Mo Yan

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
I actually met the newest Nobel literature winner when I was doing study abroad in China back in 1999, and managed to dig up a journal entry which (slightly redacted) I thought might be fun to post. Un-PC-ness of anything here should be blamed entirely on the 1999 version of Michael Love and not the 2012 version.

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Dr. B invites me along with H and himself to go meet Mo Yan at the gate. At first Dr. B doesn’t even recognize him, walks up to another guy outside the front gate (who does actually look a little like Mo Yan) and asks if he’s Mo Yan but he’s not. I didn’t recognize him too well of course but I thought that might be it – the real Mo Yan’s inside the front gate booth thingy waiting. It’d be funny to make a Journey to the West joke with this – maybe the real Mo Yan was waiting outside the gate, the Mo Yan in all of us, like the blank scrolls for Monkey. Maybe in that miscellaneous guy was the truest Mo Yan of all.

The real real Mo Yan’s wearing a leather jacket and has a pretty nice briefcase, kind of a pudgy face but looks fairly fit for the rest of him, bit of a battle-scarred look about him though, the same aged peasant feel you get from a lot of people. Smiles a good deal but not excessively, has a kind of loose personality in general from what I can tell, accent not that thick or incomprehensible (as evidenced by the laughter at his jokes later on before Dr. Z even translated them). But definitely a little of an author feel, that kind of I’m-Important air about him without the haughtiness that usually brings.

The Talk: Mo Yan’s name comes from his middle name, his full name’s guan3 (control, be in charge of, or measure word for tube-shaped objects) mo2ye4 (plan, which in fantizi looks like mo and yan “unable to speak”, and the ye that comes from stalks of grain). He says that at many times in Chinese history it has been wiser to keep your mouth shut, something that conflicts with a philosophy he expresses later on. He started writing because he was just bored, he thought he might get a little famous maybe and earn some money to buy a watch so he could walk through his old town showing off his watch (and attract the ladies). Not sure if that’s true, same goes for a lot of stuff, but funny story nonetheless. Says that now he can consider buying things other than a watch with his writing money, like a house. Says he was selected by the PLA as a promising young writer and that they trained him and then he began working for them (well he’d signed up before, wanting only to combat poverty and hunger, but when he was bored I guess he discovered this other talent). He’s a native of Shanxi like Dr. Z. His favored translator Howard Goldblatt is now finishing up his latest book, jiuguo (liquor country), for release in the US sometime early next year (Feb or March). He’s going on a book tour in the US then, says the US is mysterious to him, only knows 20 words of English, Americans have the same sunshine and the same air but their hair comes in different colors, hopes he can find the answer why next year.

Red Sorghum was published in 1986, strong reaction then, lot of people said it was popular in the West because it promoted Western stereotypes of China by showing it at its most backward. One person mentioned that that was the view their host family held and Mo Yan smilingly bounced back, “Who’s your host family?” He wonders why the CCP is mad about this when they weren’t even around then. Zhang Yimou paid attention to this popularity, at that point he wasn’t a director but was just a cinematographer (Dr. Z says the guy who takes photos and Mr. P translates that from his not-quite-English). One day Mo Yan was working in a very dark room, he heard someone call him from outside, in the hallway was a big man with a bald head, holding a shoe in one hand, said “I’m Zhang Yimou”. Mo Yan knew his intent already, thought directors were civilized and sophisticated but he thought Zhang was practically just a guy from his old village, no gap between them, looks like a peasant. He said okay immediately, gave Zhang full authority to make whatever changes he wanted, do it as he liked, he said that anyone this nicely dressed (he was carrying his shoe because it were broken from being stepped on) he can’t not trust. Says it’s the high art of selection to change from the book to the movie, 90 minute movie from a million words (I don’t think Red Sorghum’s that long but I may be wrong, it’s probably a couple hundred thousand characters nonetheless), how do you change it? Can’t cover everything. He says he’s the only one who can explain why the movie is so unlike the book. Dodges around the fact that he was involved in the screenplay, and denies responsibility entirely for things like cinematography and light filters and actors and all. He says you select from the most interesting parts to make a book into a movie, thinks Zhang’s selection is very successful, shows the bold brave spirit of the peasants.

