1 00:00:04,590 --> 00:00:12,420 Our speaker is the author Yiyun Li. She comes to us most recently from UC Davis 2 00:00:12,420 --> 00:00:18,810 where she teaches writing for the English Program there but she has made 3 00:00:18,810 --> 00:00:24,539 several other much longer journeys which I suppose we're all in the middle of all 4 00:00:24,539 --> 00:00:30,500 our journeys right? None of them are completed. For example her journey from immunology to 5 00:00:30,500 --> 00:00:36,269 fiction writing or her journey from China to America. 6 00:00:36,269 --> 00:00:44,610 So we're particularly happy to have her here to speak to us about this moment 7 00:00:44,610 --> 00:00:49,620 this time in these journey she's been taking. She is the author of two 8 00:00:49,620 --> 00:00:56,550 collections of short stories and two novels as well as this most recent work 9 00:00:56,550 --> 00:01:02,570 "Dear friend, from my life I write to you your life", which 10 00:01:02,570 --> 00:01:06,570 perplexes people in bookstores who want to know where to put it. 11 00:01:06,570 --> 00:01:13,290 It's perhaps memoir perhaps something else and all of these have 12 00:01:13,290 --> 00:01:21,030 been very highly acclaimed. The journey I think that is most interesting 13 00:01:21,030 --> 00:01:25,920 to us. I think many people in this room will have been on a journey or are in a 14 00:01:25,920 --> 00:01:32,250 journey which somehow parallels some of the journeys that Yun Li has taken. 15 00:01:32,250 --> 00:01:37,979 Many people in this room have taken a similar geographic or linguistic or 16 00:01:37,979 --> 00:01:42,960 cultural journey and so I I think that her talk will be interesting to you 17 00:01:42,960 --> 00:01:48,000 about what I want to say is that in her writing and so perhaps tonight her 18 00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:55,799 talk you may find that some of what she says is jarring, is unexpected, is 19 00:01:55,799 --> 00:02:03,210 always thought provoking and is always crafted with great precision. She has won 20 00:02:03,210 --> 00:02:10,369 many awards and I could list them Pen Hemingway Award, MacArthur Foundation 21 00:02:10,369 --> 00:02:15,320 Fellowship etc. but better than telling you all those awards I would say 22 00:02:15,320 --> 00:02:31,370 this to you she's here tonight so let's listen, let's talk to her and ask questions and tomorrow let's find something from her to read. 23 00:02:31,370 --> 00:02:37,459 I give the lecture's title called "To speak is to blunder but I venture" which is a 24 00:02:37,459 --> 00:02:43,489 chapter's title in the book but when it was printed in The New Yorker 25 00:02:43,489 --> 00:02:49,910 they ran out of space they couldn't put the second half of the title so they use 26 00:02:49,910 --> 00:02:57,860 the title "To speak is to blunder" which to me sounds Chinese you know. It sounds 27 00:02:57,860 --> 00:03:04,510 very much like the moment you open your mouth you're blundering but I 28 00:03:04,510 --> 00:03:10,459 really want to emphasize I have the second half - to speak is to blunder but 29 00:03:10,459 --> 00:03:17,450 I venture. I did open my mouth and I started talking so I'm going to start 30 00:03:17,450 --> 00:03:26,840 reading this essay. To speak is to blunder but I venture. In a dream the 31 00:03:26,840 --> 00:03:31,850 other night I was back in Beijing at the entrance of my family's apartment 32 00:03:31,850 --> 00:03:37,970 complex where a public telephone - a black rotary-had once been guarded by the old 33 00:03:37,970 --> 00:03:43,400 women from the neighborhood association. They used to listen without hiding their 34 00:03:43,400 --> 00:03:49,430 distinct curiosity. Well I was on the phone with friends. When I finished they 35 00:03:49,430 --> 00:03:53,450 would complain about the length of the conversation before logging it into 36 00:03:53,450 --> 00:04:00,380 their book and calculating the charge. In those days I accumulated many errands 37 00:04:00,380 --> 00:04:06,070 before I went to use the telephone lest my parents noticed my extended absence. 38 00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:13,430 My allowance which was what I could scrimp and save from my lunch money was 39 00:04:13,430 --> 00:04:18,919 spent on phone calls and stamps and envelopes. Like a character in a 40 00:04:18,919 --> 00:04:23,100 Victorian novel I checked our mail before my parents did 41 00:04:23,100 --> 00:04:29,540 and collected letters to me from friends before my parents could intercept them. 42 00:04:29,540 --> 00:04:37,340 In my dream I asked for the phone - two women came out of the front office. I 43 00:04:37,340 --> 00:04:45,030 recognized them. In real life they are both gone. No, they said, the services are 44 00:04:45,030 --> 00:04:51,030 no longer offered because everyone has a cell phone these days. There was nothing 45 00:04:51,030 --> 00:04:56,100 extraordinary about the dream - a melancholy visit to the past in this manner 46 00:04:56,100 --> 00:05:04,160 is beyond one's control but for the fact that the women spoke to me in English. 47 00:05:04,160 --> 00:05:10,770 Years ago when I started writing in English my husband asked if I understood 48 00:05:10,770 --> 00:05:16,770 the implication of the decision. What he meant was not the practical concerns 49 00:05:16,770 --> 00:05:22,580 though there were plenty - the nebulous hope of getting punished, published. 50 00:05:22,580 --> 00:05:28,710 The lack of a career path as had been laid out in science - my first field of 51 00:05:28,710 --> 00:05:36,150 postgraduate study in America, the hardship of immigration regulation. Many of 52 00:05:36,150 --> 00:05:41,640 my college classmates from China as scientist acquired their green cards in 53 00:05:41,640 --> 00:05:48,980 the national interest waiver. An artist is not much of importance to any nation. 54 00:05:48,980 --> 00:05:55,380 My husband who writes computer programs was asking about language. Did I 55 00:05:55,380 --> 00:06:01,919 understand what it meant to renounce my motherland, mother tongue? Nabokov once 56 00:06:01,919 --> 00:06:07,250 answered a question he must have been tired of being asked. My private tragedy 57 00:06:07,250 --> 00:06:12,750 which cannot, indeed, should not be anyone's concern is that I had to 58 00:06:12,750 --> 00:06:19,230 abandon my natural language, my natural idiom. That something is called a tragedy 59 00:06:19,230 --> 00:06:26,790 however means it is no longer personal. One weeps out of private pain 60 00:06:26,790 --> 00:06:32,190 but only when the audience swarms in and claims understanding and empathy 61 00:06:32,190 --> 00:06:38,040 do people call it a tragedy. One's grief belongs to oneself; one's tragedy, 62 00:06:38,040 --> 00:06:45,150 to others. I often feel a tinge of guilt when I imagine Nabokov's woe. 63 00:06:45,150 --> 00:06:52,020 Like all intimacies, the intimacy between one and one’s mother tongue can be comforting 64 00:06:52,020 --> 00:06:59,160 and irreplaceable yet it can also demand more than what one is 65 00:06:59,160 --> 00:07:05,550 willing to give, more than one is capable of giving. If I allow myself to 66 00:07:05,550 --> 00:07:11,540 be honest, my private salvation which cannot and should not be anybody's 67 00:07:11,540 --> 00:07:20,300 concern is that I disowned my native language. So that's the first part I 68 00:07:20,300 --> 00:07:27,960 think it's hard when you come out and say I disowned my mother tongue like 69 00:07:27,960 --> 00:07:33,960 this because it's such a loaded word- mother tongue, motherland, 70 00:07:33,960 --> 00:07:42,170 mother so I want to play a song a short song by Dvorak. The song's title is 71 00:07:42,170 --> 00:08:40,299 "Songs my mother taught me". 