The following is part of Cornell Contemporary China Initiative Lecture
Series under the Cornell East Asia Program.
The arguments and viewpoints of this talk belong solely to the speaker.
We hope you enjoy.
Welcome back to the Contemporary China Initiative for
a third lecture of the semester.
We're very very proud and pleased to have today Professor David Der-Wei Wang from
Harvard University he's the Edward C.
Henderson Professor of Chinese Literature at Harvard,
also a faculty member in Comparative Literature there.
He is the author of a series of books which I have to compress in order to get
into an introduction but it includes "Fictional Realism in 20th century China",
"Fin-de-siècle Splendor", "The Monster That is History".
He's edited influential volumes like "From May 4th to June 4th" and
"Writing Taiwan"- this is essentially my whole graduate education right here it's
a long booklist that I had to read to be the person that I had become.
In the last 3 years, just the last 3 years,
he's edited the one- thousand-page New Literary History of Modern China which if
you come to my office, you can look at but which you cannot borrow.
An equally magisterial monograph called "The Lyrical in Epic Time".
I could list a series of accomplishments and prizes and visiting positions and
lecture series that have been awarded to Professor Wang but
instead I just want to give one example about his influence and
the influence of his work on scholars like me.
I studied poetry which is just a corner of Professor Wang's scholarly output but
when I read his 2015 book "The Lyrical in Epic Time" I found it sort of shocking and
it reorganized the way that I thought about the way the poets speak I start to
see it as a model for the way that the individual addresses the community, a link
between the interior and the exterior that was simultaneously about feelings and
also political and all of this from a book about sort of poetry in fiction and
writing in the 1930s-1940s Japanese occupation and
that's just a little piece of them, that's just a tiny little piece of a very large
book with a really broad variety of material.
Many of the scholars in my field have had similar experiences from just one corner
of this extremely broad- from the realist to the fabulous,
from the Ming dynasty to the present- his work has sort of transformed
everything it touches for a long time and so we're really really honored and
pleased to have him here today and I hope that you help me welcome him to
Cornell.
I don't think I deserve any of those kind words you just uttered but anyway
I feel very happy and honored to visit Cornell University-my first visit ever.
So this is truly a great opportunity to be here.
I want to thank Professor Nick Admussen's invitation and
I want to thank my colleague in Comparative Literature Andrea Bachner's
extremely warm reception and certainly she's, Andrea was at Harvard years ago so
I'm very happy to have this opportunity to visit her affiliation and
of course I want to thank each and every of you for being here.
The talk this afternoon is based upon a new paper I've just finished and
still polishing so it's not really in the final complete shape yet
and so I would like to ask you to bear with me if you find any part
of my presentation a little bit confusing or still stuffed with too many names or
references but I would try my best to be as clear as possible
to explain my thesis or agenda with this new project.
This project has something to do with Sinophone Studies.
I think for those who are here I suppose more or less you
know that Sinophone Studies is an emerging field in China Studies in general.
Basically it has to do with Chinese-language literatures and
cultures born of diasporic and postcolonial influences and impacts.
All the past tensome years of Sinophone Studies has become a powerful,
say critical, tool with which we intervene critically with Chinese studies at
large but there were also issues that came along with the emergence
of those field, issues that concern us or sometimes confuse or
even intrigue us as to its theoretical feasibility and its political agenda.
So today on I would like to offer some of my personal reflections on
the parameters of Sinophone Studies in the hope that I can offer a new and
a different perspective from which to understand the power and
sometimes a limitation of this new area of China Studies.
But to begin with I probably should say a few words about the title of
today's presentation- Sinophone and Xenophone- that's a new word,
coined and it has to do with anything that is foreign, exotic,
non-Chinese, the other, alterity in general and so on and so forth.
So xeno-, usually is associated with xenophobia but
that's not what we are going to get in today.
Basically Xenophone Studies is used or
invoked as a kind of theoretical opposition to Sinophone Studies.
I draw this idea of Sinophone-Xenophone actually
from a trip to Malacca, Malaysia a few years ago and
I was walking in the old town area at that time in Malacca and
I came across a couplet written in Chinese on the doors
of an old curious shop in the old town district and
the couplet reads -I'm going to talk bilingually- Chinese and
the non-Chinese or English and hopefully we can all
appreciate different aspects of my presentation.
In Chinese 庶室珍藏今古宝，艺坛大展华夷风.
In English a humble space, referring to this curious shop,
that 躲着 infinite modern treasures, an artwork that displays Chinese and
non-Chinese trends so I was inspired by the last three
characters of the couplet 华夷风-this is something new,
actually composed by a Chinese Malaysian in the literatus base
of living in that region- he came up with this idea that the way
we understand Chinese style of life is really a kind of hybridity,
is a really kind of mixture of the post Chinese and
the non-Chinese fashions or trends.
With that in mind I move on to the concept 华夷风 that's probably the single
critical terminology I'd like to introduce for today's talk.