Humanity has been repressed through a long feudal history. His relatives in this book are not normal, very strange, they do what they want to do – no such people in old China. It’s all just his imagination. Why did the book have such a big impact? (doesn’t seem to actually answer that, but I remember something about the controversy and the fact that it kind of hit a chord with the Chinese’ feelings at tht time or something like that). Scholars actually went back to his hometown and were disappointed to see ther wasn’t even a single stalk of red sorghum. Mo Yan says stories are attractive, that professional writers make stuff up, that’s what they do, create something from nothing. When he was a child he was punished for lying, now he’s encouraged to. He really dedicates Red Sorghum to his “lover”, not to the peasants he sez in the beginning, but because it’s such a somber book he has to use the intro he does. He didn’t read the English translation and doesn’t seem to think he had much of a role at all, not even discussing with Goldblatt – not much say on the translation.

He doesn’t actually answer questions correctly all the time, maybe that’s Dr. Z’s fault or maybe not – since the intro to Red Sorghum says that the changes in the American version were at his request I’m not sure if he’s communicating with us correctly. He says the mainland and Taiwanese versions are exactly the same, I know almost for a fact that that’s a lie. He doesn’t even claim to know Goldblatt that well but he jokes that Goldblatt’s Chinese is better than his own. Close relationship between his writing and the environment he lived in as a child, but not with the characters and what they do (that’s his own imagination). Red Sorghum is in his hometown to some extent.

Mo Yan says that even though he participated in the moviemaking to some extent and saw it in progress he was still amazed at the finished product – the pictures combined had a poweful impact on his mind. He wants novels to be art, not politics, he’s fed up by politics, tries to avoid it but sometimes it comes knocking at his door. He self-censored himself within the PLA, it wasn’t much protection for his writing but he didn’t get very much criticism from the outside still. But his boss wanted him to write some PLA-inspiring thing to motivate the troops and he wouldn’t do it, they didn’t like Red Sorghum much or Garlic Ballads. He chose Sorghum for Red Sorghum because there was lots of it around when he was a child, he ran around in it like a little dog. He didn’t realize colors in the novel symbolized anything, the critics pointed that out to him (or so he claims), now he doesn’t use them anymore because he doesn’t want to say anything unintended. He says it’s a mistake to say people back then were better than they are now (which he does in the book), now realizes (or so he says) that his characters were better than people at either time but that they’re imaginary anyway.

Two points to his writing: people should dare to do what we want, act like heroes, and he wants to promote national spirit. Amusingly enough Dr. Z translates national (minzu) first as democracy (minzhu) which makes an odd connection at first. He says William Faulkner’s his biggest Western influence, something I might have guessed before – he too was a "peasant." Characters in the movie didn’t reflect his own characters well, they had to imitate his characters externally without the actual emotions. But they were the best actors you can get. He made Father a little boy to please the audience, a tall 15-year-old wouldn’t be as nice looking. In answer to Mr. P’s long question about whether or not art has a moral purpose he says simply, “yes”. Thinks women are strong, womens’ soccer team can beat the mens’ soccer in China! He used to be censored by the army political bureau, not anymore now that he’s retired so he just calls publisher directly, used to only be a few publishers (not now!). He’s never had his books banned, says only that some authorities persuaded him not to release one book called “firm breasts, fat bottom” which he mentions at one other point too. Now that’s a funny book idea…

He likes his pen name because it’s easier to write than his real name. When he was a kid he changed the words of the popular song “Socialism is Good” to add the fact that people had nothing to eat, big matter, principal of the school called his parents in, from that day he learned to speak less and less. Reconciles this with his philosophy of doing what you want to do through his characters – he may not speak out all the time but they do.

Later in English class a few other things learned (he went to lunch with Dr. B, Dr. Z, Mr. P, and H where after they pointed him out to some people at the next table he got all kinds of excited fans around him): no answer on a question about whether he believes in fate becaue he’s a materialist, says that his spiritual side tells him he might see things beyond ordinary events, things that may be meant to be, but he hasn’t looked at his spiritual side yet. In his free time he plays Ping Pong against a wall, Chinese Chess against a computer, and he watches his TV “to kill time” – but when Dr. B asks him if he’s really doing those things or thinking about writing he says of course he’s thinking about writing. He’s been using computers for three years now, says it’s great because he can go back and edit things – before he just used to make minor changes.
 
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