72 00:10:28,930 --> 00:10:35,089 That's the song called "Songs my mother taught me" by Dvorak. 73 00:10:35,089 --> 00:10:42,050 The lyric goes like this: "Songs my mother taught me. In the days long 74 00:10:42,050 --> 00:10:48,770 vanished. Seldom from her eyelids. Where a teardrop banished. Now I teach my 75 00:10:48,770 --> 00:10:55,250 children each melodious measure. Often the tears are flowing. Often they flow 76 00:10:55,250 --> 00:11:00,680 from my memories' treasure. I mentioned the song you know for 77 00:11:00,680 --> 00:11:07,670 several reasons. One is it's it's it's a story for every generation. It's a story 78 00:11:07,670 --> 00:11:14,990 for all nationalities. We used to have a babysitter who was this lovely young 79 00:11:14,990 --> 00:11:20,000 woman she would sing these Irish sounds to my children that she actually did not 80 00:11:20,000 --> 00:11:25,279 understand the words and she said she sang us the songs because her mother used to 81 00:11:25,279 --> 00:11:30,200 sing these Irish songs to her. Her mother also did not understand the words. 82 00:11:30,200 --> 00:11:34,160 Her mother memorized the songs from her mother 83 00:11:34,160 --> 00:11:41,440 and in every generation we want to sing the songs to our children. 84 00:11:41,440 --> 00:11:47,870 But I actually realized when I was listening to the Dvorak recording the other day 85 00:11:47,870 --> 00:11:54,980 I realized I have never sung songs to my children and for very specific 86 00:11:54,980 --> 00:12:02,000 reasons. I'm going to read a little part from the book. My mother who loves to 87 00:12:02,000 --> 00:12:07,880 sing often sings the songs from her childhood and youth, many of them 88 00:12:07,880 --> 00:12:15,110 propagandas from 1950s and 1960s but there's one song she reminisces all 89 00:12:15,110 --> 00:12:20,450 her life because she doesn't know how to sing it. She learned the song in 90 00:12:20,450 --> 00:12:26,120 kindergarten, the year communism took over her hometown. She can only remember 91 00:12:26,120 --> 00:12:31,009 the opening line. I grew up listening to her talking about 92 00:12:31,009 --> 00:12:39,870 well this song started with description of an end and that's it and then she 93 00:12:39,870 --> 00:12:44,880 would sing the first line and then she would say I don't remember and I 94 00:12:44,880 --> 00:12:49,079 thought the songs we don't sing to our children that's probably more 95 00:12:49,079 --> 00:12:57,180 interesting. Sometimes the reason I also hesitate to sing the songs to my 96 00:12:57,180 --> 00:13:03,420 children. I grew up really in the propaganda songs. I had often 97 00:13:03,420 --> 00:13:09,000 times moved myself to tears when I sing them. One time I was driving through Texas, 98 00:13:09,000 --> 00:13:13,740 that's a long drive through the whole state. I was by myself. 99 00:13:13,740 --> 00:13:18,930 I was very bored and I tried to keep myself awake so I started to sing all 100 00:13:18,930 --> 00:13:23,790 the Communist songs starting from kindergarten until I was you know a 101 00:13:23,790 --> 00:13:30,839 young person and every song really moved me and I was in tears and I thought even 102 00:13:30,839 --> 00:13:37,110 propagandas can move people into this state but I don't think I can't give 103 00:13:37,110 --> 00:13:43,730 those songs to my children so I've never done that and I'm going to read 104 00:13:43,730 --> 00:13:48,630 and it's not only about songs. It's not only about singing it's the language 105 00:13:48,630 --> 00:13:57,510 used in those songs so I'm going to read the next passage. People often ask 106 00:13:57,510 --> 00:14:02,459 about my decision to write in English. The switch from one language to another 107 00:14:02,459 --> 00:14:09,600 feels natural to me, I reply, though that does not say much just as one can hardly 108 00:14:09,600 --> 00:14:15,959 give a convincing explanation as to why someone's hair turns gray on one day but 109 00:14:15,959 --> 00:14:22,050 not on another but this is an inane analogy, I realize, because I do not want 110 00:14:22,050 --> 00:14:26,759 to touch the heart of the matter. Yes, there is something unnatural which I 111 00:14:26,759 --> 00:14:32,370 have refused to accept. Now the fact of writing in a second language. There is 112 00:14:32,370 --> 00:14:38,459 always Nabokov and Conrad as references and many of my contemporaries as well or 113 00:14:38,459 --> 00:14:44,610 that I impulsively give up a reliable career for writing. It's the absoluteness 114 00:14:44,610 --> 00:14:50,970 of my abandoning of Chinese and they're taken with such determination that it is 115 00:14:50,970 --> 00:14:56,670 a kind of suicide. The tragedy of Nabokov's sloth is that his 116 00:14:56,670 --> 00:15:03,480 misfortune was easily explained by public history. His story of being driven 117 00:15:03,480 --> 00:15:10,139 by a revolution into permanent exile became the possession of other people. My 118 00:15:10,139 --> 00:15:14,519 decision to write in English has also been explained as a flight from my 119 00:15:14,519 --> 00:15:18,899 country's history but unlike Nabokov who had been a 120 00:15:18,899 --> 00:15:25,740 published Russian writer I never wrote in Chinese. Still one cannot avoid the 121 00:15:25,740 --> 00:15:32,990 fact that a private decision once seen through a public prism becomes a metaphor. 