We know 华 which refers to China or Chinese culture in general,
夷 as I explained, something foreign or exotic or
something other than whatever is simply recognized as 华 or Chinese.
风 is the interesting character or terminology you want to engage with.
In Chinese etymology 风 actually has multiple meanings.
I thought this is where the whole engagement with
Sinophone-Xenophone becomes truly exciting because
we now refer back to the Chinese roots to understand a 风
which is not merely just a a phenomenon of meteorology
it's just a weather condition whatever kind of a wind,
hurricane or whatever but so besides the wind, flow,
and the movement of air, 风 in Ancient China also refers to sound so
that definitely is the root where we draw the natural and
the cultural connection in the invocation of the character or the word.
风 in Chinese tradition also refers to music,
to rhetoric, and above all, literature.
诗经- the ancient classic of China started with 国风 （“小雅大雅宋”) so
国风means a different kind of a regional literature so
风 is a kind of literature.
More than that, 风 also refers to a trend, fashion,
scenery, phenomenon, so this is a definitely
a broader connection now with the character 风 and
even we push the understanding of 风 even further
we can talk about 风as a form of a 教化- an edification,
a kind of a civilization 文明, 习俗 as indicated by
these Chinese set phrases such as 风教，风俗，风土 and
then finally 风 also has a reference to individuality
in the making of a character or demeanor, so
for example it could mean 节操, 气性 or in English,
demeanor, character, personality (风范，风格).
So my understanding of 华夷风, I think,
should not be limited to our contemporary interpretation of literature as such.
Instead if I use the term 华夷风 I would like to refer to a much
broader understanding of the Chinese invocation of a wide
range of meanings of 风 from the physical articulation,
from the weather or a meteo condition,
natural condition all the way to edification,
to civilization and to personal cultivation.
So this is a very broad range of references and basically all
these references have to do with the pre-modern Chinese understanding of
what makes a 文 or literariness understandable or possible.
In other words I'm arguing that 文 or 文学 or in English literature or
literariness should be understood in a very broad sense so
as to further facilitate our communication with
a broader humanistic phenomenon in China.
So this is the basic, the thesis I'm going to
talk about in the later part of my presentation.
To sum up 风一动万物也, wing is that which moves, affects or
enacts a multitude of things in the cosmos.
So in a way 风 is that mysterious moment from a power that mobilizes
the movement of the whole world and by association,
风 if you treat it as a literature is that kind of form of human engagement,
literature, which moves, affects and
enacts a multitude of things in transition and movement in the cosmos.
So here I am defending the power and
the strengths of a literature even in today's world so
that's the basic introduction to the concept of Sino,
and Xeno- sort of communication in terms of idea of
literature or 风, or just the movement of air.
Now I would like to further describe our understanding
of 华 versus the 夷.华 and 夷, Sinophone and Xenophone,
refer to a very ancient Chinese concept of ethnicity and
polity, dating way back probably 3000
years ago even in the Zhou Dynasty 华and 夷,
how to make a distinction between these two concepts,
two terms or two political awareness was already
very crucial to the culture discourse at the time so
here from this slide you can tell spatially or
geographically the part in purple refers to the so-called
territory of China or 华 by the way means originally
the beauty of ornaments and attires- 时装华府之美.
But here, apparently, 华 refers to this whole area which is cultivated
by a very specific kind of a cultural or civilizational edifice,
right, but surrounding this area of 华 here is the immense
territory we call the 夷 or the xenophonic or the foreign or exotic.
In ancient China you could tell- this is just a rough idea to
give you sense of the whole geographical makeup of the time-
you have ethnic cultures such as 东胡, 戎狄, 西戎, 西南夷, 山越, 南夷 and
so on and so forth, all surrounding the central part of China
forming the so-called non-Chinese region or territory.
Today if you're familiar with the Chinese map surely you
will know that all of these areas are now part of the the national
cartography of the People's Republic of China so this is a much,
much broader coverage in terms of spatiality but way back,
2000 years ago 3000 years ago this is a different concept.
At that time 夷 or the foreign or the xenophonic really refers
primarily to a geographical position or positionality.
Many archaeologists want to argue that at that time 夷 did not
take on a derogatory dimension in other words when those people
occupied the central part of the China refered those tribal communities as 夷,
they primarily think of them primarily in terms of a geographical location but
along the evolvement of time of course 华 versus 夷 or
sinophone versus xenophone certainly takes up
a different kind of meaning in terms of a political order or
in terms of an ethical and cultural hierarchy and
basically in terms of a kind of a regional prejudice- we
always wanted to highlight the central part of the China as
the quintessential part of a Chinese civilization in opposition
to those areas around 华 or the central China as the more provincial,
more backward or undercivilised kind of communities so
this is the beginning of our understanding of 华 versus 夷 and
still one more point to make at this conjuncture that is
although there was a such a kind of distinction between 华
versus 夷 in terms of spatiality, either intellectuals or
political leaders have tried hard over a long period of
pre-modern Chinese history that when we talk about
华 versus 夷 we highlight cultural edification more than
consanguinity and ethnicity.
