Abstract
The Yellow River flows into the ocean and meets surging billows of azure blue. The panoramic view of the collision of the turbid and the transparent, which had inspired the Tang poet Wang Zhihuan with such immediacy and aesthetically engaged tranquillity, is turned into a haunting image of ambivalence in the final climactic moments of He shang (Yellow River elegy). Does the physical landscape of such an encounter tell the story of the voluntary submission of the river to the ocean, as many Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ideologues have charged; or as Su Xiaokang contended in the documentary, does it embody the historical necessity of the life force of a nation moving from enclosure to openness? The first reading, which casts the merger into the symbolism of annexation, brings to the fore the issue of the power relationship of the river versus the ocean, in which the former is seen to represent China, while the latter, Western imperialism. Such an interpretation cancels any possibility of treating both the river and the ocean as images of space that speak of the irrevocable passage from the confined to the immeasurable, and thus of the subversion of boundary, whether national, ideological, or psychological. Indeed, the finale of He shang often makes one wonder whether a spectacle of such magnitude is framed in power symbolism that calls for the compulsive identification of the dominated and the dominator, or whether it is framed in space symbolism in which the issue of hegemony gives way to that of developmental process.
Notes
“Deng Guanque Lou,” Tang shi sanbai shou xiangxi (Taibei: Zhonghua shuju, 1972), p. 274. The five-character jueju, which contains the famous line “The Yellow River flows into the sea,” is a nature poem in which one finds the harmonious blending of the poet's physical eye and his mind's eye. The landscape of the spatial expanse is both physical and mental.
The script of He shang was produced by a team of writers and scholars. In its printed form, the writing of the script was generally credited to Su Xiaokang and Wang Luxiang. In this article, for convenience of citation, I refer to Su as the principal scriptwriter.
References
- 1989. "Sorrows". In: Huamin, Zhong , , eds. Chongping ‘He shang’ (hereafter CPHS) . Hangzhou: Hangzhou daxue chubanshe; 1989. pp. 248–266, The lament of the river as a “wreaker of havoc” is heard throughout the documentary, especially in the fifth episode, All references given in this form, for example, p. 283, are to this edition of He shang. It is important to note that serious discrepancies exist between the various versions of He shang texts in different publications. The specific entries of He shang cited in this article appeared both in CPHS and in the TV documentary.
- Wakeman, Frederic , 1989. All the Rage in China , New York Review of Books 36 (3) (1989), pp. 3–3.
- "One Hundred Mistakes in He shang ". In: Renmin Ribao , From August to November 1989;(People's Daily) launched an editorial project entitled;It is a project that cites the specific errors and conceptual fallacies that the scriptwriters of the documentary are said to have committed.
- Wakeman, , All the Rage in China . pp. 21–21.
- " He shang lunzheng qingkuang zongshu". In: CPHS . pp. 290–290, appendix 2;The essay provides an overview of the various kinds of critiques of He shang. Wang Gaoling and Wu Xin argue in one critique that what the documentary reflects is nothing other than a deep-rooted feeling of frustration brought about by an unjustifiable “competitive consciousness” of the intellectuals who seek to recapture the global hegemonic position that China once occupied.
- Schwarcz, Vera , 1986. The Chinese Enlightenment: Intellectuals and the Legacy of the May Fourth Movement of 1919 . Berkeley: University of California Press; 1986, The most detailed account of the tensions between enlightenment (qimeng) and saving the nation (jiuguo) that tore apart, and finally compromised, the May Fourth intellectuals is provided by;Schwarcz's analysis often provides penetrating insight into the problematics of the May Fourth Movement. While she argues that “enlightenment became first and foremost a means through which Chinese intellectuals defined themselves” (p. 292), I would examine the discourse of enlightenment as the discourse of power at the same time. In other words, I would supplement her argument by pointing out that enlightenment became first and foremost a means through which Chinese intellectuals empowered themselves.
