrote he particularly liked “Crescent Moon,” “A Vision,” and “This Life of Mine.” Hu Jieqing, wrote in 1984, that these and other stories “reveal a few aspects of the crises faced by the Chinese people, the corruption of Chinese society and the tragic side of life in China, besides stimulating thoughts and associations which extend far beyond its limited perspectives.” His unique ability to reveal the tragic event, no matter how small, through humor is one of the outstanding achievements of Lao She.
In “How I Started Writing Short Stories,” Lao She says he wrote his first such story when he was teaching at Nankai High School in Tianjin. He did it merely to satisfy the editors of the school journal. It did not arouse his interest in a literary career. His creative writing began in England with the novel The Philosophy of Lao Zhang.
In 1931 he had continuing requests for more short pieces -- a literary form he regarded “as not worth writing.” But he wrote “Grandpa Carrying His Grandson,” believing “that jokes written at random would make a short story. My plan then was to write some casual jokes and later do novels when I had the time. However, it was never easy to find enough time and requests for contributions were pouring in, so I ceased ‘writing for fun.’ ...I must admit I finished some of them haphazardly in a hurry, for I was unable to find the time for revision. The royalties were miserable low. Therefore, it was advisable to write more. On the other hand, I did not want to offend the friendly editors and for their sake was compelled to finish some stories at a stroke. They decided my writing policy -- perhaps that of other writers as well -- to produce more short stories of poor quality rather than fewer but better ones. It was a bad policy, but it had to be so. I was filled with compunction in doing so, yet money and friends were not to be offended.”
He said had he followed this way of writing: “I would have long died of hunger if I were spared death from exhaustion. It is glorious to work oneself to death, but it would be torture and a shame to starve. ...I wrote stories out of the material in reserve for full-length novels. Needless to say, it was a painful loss to sell by retail rather than by wholesale.”
Quqian, A Simple Daily Activity: Visiting the Bank
A short yet revealing piece by Lao She is Quqian (“cashing a check at the bank” or “withdrawing money”). From his experience with foreign banks in London and his knowledge of clerks in Chinese banks, he uses humor to get his point across. He often said he understood the past much better than the present. He knew what it was like to deal with a government official in old China. Had he tried to ‘correct’ or make changes in the way bank tellers handle customers in China, he would have had no readers. With humor he grabs the Chinese reader's attention because such has been their own experience. Here is a translation of the major portion about a Chinese man visiting an English bank and a Chinese bank:
I went into a foreign bank, an English bank to cash a ten pound note. As soon as I entered the bank I was amazed at the welcome I received. I was all but swamped with a hearty welcome. Everyone greeted me with “good morning,” or a smiling “how are you today?” The clerks are all dressed very neatly, their hair combed, and the desks neat and clean. They are overly willing to help me. The moment I got to the counter there was a clerk to waiting to take my check. I handed it to him and he pointed the place on the back where I should endorse it. The clerk then proceeded to count out ten pounds.
How utterly stupid all this is! None of these clerks behaves in a manner worthy of an official bank clerk. They show none of the official attitude and manner necessary to carry on such an important business. My check is cashed so quickly I feel they want to get rid of me and my business is not important to them!
The story continues as the Chinese gentleman takes us with him to a Chinese bank:
It is summertime and very hot even at eight in the morning. As I enter the bank I realize again how hot it is as all the clerks are fanning themselves. All are having a smoke. It is evident to see these clerks have the right attitude; they have an imperial manner. These are real officials. I am almost embarrassed to walk up to the counter because it is so hot and my presence will cause the clerks to expend energy for me. Regardless, I've come this far. I may as well continue and get my check cashed. I walk over to the counter and lay my check on it.
Naturally no one pays me any mind. I stand there a while and then ever so slightly one clerk glances ever so briefly in my direction. This is a good sign. To get such a glance of the eye on such a hot day is no trifle. Such a thing is not easy. But still there is no help. By about eight-forty a clerk comes over to the counter and looks at me. Then he looks at my check on the counter. I really feel bad giving this clerk so much trouble. The clerk looked at the check and then again at me. This imperial official of a clerk gave no reaction at all. He took my check and walked back to his desk. As he turned away he tossed me a tiny copper token with the number “1” on it.
I took the token and told the clerk (who is already back at his desk) that my check is not important ...There is no hurry ...I can come back tomorrow. Still there is no reaction whatsoever from the clerk. This clerk's stoic attitude makes me proud. I salute him, he is a choice individual. He is a genuine official in the grand tradition of the mandarins.
Turning from the counter I sat on a near-by bench to wait. The heat at the wait had made me sleepy. Without realizing it I dozed off to sleep.
I looked at my watch. I could not believe I slept for fifty minutes! This is really a fine bank. No mosquitoes or cockroaches that usually disturb my sleep. None here. What a good bank this is! I slept almost an hour and no one disturbed me in any way. At ten-thirty the clerk that took my check stood up and stretched, filled his pipe and began chatting with the clerk at the next desk. I do feel bad that on such a hot day as this I am keeping this clerk here to work in this hot place. I have limited his freedom by coming at this time! (Now if I owned a bank on such a hot day I would shoot the first two people that came in!)