In other words although I just mentioned issues such as ethnicity and
locality and so on and so forth, philosophers, intellectuals,
and the politicians thought otherwise they wanted to argue
that we Chinese are so generous, we are so embracing, we're so
culturally edified that we treated everybody on equal terms and
as long as you guys xenophonic foreigners can convert yourself to 华- so
cultural conversion- then naturally you are going to become part of us,
naturally you will end up become naturalized into 华.
So basically regardless of your kinship, your blood relationship or
your ethnicity, everybody has a good chance to become a Chinese or
become a quintessential 华 or quintessential Chinese but
you have to try harder, you have to try to learn more of Confucius teachings,
you have to try to dress better following the Chinese or
华 model of the fashion it's also of course all kinds of
ways of cultivating yourself towards the direction so
this is the traditional way of thinking 华 versus 夷.
But in the following I'm going to offer you 3 different
approaches regarding how in recent centuries politicians,
revolutionaries, philosophers, conservatives and
non-conservatives try to come to terms with the concept of 华 versus 夷.
First I want to invoke this term 华 夷变态.
For those who have learnt Chinese you will be probably
struck by the title because 变态 in modern Chinese usage that
really has a Freudian undertone of pathology- you must be
an abnormal person- 变态- it is a bad word, don't use it right?
But here I'm invoking this term 变态 in the context of 17th century Japan,
the time was around 1644 when the Ming Dynasty came to the final downfall and
this is truly the moment of national cataclysm and the Manchus,
the foreigners who took over the sovereignty of central
China become the new generation of rulers all over China.
At that time different East Asian civilizations around
China watch the drastic transformation of China proper and
came up with such a conclusion that is when Manchus- the barbarians,
the foreigners- took over China, that really indicates the end,
the termination of the traditional Chinese culture so
everything refers to 变态 actually means altered
state- a kind of a state of conversion, or
transformation from a perspective of a foreigner and
particularly from the Japanese perspective so
华 夷变态 refers to a huge compendium of books in Japanese
written by Japanese interpreters of Chinese, for
Chinese traders and they observed the political circumstances,
they interviewed visitors and the traders from China and
they understood the drastic metamorphosis that happens to China.
And then regrettably they said this is no longer the China we used to admire and
respect, this is the China that is gone forever and
the next line that is even more interesting,
"now that China is gone forever on the Mainland, in the area of China proper,
we Japanese are actually now the authentic spokesperson
on behalf of traditional Chinese civilization".
So underneath such a kind of statement- "The altered state of China and
the foreign", really, is a powerful political ambition or
just political vision of Japan as the rising power now
nurtured upon traditional Chinese civilization ever ready to
develop herself to become this new superpower in East Asia,
and ironically these Japanese rulers at that time would
rather call themselves Chinese- so this is a really,
very intriguing phenomenon at that time: How
the East Asian civilizations look at themselves from
the perspective of traditional Chinese civilization.
A similar thing happened in Korea and Vietnam too.
In Korea Kim Chonghu has this famous statement that states:
"There is no China after the Fall of the Ming Dynasty".
In other words in view of the invasion of the Manchus of the whole China proper,
the Koreans also thought that they were the last authentic
spokespeople on behalf of the long lost Chinese civilization.
Or in Taiwan, Koxinga- Zheng Chenggong,
he regarded himself as the last sort of offspring of the late
Ming loyalist resistance, overseas resistance,
to the Manchus so all over at that time in the East Asian
region there is this truly a really unique phenomenon,
now we call it the phenomenon of micro-China,
少中华， this is a term not coined by me but
it has been in circulation actually for centuries, but
today when we look at this concept of micro-China or 少中华,
it really takes on double meaning or triple meaning now in the new
Sinophone context, and basically this is the Sinosphere,
basically a sinitic language was being used at that time for
any kind of a cultural communication.
So all these civilizations felt that after the Manchus
usurped the Chinese orthodoxy there is no China anymore,
China is elsewhere, China is in Japan,
China is in Vietnam, China is in Korea and so on and so forth.
So that's the part on the mainland China- the China
proper- another intriguing phenomenon is happening too,
that is in contrast to the radical protest,
placed up by the Ming Loyalists such as Liu Lang and
Wang Fu Zhi- these people were still stubbornly adhering
to the legacy of the Ming even after the downfall of the Ming Dynasty,
even after the downfall of the last royal house overseas.
They felt the Manchus are not even human beings- they don't even belong to
the human species.
This is an enormous loss of Chinese civilization
upon the invasion, the Manchu invasion, so
this is a very very strong oppositional discourse at that time and
in contrast to such a kind of loyalist oppositional discourse,
Yong Zheng, the second emperor of the Qing Dynasty,
came out to say that this is not the case and
Yong Zheng Emperor wants to argue that actually for
the Manchus who had already obtained the mandate,
there must be something occult, mysterious for
such a kind of a changing the chords of the dynastic order.