- Schwarcz, , Chinese Enlightenment . pp. 240–282, It is worth noting that since June 1989, the Chinese government has renewed the slogan of aiguo zhuyi (patriotism) with such unprecedented fervor that the slogan appeared almost on every important political occasion. Most notably, the 1990 annual May Fourth commemoration was marked by an important speech given by Jiang Zemin, “Patriotism and the Mission of Our Intellectuals” (Renmin Ribao, 4 May 1990). The title of Jiang's speech spells out the thematic consistency that the party officials have always voiced in combating their resurgent nemesis-the alternative interpretation of May Fourth-namely, enlightenment.
- Zehou, Li , 1987. Zhongguo xiandai sixiang shilun . Beijing: Dongfang chubanshe; 1987. pp. 19–19.
- Zaifu, Liu , and Gang, Lin , 1988. Chuantong yu Zhongguo ren . Hong Kong: Sanlian shudian; 1988. pp. 255–279.
- Schwarcz, , The Chinese Enlightenment . pp. 283–283.
- Li, , Zhongguo xiandai sixiang shilun . pp. 45–45.
- 1989. "blaming the culture instead of the system for China's problems". In: Zai Ba Li xiangqi cai shi kou: liuwang ganhuai . 1989. pp. 3–3, In his own critique of He shang after his escape from China, Su Xiaokang confessed that the documentary suffered many conceptual biases, one of which he characterized as;Baixing 202.
- Goldmann, Lucien , and Maas, Henry , 1973. The Philosophy of the Enlightenment . Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press; 1973. pp. 27–27, According to the rationalist tradition of the Enlightenment, if every individual rationally pursues his/her own self-interest and happiness, the general interest of society will be fulfilled at the same time.
- Zisha, Yen , 1989. " He shang jiemei pien Wu Si liuchan ji". In: Baixing 201 . 1989. pp. 36–37, As if aiming at resolving the unsettled ambiguity of this one-liner, the production team of He shang chose May Fourth as the subject of its sequel. Unfortunately the May Fourth project was aborted in the turbulent year of 1989.
- Xiaokang, Su , " He shang de quanpan xihua de zhuzhang". In: CPHS . pp. 126–126, himself was not totally unaware of the problematic legacy of the movement. He once remarked, “The New Culture Movement, a possible symbol of the rising sun, marched right into a labyrinth on the very same day of the fourth of May”;quoting Su Xiaokang's discussion of the May Fourth Movement). Seen in this light, Su Xiaokang's proposal that Chinese history start over again from May Fourth could signify the recovery of the original motivating force of the New Culture Movement, in other words, the agenda of enlightenment, before it is subsumed into the program of patriotism.
- White, Hayden , 1973. Metahistory . Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press; 1973. pp. 128–128, White characterizes China as a “theocratic despotism” that operates on the “metaphorical apprehension of its civilizational projects.” In such a historical field, formal distinctions between separate entities are eliminated and absorbed into the subjectivity of the sovereign who alone assigns and distributes meaning.
- Guangxian, Zhang , 1989. Cong lishi de shijiao ping He shang , Guangming ribao (1989), pp. 3–3, argues that the emergence of the dragon as the totem symbol for the Chinese is a fairly recent fiction. He also argues against the association between dragon-worship and the River civilization;Another critic ridicules Su for relying on the fictional logic provided in the movie The 1894 Sino-Japanese War to explain the defeat of the Chinese fleet. See “Zuowei zhenglun pian de He shang,” CPHS, p. 9. Still other critics dismiss Su Xiaokang's theory of the mysterious affinity between the color yellow and the yellow skin of the Chinese people.
- Xun, Lu , 1973. "Changcheng". In: Lu Xun quanji . Vol. 3. Beijing: Renmin wenxue chupanshe; 1973. pp. 63–63.
- For the discussion of the Enlightenment Society, 1981. Seymour, James , ed. The Fifth Modernization: Chinas Human Rights Movement, 1978–79 . Stanfordville, NY. 1981, Also see Schwarcz, Chinese Enlightenment, pp. 300-301. A translation of several issues of the society's journal Qimeng (Enlightenment), made by U.S. Joint Publications Research Service, appears in JPRS 73215: 509 (12 April 1979).
- Yan, , He shang jiemei . pp. 37–37, quoting Su Xiaokang.