122 00:15:32,990 --> 00:15:39,060 Once a poet of East European origin and I - we both have lived in 123 00:15:39,060 --> 00:15:44,519 America for years and both write in English - were asked to read our work in 124 00:15:44,519 --> 00:15:50,190 our native language at a gala but I don't write in Chinese, I explained and 125 00:15:50,190 --> 00:15:56,639 the organizer apologized for her misunderstanding. I offered to read Li Po 126 00:15:56,639 --> 00:16:02,850 or Du Fu or any of the Asian poets I'd grown up memorizing but instead it 127 00:16:02,850 --> 00:16:10,110 was arranged for me to read poetry by a political prisoner. A metaphor desires to 128 00:16:10,110 --> 00:16:17,850 transcend, diminishes any human story. Its ambition to illuminate blinds those who 129 00:16:17,850 --> 00:16:24,120 create metaphors. In my distress of metaphors I feel a kinship with George 130 00:16:24,120 --> 00:16:31,680 Eliot: "We all of us grave or light get our thoughts entangled in metaphors and 131 00:16:31,680 --> 00:16:38,370 act fatally on the strengths of them". My abandonment of my first language is 132 00:16:38,370 --> 00:16:44,819 personal, so deeply personal that I resist any interpretation, political or 133 00:16:44,819 --> 00:16:51,510 historical or ethnographical. This I know is what my husband was questioning 134 00:16:51,510 --> 00:16:55,260 years ago. Was I prepared to be turned into a symbol by 135 00:16:55,260 --> 00:17:02,040 well-intentioned or hostile minds? Chinese immigrants of my 136 00:17:02,040 --> 00:17:06,450 generation in America sometimes criticize my English from not being 137 00:17:06,450 --> 00:17:14,490 native enough. A compatriot after reading my work pointed out in an email how my 138 00:17:14,490 --> 00:17:20,940 language is neither lavish nor lyrical as a real writer's language should be. You 139 00:17:20,940 --> 00:17:24,720 write only simple things in single English, you should be ashamed of 140 00:17:24,720 --> 00:17:30,990 yourself, he wrote in a fury. A professor, an American writer in graduate 141 00:17:30,990 --> 00:17:35,640 school told me that I should stop writing as English would remain a 142 00:17:35,640 --> 00:17:42,360 foreign language to me. Their concerns about ownership of language rather than 143 00:17:42,360 --> 00:17:49,950 making me as impatient as Nabokov allow me secret laughter. English is to me as 144 00:17:49,950 --> 00:17:56,250 random a choice as any other language. What one goes towards is less 145 00:17:56,250 --> 00:18:04,200 definitive than that from which one turns away. So I think a 146 00:18:04,200 --> 00:18:13,680 lot of people question my being or not being a political writer. Once at 147 00:18:13,680 --> 00:18:18,600 a bookstore - this is my local bookstore, really my neighbourhood bookstore, I was 148 00:18:18,600 --> 00:18:26,160 giving a reading and a woman came in and she said your father was a nuclear 149 00:18:26,160 --> 00:18:29,520 physicist, my father was a nuclear physicist too. 150 00:18:29,520 --> 00:18:36,030 Did you grow up in this complex? I said yes I did and she said she said I want 151 00:18:36,030 --> 00:18:41,400 you to know I'm not happy with you because I want to be proud of China 152 00:18:41,400 --> 00:18:48,210 and you're not writing to make me being proud of my being a Chinese and I was a 153 00:18:48,210 --> 00:18:53,070 little surprised because if I read about America I would not make any people feel 154 00:18:53,070 --> 00:18:58,470 like proud of being American either and then afterwards it's so much a very 155 00:18:58,470 --> 00:19:04,650 Chinese story. She came to me the first question she asked me was what's your 156 00:19:04,650 --> 00:19:08,760 father's name and I said what's your father's name and 157 00:19:08,760 --> 00:19:13,800 I realized you know when we meet when we met in that bookstore we were all of 158 00:19:13,800 --> 00:19:20,790 sudden going back to that Chinese moment we were determined or defined by who the 159 00:19:20,790 --> 00:19:26,730 fathers were but on the other hand I give another reading in Asia Society in 160 00:19:26,730 --> 00:19:32,580 San Francisco and there's this young American very lovely American man and he 161 00:19:32,580 --> 00:19:35,700 came. He was also curious for another reason. 162 00:19:35,700 --> 00:19:41,130 He lived in America he lived in China for years and he said I just can't I 163 00:19:41,130 --> 00:19:47,100 can't I can't understand why you refuse to be a political writer. You're not 164 00:19:47,100 --> 00:19:55,890 writing politically and I thought what's an interesting concern and I just want 165 00:19:55,890 --> 00:20:02,790 to read one-part. This is such a political moment in China and if you are 166 00:20:02,790 --> 00:20:07,560 a Chinese writer if you're Chinese coming from China from my generation 167 00:20:07,560 --> 00:20:15,900 always people would ask about Tiananmen Square massacre and so I'm going 168 00:20:15,900 --> 00:20:24,020 to read those journal entry in June 2014 this was 25 years of Tiananmen massacre. 169 00:20:24,020 --> 00:20:33,300 June 2014 when I'm writing today the world is inundated with images of and 170 00:20:33,300 --> 00:20:40,890 opinions on Tiananmen Square Massacre from 25 years ago. Everything seems to be said 171 00:20:40,890 --> 00:20:45,810 with certainty. People, especially those watching a 172 00:20:45,810 --> 00:20:52,320 tragedy from afar, talk with such eloquence. I cannot help but suspect a 173 00:20:52,320 --> 00:20:56,670 similarity to Mann's arrogance. This is Thomas Mann commenting on 174 00:20:56,670 --> 00:21:03,180 Stefan Zweig's suicide. When people expressed strong feelings about what 175 00:21:03,180 --> 00:21:09,750 they may not understand, the story becomes about themselves yet if this 176 00:21:09,750 --> 00:21:16,650 output, anger, grief, idolization and idealization of a historical event full 177 00:21:16,650 --> 00:21:21,300 of discrepancies, untrustworthy characters, calculating on both sides 178 00:21:21,300 --> 00:21:26,520 with people's lives as betting chips, farces even, were only meaningful 179 00:21:26,520 --> 00:21:32,520 narratives to the public, life would be a less interesting business, literature a 180 00:21:32,520 --> 00:21:39,660 less worthwhile pursuit. When I was reading the news earlier a random memory 181 00:21:39,660 --> 00:21:46,470 which I had forgotten hit me. My sister was in medical school then and went with 182 00:21:46,470 --> 00:21:52,710 her classmates to Tiananmen Square to help the students on hunger strike. From 183 00:21:52,710 --> 00:21:58,320 one of the visits she brought back a sun had for me made of thin white 184 00:21:58,320 --> 00:22:06,120 muslin and shaped like a Victorian bonnet. It was called Jane Eyre hat in the 1980s 185 00:22:06,120 --> 00:22:11,900 in China. I had always wanted a Jane Eyre hat when I was little. 186 00:22:11,900 --> 00:22:19,020 After the massacre the hat vanished. No doubt my father who went to 187 00:22:19,020 --> 00:22:26,309 the hospital to count bodies was the one to have purged it. It was a donated 188 00:22:26,309 --> 00:22:33,630 item to the protest and it might incriminate my sister. To make sense of 189 00:22:33,630 --> 00:22:38,400 the Jane Eyre hat I would have to go through decades of history I would have 190 00:22:38,400 --> 00:22:43,770 to intrude into other people's past. Nevertheless it would be a futile effort. 