The Birdcage Archives

Friday 10 February 2017

Love in a Fallen City

Hello Gentle Reader

When Mo Yan became the Nobel Laureate in Literature in two-thousand and twelve, I among others decried the decision as political panhandling and appeasement towards the Chinese governments lobbying for a officially recognized Chinese writer, to receive the Nobel accolade, which in part would be seen as an official acknowledgement on an international stage, of China’s cultural significance. The decision was divisive, with little room for neutrality. Fellow Nobel Laureate in Literature (and a personal favourite) Herta Müller called the decision: ‘a disaster.’ Salman Rushdie, who is no stranger to controversy and his well-documented public opinions; called Mo Yan a ‘patsy of the regime,’ in reference to Mo Yan’s known camaraderie with the Communist Government of China. Yet apologists of Mo Yan would come to his defense. They asserted the criticism of Mo Yan, were baseless and political at best; merely slandering his character, and undermining his literary achievements; in which (they state) that he criticizes the Chinese government on a regional or provincial level, showcasing mild dissidence at best. They further elucidated their arguments by stating the award is literary not political, and therefore Mo Yan’s political inclinations (if there are any) are not valid criticisms of his literary output, which obviously helped him become a Nobel Laureate in Literature. However, others such as Perry Link, who wrote for the ‘New York Review of Books,’ that he took aim at Mo Yan not only because of his political convictions and instead embrace the ubiquitous political ambiguities which are expected of him, but also because of his lack of engagement (or rather complete engagement) with twentieth century Chinese history. As Mister Link notes, when it comes to some catastrophe of twentieth century Chinese history, Mo Yan deflects the event with what he calls ‘daft hilarity,’ which may involve sheep seamen and rabbits or turnips carved into the likeness of donkey dicks. Yet a defender of Mo Yan stated this is not a evasion of the event, but rather a satirical approach to it. Though Mister Link and I obviously share a common idea of what satire is (and no, donkey dicks and seamen are not high on my list of satirical merit).  This method of satire diminishes the tragedy of those events, like the Great Chinese Famine, where 30 million people died, from more than just uncooperative weather, but also mismanagement by the government. Of course other atrocities were also committed during this time such as people being burned alive, or cracking individuals heads open with a shovel (called: opening the flower). Yet in the case of Mo Yan, the issue, the atrocities, the catastrophe is also skipped around in favour of crude humour, which offers a good guffaw (I suppose) and does not upset the political perspective or position on the matter. I myself had defended my own position on Mo Yan, by stating: when one comes from a documented and known authoritarian state, which has blatantly disregarded the idea of human rights and acceptable basic freedoms; there is no middle ground, the writer either stands with the government or dissents against it. In this sense, and by this position, Mo Yan had obliviously allowed himself to settle on the lap of the government.

Mo Yan maybe seen as a victim of political atmosphere and ulterior motives, which involuntarily affect him, and often put him in the middle of a controversial storm, which is engaged more about a lack of political stances then it is about literary quality; but it should be noted: if Mo Yan is a victim of such circumstances, then Eileen Chang, was a neglected causality because of political revolution and reform, despite the fact Eileen Chang was politically indifferent.

Eileen Chang’s early life was a life of contrast. Her mother was a westernized, refined and educated woman of great sophistication. Chang’s mother had left for the United Kingdom when Eileen Chang was two years old, because her father had taken a concubine (mistress) and had become addicted to opium. Though her mother would return years later, her parents would get divorced in 1930, and Eileen Chang and her brother Zhang Zijing were raised by their father.