So the Manchu Emperor came out to say that- I'm quoting it in Chinese and
also there's an English translation- "不知本朝之為滿洲，猶中國之有籍貫。
舜為東夷之人，文王為西夷之人，曾何損於聖德乎".
Emperor Yong Zheng was arguing that "you quintessential Chinese,
or Han Chinese loyals, look at your history, way back to the Zhou Dynasty or
even earlier, 舜- one of the founders of the Chinese
a civilization was actually a barbarian from the East- 東夷,
actually that means Shandong Province.
Nowadays what can be more Chinese than Shandong Province?
But 2000 or 3000 years ago that was the aboriginal area and
then 文王the whole Zhou Dynasty which reigned China more
than 800 years- 文王為西夷之人, from Western part of China,
from Shanxi- that was also regarded as a foreign land,
as a barbarian space, but you Chinese,
you Han Chinese have really this long tradition from 舜 to 文王 so
on so forth and if you never worry about their background,
their ethnic background what's the fuss about you
guys to talk about we Manchus as invaders,
as those who are not entitled to this whole legacy of China.
As long as you have culture as long you can cultivate sacred virtues,
you are entitled to be the ruler of the whole China.
In other words Emperor Yong Zheng turns the table around by referring
to an ancient Chinese sages' words that 华 versus 夷- this kind of a distinction-
really hinges upon one's cultivation of the cultural barriers.
Rather than, say, worrying about your problem,
rather than worrying about your ethnicity, this whole idea of 华 or
Chineseness is really in a kind of continued state of fluidity,
so they're mercurial- from one state to another- so
that's the Qing Dynasty, early Qing Dynasty's debate over who is
China andwho is not China or who is a Chinese or who is not Chinese.
So to sum up, macro-China versus micro-China, de-Sinicization
versus re-Sinicization- all these debates were actually already popping up and
in wide circulation in the whole East Asia around 17th and 18th century.
So when we talk about Sinophone Studies in the contemporary context,
we sometimes seem to exaggerate the whole thing as if we were
the first generation of scholars or Chinese or non-Chinese or
Sinophonic subjects who come to know the, the multiple differences
of the Chineseness but I want to argue that maybe when we historicize
the whole discourse a little bit, we actually come to learn
much more about the complexity of Chinese cultural history.
So that's my first part of the vision now I'm going
to it the second part which has to do with the late Qing and
of the Republican era in other words I am taking a great
leap forward by traveling through the tunnel of time,
now I'm getting to the late Qing period, again who is a Chinese or
who is not Chinese became a new topic or a new issue for debate for
that generation of intellectuals and political activists.
In each of the time I'm going to skim through this rather faster so
again maybe you have problems with names but
bear with me we can easily come back to those names or
even necessary when we are in the session of Q&A.
We started with the time in the aftermath of the opium war where the scholar
魏源 who was commissioned to write for the first time
about this a maritime world it's really a cartography of the world politics,
of global politicsand we don't want to spend too much time on this particular
book which is truly a very very exciting political treaty.
I just want to focus on one famous slogan offered by 魏源 at that time that
means "師夷長技以制夷"- "subdue the foreigners by learning from their strong points".
For the first time you know in the late Qing period a traditionally
trained Chinese scholar came to recognize the power,
the supremacy of Westerners vis-a-vis China which was
rapidly in decline after the Opium War.
So here the concept of the 夷 or the foreigner is actually
shifting very subtly from a mildly derogatory sort
of dimension to something you're not so sure but
you feel certainly fascinated by the foreign,
you want to try to do something, to emulate the foreigner now.
So my story goes on like this for the last part of the 19th
century- you have diplomats such as Guo SongTao 郭嵩燾,
you have translators such as Wang Tao 王韜, you have late Qing reformers
such as 譚嗣同- they all came from different walks and backgrounds but
they all share one common ground in articulating the urgency
of understanding the foreigners or as a much more complex and
supreme power over the traditional Chinese civilization.
So this is a really a very intriguing moment when 夷 traditionally
referring to barbarian foreigners around China now 夷, or
the foreigner, is really projecting onto either Europe or
America really you have this global perspective being brought
into the view of that generation of Chinese intellectuals.
And then later on the final days of the Qing Dynasty and
the beginning years of the Republican era- Zhang Taiyan 章太炎, Liang Qichao 梁啟超,
and then Doctor Sun Yat-sen 孫中山- the founder of the Republic of China- they
all came up with a different agendas as to how we understand the foreigners.
For Zhang Taiyan, still, racism and the strict nationalism and
he definitely wants to uphold his anti-Manchu agenda,
anti-Qing agenda based on the clear cut distinction between Chinese,
quintessential Chinese, and the Manchu and
other non-Chinese others right, so that's his political stance.
梁啟超 Liang Qichao on the other hand however wants to argue that well
now we are really really forming China, we should be as inclusive and
embracing as possible so multi-ethnicity for the first time was
being proposed by Liang Qichao as one of the foundational policies
in the making of New China- later on of course Republic of China.
