06-11-2008

CHINA'S YOUTH: RAVENOUS FOR THE WEST, WITH NO MEMORY OF THEIR PAST

Xiaolu Guo, 35, is one of the most widely read international Chinese writers, whose novels such as "20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth" and "A Concise Chinese English Dictionary for Lovers" have been translated into many languages. She is also a filmmaker whose work has been shown at the Cannes and Sundance film festivals. She spoke with Michael Skafidas, editor of the Greek edition of NPQ.

By Xiaolu Guo

Xiaolu Guo: Individualism is a quite complex concept in China. If you are over 15 years old and you live in the big cities, you are part of the Internet generation, an experience which literally wipes away the Chinese traditions.

Young people in China thus have their own fictional characters nowadays -- they pay in cyberspace to support these fictional characters in online video games. The quality of Jingming’s books reflects that reality. They address, above all, the Internet generation with surreal, absurd, fairy-tale-type characters and setting. It’s another way for Chinese youth to escape the hard reality that materialism is creating. Clearly there is a void in our reality; something is missing.

M.S.: What is it that is missing?

X.G.: There is no memory, which is the basis of identity. That is because, in China, the past has been erased for this generation. Not just factual memory, but emotional memory. In this sense of a blank past, and thus open future, China today is better at being American than America.

If China eats the world, it will be because its youth are so ravenous for the West’s very own bright, shiny, romantic dream of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness at any cost. In terms of modernization, and the speed of change, China is completely American. Perhaps it’s even faster than America. China has thousands of years of history, but then it can turn into this shiny, brand-new, full-of-concrete nation in little time.

The taste and smell of today’s China has nothing to do with its past. Signs of the past have been reshaped so much by the socialist regime that certain parts of China have become almost unrecognizable. The architecture, for example, in the whole of China is Western, Manhattan-style. It’s impossible for a peasant to connect with it. A peasant’s memory has to rely on familiar objects -- a house, a glass, a bed. But now we don’t use our old-style beds anymore, and people don’t like the old-style houses. We live in a completely Americanized environment, and that is alienating. It’s like the entire nation is trying to forget about the past.

The new generation doesn’t even have to remember because they have grown up in this kind of brand-new environment, just like kids do in the U.S. So they have no reference of the past. Even young intellectuals who try to remember don’t have the references any longer.

The power to reshape memory should not be ignored. It’s almost like a technique of wiping out some parts of the brain so memories disappear.

M.S.: In 1958, there were 8,000 historical buildings in Beijing. By the end of the next year, there were left only 78. It was during the Mao years that the old city was destroyed. You captured this transformation successfully in your documentary "The Concrete Revolution," which follows the legions of displaced construction workers who came from all parts of China to build the new capital.

X.G.: The magnitude of this displacement was heartbreaking. In Beijing, all these countless workers found no links with their hometowns. No emotional reflection, no love, no woman. They experienced a profound rootlessness.

On the other hand, I don’t like to overstate these things, because, in a strange way, it sounds like propaganda. Blaming modernization for everything is not healthy.

The rebuilding of Beijing was foremost an economic ambition. In order to achieve a level where we could have an equal conversation with the West, especially America and Europe, China had to view itself as strong as America. Only when the quality of life is equal, and people’s education can improve, can we have a conversation. And the West will have to learn Chinese as well. I don’t think there is a conversation yet.

M.S.: What about the spirit of nationalism that is part of the new China, in particular the Chinese anger over the international criticism about Tibet?

X.G.: Extreme nationalism, of course, is very dangerous. I felt sick of it when I was growing up, but China was always like that. If you live in Chinese society, it becomes part of your world. But, of course, that could also be a stereotype if you judge it from abroad.

Chinese people are very kind and generous, especially in the provinces. Especially if you are a foreigner, they will do anything to help you. But this is a society that from very early on has been told, “Love your country beyond anything else.”

It’s hard, and it takes time to beat this mentality. But I don’t think it’s happening strictly in China. There are ways, for example, to compare the Western media with Chinese propaganda. There is a certain propaganda-like quality that is the product of the American media machine of the Bush era. When I travel around the world, I see the problem of nationalism everywhere, in America as well.

M.S.: Have you been to Tibet?

X.G.: Yes I have. I am sorry to say, I think that the Westerner sees Tibet in a mythological way. It’s a real place. It’s a very difficult place, in terms of the high altitude and its poor economy. They say it is a beautiful place, but “beautiful” is a middle-class concept. How can a place be beautiful on top of its people’s poverty?

It’s like when middle-class whites go to North Africa to find prostitutes. “Beautiful Africa!” What does it mean?

Beautiful is a tricky political concept. I always get very impatient and anxious when I hear it. So, I think that the representation of Tibet in the West is quite ideological and romanticized. Tibet is also a different culture, and that’s why I can’t say much about it. Also, I have a Chinese passport and I need to live in China. 

(C) 2008, GLOBAL VIEWPOINT
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