191 00:22:43,770 --> 00:22:52,260 I could parse tragedy and comedy on all levels, national, familiar and 192 00:22:52,260 --> 00:22:56,970 personal yet the Jane Eyre hat would remain elusive. 193 00:22:56,970 --> 00:23:03,780 I will never be able to explain why its memory made me weak. Certainly I see 194 00:23:03,780 --> 00:23:09,660 another possibility. That flimsy object could be turned into something more than 195 00:23:09,660 --> 00:23:17,190 it really was, a symbol or a metaphor. In the meantime it would become 196 00:23:17,190 --> 00:23:25,500 much less than what it was so I think that's my, that's always my thinking is, 197 00:23:25,500 --> 00:23:31,110 you can't explain the historical moment or political moment in a simple way 198 00:23:31,110 --> 00:23:36,630 and when I was writing the book I thought I'm just going to explain this 199 00:23:36,630 --> 00:23:43,710 one thought is you cannot ask me to I got so upset on that day because I got 200 00:23:43,710 --> 00:23:48,390 all these interviews and radio stations and TVs they would call in. What they 201 00:23:48,390 --> 00:23:52,799 really wanted was not a human story what they really wanted was some sort of 202 00:23:52,799 --> 00:23:59,700 statement and I don't think I'm interested in giving these 203 00:23:59,700 --> 00:24:07,740 statements which is why I refuse to be a political writer and I think I have that 204 00:24:07,740 --> 00:24:14,220 line in my book. I have spent much of my life turning away from the script even 205 00:24:14,220 --> 00:24:21,570 to me in China and in America. My refusal to be defined by others' will is my one 206 00:24:21,570 --> 00:24:31,559 and only political statement. I think it's hard to say I don't want to say 207 00:24:31,559 --> 00:24:38,250 what you want me to say but one almost always has to do that to be true to 208 00:24:38,250 --> 00:24:47,690 oneself so I'm going to read the next part. Running away. 209 00:24:47,690 --> 00:24:56,760 Yes I need to tell this story. My older son, he's 15 and he, I think 210 00:24:56,760 --> 00:25:02,220 young people's anxiety dreams are most fascinating so he woke up the other day 211 00:25:02,220 --> 00:25:10,140 he said I had a nightmare. I said what was your nightmare. He said I dreamed 212 00:25:10,140 --> 00:25:19,400 that I was a negative number. He said I couldn't figure out my square root. 213 00:25:20,970 --> 00:25:27,460 And then I just laughed. I thought that's a great metaphorical dream and 214 00:25:27,460 --> 00:25:33,429 then he said you know imagine number in a mess he said, well I had such a hard 215 00:25:33,429 --> 00:25:39,669 time in my dream because all those troublesome problem with the I and I 216 00:25:39,669 --> 00:25:44,020 said I'm going to borrow your story and I asked his permission 217 00:25:44,020 --> 00:25:47,230 you always have to add a teenager's permission and then he agreed for me to 218 00:25:47,230 --> 00:25:53,169 share because a lot of what we do has to do with that troublesome I. 219 00:25:53,169 --> 00:26:03,309 One crosses the border to become a new person. One finishes a manuscript and 220 00:26:03,309 --> 00:26:07,270 cuts up the characters. One adopts a language. 221 00:26:07,270 --> 00:26:13,780 These are forced and these are false forced frameworks providing illusory 222 00:26:13,780 --> 00:26:21,580 freedom at times, provides illusionary leniency when we in anguish let it pass 223 00:26:21,580 --> 00:26:29,799 monotonously, to kill time, an English phrase that still chokes me. Time 224 00:26:29,799 --> 00:26:35,460 can be killed. No one thinks of suicide as a courageous endeavor to kill time. I 225 00:26:35,460 --> 00:26:41,610 want to frame the book was written after serious events including 226 00:26:41,610 --> 00:26:47,380 hospitalization so it's all in the book and I don't feel it's okay for me to 227 00:26:47,380 --> 00:26:53,260 talk about it so during my second hospital stay in New York a group of 228 00:26:53,260 --> 00:26:59,500 nursing students came to play bingo. One Friday night a young woman, another 229 00:26:59,500 --> 00:27:07,559 patient, asked if I would join her bingo. I said I've never in my life played that. 230 00:27:07,559 --> 00:27:12,940 She pondered for a moment and said that she had played bingo only in the 231 00:27:12,940 --> 00:27:18,460 hospital. It was her eighth hospitalization when I met her. She had 232 00:27:18,460 --> 00:27:23,320 taken middle school courses for a while in the hospital when she was younger 233 00:27:23,320 --> 00:27:28,480 and once she pointed out a small patch of fenced-in green where she and other 234 00:27:28,480 --> 00:27:34,610 children had been led out for exercise. Her father often visited her in the 235 00:27:34,610 --> 00:27:40,520 afternoon and I would watch them sitting together playing a game not attempting a 236 00:27:40,520 --> 00:27:47,690 conversation. By then all words must have been inadequate, language doing little to 237 00:27:47,690 --> 00:27:56,240 help a mind survive time yet language is capable of sinking a mind. One's thoughts 238 00:27:56,240 --> 00:28:02,900 are slavishly bound to language. I used to think that an abyss 239 00:28:02,900 --> 00:28:09,110 is a moment of despair becoming interminable but any moment even the 240 00:28:09,110 --> 00:28:13,820 direst is bound to end. What's abysmal is that 241 00:28:13,820 --> 00:28:21,500 one's erratic language closes in like quick sand. We can kill time, but language 242 00:28:21,500 --> 00:28:27,559 kills us so running away I think it's running 243 00:28:27,559 --> 00:28:33,169 away from the language that kills us. However we all remember maybe 244 00:28:33,169 --> 00:28:37,730 some of you know that story in Zhuangzi, the man who is afraid of his 245 00:28:37,730 --> 00:28:44,150 shadow, so he needs to run away from his shadow. The faster he runs, the faster the shadow 246 00:28:44,150 --> 00:28:52,669 catches on, and for each step, the shadow follows and - you know I think in one 247 00:28:52,669 --> 00:28:58,340 version I read actually it was a version for children when I was little until he 248 00:28:58,340 --> 00:29:05,480 felt so tired he had to take a rest under a tree. Yes the shadow was gone 249 00:29:05,480 --> 00:29:14,299 you just need to find that magic tree but I think that the shadow that we 250 00:29:14,299 --> 00:29:19,580 run away from each person has a different shadow. For me as the word 251 00:29:19,580 --> 00:29:26,360 I as my child says the troublesome I a word I hate to use in 252 00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:32,870 English is I. It's a melodramatic word. The one's effort to avoid it only goes so 253 00:29:32,870 --> 00:29:40,100 far. In Chinese-a language less grammatically strict-one can construct a 254 00:29:40,100 --> 00:29:44,610 sentence with an implied subject pronoun and skip embarrassing I 255 00:29:44,610 --> 00:29:53,789 or