At eleven o'clock the clerk rises, puts down his pipe and heads toward the counter but passes it to go out back. Possibly answering nature's call. Thirty minutes later the clerk returns, picks up his pen to write something and I roused myself from the bench and am to the counter in one bound. I tell the clerk not to hurry on my account ...please do not be anxious about my check ...the weather is too hot and your health, sir, is more important than my measly check ...none of this is worth harming your health. Such a fine mandarin clerk. He doesn't have time, I feel, to acknowledge my words.
At twelve noon I feel I should leave and go home. Just as I reached the door my clerk yells out, “Number One.” I’m not willing to answer for my fine clerk has disappointed me. But I go to the counter anyway. He points to the place on the back of the check where I must endorse it. I am taking out my pen to sign it when His Majesty suggests I come back tomorrow. That's just what I wanted to hear. For you see, if I signed the check now I must come back in the afternoon and wait possibly another four hours and by that time it will be closing time before the transaction could be completed. The clerk knows best. It will be far better for me to come back tomorrow. So I put the check in my pocket and start for the door. I realize I should say some kind words to the clerk for all his effort on my behalf. Before I can open my mouth the clerk shouts, “Number Two.” Well, I mustn’t waste the clerk’s time with polite words he will possibly think are only empty flattery. I’ll go home and write him a letter of apology for making his day so difficult.
Granted, something is usually lost in translating humor or poetry from one language to another, but life is much the same everywhere. In poetry generally the beauty is retained or the literal sense but seldom can both be brought over from one language and culture to another. Humor in one language or culture is always best understood in that setting and environment. Just as in the saying, “we are what we eat” in like manner “we are what we grow up with” in language and surroundings.
Lao She's view of people and places was much like that of Mark Twain. They both saw that everything that is human is in a very real sense pathetic. The secret source of Lao She's humor is not joy but sadness. He saw in the reality of life and its sorrows a greater, broader meaning that made it possible for him to smile at his own misfortunes and at the misgivings of others, especially the elite.
From Beneath the Red Banner (Zhenghong qixia)
Unfortunately Beneath the Red Banner, Lao She’s semi-official autobiography (somewhat fictionalized) was never completed. Lao She was writing about what he knew and loved best -- Beijing and his family. The entire story is presented in a light hearted manner that suggests the old people’s artist had lost none of the twinkle in his eye. Serious situations and old customs are displayed with a warm homey humor. Here is cousin Fuhai:
Cousin Fuhai was the most popular of all our relatives. He was short but strong, solid but refined, clever but honest. He had a round face with a light complexion and big eyes with double-fold eyelids. Even before he spoke you could imagine him saying something both witty and intelligent. When he did speak, his eyes sparkled and his face was all smiles. Though he was truly witty, he never hurt people's feelings. Though he had a good brain, he never put on airs. From his forehead up, his skin was very dark. Yet he looked as fresh and healthy as the fat blue-headed babies in New Year's pictures. He wore a large que braided neither tightly nor loosely, which added a sedate and urbane quality to his appearance.
His formal greeting was something to behold. Having looked you straight in the eye, he lowered his head and took two quick steps forward, bringing himself right up in front of you. After placing both his hands on one knee, he bowed, putting one leg forward in a half-kneeling posture. He remained in that position for a few seconds in an attitude of deep reverence. His cordial and intimate salutation followed, “Aunt, how do you do?” He then very swiftly stepped back, straightened up and stood at attention at one side, his hands behind his back. The older women he greeted in this fashion always returned his courtesy with a bow. They said to themselves, “If only my son had such good manners!”
Even today's Chinese young people know little of such greetings. The lighthearted manner in which Lao She wrote of the old times and the Manchu minority reveals a culture that has long since passed. In the writings of Lao She the past can be appreciated effortlessly. Again Lao She uses Cousin Fuhai to express his own love of and background of the Peking dialect:
Fuhai spoke the Beijing dialect so well as to lead people to believe that he was one of the originators of this noble tongue; even if this wasn’t the case, he should at least share the honor of creating “Beijing speech.” For his ancestors had not only introduced certain Manchu phrases into Chinese but had also evolved a crisp and snappy way of speaking which, by his generation, had become so crisp and snappy that sometimes people from other provinces found it hard to understand.
Lao She knew first-hand the foibles and quirks of the foreign missionary in his land. Some critics have taken him to task for his treatment of Reverend Bull (Niu mushi) in Beneath the Red Banner. One writer sees Lao She’s entire commentary on Christianity in a single episode in his early novel of Chinese in London. In Er Ma (The Two Mas) Lao She can be illustrating through the negative example of Reverend and Mrs. Evans, the dehumanizing attitudes of many China missionaries. Actually Lao She seems to be saying more than meets the eye and using humor to get across his point. Lao She used Reverend Evans earlier and here Reverend Bull to express some deeper feelings about Christian foreign missions. Feelings that come from his personal experience.
Lao She knew foreign missionaries that came to China at the turn of the century. He is aware they are not all like his fictitious characters. In writing about Bull’s ignorance of people and customs Lao She is saying, between the lines, there is a better way to “do missions.” Anyone who has not learned to read between the lines has not learned to read Chinese. Far from being an expert I have lived on the edges of Chinese society in Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China for over thirty years. I have seen many Reverend Bulls. At times I may have been just like him! Which is not a pleasant thought! I often wished I could hide behind a curtain and hear what the Chinese really thought of my elementary Chinese sermons and conversations. Lao She observed it in his day and through his works gave the world a glimpse of how the Western missionary could do a better job. His humor hurts when it gets close to our faith, but until we know where we hurt we can't be helped or cured.