Sun Yat-Sen actually take up where Liang Qichao left off
by further arguing that the new Republic of China has to be
a multi-ethnic China and all different ethnicities should
be sort of included under the huge umbrella of the Republic.
So the result, in 1911-1912, when China, or new China,
was founded as a nation in contrast to the dynastic cycle which
covered more than 2500 years of Chinese history now this
understanding of China versus non-China or China as 华 or
non-China as 夷 underwent another round of transformation and
then we move to 1920s- this was really a marvelous moment
where the May Fourth Movement incited one whole generation
of young scholars to raise questions about the authenticity and
the legitimacy of the traditional Chinese historiography.
Here I introduce only names here- 顧頡剛 Gu Jiegang- I think this is truly a,
I would say, a forerunner of deconstructionism of that time.
He just questions anything that is related to the so-called essentialist or
essentialism, essentialist- the understanding of China- you know,
he never believes the so-called founding myth of ancient China.
He also questions actually the legibility, the legitimacy and
the legibility of historiography from one dynasty to another.
In the end he really was sort of destabilizing what we understand as
traditional China so this is a truly very very radical humanist.
From the Leftist side 瞿秋白 Qu Qiubai also in late 1920s
came up with a different kind of agenda by opposing
China to this idealized leftist global solidarity.
If we are aiming at, kind of a revolution, at the world's scale,
how should we still hold onto this a very traditional,
narrowly defined ethnicity 华 or non 华 or Europe- this is all nonsense.
For 瞿秋白 Qu Qiubai- the radical Marxist at that time- we'd better
just overthrow all human communities called the society,
called the nation or something, in the hope that we can form
a new kind of world-wide international coalition.
So here, 华 and 夷 are supposed to be erased altogether at the core of this total
Communist Revolution.
So 1920s and 1930s really saw China with quotation
marks undergoing one round of a debate after another; really
this was a fascinating time we shouldn't overlook, and
then all of a sudden 1937 when the second Sino-Japanese war broke out,
all these writers regardless of their political allegiance
came to realize the necessity of holding onto one China so
nationalism was a striking back at the the very very important factor for
that generation of political leaders and scholars.
So the same 顧頡剛 Gu Jiegang who ten years before questioned
the quintessential Chineseness now in 1939 said: "There is one and
has been only one China"- we should be all unified under this cause of
anti-Japanese aggression and we should fight the foreign enemies so
that we can have one singular wholesome China.
So debates like this can go on and I'm not going to spend too much
time on that- I'll end this part introducing one more name,
whose name is 費孝通 Fei Xiaotong- one of the most important
anthropologists in 20th century China and he, as early as 1930s,
had an idea about a unified multiplicity I don't know how to translate
this 多元一體- it's very paradoxical right, that means that China
is really a political entity with multiple ethnic origins and
backgrounds and cultures and Tibetan, Mongols, Manchus, everybody but
we are all happily dancing and singing together in the name of one China so
we are one unified body with multiple different cultures but
somehow the two things work together very well.
So Fei Xiaotong 's idea which was actually being reiterated
as late as 1989 may very well serve as the political
discourse now we are only too familiar with in the contemporary context.
Over the past twenty some years you guys probably are all familiar
with this slogan from China- "中國可以說不"- China can afford to say No now.
We are a harmonious society- this is a huge country rising and
we are all under heaven, we all share one dream 中国梦- keep in mind
that's a very singular or that's very ambiguous in Chinese grammar.
We have only one Chinese dream- this is a new era,
this is President Xi's terminology.
Overseas we have Confucius Institute, supposed that Confucius is the greatest,
the person or the figure that truly homogenizes different kinds of
understanding of China all under one umbrella.
一帶一路- one rail, one road, 多元一體, 只有一個中華民族 and
also last year 厲害了，我的國！this is very militant now right and
of course this slogan was now taken out from the repertoire
of the propaganda machine because even the government
was aware of this kind of rhetorical sensitivity but
no matter what I want to come to the last part of my presentation and
I'll spend a little more time on this.
I want to talk about two different discourses right
now in trend in both Western and Chinese academia,
one is Sinophone Studies- this is how I started my presentation today and
this is a discourse approach or theory now first introduced and
made popular by Professor Shih Shu-mei of UCLA in 2001.
I don't know how many of you are familiar with this theory or
discourse but today probably we cannot go far into the nuance
of her argument but primarily Shih Shu-mei takes a very clear
stance of oppositional politics in critiquing China.
She wanted to argue that China is not just
a kind of homogeneous or homogenized,
a kind of terminology referring to one political
sovereignty that is People's Republic of China.
Instead she wants to argue that in the whole world
including here at Cornell we have Chinese speakers or
learners of Chinese civilization or
any kind of acknowledged link related to China,
we are all using the language as the common denominator
in order to facilitate our communication and acquisition of knowledge but
this doesn't mean that we have to be a nationalist,
we don't have to adhere to this one and
singular political entity called People's Republic of China so
she wanted to come up with a very strong and very critical
kind of a strategy that back up with her definition of Sinophone Studies,
to promote overseas Chinese speaking communities,
recognizing its own identity, recognizing its own
political status vis a vis this one China policy imposed by China worldwide.