else replace it with we. When I came to America people say Americans 256 00:29:53,789 --> 00:29:59,490 don't have that we voice, America is a country of individualism so 257 00:29:59,490 --> 00:30:05,490 we all have to stand up and say I, and I still I think this is a personal thing I 258 00:30:05,490 --> 00:30:12,419 still don't feel comfortable saying I. However I also noticed I think maybe we 259 00:30:12,419 --> 00:30:19,649 have all noticed that lately, "we", that word "we", is coming to America more and more. 260 00:30:19,649 --> 00:30:27,419 Everybody is using that it's. I had I had a students in from Iran years ago and 261 00:30:27,419 --> 00:30:32,490 when I was telling her I said you know in China oftentimes we don't say I, 262 00:30:32,490 --> 00:30:36,899 you just skip that I or you sometimes say we even if it's just you or yourself 263 00:30:36,899 --> 00:30:42,389 and she said oh it was the same it was exactly the same in Iran. She said the 264 00:30:42,389 --> 00:30:48,539 reason we don't say I as we try to avoid responsibility. We don't we don't want to 265 00:30:48,539 --> 00:30:58,380 be caught and I think that's that's interesting yes so so I came from 266 00:30:58,380 --> 00:31:04,230 Chinese to English thinking I could run away from my mother tongue thinking I 267 00:31:04,230 --> 00:31:09,529 could abandon my mother tongue and thinking I could take up a new language 268 00:31:09,529 --> 00:31:20,760 to become a new person but I will say it's probably not a good idea to think 269 00:31:20,760 --> 00:31:26,039 that way so this is the opening opening chapter of opening paragraphs of the 270 00:31:26,039 --> 00:31:31,500 book. My first encounter was before and after, was in one of the fashion 271 00:31:31,500 --> 00:31:36,919 magazines my friends told me to subscribe when I came to America. 272 00:31:36,919 --> 00:31:43,080 I did follow their advice. I had an anthropologist fascination with America 273 00:31:43,080 --> 00:31:48,809 then. I'd never seen a glossy magazine and the quality of the paper in the 274 00:31:48,809 --> 00:31:53,940 printing not to mention the troll for perfumes waiting to be unfolded made me 275 00:31:53,940 --> 00:31:57,710 wonder how the economy worked for the magazine 276 00:31:57,710 --> 00:32:05,270 to make a profit considering I paid no more than $1 for an issue my favorite my 277 00:32:05,270 --> 00:32:09,740 favorite column was on the last page of the magazine and it featured celebrity 278 00:32:09,740 --> 00:32:15,799 makers hair style and hair color for instance with two bubbles signifying 279 00:32:15,799 --> 00:32:20,630 before and after. I didn't often have an opinion about the 280 00:32:20,630 --> 00:32:26,059 transformation but I like the definitiveness of that phrase - before and 281 00:32:26,059 --> 00:32:32,120 after with nothing muddling the in-between. After years of living in 282 00:32:32,120 --> 00:32:37,700 America I still feel a momentary elation when I see an advertisement for weight 283 00:32:37,700 --> 00:32:42,980 loss programs, teeth whitening strips, hair loss treatments or even plastic 284 00:32:42,980 --> 00:32:49,279 surgery with the contrasting effects shown and their before and after. The 285 00:32:49,279 --> 00:32:55,570 certainty in that pronouncement for each unfortunate or inconvenient situation, 286 00:32:55,570 --> 00:33:02,659 there is a solution to make it no longer be both attracts and perplexes me. Life 287 00:33:02,659 --> 00:33:09,020 can be reset, it seems to say. Time can be separated but that logic appears to me 288 00:33:09,020 --> 00:33:13,570 as doubtful as traveling to another place to become a different person. 289 00:33:13,570 --> 00:33:19,970 Altered sceneries are at best distractions were or else new settings 290 00:33:19,970 --> 00:33:26,299 for old habits. What one carries from one point to another geographically or 291 00:33:26,299 --> 00:33:33,409 temporally is oneself. Even the most inconsistent person is consistently 292 00:33:33,409 --> 00:33:42,679 himself. I was teaching the other day and and this is an undergrad creative 293 00:33:42,679 --> 00:33:46,970 writing class and one student said well you know I think for each story 294 00:33:46,970 --> 00:33:54,260 something has to happen and something has to change and from the beginning to 295 00:33:54,260 --> 00:34:00,620 the end the character has to change by the end. I mean we hear these we hear 296 00:34:00,620 --> 00:34:05,070 these conversations in creative writing classes and I was 297 00:34:05,070 --> 00:34:10,230 a little surprised I said well I said in fact you know I think it's an American 298 00:34:10,230 --> 00:34:14,010 idea it's a very American idea that we're going to have a before and after 299 00:34:14,010 --> 00:34:19,290 by the end of the story something is going to change there's a narrative arc 300 00:34:19,290 --> 00:34:24,600 and I said well actually life is not lived by arc we don't have a narrative 301 00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:31,740 arc in life and in fact I say I said to my student I said you know if you I said 302 00:34:31,740 --> 00:34:36,240 if you live long enough like me I said you will understand people don't 303 00:34:36,240 --> 00:34:39,660 change, people are only becoming themselves more 304 00:34:39,660 --> 00:34:46,950 and more and I think that's the that's the danger of before and after 305 00:34:46,950 --> 00:34:51,660 because there's really no before and after and there's only this now we're 306 00:34:51,660 --> 00:34:56,850 living and so I like what Robyn said we're on a journey that journey is 307 00:34:56,850 --> 00:35:08,700 always ongoing we're not going to transform in any way so I'm going to 308 00:35:08,700 --> 00:35:14,040 skip one page. Well I can't skip this - this is 309 00:35:14,040 --> 00:35:17,640 about language so I'm going to talk a little bit more about language because I 310 00:35:17,640 --> 00:35:24,450 talked about changing to English so when I was having a hard time I I was in 311 00:35:24,450 --> 00:35:30,030 the bookstore and I run into this copy of Katherine Mansfield notebooks. 