Bridge and Tolerance

When I browsed the paintings I recently did, I was surprised to notice that there are quite a number of paintings which have bridges in them. Then I came to think that probably I have been doing a bridging job of which I am not consciously aware of myself. I am trying to bridge art and life, Chinese and American culture, individual and society, etc. One thing always puzzles me is the fact that sometimes, human beings are so much similar with each other but in other times we are so different. For instance, tolerance is generally considered to be a virtue in this country. However, in reality, what is happening in the world has enabled us to see many different sides of the concept. How would we call this when someone made a film you consider offensive, you just pick up your gun and mow down other innocent people because they share the same nationality, culture, religion, ethnicity, etc with the film maker? Of course, Florida doesn't lack fanatics like that, either. It reminds me of a quote from Bertrand Russell:  

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves and wiser people so full of doubts."

Today I came across a very good article which shows sort of Chinese side of tolerance. I can never trust Google translating software to do the job. Maybe it works well in translating within the linguistically Germanic family or even between Germanic and Latin language families. However, I don't think technology has developed to such a sophisticated level as to be able to translate Chinese into English without causing errors which would make you laugh till you hold your sides. One of my friends once shared with me what he got from Google translation. