Scar Literature reconsidered: Yan Geling's novels The Criminal Lu Yanshi and A Woman's Epic

Abstract

This paper reconsiders the political dynamics, social disorder, and personal traumas endured during China's socialist revolutionary times by examining the Chinese American writer Yan Geling's (b. 1958) two Scar Literature novels, The Criminal Lu Yanshi (Lufan Yanshi, 2011) and A Woman's Epic (Yige nuren de shishi, 2006). Employing Hannah Arendt's theory on totalitarianism, this paper investigates how Mao's authoritarian rule transmutes Chinese society into an atomized and individualized society. It will reveal how this totalitarian rule over the Chinese intellectuals, by the brutal use of the re-education system, succeeded in isolating them, which then led to intense feelings of solitude. The objective of this paper is to undo and rectify the historical and cultural “memory loss” caused by the current trend of depoliticizing, commercializing, and sensualizing the socialist revolutionary memories as demonstrated by the televisual postmodern repackaging of the Maoist past to be found in the mediasphere of present-day China, which forgets the horrors of the Cultural Revolution as crimes against the Chinese people.

Keywords:

• Yan Geling
• Scar Literature
• Chinese psyche
• totalitarian rule
• intellectual
• feminist perspective

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr Shenshen Cai completed her Ph.D. in contemporary Chinese culture studies with the School of Humanities at Griffith University. She is now busying herself with publishing her “ideas”, and she has a broad research interests in contemporary Chinese literature, film, theater and folklore studies. Shenshen currently works as a part-time lecturer with The University of Melbourne in Australia, teaching Chinese and Chinese culture-related courses. She has recently published articles in Portal Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies (2014), East Asia: An International Quarterly (2014), Asian Cinema (2014), Visual Anthropology (forthcoming 2015), Asian Theatre Journal (forthcoming 2015), Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies (forthcoming 2015) and Asian Studies Review (forthcoming 2015).

Notes

1. In 1978, Lu Xinhua was a first-year college student at the Chinese language department of Fudan University in Shanghai. Immediately after the Cultural Revolution, The Scar was seen as quite bold and thought-provoking in terms of its plots and contents. It was initially rejected by the influential literary magazine People’s Literature, but was finally published by the Weihui Daily to a hot reception and much debate. Many fans of literature and the general public are deeply moved by the novel’s characters and some can relate them to their own bitter experiences and sufferings during those chaotic times. Later, other writers also published works that condemn the inhumanity of the Cultural Revolution: Ba Jin (Random Thoughts 2009), Yang Jiang (A Cadre School Life: Six Chapters 2010), Liu Xinwu (Head Teacher 1977), Ye Xin (Wasted Time 2007), and Hai Yan (Plain-clothed Policeman 2005).

2. Recently, the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Liu Xiaobo (one of the most famous political dissidents of contemporary China) was not allowed to give his last statement to the court when he was sentenced to jail for 11 years for a crime of inciting subversion of the state’s political power. However, Liu’s wife published his last statement via the website of Radio Free Asia. Liu was sentenced and jailed due to his participation into the June 4, 1989 democratic demonstration, and after he was released in 1991, he lost his right to make public speeches in the PRC. He therefore made his feelings known through the overseas media, but he was also monitored and was subjected to residential surveillance (1995–1996) and was forced to receive reeducation through labor (1996–1999; DWnews.com). Liu is currently serving an 11 years sentence in mainland China for inciting subversion of the state political power.

3. Soul Mountain (Lingshan 1990) is a novel by the Chinese writer Gao Xingjian. The novel tells a story about the author’s travel in rural China, which was inspired by a false diagnosis of lung cancer. The novel is a mixture of fiction and autobiography about a man’s journey to find the fabled mountain Lingshan. It contains story fragments, travel accounts, unnamed characters, and folk poetry/legends. An English version translated by Mabel Lee was published in the USA. One Man’s Bible (Yigeren de shengjing 1999) is another novel by Gao Xingjian which is also translated by Mabel Lee. The book’s main character is an alter-ego of Gao who reflects on his previous experiences around the world.

4. After the CCP took control of mainland China in 1949, the central government of the PRC published a Land Reform Law in 1950 and the Land Reform Movement was launched simultaneously. During the first year of the movement, land was confiscated from former landlords and redistributed to landless peasants. Nearly 310 million people were involved in carrying out land reform movement in the newly liberated areas. During the movement, innumerable landlords were publicly criticized, denounced, and executed.

5. All the translations of the original novel are the author’s.

6. The Three-anti Campaign (1951) and Five-anti Campaign (1952; san fan wu fan yundong) were reform movements launched by Mao Zedong soon after the founding of the PRC and they aimed to get rid of corruption and enemies of the state. The result turned into a series of campaigns that strengthened Mao's power base by attacking political opponents and capitalists. The three antis imposed were: corruption, waste and bureaucracy. The five antis imposed were: bribery, theft of state property, tax evasion, cheating on government contracts and stealing state economic information.

7. The Great Famine between 1958 and 1962 was caused by collective and political radicalism, policy failure, and government mismanagement in the agricultural industry. According to Frank Dikotter (2010), 45 million Chinese people died of hunger and malnutrition during the Great Famine.

8. The Elimination of Counter-Revolutionary Movement was a large-scale mass movement which was launched by Mao Zedong between 1955 and 1957. The aim of the campaign was to root out the counter-revolutionaries who were hidden among the general public.

9. For example, Yan Geling's novel Xiu Xiu: The Sent-down Girl/Tianyu, tells a poignant story about the sent-down young female students who sacrifice their bodies to the local CCP cadres in order to get permission to return to their home cities. The book was adapted into a feature film with the same title in 1998 by Chen Chong, an America-based overseas Chinese actress-director. Another example is Yan’s novel The Grassland of the Female/Cixing de caodi, which also recounts stories about a group of female youths who experienced the Cultural Revolution years in a stud-farm.

10. Although based in America, Yan Geling's novels have become the most popular resources of television and film adaptations in mainland China. For example: Happiness is Knocking at the Door/Xingfu lai qiaomen, Tielihua have been adapted into a television drama serials with the same title and it enjoys great popularity in the mainland region; and The Flowers of War/Jinling shisanchai was adapted into a feature film by Zhang Yimou in 2011. Yan also served as the screenwriter for Chen Kaige’s (another representative figure of Chinese fifth generation directors) 2008 film Forever Enthralled/Mei Lanfang.

11. After its release, Coming Home received wide criticism from Chinese film critic for its oversimplified treatment of the political and social context of the story line. Zhang’s “intentional” neglect of the social disorders and political chaos of Maoist China has been blamed for obscuring the viewer’s understanding about the socialist revolutionary memories.