312 00:35:30,030 --> 00:35:34,830 She kept years of notebooks and very detailed account of her life including 313 00:35:34,830 --> 00:35:42,830 what she spent on stamps letter papers and telegrams all these little things 314 00:35:42,830 --> 00:35:49,770 boot polish for her husband, I love that. Curtain, seamstress fees, all these 315 00:35:49,770 --> 00:35:55,140 things and going on so I really love that book and for a while I was reading 316 00:35:55,140 --> 00:35:58,590 that book mostly because I had a hard time and I was just reading her to 317 00:35:58,590 --> 00:36:04,320 distract myself. When Katherine Mansfield was still a teenager she wrote 318 00:36:04,320 --> 00:36:09,300 in her journal about a man next door playing Swanee River on a cornet 319 00:36:09,300 --> 00:36:15,000 for what seemed like weeks. I wake up with the Suwannee River 320 00:36:15,000 --> 00:36:20,190 “I wake up with the ‘Swannee River,’ eat it with every meal I take, and go to bed eventually with 321 00:36:20,190 --> 00:36:26,069 ‘all de world am sad and weary’ as a lullaby.” I read Mansfield's notebooks and 322 00:36:26,069 --> 00:36:30,479 Marianne Moore's letters so this is another writer I've been reading around 323 00:36:30,479 --> 00:36:35,969 the time and Marianne Moore's letters around the same time when I returned 324 00:36:35,969 --> 00:36:40,979 home from New York in the letter Moore described a night of fundraising at 325 00:36:40,979 --> 00:36:47,339 Bryn Mawr. Maidens in bathing suits and green bathing tails on a raft: 326 00:36:47,339 --> 00:36:51,329 “It was really most realistic . . . way down upon the Swanee River.” 327 00:36:51,329 --> 00:36:57,599 I marked the entries because they reminded me of a moment I had forgotten. I was 328 00:36:57,599 --> 00:37:05,279 9 and my sister 13 on a Saturday afternoon I was in our apartment and she 329 00:37:05,279 --> 00:37:10,187 was on the balcony. My sister had joined the middle school choir that year 330 00:37:10,187 --> 00:37:13,769 and in the autumn sunshine she sang in a voice that was 331 00:37:13,769 --> 00:37:20,309 beginning to leave girlhood. “Way down upon the Swanee River. Far, far away. 332 00:37:20,309 --> 00:37:27,719 That’s where my heart is turning ever; That’s where the old folks stay.” 333 00:37:27,719 --> 00:37:33,690 The lyrics were translated into Chinese. The memory too should be in Chinese but I 334 00:37:33,690 --> 00:37:38,789 cannot see our tiny garden with the grapevine which our Father cultivated 335 00:37:38,789 --> 00:37:40,780 and which was later uprooted by our wrathful mother, 336 00:37:40,780 --> 00:37:43,979 or the bamboo fence dotted with morning glories 337 00:37:43,979 --> 00:37:46,820 or the junk that occupied half the balcony. 338 00:37:46,820 --> 00:37:55,979 if I do not name these things to myself in English. I cannot see my sister but I can 339 00:37:55,979 --> 00:38:00,809 hear her sing the lyrics in English. I can seek to understand my mother's 340 00:38:00,809 --> 00:38:06,900 vulnerability and cruelty but language is the barrier I have chosen. Over the 341 00:38:06,900 --> 00:38:12,239 years my brain has banished Chinese. I dreamed in English. I talked to myself in 342 00:38:12,239 --> 00:38:18,359 English and memories - not only those about America but also those about China, 343 00:38:18,359 --> 00:38:23,819 not only those carried away with me but also those archived with the wish to 344 00:38:23,819 --> 00:38:29,430 forget - are sorted in English. To be orphaned from my native language felt 345 00:38:29,430 --> 00:38:34,440 and still feels like a crucial decision. When you say you're 346 00:38:34,440 --> 00:38:40,710 orphaned from your language, from your mother language, that also means a lot. 347 00:38:40,710 --> 00:38:48,329 You're orphaned from your motherland and but I think for some of us for some of 348 00:38:48,329 --> 00:38:52,230 us when I sort of say for some of us including some of the writers I have 349 00:38:52,230 --> 00:38:58,259 written in the book including Maryanne Moore, I think to go to extremes is a way to 350 00:38:58,259 --> 00:39:05,490 survive and to read. So we talked a little bit about my science background 351 00:39:05,490 --> 00:39:15,599 and I really loved when I was in the science I was doing experiment on little 352 00:39:15,599 --> 00:39:21,660 mice and I was, I was studying asthma so I would put ragweed I would inject 353 00:39:21,660 --> 00:39:27,119 ragweed to induce these asthma reaction from the mice and I would put into the 354 00:39:27,119 --> 00:39:32,940 glass chamber and measure their breathing pattern and look at their, look 355 00:39:32,940 --> 00:39:38,759 at everything including the dissection. The one thing we could not see is how 356 00:39:38,759 --> 00:39:42,980 much they suffer and I realized suffering is not measurable 357 00:39:42,980 --> 00:39:51,950 scientifically and asthma the word asthma is from Latin it means panting 358 00:39:51,950 --> 00:40:01,589 but in Ancient Rome the doctors nicknamed asthma rehearsing death which means when 359 00:40:01,589 --> 00:40:06,059 you are panting you're rehearsing how to die you're rehearsing how to draw your 360 00:40:06,059 --> 00:40:13,500 last breath and I thought that's an interesting concept because we have 361 00:40:13,500 --> 00:40:17,490 you know if you look at literature we have literature about writers and 362 00:40:17,490 --> 00:40:23,640 artists who have mental illnesses or who have drinking problems but nobody has 363 00:40:23,640 --> 00:40:31,140 ever looked at artists who has who have asthma and the list could go on forever. 364 00:40:31,140 --> 00:40:38,250 If you do study asthma a lot of artists they have asthma and you realize what 365 00:40:38,250 --> 00:40:44,750 they do in their art in a way either to write or to paint or to to play music 366 00:40:44,750 --> 00:40:51,340 it's a way to rehearse death and I came to this country as an aspiring 367 00:40:51,340 --> 00:40:58,160 immunologist. This is what I love about immunology. I had chosen the field if one 368 00:40:58,160 --> 00:41:02,240 does not count practical motives of wanting a reason to leave China and 369 00:41:02,240 --> 00:41:07,670 having a skill to make a living because I had liked a working concept of the 370 00:41:07,670 --> 00:41:15,680 immune system. Its job is to detect and attack its non-self. It has memories - some 371 00:41:15,680 --> 00:41:22,520 as long lasting as life. Its memories can go awry selectively or worse, 372 00:41:22,520 --> 00:41:28,520 indiscriminatingly, leading the system to mistake self as foreign, as something to 373 00:41:28,520 --> 00:41:34,910 eliminate. The word immune from the Latin immunis - im plus munis - service, obligations - 374 00:41:34,910 --> 00:41:40,400 is among my favorite in the English language. The procession of 375 00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:45,650 immunity to illness to follies to love and loneliness and troubling thoughts 376 00:41:45,650 --> 00:41:52,030 and unalleviated pains - a trait that I have desired for my characters and myself 377 00:41:52,030 --> 00:41:57,650 knowing all the same the futility of such a wish. Only the lifeless can be 378 00:41:57,650 --> 00:42:07,130 immune to life so there's really no immunity and but for a while I thought I 379 00:42:07,130 --> 00:42:15,440 could be immune to life by not writing about my life and once I was in Beijing 380 00:42:15,440 --> 00:42:20,450 of course this happened in Beijing. Someone asked, "Are you an 381 00:42:20,450 --> 00:42:28,490 autobiographical writer". I said no no