Years of Poems and Spirits

Heard Diane Rehm interviewed Yiyun Li this morning. I first came across her short novel in the New Yorker. Didn’t quite get it:

He was raised by his mother alone, as she was by her father. She wondered if his mother, who had set up their date, had told him about that

I was like, WTF? Who is the second “she” here? Still, Li’s name stuck–she must be good at something to get picked out among 300 submissions for that week.

Diane’s interview is about her recent novel, The Vagrants. It was a pretty captivating conversation. So much so that at the end of the show I bought a copy on Amazon.

Couple of things stick out …

1. She finds English her first “writing language”, although she still struggles with proper tense in spoken English (与我心有戚戚焉)
2. Some of the callers to the show are apparently China dilettantes. I think they are more interested in her than her work, and a sense of bewilderment was brimming from their questions. How does she connect to those readers? Is she selling the exoticism of the “ugly” Chinese culture/recent history? The views she expresses and the framework she adopts in discussion are typical of that a Western liberal. Yet her story reminds me so much of the book 《活着》
3. She has a very engaging personal story (never written in Chinese before, wanted to improve her English, attended a creative writing’s class and fell in love with story telling. Got published in less than three years, etc.) She teaches in UC Davis, does she know 北岛？How would that couple think of her?

Are there cases where a social scientist becomes a novelist? What if he finds social theories or rational analysis so inept when it comes to being relevant? People like reading stories anyway. They particularly like to read into stories. That is why the Old Testement is full of stories, allegories and parables. That is why a good story teller–even if a liar–is always popular everywhere he/she goes. Isn’t it?

I always wondered how many Chinese words were “imported” from overseas (舶来品), particularly from Japan. My impression is that because Japan opened earlier and wider to the West than China, there was a period of ”introductive enlightenment” from Japan to China. If so, by sorting out the Japanese words in daily Chinese, one may be able to reversely profile the depth and intensity of this exchange.

Came across this article here “日货”无处不在:当代中国汉语竟有七成是”日本话”, here are some samples (with some apparent errors or unsustained claims):

健康、卫生、… 储蓄、反感、化妆品、接吻、… 企业、…生产、体育、通货膨胀、…文化、文明、文学、… 大气污染、关节炎、抗体、麻醉药、牵引、弱视、色盲、糖尿病、听力、血压、……

70%多的人文学科和社会生活用词，都是源于日本汉语。如果，我们不用这些外来词，我们几乎张不开口，说不成整句，甚至可以说，会影响我们的语义表达。 (Need to verify the 70% number)

Other examples – F:、发明、法律、法人、法庭、法则、番号、反动、反对、反感、反射、反响、反应、泛神论、泛心论、范畴、方案、方程式、方程、方针、放射、分解、分配、分析、分子、风琴、封建、封锁、否定、否决、否认、服务、服用、辐射、复式、复员、复制、副食、副官、副手……；(封建 is obviously not right)

　　G:、改编、改订、概括、概略、概念、概算、感性、干部、干事、干线、纲领、高潮、高利贷、高炉、高射炮、高周波、歌剧、工业、攻守同盟、公报、公立、公民、公判、公仆、公认公诉、公营、公债、共产主义、共和、共鸣、古柯、固定、固体、故障、关系、观测、观点、观度、观念、观照、光年、光线、广场、广告、广义、归纳、规范、规则、国际、国教、国库、国立、国税、国体、过渡……；

DS推荐了汪晖的新著，忘了书名，但包括“去政治的政治”等文，应是2008年出的吧。高手，高手！好久没看到这种好书了，一口气看了一半。最得意的是，我一方面对他的理论框架不以为是，但又对他能搭出这么一个漂亮的框架，又佩服，又嫉妒。看惯了美国人写的中国政治，再看看自己人写的，爽爽！这种“中国制造”才是水平。

特别是因为我记得Elizabeth Perry曾提到，美国人关于中国的研究多偏向于是西方政治理论的“消费者”。她希望看到中国研究能为政治学理论库多做一些原创的贡献。对我来说，如何能用西方的理论语言来描述中国的思想体系，一直是个大的问题。不能说汪晖已经解决这个问题，但是他的著作能娴熟地使用西方政治学的语法，流利地描述了从1980年代开始的中国思想界的争论。如果把书中说到的人与事换成美国的，看上去真和一个美国政治学界高手写的一样，像我喜欢的Lickbach and Zuckerman 编的 “Comparative Politics”。

倒不是崇洋媚外，但骨子里，我知道西方人文学的那一套，实在是比中国的传统人文学要丰富得多，且高明得多。怎么办呢，就像带了人家的眼镜之后，不仅看得清楚，细节也看得多了。中国的问题是很特殊，但要理解这一特殊性，不能总是强调西方人文学的外来性（异我性），像蒋庆似的干脆充耳不闻，而是应该寄希望于一个在其现有的基础上新的，辩证的发展来诠释。

我不同意汪晖的地方是在于对”政治“的理解和期望上。汪晖对政治的定义，越往后听上去越像社会系（societal)的权力斗争（如阶级斗争），而且他说这种斗争不仅对于政治权力的分配，而且对于全社会的认知发展都有着定型化的作用。换句话说，政治能决定文化。这一命题，对我来说，实在难以接受。我认为，如果只关注当代政治的话，文化传统几乎是可以看成外在元素（ exogenous）。正是基于这个假设，我才可以解释（和接受）当前的腐败，才觉得培养，推广和巩固”去权力化“的社会关系（比如，横向的而不是纵向的，多元价值体系而不是单元的，自下而上的而不是反之的，等等），才是解决问题的彻底方案。

这同时也是政治学和历史学与社会学的争论。汪晖的立场，正好证明了他是一个很经典的政治学家。