So basically we probably can describe her strategy as a kind of resistance
to strategy and in terms of strategy we have also described her methodology,
that is, basically, she based her approach upon postcolonialism,
probably that makes better sense for you now, regarding that
all the minorities on the Chinese mainland as ethnic communities
coerced into this unified China now dominated by Han Chinese
rulership- this government is basically Han-Chinese government,
so we don't really want to endorse this Han-Chinese community,
we want to sympathize with the minorities.
But on the other hand, in overseas Chinese community,
among overseas community, we want to encourage each and
every individual Chinese language, or
Chinese speaking community, maybe Taiwan, maybe Macau,
maybe the Chinese community in Malaysia, or in Singapore, or
in Indonesia, or Chinese speaking communities in Anglo American diaspora,
we should all recognize our own independent status and
speak up on behalf of our own self-determined identity or status, right.
On the foundation of this argument is a strong post-colonial
critique- China has been described as a colonial empire.
Even though Han-Chinese immigrants probably including,
I think at least I'm part of this cohort, probably some of you or
your parents here with Chinese heritage background and these Han-Chinese,
although relocated overseas, but maybe, who knows,
you are secular colonizers, particularly for
the first generation immigrants- Chinese immigrants who immigrated
to particularly Southeast Asia, they actually probably
utilized their own economic power, or
maneuvering strategies- they overpower the indigenous,
the locals and so therefore they are secular colonizers.
And finally and most importantly for Professor Shih we
should be really thinking seriously the concept of diaspora.
It's such a fancy word for literature students to talk about "diasporas".
For Shih Shu-mei this is a bad word because when you talk about
diasporas you're thinking of the origin where you may have come from so
we should actually uphold the idea of antidiaspora- that means when
you're relocated you should really immerse yourself into this local
culture; you should quickly forget your background, your cultural heritage.
Hopefully your descendants forever sort of cut off their ties to China,
so language here, Sinophone as a kind of language,
becomes a transient registry because supposedly it will gradually
disappear as time moves on particularly overseas Chinese generation
after generation, you may as well forget about where you come
from because China is the place where you don't want to go back so
this is a very radical kind of interference with China's discourse.
I want to say I respect this approach I mean truly on
the platform of theoretical debate we actually
respect all different kinds of articulations but
somehow probably some of you might share my personal reservation.
I mean, wouldn't she go too far or something anyway this is
a political position and most ironically underneath is such
a kind of strong Sinophone status- it's actually a kind of phobia,
such a kind of a kind of hatred, a certain kind of fear of that which
is called China but for me at least China is not merely a political
entity- it is not just purely a political sovereignty.
China might as well be a long continuum of a historical experience handed down from
one generation to another- You kind of have a wish to understand what makes
China China and yet on the other hand besides this overseas Sinophonic
intervention you have in China currently the very strong Sinocentrism- patriotism
actually- the whole governmental force now is driven towards the enforcement
of a Sinocentric imagination right?And here I'll introduce some names that you
don't necessarily know but these are all leading figures in Chinese academia.
They each from different perspectives speak about why there has to be only
one China for example Wang Wei talking about cross system society that
means that China is a big, China is such a kind of multi-ethnic society but
somehow there is a such a kind of miraculous sort of network.
Through this network all the communities are crossing I mean I
don't know how you cross- it's such a like an airport hub or
something- cross from one place to another but somehow it worked in China so
it's a 多元一体- it's multiple and it is unified at the same time and
so I think I will skip this one- "One is many, many is one".
It's a very, very tricky- this kind of slogan.
Wang MingMing- he's a sociologist talking about supra-social system or
Su Bingqi, an anthropologist who passed away 20-some years ago but
suddenly he became a new celebrity because he introduced
many many decades ago the concept that the origin of China is like a constellation,
like the stars over the sky forming this beautiful incredible complex
tapestry of origins just like stars shining in the sky.
All we need to do in contemporary China is happily sitting here using
your superpowerful telescope looking at those stars and
identify this wonderful constellation so
we are all under one heaven- 天下- all the stars are shining at the same time.
The most unbelievable theory that I have come across is offered by
Zhao Tingyang, I think again you probably don't know who he is but
this idea of under-heaven, probably you know this right because this
has been heavily promoted by Chinese academia and the government.
And what is a 天下- under heaven- that means an ontology of becoming,
it is based upon the idea that the territory of China is
really not territorially recognizable- Does it make sense to you?
That means that China is so immense is so huge China doesn't
need any any border lines to to delimit its geographical, say, ends.
It's everywhere so that's the kind of under heaven according
to Professor Zhao that once dominated the traditional
Chinese sense of property geographically speaking.