no never and she said, "I noticed in 382 00:42:28,490 --> 00:42:33,380 two of your stories the father was a nuclear 383 00:42:33,380 --> 00:42:38,390 physicist and your own father is a nuclear physicist too. Why are you not an 384 00:42:38,390 --> 00:42:46,730 autobiographical writer" and I said, "Hmm that's laziness on my part but I think 385 00:42:46,730 --> 00:42:52,880 if any writer says I'm not an autobiographical writer or if 386 00:42:52,880 --> 00:42:58,250 anyone says it as strongly as I do I think you should always suspect 387 00:42:58,250 --> 00:43:03,200 there's something wrong with that. There's always a lie somewhere. So the 388 00:43:03,200 --> 00:43:11,210 reason I would say a little bit one cannot be an adept writer of one's own 389 00:43:11,210 --> 00:43:17,720 life tale, one can hardly be a discerning reader of that tale, not equipped with 390 00:43:17,720 --> 00:43:23,870 novelist's tools to create plots and the maneuver of pacing, to speak omnisciently 391 00:43:23,870 --> 00:43:30,160 or abandon an inconvenient point of view for another, to treat the linearity 392 00:43:30,160 --> 00:43:36,020 of time and splice the less connected moments. The most interesting 393 00:43:36,020 --> 00:43:41,420 people among us, I often suspect, are flatter than the flattest characters in 394 00:43:41,420 --> 00:43:47,810 a novel. Not only do we not have alternatives, we discredit them. We 395 00:43:47,810 --> 00:43:53,330 convince ourselves that the alternatives are not ours in the first place. It has 396 00:43:53,330 --> 00:43:58,760 to be so. This indisputable conviction is often at the foundation of 397 00:43:58,760 --> 00:44:03,520 our decisions including the most impulsive or the most catastrophic. 398 00:44:03,520 --> 00:44:09,860 It is easier to be certain of one thing than to be uncertain of a 399 00:44:09,860 --> 00:44:17,960 hundred. Either to be one than many have-beens and I think that's when I said I 400 00:44:17,960 --> 00:44:22,340 was not I said well I was not an autobiographical writer I feel that with this 401 00:44:22,340 --> 00:44:28,340 book I'm coming out of the closet in a way and saying yes. What you don't tell 402 00:44:28,340 --> 00:44:34,250 what you withhold from people is equally important as what you do tell in 403 00:44:34,250 --> 00:44:41,090 a book and I think the case in point is Marianne Moore who was not an autobiographical 404 00:44:41,090 --> 00:44:45,650 poet and if you read her poetry 405 00:44:45,650 --> 00:44:52,790 you could not detect any self in her poetry and if you read her letters you 406 00:44:52,790 --> 00:44:58,220 could hardly detect anything but I think it was all these things withheld in 407 00:44:58,220 --> 00:45:04,250 her I mean she had really, to me, she became an autobiographical writer. She 408 00:45:04,250 --> 00:45:10,580 had a very controlling mother. I think it's interesting and she's an 409 00:45:10,580 --> 00:45:13,940 interesting case because she had a 410 00:45:13,940 --> 00:45:19,880 controlling mother and the mother lived with her all her life and the mother 411 00:45:19,880 --> 00:45:26,810 never left her for a moment. Not only the mother read her poetry, would edit her 412 00:45:26,810 --> 00:45:33,140 not only the mother read her and the mother would 413 00:45:33,140 --> 00:45:41,320 scrutinize her body every day and just imagine living with that mother and 414 00:45:41,320 --> 00:45:50,320 one time they got a little cat, kitten, and they named the kitten Buffalo and 415 00:45:50,320 --> 00:45:56,900 Maryanne Moore was in love with that Buffalo, a little kitten and when she 416 00:45:56,900 --> 00:46:02,720 was working in the library her mother brought a jar of ether and killed a 417 00:46:02,720 --> 00:46:08,180 kitten because of her love for that kitten. 418 00:46:08,180 --> 00:46:14,450 And even that she wrote in the letter she said well you know she broke my 419 00:46:14,450 --> 00:46:19,640 heart but she had to do so I understand she had to do so and I thought well 420 00:46:19,640 --> 00:46:23,840 that's, you know, that's the mother well that's the mother language or that 421 00:46:23,840 --> 00:46:30,920 motherland you know that mother that we have to escape but not everybody could 422 00:46:30,920 --> 00:46:38,540 escape. When we enter a world, a new country, a new school, a party, a family or 423 00:46:38,540 --> 00:46:45,170 a class reunion, an army's camp, a hospital, we speak the language it 424 00:46:45,170 --> 00:46:51,530 requires. The wisdom to adapt is the wisdom to have two languages. The one 425 00:46:51,530 --> 00:46:57,620 spoken to others and the one spoken to oneself. One learns to master the public 426 00:46:57,620 --> 00:47:02,810 language not much differently from the way that one 427 00:47:02,810 --> 00:47:08,480 acquires a second language, assess the situation, construct sentences with the 428 00:47:08,480 --> 00:47:14,900 right words in the correct syntax, catch a mistake if one can avoid it or else 429 00:47:14,900 --> 00:47:20,450 apologize and learn the lesson after blunder. Fluency in the public language 430 00:47:20,450 --> 00:47:26,500 like fluency in the second language can be achieved with enough practice. 431 00:47:26,500 --> 00:47:32,210 Perhaps the line between the two is it should never be fluid. Sorry. 432 00:47:32,210 --> 00:47:37,720 Perhaps the line between the two is and should be fluid. It is never so for me. I 433 00:47:37,720 --> 00:47:43,730 often forget while I write that English is also used by others. English is my 434 00:47:43,730 --> 00:47:48,950 private language. Every word has to be pondered before it becomes a word. 435 00:47:48,950 --> 00:47:54,859 I have no doubt - can this be an illusion? - that the conversation I have with myself 436 00:47:54,859 --> 00:47:59,780 however linguistically flawed is the conversation that I have always wanted 437 00:47:59,780 --> 00:48:07,250 in the exact way I want it to be. In my relationship with English, in this 438 00:48:07,250 --> 00:48:11,930 relationship was the intrinsic distance between a non-native speaker and an 439 00:48:11,930 --> 00:48:16,099 adopted language that makes people look askance. 