Chapter 3 third chapter

Zha Jianying: Now that you have come back after such a long time, how do you go back and evaluate the more successful and representative works and characters in the 1980s?Do you have the feeling of broadening your horizons and looking back at your adolescence after you mature?How passionate and naive, all because he or she is just getting started?In fact, youth literature all over the world has these characteristics, but China was still special at that time. It was closed and suppressed for too long, and the cultural nutrition was almost cut off. More than one generation was born with deficiencies.So it has nothing to do with age. Maybe people in their 40s and 50s at that time were still young in their mentality.Of course, this is just a generalization, and there are always exceptions. For example, Acheng, his works at that time are not "youth literature" even now.

Liu Suola: Let’s talk about Ah Cheng first.I think he's really an exception to the "star" of the eighties.As soon as his novels were published, he already had a very distinctive personality and style, and he was never smug as a writer: for example, in foreign countries, he never applied for any writer’s grant unless invited by others he.You know that in foreign countries, if you boast that you are a famous Chinese writer, you can live on this capital for a lifetime, and you can eat all the universities in the world.Especially in the 1980s, Westerners also paid attention to these Chinese modernists.But to fight for this kind of fund, you have to have a very thick-skinned spirit: on the application form, you describe yourself as the single most important writer in China-it must be me.Acheng is the most important writer in China, but he told me: I can't say that when I write that kind of application.His spirit influenced me a lot. After hearing what he said, I became more self-aware, and I never applied for a literary fund.

What I want to say is that if you come out of the craze of the 1980s, if you want to save your personality, you can only keep a low profile.After going abroad, I often heard some celebrities in the 1980s vying to say loudly in Chinese gatherings, where I am, and what to say to the reporter. The reporter said that so-and-so (referring to himself) is a contemporary genius!Another person said, I told someone in a certain country that your country has hope because you are interested in my works... When I heard these words, I wanted to get under the table. After experiencing the hustle and bustle of the 1980s, people tend to become confused and sober.The vigorous discussion on artists and art schools in the 1980s is indeed a rare situation in history, and it is actually a very precious situation in art.This is because we have always been in a closed state of culture, and suddenly opened up, a large number of young artists who are exploring suddenly appeared, and the repressed cultural crowd naturally rejoiced, which is actually a very natural phenomenon of historical development.But these emerging artists have not experienced enough artistic exploration. They have just sold the knowledge and small talents they have accumulated in books, and they have not had a few punches in the art arena. If it succeeds, it will become an art idol that attracts the attention of the whole country.This phenomenon and this success can only be found in countries that are not open.Let me take modern music as an example: Schoenberg invented the twelve-tone system, which broke the basic aesthetic concept of European music; Aonaid Komen invented free jazz, and established a free space for sound.I think this is called success.Success does not depend on being well-known in the media, making a lot of money, or winning awards, but on establishing one's own style and system.

The revival of Chinese art in the 1980s brought out a group of art masters who hadn't figured out the art yet.If we do not see the truth about the chance and accident of their success, it will affect the development of art in the future, thinking that all success is accident and accident.What happened in the 1980s trained me to look at everything like a history book.We are often deceived by history books because history books often record accidental and accidental phenomena, and then describe these phenomena brilliantly.This kind of thing doesn't just happen in China, it's just that Chinese art changes slowly, and the ability to replace old illusions with new illusions is relatively weak.Regarding the 1980s, foreign theorists would say that you realized this modern art form without any Western material foundation, and made modern art appear in the third world. This is the value.I remembered what the peasants said, if you listen to crickets, you won’t grow crops?It can also be said that when you hear the crickets, you forget to plant crops.If you listen to these third-world artistic values ​​all day long, you can only take chances on artistic creation, and you will never be able to enjoy the real joy of artistic creation and obtain the true charm of art.

Zha Jianying: Well said, but at that historical stage in China, these accidents are inevitable: it must happen for a while, and there are really few people who can surpass the knowledge and feelings at that time. Someone will pay attention, what a frustrating moment, just when everyone rolled up their arms and sleeves to show a good performance, they have been holding back for so long.But looking at the childishness at that time is obvious now. Liu Suola: Let me take myself as an example: when I was in China, everyone thought I was a modernist writer. Fortunately, I didn’t dare to accept this fault. Otherwise, if I went abroad to see it, how could I understand literature?At that time, I didn't dare to let American translators publish it, and I was not sure about myself.Also, I thought rock music was a rebellion at the time, and I wrote so much about rock music. When I arrived in the UK, the TV station asked me: We British people don’t play rock music anymore, because it’s just entertainment music. Why do you still regard rock music as culture?We were so pitiful, we should have shouted: I am a fucking Chinese!Don't be too hard on me!

ZHA Jianying: Not only is it harsh, I think the British interviewer belongs to the kind of narrow-minded "pride and prejudice".Unlike us Chinese, any foreigner who speaks Chinese well or can sing Peking Opera will be reported and encouraged in magazines and TV immediately, and will never make things difficult for him/her. This is a kind of magnanimity shown by the sovereign.It's a pity that we are at an obvious disadvantage in terms of modern culture. To use an inappropriate analogy, we are now tasting what it was like to be a barbarian in the heyday of the Tang Dynasty.Feng Shui takes turns, the sun is shining on the head of Western culture at the moment, it is our turn to learn from and imitate.Not only rock music, but also many art forms are Chinese learning from the West.