But what really intrigue me or even bother me is this just 2 years
ago Professor Zhao came up with an idea that now is the golden time for
us to promote China not only in traditional political or
philosophical sense but in theological sense we may as well call
China with quotation marks as a kind of political theology.
For those who are from the side of philosophy or intellectual history
you probably know political theology as a concept is Carl Schmitt's contribution and
Carl Schmitt- a 1930s'- certainly had a very dubious political motivation so
now in the year 2015-16 when Zhao Tingyang came up to say let's
celebrate China as a 神性, as a divine, as a concept of a divine community,
as a kind of theology- I think that is a little worrisome I mean to to
really promote China as a kind of as a kind of theological sort of energy and
to further his discussion in recent years Professor Zhao introduces
introducing a theory of vortex- vortex theory- 旋涡论- and
he argues that that the Chinese civilisation of the past
3000 years as has functioned like a huge vortex or
whirlpool, if you will, washing machine, right?
And here just everything you're throwing into this washing machine
everything is being cleaned up everything is brought up like one entity and
you don't have to worry to sort it out because everything is quite
a kind of homogenized, one entity.
For Professor Zhao, he believes that China has become so
strong it's all because we have this huge vortex- I don't know what that means,
probably kind of a DS marker marking up a little thing but somehow it worked so
he triumphantly said that nowadays why worry about Tibet,
why worry about Mongolia or Xinjiang and so on and so
forth since they're naturally part of this vortex so
it's only so spontaneous that every ethnic community wants
to be drawn into this whirlpool of cultural unification, so
that might present another kind of extreme take upon on Chinese imaginary
in our century at this moment in China, so that's some kind of extreme.
But there are also of course different critical voices such as
Ge Zhaoguang- this is someone I highly recommend for you to read- he
has a new book "What is China" just out from Harvard University but
we are not going to spend anytime today for further elaboration.
Now, conclusion: I form conclusion for
my discussion in conjunction with the concept 华夷风 or
Sinophone/Xenophone I introduced at the beginning of the talk.
First I want to say : What can we do as a humanist,
as particularly literature people and we are usually feeling so
disabled, so powerless vis a vis this kind of, kind of a,
say, political harrowing or vortex or whatever but
I want to say that at least we are the connoisseurs of
the language we are good exercisers of imagination we
actually are much more sensitive to the comings and
goings of the Chinese civilization in all kind of a sort of dimensions and
activities so and activities so just as what I did so
far I wanted to make the whole thing more complex, I want to muddy the water.
When either Shih Shu-mei's kind of discourse or
Zhao Tingyang's kind of Sinocentrism discourse,
I'm really affairing certain groups of readers and recipients,
I want to say why don't we go back to the function of 风 or
wind, to rethink 风 as that which blows this and
that way, which traverses, which travels and
which really travels and mutates in such a way as change
sometimes the direction of the movement- not only in
a meterological sense but also as a humanistic term.
In ancient China when you're engaged in at various times an adventure,
you need to watch the direction of wind, particularly trade wind, so
that you can embark on your voyage to the lone and the remote destination- so
风here refers to what I said, not only a natural phenomenon but also sound,
music, writing, literature, trend, fashion, scenery,
edification, civilization, inner character and so on so forth.
This is the territory we as humanists probably can still invest our wisdom and
energy in but I'm also a realistic person- I understand that this is probably too
utopian to talk about the the blowing of the wing that listens to that direction.
We also as a Chinese speaker are aware of some set phrases particularly 风险, right,
风actually this connotation of being precarious, of being unpredictable.
风 actually entices the critical or self-critical dimension.
On that note I want to introduce another concept from
traditional Chinese discourse- 势- or propensity.
势 of course means superficially power, force, strength but
also in traditional Chinese intellectual in a particularly artistic
discourse also means propensity- I mean it's a kind of momentum and
this is another very good analogy but sometimes reading Deleuzian,
having to do with a Deleuzian concept of affect- you just cannot help
thinking of this kind of unlikely Chinese equivalent of 势- it's
a kind of a force in shape, in the process of shaping up.
Position, trends, strategy, power, life, force and so on so forth.
So all these are actually from the repertoire of traditional
Chinese cultural literary and artistic imaginations of human relationship or
human cosmic relationships- all these are terms I
actually borrow from traditional Chinese discourse and
I thought maybe it's about time for
us to go beyond the proposal of colonialism or post-colonialism or
empire studies- we're all very well versed along those lines but
maybe if really we care about Chinese studies you probably
didn't really hurt to go back to Chinese traditions
to learn something from the wisdom of the ancients.
Second point, also to reiterate what I said, to talk about Sinophone
is one thing but I want to argue that this is still sort of retheme the traditional
either Sinocentric or Sinophobic kind of, sort of dialectics.
It has become a vicious circle for us to say either you're for or
against China or non-China, you're pro or against.
I think as a humanist, our thoughts could be more
complicated than this polarized kind of distinction so
I wanted to say that why don't we look at the concept of
xenophobe one more time some concept invented or
invoked 3,000 years ago but now in the contemporary context,
we want to argue that Sinophone and Xenophone constantly
changing parts, constantly changing positions.