So Reverend Bull is from another generation, one that thankfully has passed on forever. But his arrogance and ignorance still persists in the zealous hearts of some Western evangelists. Some still have lessons to learn. Lessons that are clearly presented in the Christian’s New Testament.
Reverend Bull was disgusted with those Christians who gradually grew rich by taking advantage of their connections within the church and hooking up with foreign businesses. As soon as their profits started to roll in, their enthusiasm for religion rolled out. Reverend Bull couldn’t blame them though, since they were the same souls who gave him expensive gifts at Christmas time. There were other members of the church who, though not particularly well off, were simple decent good-hearted people. They attended church regularly and made no attempt to ingratiate themselves with Reverend Bull. But when the Reverend found out that these Chinese people differed greatly from the standard established by his uncle, he started aiming his bitterest pronouncements on Hell directly at them: “You Christians who are too proud shall go to Hell! To Hell!” He was fondest of people like Big Duo who met the standard -- the poor and unpretentious folk who smothered him with their attention. In their presence, Reverend Bull felt almost like a little emperor.
Reverend Bull had less than a full head of blond hair and a pair of beady yellow eyes. He felt fortunate in having these features because in China, being too yellow was a definite disadvantage. His laugh was extraordinary: “Kahkahkah,” syllables he squeezed from his throat as if he were choking on a fishbone. Whenever he ran into members of his flock, he would always “kahkah” a few times, the way adults do when they are with children. At times like these, he never really wanted to laugh, but he forced himself to do it anyway.
Neither in the pulpit nor in his everyday life did Reverend Bull have anything profound to say. ...He believed that people owed him respect simply because he was American and thus a natural born object of public veneration--even God had to keep His distance. ...When told that China had produced heroes like Yue Fei and Wen Tianxiang, he could only blink his little eyes because he had no idea who those people were. When he found out who they were he blasted them as lost sinners. ...Big Duo was kind enough never to drop names like Yue Fei or Wen Tianxiang when he came to speak with Reverend Bull.
Every missionary has also met “converts” like Big Duo. They are the ones who are out for anything they can get from the foreigner. They don't seem to care how low they stoop or how much they are walked upon. Lao She saw too much of this attitude in too many Chinese. Here again it is easy to understand why Lao She returned to China after Mao Zedong proclaimed, “The Chinese people have stood up!” It was a traumatic change but one that had to be experienced for China to gain the self-respect so vital to growth as a people and nation.
In an article in the Renmin Ribao (The People's Daily) of October 30, 1962, titled, “A Voice From a Small Hutong,” Lao She stressed again the need for nations to have respect for one another and not interfere in one another's internal affairs. China had experienced almost two centuries of Western imperialism and wanted no more of it.
Hu Jieqing states that the models of Lao She's father, mother, aunt, eldest sister, her husband and parents-in-law and second sister described in this novel can be found among his relatives. Each had a similar social status as their counterpart in the novel. She wrote: “These few points, so far as I know, are authentic. But I would like to repeat that Lao She was writing fiction; he did not confine himself to real people and real events as far as the plot, language and characterization are concerned. Nevertheless, these points have led to much interesting research, one example of which has been the recent discovery of Lao She's birthplace.”
“Occasional Pieces of No Redeeming Value”
There were numerous times when his writing just appeared as fillers in newspapers or magazines. He himself said they had no redeeming qualities. Yet most of these short pieces have a value beyond that of pure literature. They bring a smile to the face and soul. Though a lot is lost in translation and through cultural differences many can make anyone laugh. Such is the case of the piece “Tipsy Talk for the New Year.”
Lao She admonishes his readers that having a few drinks make it possible to do things they might not otherwise be able to accomplish. This is especially true at the New Year's Spring Festival time. But, he adds a strong word of caution: only eight drinks! He uses the ancient poets and artists who when tipsy created some beautiful works of art. After eight drinks the ancients were useless and drunk. So it was not wise to get drunk, while being relaxed and a little light-headed was good for the creative juices.
Being a bit tipsy at the New Year season, a time when all bills come due, it is possible not to hear the person demanding payment. Finally the bill-collector leaves rather than continue trying to talk to what he sees is only a drunk. Also at the New Year with a few drinks you can curse to their face those you hate or dislike. They will not remember it as they consider you drunk. Then for the husband who is always berated by his wife for coming home late -- with a few drinks he can stand up to her.
One thing Lao She cautions is to “never talk politics or about the government” (mo tan guo shi) when you are tipsy. There never has been a good time in China to talk about government policies. Never in public or with people you do not know very well. It has always been best not to say anything to anybody regarding politics.
-----------From “Lao She, China’s Master Storyteller” by Britt Towery
(1999: The Tao Foundation, Waco, Texas
PRESENTED BY BRITT TOWERY AT THE SOUTHWEST CONFERENCE ON ASIAN STUDIES
Southwest Texas State University (Now Texas State University), San Marcos, Texas
October 21-23, 1999 ALONG THE WAY articles by Britt Towery
by Britt Towery
Lao She (Shu Qingcun, Lau Shaw), one of the best loved and most highly respected writers of twentieth century China, spent his lifetime telling stories on paper much like the pinshujia in the marketplace and teahouses. He said he was not a novelist though his novel Camel Xiangzi (Luotuo Xiangzi or Rickshaw Boy) proves him wrong. He stoutly refused to be called a dramatist, though his play Teahouse (Chaguan) refutes this. He said more than once he was merely a “storyteller.” Lao She was right in that statement, for he was first and foremost a teller of tales. He brought the smallest matter, person or event into sharp focus with his natural humor and compassionate insight. The everyday things of the average person's experience took on new life with his pen. He was first and last a shuo pingshu ren, a teller of tales -- a storyteller -- a master storyteller.