Chang’s education began when she was four years old. Along with her Chinese education, Chang showcased a strong affiliation with English as well. Despite the fact that her family was not religious, she had graduated from an all-female Christian high school, and had plans to study at the University of London on a full scholarship, but was unable to achieve this goal, because the Second Sino-Japanese was had broken out. During this time, it is noted that Eileen Chang had a argument with her father and her stepmother, and contracted dysentery; rather than receiving treatment her father had locked her in room for six months. During this confinement, Chang had experienced vivid hallucinations. Shortly after her eighteenth birthday, Eileen Chang would run away from her father’s dark and dingy world of addiction and abuse, and would seek refuge with her mother. Afterwards Chang would leave to study English Literature at Hong Kong University, but one semester short of finishing her degree, Eileen Chang would have to abandon her studies as Hong Kong fell to the Empire of Japan. Though she moved back to mainland China (specifically Shanghai), Eileen Chang did not complete her studies do to financial complications. Despite the lack of education, in which she received, Eileen Chang was known as a literary prodigy. She had published numerous of her short stories in the school magazine, and at the age of twelve she had already written her debut novel. At the age of twenty three in 1943, a story by Eileen Chang had reached a prominent editor of the time, Zhou Shoujuan; that story was: “Aloeswood Incense: the First Brazier.” The story would be Eileen Chang’s publishing debut, and remains one of her most well know works. After the publication of “Aloeswood Incense: the First Brazier,” in Zhou Shoujuan’s magazine ‘Violet,’ as a special feature, Eileen Chang would become a literary sensation. Afterwards, Eileen Chang would publish more short stories and novella’s (known as her Hong Kong stories) and collected them in a volume titled: ‘Romances.’ Though the stories are set in Hong Kong, Chang wrote them through the perspective of someone from Shanghai, and hoped the island city depicted in the works, would resonate and be enjoyed by those of Shanghai. Though Chang found success during this time as a writer and screenwriter, praised for her mature voice, which exceeded her young years, it was short lived.

Romance and love for Eileen Chang was much like the relationship she witnessed between her mother and father growing up. She married Hu Lancheng secretly in 1944; and remained loyal to her husband, despite him being branded a traitor and collaborator with the Japanese occupying forces during the war. However, the marriage was not salvageable, as Lancheng was a philanderer, and the two divorced in 1947.

After the end of World War II and the end of the Chinese Communist Revolution, the political atmosphere of China changed, turning even dangerous, and in the fifities, Eileen Chang would leave her beloved Shanghai behind, and immigrate back to Hong Kong. It was here Eileen Chang wrote more, and worked for three years in the United States Information Service. During this time Chang wrote “The Rice Sprout Song,” which is unique as it is the first novel Chang wrote solely in English; but going further “The Rice Sprout Song,” details Chang’s own ambivalence towards the new Chinese regime, and its egotistical structure and demand for complete compliance. After completing “The Rice Sprout Song,” the USIO (United States Information Service) commissioned Chang to write another novel, with a specified outline, which would become “Naked Earth.” Chang commented that writing “Naked Earth,” was a miserable ordeal as well as painful, as the work itself did not come from her originally. In 1955 Eileen Chang would leave Hong Kong for the United States, and she would never return to China.

Despite immigrating to the United States, Eileen Chang did not stop writing, though she mainly worked on writing screenplays. From 1957 – 1964, Eileen Chang wrote nine screenplays which were produced. Chang never expressed any disdain or lack of fulfillment with screenwriting which other writers do. Chang treated writing more as a profession then a passion; she excelled in all its form such as screenplay writing, and would find success in it, just as she had with her earlier pre-war shanghai novella’s and short stories.

Chang’s later life in the sixties and seventies were less and less well documented. She married for a second time to a screenplay writer Ferdinand Reyher, but tragedy would once again strike, as Reyher would be struck by numerous strokes and die in 1967. After which Eileen Chang would hold short-term jobs at Radcliff College and University of California, Berkeley. In 1972 Eileen Chang moved to Los Angles; from there she worked on translations, and became increasingly reclusive. Eileen Chang would die in 1995 at the age of seventy four. Chang was not found until a few days after her death, in her sparely furnished apartment by her landlord, which testifies to her reclusive lifestyle. She was cremated and her ashes were unceremoniously dumped into the Pacific Ocean. Her estate was left to her old friends back in Hong Kong.