And also Sinophone versus Xenophone shouldn't be understood as a conventional
geographical position- inside versus outside.
I want to argue that this Xenophone may very well
exist right at the center of Sinophone,
in other words we should never be afraid of identifying or
just pinpointing the Other, the force of Alterity,
the unfriendly, the weird, the whatever somehow in the so-called,
the very safe and sound area of the center which
is supposed to be the quintessential China.
So Sinophone and Xenophone shouldn't be invoked merely to facilitate traditional
geopolitics, rather Sinophone versus Xenophone should be a dynamic kind of
terminology, just like the wind blowing us this and that way, forcing us to
contemplate our position, our 势 to further deliberate multiple possibilities or
strategies so that's my second point with regard to the necessity of bringing
in the Xenophonic part into our current understanding of Sinophone studies,
and the third point that is Or a sign or sentry kind of sort of like ticks I mean
again I ask in comic kind of a vicious a sort of a circle for
us to say either your for or against that China or no China I wonder if you're pro
or against or this is I'm thinking as a humanist our thoughts could be more
complicated than this kind of our eyes kind of a distinction so
I wanted to say that why don't we look at the concept of a scene of
one more time some polls have invented it were the birth of 3000 years ago but
now in the contest for contacts we want to argue that some new phone in the scene
of all constantly changing marks constantly changing positions and
also some of the phone versus Eagle phone should be understood as a conversational
geographical position inside versus outside I wanted to argue that this is
a Zener of all the there will exist right at the center of the side of the other
words that we should never be afraid of identifying or or just pinpointing the the
the the mother the the force of alterity the other friendly the weird the whatever
somehow in the so called The Very save the soft area of the center which is supposed
to be the quintessential China so
sign on it is in a form shouldn't be in book merely to facilitate a tradition of
geopolitics rather a sample versus Interphone should be a dynamic kind
of terminology just level when you look blowing us in that way forcing us
to work contemplating to contemplate our our position our ssion to of further get
liberated from POTO motherboard possibilities or strategies so
that's my 2nd point with regard to the necessity of reading the xenophobic part
into our current understanding of the Sinophone studies.
And the third point that I want make is related to my
emphasis on the human condition when when politicians and
propagandists and academics were happily talking about
political theology they are actually elevating our imaginary
of China again to this impossible dimension of the divinity or
God like kind of mandated kind of traditional pattern of thought why don't
we go back to human condition to really identify the changes and
the changeability of being human and this human condition-
allow me to say- includes the current engagement within
posthuman studies, so this should be the truly dynamic area for
us to to think about- what constitutes human as human, so
that's 人间 in Chinese, so that's the third point I want to introduce.
And the last point is kind of a reiteration of the importance of 文.
So to conclude my presentation, I want to say the Chinese
character 文 actually is already a reference to change and changeability.
The very notion of literariness in Chinese etymology refers to trace,
mark, pattern, ornament, graph, sign, writing,
belles lettres- that's the place where modern Chinese,
or modern definition of literature becomes available and
then in the Chinese tradition cultivated bearing, culture, civilisation so
all this under this notion 文 of all that we should sort of rediscover
the richness of the women in our understanding of Chinese literature right.
And now, just two set phrases for the conclusion I refer to 易經-
the book of change- this is an ancient text- 通其變，遂成天地之文-
Understand changes,thus giving rise to the (configuration of) wen of heaven and
earth, so the whole configuration of the cosmos actually
should be understood as nothing but a manifestation of 文 and
this 文 is kind of a force of a manifestation- sometimes it's
also a formulation and concealment but we don't worry about that for
today's presentation- so this idea of 文 as actually
form of manifestation, also as a form of change and
changeability- that's the point I'm trying to make.
And finally, to conclude today's presentation,
I want to say for many many years we have been taught to make
a distinction between Sino and Xeno, the Chinese and
the non-Chinese, Chinese and the foreigner, so 華夷之「辨 」,
this is the set phrase in Chinese phraseology- the distinction, so
that's also kind of territorialization- right/wrong,
inside/outside, so today I want to argue that instead of 華夷之「辨
」- this is about the homophone right- there is a 華夷之「變 」- we
are talking about Sino-Xeno transformation, metamorphosis,
we are talking about change, changeability and difference,
and this 文 is kind of a process of change and changeability,
and this 文 is also a changeable wind in its own literary manifestation.
So, finally, 文心雕龍, that's the arch-text of Chinese literary tree-
Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragon- from the sixth century 通變.
We have to understand changes because 變則其久，通則不乏- If it changes,
it will endure; if it adapts itself to the changing tides,
it will lack nothing- this is of course kind of idealistic utopian projection
of the function of the 文 and still there are many possible discussion of 文 but
I'd like to end my presentation with a positive note on
the celebration of Chinese literature and Chinese literariness.
Thank you.