From his first writings to his last he ridiculed the traditional approaches to life, the pseudo scholarship of those seeking only position and status. He felt a great deal of China's backwardness was a result of tradition, superstition, and a total lack of national pride. As a storyteller he revealed these challenges to those that would read. He was one of a handful of writers in mid-twentieth century China that helped to mold a writing style that spoke to all kinds of people.
He was blessed from an early age with the concept that love was far more important in human relations than was generally practiced. Such a view of life made it a very natural thing for Lao She, at the age of twenty-three, to become a Christian and receive baptism in the Gangwashi Church in Peking. He was gifted with the ability to relate the longings, love and inner hurts of the human creature. He studied and taught in Britain and in the United States as well as in China. Devoted to his hometown of Peking, he wrote about the city and its people more vividly than any other writer.
Chinese Classic Comedy
Lao She's humor was a reflection of who and what he was. He was the constant observer of human actions and reactions. He saw humor in the most common of people and events. He made those who gained wealth and position through foreign connections a favorite target. In the three decades of the 1920s, 30s and 40s young people and students in particular observed that there was wealth and power attached to the foreigner in China. Shining examples for the youth were in their President Chiang Kai-shek and his wife Song Meiling. They and their close associates became independently wealthy with their careful use of American foreign aid. Lao She's pointed humor toward those that looked Westward for fame and wealth is especially evident in his two most famous works: Camel Xiangzi and Teahouse.
One of the classical novels, The Scholars (Rulin waishi), thought to have been written by Wu Jingzi (1701-1754) is the first work of satiric realism in Chinese literature. The characters of the novel depend upon their success, fame, riches and rank to build themselves up and lord it over others, considering themselves to be far above the common people. The common folk in the story see through these inflated egos and ridicule them. Hence there is a strong flavor of humor throughout the book.
Journey to the West (Xi you ji) by Wu Cheng’en (ca. 1506-1582), a writer who was born in Huai’an, the same Grand Canal city where Zhou Enlai was born, introduced to the world China’s most famous “cartoon” character: the Monkey King. He was hatched from a stone egg and was a mischievous spirit that brought humor and chaos while helping the monk Tripitaka (Tang Sanzang) in the fictionalized story of how the Buddhist scriptures were brought from India to China in the mid-seventeenth century. In many ways the story is a satiric fantasy that reminds Westerners of the story of Don Quixote.
Lao She, though sharp with his barbs of satire, never lost sympathy with his characters. Lao She “considered himself,” according to William A. Lyell, Jr., “primarily a humorist (as distinguished from satirist) by character as well as by profession.” Lao She once described the humorist in this way:
Above all, humor is a frame of mind. We all know people who are overly sensitive and always approach things with a surcharge of emotion, never willing to make allowances for others... A person with a sense of humor is not at all like this... he sees the flaws in mankind and wants to point them out to others; however, he does not stop at merely spotting these flaws, but goes on to positively accept them. And thus everyone has something funny about him, the humorist himself being no exception; if we take this to an even higher plane, then the fact that man is limited to a hundred years of life at most and yet would like to live forever, is in and of itself an extremely funny contradiction given in the very nature of human existence. Thus our laughter carries with it an element of sympathy, and at this point humor ceases being merely funny and enters the realm of profundity.
You mo: Humor, Chinese Style
In a book that no longer exists, The Forest of Jokes, Chinese humorous literature began to appear. Twentieth century Chinese humor, like all of life, has come a long way.
You mo, is the Chinese transliteration for “humor.” The words were coined in Chinese after the English word “humor.” The literal meaning of the two words, you mo, is “charming in seclusion” and “silent.” They have practically nothing to do with humor but when pronounced almost sound like the English word humor. New words that are brought into Chinese this way are not supposed to have a meaning. The sound of the English word is transliterated into Chinese. It is not meant to be taken literally, but as a phonetic equivalent of the word or name for the Chinese reader.
You mo as a Chinese equivalent to the English word “humor” was coined by Lin Yutang in 1923. Lin Yutang’s approach to humor did not earn him any respect from the Nationalist government nor the love of the Communist and left-wing writers.
The more a people’s manners and social background are understood, the more easily it is to appreciate their humor. Often, as George Kao writes, what appears funniest to the Chinese is oftentimes (1) outside the realm of writing, (2) untranslatable even if in writing, and (3) unfunny to the Westerner even if translated. Much Chinese humor is a play on words that often defies translation.
Humor was a way for Lao She to get through his difficult days. Humor to Lao She was the gate leading to reality. His mental capacity to discover the ludicrous and absurdly incongruous ways of people, regardless of race, is unmatched by any modern Chinese writer. He could not only appreciate the suffering that people brought on themselves but could express it first by laughing at himself and then laughing at and with others. The times in which he lived were filled with so many kinds of ludicrous events that to stay sane one had to be able to laugh them off.