Throughout her later life, in which she lived in voluntarily exile, Eileen Chang was forbidden in her homeland of mainland China. Her works were representative of a bourgeoisie lifestyle and undermined the communist revolutionary ideals. All of this would best be considered unfortunate, as Eileen Chang showed no political interest in any of her works. The only novel in which she displayed any independent political stance would be “The Rice Sprout Song,” in where she casts a skeptical eye on the Communist party’s revolutionary ideas; and “Naked Earth,” by contrast was commissioned by the United States government to be used as anti-communist propaganda, and Chang herself had found the work laboriously dissatisfying. Eileen Chang though overall was not interested in the political situations of her country. She preferred to write about the relationships of individuals, and the subtle complexities of societal traditions and independent desires. Yet she would be forbidden and forgotten for much of her later life in her home country. Chang herself represented a previous China, one in in which the Communist Revolution sought to distance itself from – if not completely obliterate from recent memory. She was not ideologically suitable, for the communist propagating machine. Her lack of political convictions saw her unjustly forgotten and forsaken from her beloved Shanghai and homeland. Considering the personal upheavals and challenges Eileen Chang faced in her personal life; this persecution against her must have simply been the final obstacle which she took on and then resigned herself too, choosing to live quietly and alone, utterly unknown in Los Angeles.

I often imagine Eileen Chang and Mu Xin, as the two most prominent and forgotten writers who found themselves as victims of ideology and history. Yet the two writers remained resilient towards the persecution. Unlike Mu Xin, Eileen Chang never found herself physically in danger of the Communist oppression; though she was close enough to the fire too be burned with her first marriage, and it could be discerned, she preemptively removed herself from the dangers of being burned. The two writers share a common story of exile, and reconciliation. Both writers are now well revered in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Eileen Chang has once again found her successes and early literary stardom reinstated, as her vintage, sophisticated and graceful work has fond new readership, and much admiration.

For English language readers though, Eileen Chang is still foreign. Many may be acquainted with Eileen Chang from Ang Lee’s espionage film “Lust and Caution,” which is based off a manuscript by Eileen Chang; but beyond this, Chang would be more known in Chinese literature classes, then a casual read. This is rather disappointing, considering her scathing insights into human relationships, refined into fine silk prose, whose pessimistic overtones only begin to veil after the reader is engrossed.

“Love in a Fallen City,” is a great starting point for any reader wishing to get introduced into the works of Eileen Chang. It’s a collection of her novella’s and short stories, which detail the independent lives of people living in Hong Kong and Shanghai in the 1930s and 1940s. In these works, Eileen Chang offers a time capsule of a fading world, now completely alien (or nostalgic) to the China of today, which its blend of communist ideology along with its straddled capitalistic ventures. The stories presented here showcase traditions trying to maintain relevancy in an increasingly modern world, with revolutionary ideas, being stroked down alleys and in basements. The titular story itself “Love in a Fallen City,” presents the vindictive viciousness of the traditional ways of life, but offers hope with the modern sensibilities taking over. It’s a slight tale of two cities: Shanghai representing a traditional conservative center of Chinese culture; versus Hong Kong and its bright future and its metropolitan air. The two cities are presented during the Japanese occupation, and traces the relationship between Bai Liu-Su, a divorcee who suffers her extended family’s barbs and jabs, for their understanding she has brought shame upon them; and the charming Malayan business man Fan Liy-yuan, who takes an interest in Bai Liu-Su. Through the occupation of Hong Kong and the devastation, Eileen Chang presents only a small glimpse of hope for the young lovers, this will be the only inclination of a happy ending to appear in the work.

“Love in a Fallen City,” retraces the themes of relationships of her characters. The woman are oppressed by old feudal desires, they desire and dream of a pure idea of love, but over time become pessimistic with the notion and disenfranchised by their existence, to the point of desolate despair. The saving grace however of this rather dark perspective presented here, is the glitz and the glamour in which these disturbing acts take place. My personal favourite of this collection: “Aloeswood Incense: The First Brazier,” is an expert example of the ideal youth attempting to better their life, but are engrossed then ensnared and finally entrapped.