440 00:48:16,099 --> 00:48:22,760 I feel invisible but not estranged. It is the position I believe I always want in 441 00:48:22,760 --> 00:48:28,309 life but with every pursuit there's the danger of crossing a line from 442 00:48:28,309 --> 00:48:34,369 invisibility to erasure. There was a time when I could write well in Chinese. In 443 00:48:34,369 --> 00:48:39,680 school my essays were used as models. In the army where I spent a year of 444 00:48:39,680 --> 00:48:45,260 involuntary service our squad leader gave me the choice between drafting 445 00:48:45,260 --> 00:48:51,950 speech for her and cleaning toilet of the pigsty. I always chose to write. Once 446 00:48:51,950 --> 00:48:57,200 in high school I entered an oratory contest. On stage I saw that many of my 447 00:48:57,200 --> 00:49:02,630 listeners were moved to tears by the poetic and insincere lies I had made up. I 448 00:49:02,630 --> 00:49:08,569 moved myself to tears too. It crossed my mind that I could become a successful 449 00:49:08,569 --> 00:49:15,079 propaganda writer. I was disturbed by this. A young person wants to be true to 450 00:49:15,079 --> 00:49:20,150 herself and the world but it did not occur to me to ask, can one's 451 00:49:20,150 --> 00:49:26,710 intelligence rely entirely on the public language? Can one form a precise thought, 452 00:49:26,710 --> 00:49:33,049 record an accurate memory or even feel a genuine feeling with only 453 00:49:33,049 --> 00:49:36,900 the public language? I actually forgot that my squad 454 00:49:36,900 --> 00:49:46,460 leader now teaches at Cornell. She's a physicist here, isn't that interesting? 455 00:49:46,460 --> 00:49:50,740 I didn't tell her I was coming because it's hard to encounter another past. 456 00:49:50,740 --> 00:49:58,860 That's very cowardly of me. When one 457 00:49:58,860 --> 00:50:03,810 thinks in an adopted language, one arranges and rearranges words that are 458 00:50:03,810 --> 00:50:09,030 neutral, indifferent even. When one remembers in an adopted language there's 459 00:50:09,030 --> 00:50:14,220 a dividing line in that remembering. What came before could be someone else's life 460 00:50:14,220 --> 00:50:22,190 it might as well be fiction. What language, I wonder, does one use to feel 461 00:50:22,190 --> 00:50:28,740 or does one need a language to feel? In a hospital in New York one of my doctors 462 00:50:28,740 --> 00:50:33,900 asked me to visit a class studying minds and brains. Two medical students 463 00:50:33,900 --> 00:50:40,050 interviewed me following a script. The doctor who led the class, impatient with 464 00:50:40,050 --> 00:50:44,760 their tentativeness sent them back to their seats and posed questions more 465 00:50:44,760 --> 00:50:51,120 pointed and unrelenting. To answer him I had to navigate my thoughts and I 466 00:50:51,120 --> 00:50:57,570 watched him and his students closely as I was being watched. When he asked about 467 00:50:57,570 --> 00:51:02,190 feelings I said it was beyond my ability to describe what might as well be 468 00:51:02,190 --> 00:51:07,740 indescribable. If you can be articulate about your thoughts, 469 00:51:07,740 --> 00:51:14,370 why can't you articulate your feelings, the doctor said. It took me a year to 470 00:51:14,370 --> 00:51:20,310 figure out the answer. It is hard to feel in an adopted language, yet it is 471 00:51:20,310 --> 00:51:28,650 impossible in my native language. Often I think writing is a futile effort, so is 472 00:51:28,650 --> 00:51:34,140 reading, so is living. Loneliness is the inability to speak with another in one's 473 00:51:34,140 --> 00:51:39,390 private language. That emptiness is filled with public language or 474 00:51:39,390 --> 00:51:43,550 romanticized connections. 475 00:51:44,370 --> 00:51:50,050 After the dream of public telephone I remember the moment in the army. It was 476 00:51:50,050 --> 00:51:55,680 New Year's Eve and we were ordered to watch the official celebration on CCTV. 477 00:51:55,680 --> 00:51:59,380 Halfway through the program a girl on duty came and said there was a 478 00:51:59,380 --> 00:52:04,900 long-distance call for me. It was the same type of black rotary phone as we 479 00:52:04,900 --> 00:52:10,180 had back at the apartment and my sister was on the line. It was the first 480 00:52:10,180 --> 00:52:14,800 long-distance call I had received in my life and the next time would be four 481 00:52:14,800 --> 00:52:19,450 years later back in Beijing when an American professor phoned to interview 482 00:52:19,450 --> 00:52:24,490 me. I still remember the woman calling from Mount Sinai Hospital in New York 483 00:52:24,490 --> 00:52:30,730 City asking questions about my interest in immunology, talking about her research 484 00:52:30,730 --> 00:52:35,980 project and life in America. My English was good enough to understand half of 485 00:52:35,980 --> 00:52:41,050 what she said and the scratching noises in the background made me sweat for the 486 00:52:41,050 --> 00:52:47,070 missed half. What did my sister and I talk about on that New Year's Eve? In 487 00:52:47,070 --> 00:52:53,710 abandoning my native language I have erased myself from the memory but erasing, 488 00:52:53,710 --> 00:52:59,680 I have learned, does not stop with a new language and that, my friend, is my 489 00:52:59,680 --> 00:53:05,740 sorrow and my selfishness. In speaking and in writing in an adopted language I 490 00:53:05,740 --> 00:53:12,550 have not stopped erasing. I've crossed the line, too, from erasing myself to 491 00:53:12,550 --> 00:53:20,320 erasing others. I'm not the only casualty in this war against myself. In an ideal 492 00:53:20,320 --> 00:53:25,480 world I would prefer to have my mind reserved for thinking and thinking alone. 493 00:53:25,480 --> 00:53:31,780 I dread the moment when a thought trails off and a feeling starts, when one faces 494 00:53:31,780 --> 00:53:36,510 the eternal challenge of eluding the void for which one does not have words. 495 00:53:36,510 --> 00:53:42,970 To speak while one cannot is to blunder. I have spoken by having written this 496 00:53:42,970 --> 00:53:49,960 book or any book for myself and against myself. The solace is with the language I 497 00:53:49,960 --> 00:53:58,700 chose. The grief, to have spoken at all. That's the end of the reading. I'm sorry 498 00:53:58,700 --> 00:54:04,869 it's so sad. I must tell you a joke so you don't feel so sad. 499 00:54:04,869 --> 00:54:11,990 So when Rebecca West was young she went to - this has nothing to do with me - when Rebecca West 500 00:54:11,990 --> 00:54:17,930 was young HG Wells took Rebecca Wells to see Thomas Hardy and Thomas Hardy was 501 00:54:17,930 --> 00:54:22,369 old at the time and he just published a collection of poetry and all the 502 00:54:22,369 --> 00:54:27,650 reviewers said he was so pessimistic and sad and dark and gloomy and all these 503 00:54:27,650 --> 00:54:32,480 words and Hardy said he cannot understand. "Why, I thought 504 00:54:32,480 --> 00:54:40,340 there were really good and cheerful poems"? And his wife said, "Oh dear that's 505 00:54:40,340 --> 00:54:46,460 not what everybody thinks what hilarious is. And then Rebecca 506 00:54:46,460 --> 00:54:52,220 West came back and said Mr. Hardy must have, one of Mr. Hardy's families must 507 00:54:52,220 --> 00:54:59,330 have married a weeping willow before him so I'm not a weeping willow and 508 00:54:59,330 --> 00:55:03,650 I don't come from a weeping willow but so I think I'm glad to take 509 00:55:03,650 --> 00:55:07,030 questions if you have questions.