The humor of Lao She or any Chinese writer is better appreciated and enjoyed according to the reader's knowledge and understanding of the Chinese people's language, manners, social situation and literary heritage.
Lin Yutang, the master humorist, who did much of his later work in the English language, writes:
Thoughtful humor is based on the perception of human errors, incongruities, cant, and hypocrisy, which admittedly are shared by all of us. The comic spirit is that human understanding which, being higher than academic intelligence, rises above the confusion and self-deception of our common notions, and points its finger at life’s sham, futility, and follies. The true comic genius is really a higher, subtler, form of intelligence because it sees what the others do not see, and under the cloak of fun exercises the criticism of man's ideas.
And on a more serious note, Zbigniew Slupski writes:
As we know from Lao niu poche (The Rickety Ox Cart), Lao She was proud of his ability to make his readers laugh; nevertheless there are several remarks in Lao niu poche which reveal that he was not sure that he regarded laughter as his main goal. Lao She's humor, and especially the elements of burlesque in his work, had aroused criticism to which Lao niu poche supplies the indirect reaction of the author. In some passages he defends his humorous writing, while in others he agrees with the condemnation of ‘forced laughter,’ laughter at all cost.
Lin Yutang is right on target when he defines humor as being born of realism. Lin wrote, “Humor is born of realism; and the Chinese are an unusually realistic people. Humor is born of common sense, and the Chinese have an overdose of common sense.” Lin Yutang, born in Fujian province in 1895, graduated from St. John's University in Shanghai in 1916 and was teaching at Qinghua University in Peking when Lao She was completing his studies at the Normal University. Lin Yutang, the master of humor, founded the humorous fortnightly Lu yu (The Analects) in Shanghai in 1932. Lin might even have been thinking of Lao She when he wrote that “A humorist is often a defeatist, and delights in recounting his own failures and embarrassments.” Lin Yutang and Lao She both were humorists that proves the truth of this statement.
According to George Kao one of the minor American myths about China is that the Chinese people possess a sense of humor somewhat akin to American humor. Kao goes on to say the difficult thing about this myth is that it is at once so true and so hard to prove. Kao goes on to say that the basic difference of Chinese and American humor has been best summarized by Judge John C. H. Wu, that “whereas Westerners are seriously humorous, the Chinese are humorously serious.” The Chinese are a more irrepressible people than many and that may be what makes their humor seem like the American humor.
As has been noted, fellow writers urged Lao She to leave off his humor back in the early 1930s. He tried it with Great Ming Lake and City of Cats and learned he could not write without humor. It was not something he created but was part of his being as much as eating and breathing.
His next novel, Divorce, was humorous. He wrote about the novel Divorce in Lao niu poche: “I decidedly hope that I am capable of arousing storms of laughter and making people really happy...”
According to George Kao Charlie Chaplin found a ready response in Chinese audiences. “Chinese humor, to a greater degree than that of any other people, sees the ludicrous in the pathos of life. It is the result of a philosophical reaction to adversity coupled with innate optimism about the future.”
Dave Barry, columnist for the Miami Herald, feels that humor is born out of the ordinary. He said, “I think humor comes from noticing that the world is already strange and weird and scary, and laughter is a mechanism for dealing with it.” Lao She's humor was not in jokes or ‘funny stories.’ He found value in being able to laugh when all around him appeared to be falling apart. He had an uncanny ability with language to reveal the warts and quirks of overly pretentious humans and their often weird activities.
After City of Cats, Lao She learned the importance of humor in his writing. He returned to what was more natural and real to him: humor. As Paul Bady says, Lao She's work “re-took its natural course: Divorce marked a return to Peking and to humor, but to a humor more mature; a humor which confined itself frequently to irony.”
Lao She's time in England was a rich experience in humor for him. There he discovered the English essayists and humorists, especially writers like Samuel Johnson and Jonathan Swift. These men had a natural humor that fit perfectly with that of Lao She. The spoken language that American Mark Twain was able to put on paper became a challenge to Lao She. Local color-humor was a hallmark of Mark Twain, and his work was well-known in the China of Lao She's youth.
On the 50th anniversary of the death of Mark Twain the literary circles of Peking had a meeting honoring the writer. Lao She's speech on Mark Twain was later printed in the September 6, 1960 Renmin Ribao (The People's Daily). He titled his speech, “Mark Twain, the exposer of the gold dollar empire.”
Humor, in order to be profound, supposes a sympathy within a laugh. As Thackeray says, “The humorous writer professes to awaken and direct your love, your pity, your kindness, -- your scorn for untruth, pretension, imposture, -- your tenderness for the weak, the poor, the oppressed, the unhappy.” Paul Bady is of the opinion that Lao She incorporates this definition of humor by Thackeray in his writing.
Life in the real world was never easy for the merry Manchu. His humor highlighted the weaknesses of the wealthy and powerful; likewise through humor he revealed the strength of the honest, poor and the commonplace. Life may not be kind, and usually is not for the less fortunate, but that is no reason to despair. The old Chinese saying puts it best: “The moon is not always round, the flowers do not always bloom, and some may never live happily ever after.” That is the way life is, don’t despair! The ancients knew this. For example they could use humor when someone tried the impossible: yuan mu qiu yu -- “its like climbing a tree to look for a fish.” But the climb may be the relaxing exercise needed!