“Aloeswood Incense: The First Brazier,” documents the life of the young girl Weilong who seeks out her disgraced aunt Madame Liang, in order to seek her support in her studies, in which she can further her future and better her life. Wisdom, cunning, cleverness, a sharp mind – these are not attributes which are often attributed to youth, and as the novella progresses, we see and understand why. Weilong’s aunt is scandalous and there is good reason her brother has distanced himself from her. Yet Weilong possess the most wonderful qualities of youth: stubbornness, headstrong,  self-assurance; which inevitably will be her downfall. Weilong is enticed in the luxurious world of her aunt, Madame Liang; where she lives a life of glamour, fashion, and of course her house is equipped with servants. In this setting Weilong is a child placed within the centre of her dreams, and begins to understand the cost of it, and even willing chooses to go down a path of prostitution (as Madame Liang, was a rich man’s concubine), in order to emulate the life of her aunt. When confronted with the reality of her decision—by observing real prostitutes—Weilong considers the difference herself and the prostitutes she observes, and yet with almost frank revelation, she admits with cool reasoning, there is no difference, between herself and the prostitutes, with only one exception: they have no choice in their profession, while she readily took to it like a cat to milk.

“Aloeswood Incense: The First Brazier,” is a striking portrait of a young girl who makes an attempt at bettering herself—education, getting a job, going to work, and living a respectable life for herself; she becomes a shining example of the possibilities of modernity in contrast to the stifling traditions of prior societal cultural traditions. Yet, Chang makes a startling statement with regards to Weilong: she lacks the certainty to be a modern woman, and falls into the same entrapments and roles of women, that have plagued them for many years, and what is worst, Weilong shows no remorse or shame in her decision, but rather embraces it.

“Love in A Fallen City,” is a collection of Eileen Chang’s work. The prose glitters, with luxury and a unique and local world of China, in which many of us will not know now; but beneath the jewelry, the fine fashion, the money – they all hang on the spiders web, and while one is busy and distracted trying on the luxuries of life, they are slowly consumed by the grander web, which laid hidden beneath the fineries which always catch our attention before the trap or the cage is even considered. It’s not a light read, but it’s made bearable by its often lightness of scenery, which only fades when the eventual price tag and interest come to collect the payment for those refineries.

Eileen Chang at the height of her powers has a keen critical eye of individuals who fall prey to their own foolishness. She coldly dissects the relationships between individuals and the sexual politics at play within those relationships. Now considered a genius and a legend, Eileen Chang is now renowned in her homeland, as one of the greatest writers to have worked in the Chinese language, during the twentieth century. Her novels are more than just doomed romances, they critically cast a skeptical eye over society, but the observational findings are only noted in the most myopic or smallest of places; but that is exactly where they are felt, lived and understood the most—in the most intimate of places, between lovers, between husbands and wives, between family members.

It should be mentioned, the collection itself can be difficult to understand, because of the unique local culture and atmosphere (as well as time period) that Eileen Chang writes about. Thankfully the collection is a well cited and documented source of wealth of resources. The introduction by Karen S. Kingsbury, and the subsequent footnotes, gives one an understanding of the writer, as well as the cultural landscape of the time.

Eileen Chang died alone as a recluse in her apartment in Los Angeles. Her body was discovered four days after her death. She voluntarily went into exile, perhaps with a understanding she would end up there if she stayed in China regardless. She was a victim of history and ideology; but she was also a victim of personal tragedies. Her childhood was unhappy, and she only appeared to experience success early on, before political atmospheres had obliterated her happiness. Eileen Chang however is now considered one of the most influential Chinese writers, of the last century, and she retains a devoted readership to this day. I do think because of Eileen Chang’s voluntary exile and seclusion from the world, is the only way she escaped the political decision, in which other writers have been forced to make. If Eileen Chang had stayed in China I wonder if she would have been faced with the decision of imprisonment, re-education and persecution so many other writers had suffered; or would she resolve herself to the gilded birdcage, as a sweet songbird, in which to praise the reigning ideology. Only by complete removal I think was Chang able to avoid the decision. It should be noted other writers have not been so fortunate to have had that freedom. Yet Chang’s own personal decision came at its own price; a price of seclusion, exile, and abandonment from the world, where she was overlooked and forgotten, and only later on was she to be reinstated and appreciated for the talents in which she possessed.

Eileen Chang is a tragic legend, but it makes her work even more potent and more relevant to be seen through those lenses to a degree. There can be no doubt: Eileen Chang is certainly a genius and a legend.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read

M. Mary

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