Sharing Humor through Short Stories
Lao She’s novels have all appeared in English but few of his short stories. Of the many he wrote he particularly liked “Crescent Moon,” “A Vision,” and “This Life of Mine.” Hu Jieqing, wrote in 1984, that these and other stories “reveal a few aspects of the crises faced by the Chinese people, the corruption of Chinese society and the tragic side of life in China, besides stimulating thoughts and associations which extend far beyond its limited perspectives.” His unique ability to reveal the tragic event, no matter how small, through humor is one of the outstanding achievements of Lao She.
In “How I Started Writing Short Stories,” Lao She says he wrote his first such story when he was teaching at Nankai High School in Tianjin. He did it merely to satisfy the editors of the school journal. It did not arouse his interest in a literary career. His creative writing began in England with the novel The Philosophy of Lao Zhang.
In 1931 he had continuing requests for more short pieces -- a literary form he regarded “as not worth writing.” But he wrote “Grandpa Carrying His Grandson,” believing “that jokes written at random would make a short story. My plan then was to write some casual jokes and later do novels when I had the time. However, it was never easy to find enough time and requests for contributions were pouring in, so I ceased ‘writing for fun.’ ...I must admit I finished some of them haphazardly in a hurry, for I was unable to find the time for revision. The royalties were miserable low. Therefore, it was advisable to write more. On the other hand, I did not want to offend the friendly editors and for their sake was compelled to finish some stories at a stroke. They decided my writing policy -- perhaps that of other writers as well -- to produce more short stories of poor quality rather than fewer but better ones. It was a bad policy, but it had to be so. I was filled with compunction in doing so, yet money and friends were not to be offended.”
He said had he followed this way of writing: “I would have long died of hunger if I were spared death from exhaustion. It is glorious to work oneself to death, but it would be torture and a shame to starve. ...I wrote stories out of the material in reserve for full-length novels. Needless to say, it was a painful loss to sell by retail rather than by wholesale.”
Quqian, A Simple Daily Activity: Visiting the Bank
A short yet revealing piece by Lao She is Quqian (“cashing a check at the bank” or “withdrawing money”). From his experience with foreign banks in London and his knowledge of clerks in Chinese banks, he uses humor to get his point across. He often said he understood the past much better than the present. He knew what it was like to deal with a government official in old China. Had he tried to ‘correct’ or make changes in the way bank tellers handle customers in China, he would have had no readers. With humor he grabs the Chinese reader's attention because such has been their own experience. Here is a translation of the major portion about a Chinese man visiting an English bank and a Chinese bank:
I went into a foreign bank, an English bank to cash a ten pound note. As soon as I entered the bank I was amazed at the welcome I received. I was all but swamped with a hearty welcome. Everyone greeted me with “good morning,” or a smiling “how are you today?” The clerks are all dressed very neatly, their hair combed, and the desks neat and clean. They are overly willing to help me. The moment I got to the counter there was a clerk to waiting to take my check. I handed it to him and he pointed the place on the back where I should endorse it. The clerk then proceeded to count out ten pounds.
How utterly stupid all this is! None of these clerks behaves in a manner worthy of an official bank clerk. They show none of the official attitude and manner necessary to carry on such an important business. My check is cashed so quickly I feel they want to get rid of me and my business is not important to them!
The story continues as the Chinese gentleman takes us with him to a Chinese bank:
It is summertime and very hot even at eight in the morning. As I enter the bank I realize again how hot it is as all the clerks are fanning themselves. All are having a smoke. It is evident to see these clerks have the right attitude; they have an imperial manner. These are real officials. I am almost embarrassed to walk up to the counter because it is so hot and my presence will cause the clerks to expend energy for me. Regardless, I've come this far. I may as well continue and get my check cashed. I walk over to the counter and lay my check on it.
Naturally no one pays me any mind. I stand there a while and then ever so slightly one clerk glances ever so briefly in my direction. This is a good sign. To get such a glance of the eye on such a hot day is no trifle. Such a thing is not easy. But still there is no help. By about eight-forty a clerk comes over to the counter and looks at me. Then he looks at my check on the counter. I really feel bad giving this clerk so much trouble. The clerk looked at the check and then again at me. This imperial official of a clerk gave no reaction at all. He took my check and walked back to his desk. As he turned away he tossed me a tiny copper token with the number “1” on it.
I took the token and told the clerk (who is already back at his desk) that my check is not important ...There is no hurry ...I can come back tomorrow. Still there is no reaction whatsoever from the clerk. This clerk's stoic attitude makes me proud. I salute him, he is a choice individual. He is a genuine official in the grand tradition of the mandarins.
Turning from the counter I sat on a near-by bench to wait. The heat at the wait had made me sleepy. Without realizing it I dozed off to sleep.
I looked at my watch. I could not believe I slept for fifty minutes! This is really a fine bank. No mosquitoes or cockroaches that usually disturb my sleep. None here. What a good bank this is! I slept almost an hour and no one disturbed me in any way. At ten-thirty the clerk that took my check stood up and stretched, filled his pipe and began chatting with the clerk at the next desk. I do feel bad that on such a hot day as this I am keeping this clerk here to work in this hot place. I have limited his freedom by coming at this time! (Now if I owned a bank on such a hot day I would shoot the first two people that came in!)
At eleven o'clock the clerk rises, puts down his pipe and heads toward the counter but passes it to go out back. Possibly answering nature's call. Thirty minutes later the clerk returns, picks up his pen to write something and I roused myself from the bench and am to the counter in one bound. I tell the clerk not to hurry on my account ...please do not be anxious about my check ...the weather is too hot and your health, sir, is more important than my measly check ...none of this is worth harming your health. Such a fine mandarin clerk. He doesn't have time, I feel, to acknowledge my words.
At twelve noon I feel I should leave and go home. Just as I reached the door my clerk yells out, “Number One.” I’m not willing to answer for my fine clerk has disappointed me. But I go to the counter anyway. He points to the place on the back of the check where I must endorse it. I am taking out my pen to sign it when His Majesty suggests I come back tomorrow. That's just what I wanted to hear. For you see, if I signed the check now I must come back in the afternoon and wait possibly another four hours and by that time it will be closing time before the transaction could be completed. The clerk knows best. It will be far better for me to come back tomorrow. So I put the check in my pocket and start for the door. I realize I should say some kind words to the clerk for all his effort on my behalf. Before I can open my mouth the clerk shouts, “Number Two.” Well, I mustn’t waste the clerk’s time with polite words he will possibly think are only empty flattery. I’ll go home and write him a letter of apology for making his day so difficult.
Granted, something is usually lost in translating humor or poetry from one language to another, but life is much the same everywhere. In poetry generally the beauty is retained or the literal sense but seldom can both be brought over from one language and culture to another. Humor in one language or culture is always best understood in that setting and environment. Just as in the saying, “we are what we eat” in like manner “we are what we grow up with” in language and surroundings.
Lao She's view of people and places was much like that of Mark Twain. They both saw that everything that is human is in a very real sense pathetic. The secret source of Lao She's humor is not joy but sadness. He saw in the reality of life and its sorrows a greater, broader meaning that made it possible for him to smile at his own misfortunes and at the misgivings of others, especially the elite.
From Beneath the Red Banner (Zhenghong qixia)
Unfortunately Beneath the Red Banner, Lao She’s semi-official autobiography (somewhat fictionalized) was never completed. Lao She was writing about what he knew and loved best -- Beijing and his family. The entire story is presented in a light hearted manner that suggests the old people’s artist had lost none of the twinkle in his eye. Serious situations and old customs are displayed with a warm homey humor. Here is cousin Fuhai:
Cousin Fuhai was the most popular of all our relatives. He was short but strong, solid but refined, clever but honest. He had a round face with a light complexion and big eyes with double-fold eyelids. Even before he spoke you could imagine him saying something both witty and intelligent. When he did speak, his eyes sparkled and his face was all smiles. Though he was truly witty, he never hurt people's feelings. Though he had a good brain, he never put on airs. From his forehead up, his skin was very dark. Yet he looked as fresh and healthy as the fat blue-headed babies in New Year's pictures. He wore a large que braided neither tightly nor loosely, which added a sedate and urbane quality to his appearance.
His formal greeting was something to behold. Having looked you straight in the eye, he lowered his head and took two quick steps forward, bringing himself right up in front of you. After placing both his hands on one knee, he bowed, putting one leg forward in a half-kneeling posture. He remained in that position for a few seconds in an attitude of deep reverence. His cordial and intimate salutation followed, “Aunt, how do you do?” He then very swiftly stepped back, straightened up and stood at attention at one side, his hands behind his back. The older women he greeted in this fashion always returned his courtesy with a bow. They said to themselves, “If only my son had such good manners!”
Even today's Chinese young people know little of such greetings. The lighthearted manner in which Lao She wrote of the old times and the Manchu minority reveals a culture that has long since passed. In the writings of Lao She the past can be appreciated effortlessly. Again Lao She uses Cousin Fuhai to express his own love of and background of the Peking dialect:
Fuhai spoke the Beijing dialect so well as to lead people to believe that he was one of the originators of this noble tongue; even if this wasn’t the case, he should at least share the honor of creating “Beijing speech.” For his ancestors had not only introduced certain Manchu phrases into Chinese but had also evolved a crisp and snappy way of speaking which, by his generation, had become so crisp and snappy that sometimes people from other provinces found it hard to understand.
Lao She knew first-hand the foibles and quirks of the foreign missionary in his land. Some critics have taken him to task for his treatment of Reverend Bull (Niu mushi) in Beneath the Red Banner. One writer sees Lao She’s entire commentary on Christianity in a single episode in his early novel of Chinese in London. In Er Ma (The Two Mas) Lao She can be illustrating through the negative example of Reverend and Mrs. Evans, the dehumanizing attitudes of many China missionaries. Actually Lao She seems to be saying more than meets the eye and using humor to get across his point. Lao She used Reverend Evans earlier and here Reverend Bull to express some deeper feelings about Christian foreign missions. Feelings that come from his personal experience.
Lao She knew foreign missionaries that came to China at the turn of the century. He is aware they are not all like his fictitious characters. In writing about Bull’s ignorance of people and customs Lao She is saying, between the lines, there is a better way to “do missions.” Anyone who has not learned to read between the lines has not learned to read Chinese. Far from being an expert I have lived on the edges of Chinese society in Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China for over thirty years. I have seen many Reverend Bulls. At times I may have been just like him! Which is not a pleasant thought! I often wished I could hide behind a curtain and hear what the Chinese really thought of my elementary Chinese sermons and conversations. Lao She observed it in his day and through his works gave the world a glimpse of how the Western missionary could do a better job. His humor hurts when it gets close to our faith, but until we know where we hurt we can't be helped or cured.
So Reverend Bull is from another generation, one that thankfully has passed on forever. But his arrogance and ignorance still persists in the zealous hearts of some Western evangelists. Some still have lessons to learn. Lessons that are clearly presented in the Christian’s New Testament.
Reverend Bull was disgusted with those Christians who gradually grew rich by taking advantage of their connections within the church and hooking up with foreign businesses. As soon as their profits started to roll in, their enthusiasm for religion rolled out. Reverend Bull couldn’t blame them though, since they were the same souls who gave him expensive gifts at Christmas time. There were other members of the church who, though not particularly well off, were simple decent good-hearted people. They attended church regularly and made no attempt to ingratiate themselves with Reverend Bull. But when the Reverend found out that these Chinese people differed greatly from the standard established by his uncle, he started aiming his bitterest pronouncements on Hell directly at them: “You Christians who are too proud shall go to Hell! To Hell!” He was fondest of people like Big Duo who met the standard -- the poor and unpretentious folk who smothered him with their attention. In their presence, Reverend Bull felt almost like a little emperor.
Reverend Bull had less than a full head of blond hair and a pair of beady yellow eyes. He felt fortunate in having these features because in China, being too yellow was a definite disadvantage. His laugh was extraordinary: “Kahkahkah,” syllables he squeezed from his throat as if he were choking on a fishbone. Whenever he ran into members of his flock, he would always “kahkah” a few times, the way adults do when they are with children. At times like these, he never really wanted to laugh, but he forced himself to do it anyway.
Neither in the pulpit nor in his everyday life did Reverend Bull have anything profound to say. ...He believed that people owed him respect simply because he was American and thus a natural born object of public veneration--even God had to keep His distance. ...When told that China had produced heroes like Yue Fei and Wen Tianxiang, he could only blink his little eyes because he had no idea who those people were. When he found out who they were he blasted them as lost sinners. ...Big Duo was kind enough never to drop names like Yue Fei or Wen Tianxiang when he came to speak with Reverend Bull.
Every missionary has also met “converts” like Big Duo. They are the ones who are out for anything they can get from the foreigner. They don't seem to care how low they stoop or how much they are walked upon. Lao She saw too much of this attitude in too many Chinese. Here again it is easy to understand why Lao She returned to China after Mao Zedong proclaimed, “The Chinese people have stood up!” It was a traumatic change but one that had to be experienced for China to gain the self-respect so vital to growth as a people and nation.
In an article in the Renmin Ribao (The People's Daily) of October 30, 1962, titled, “A Voice From a Small Hutong,” Lao She stressed again the need for nations to have respect for one another and not interfere in one another's internal affairs. China had experienced almost two centuries of Western imperialism and wanted no more of it.
Hu Jieqing states that the models of Lao She's father, mother, aunt, eldest sister, her husband and parents-in-law and second sister described in this novel can be found among his relatives. Each had a similar social status as their counterpart in the novel. She wrote: “These few points, so far as I know, are authentic. But I would like to repeat that Lao She was writing fiction; he did not confine himself to real people and real events as far as the plot, language and characterization are concerned. Nevertheless, these points have led to much interesting research, one example of which has been the recent discovery of Lao She's birthplace.”
“Occasional Pieces of No Redeeming Value”
There were numerous times when his writing just appeared as fillers in newspapers or magazines. He himself said they had no redeeming qualities. Yet most of these short pieces have a value beyond that of pure literature. They bring a smile to the face and soul. Though a lot is lost in translation and through cultural differences many can make anyone laugh. Such is the case of the piece “Tipsy Talk for the New Year.”
Lao She admonishes his readers that having a few drinks make it possible to do things they might not otherwise be able to accomplish. This is especially true at the New Year's Spring Festival time. But, he adds a strong word of caution: only eight drinks! He uses the ancient poets and artists who when tipsy created some beautiful works of art. After eight drinks the ancients were useless and drunk. So it was not wise to get drunk, while being relaxed and a little light-headed was good for the creative juices.
Being a bit tipsy at the New Year season, a time when all bills come due, it is possible not to hear the person demanding payment. Finally the bill-collector leaves rather than continue trying to talk to what he sees is only a drunk. Also at the New Year with a few drinks you can curse to their face those you hate or dislike. They will not remember it as they consider you drunk. Then for the husband who is always berated by his wife for coming home late -- with a few drinks he can stand up to her.
One thing Lao She cautions is to “never talk politics or about the government” (mo tan guo shi) when you are tipsy. There never has been a good time in China to talk about government policies. Never in public or with people you do not know very well. It has always been best not to say anything to anybody regarding politics.
-----------From “Lao She, China’s Master Storyteller” by Britt Towery
(1999: The Tao Foundation, Waco, Texas
PRESENTED BY BRITT TOWERY AT THE SOUTHWEST CONFERENCE ON ASIAN STUDIES
Southwest Texas State University (Now Texas State University), San Marcos, Texas
October 21-23, 1999 ALONG THE WAY articles by Britt Towery
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)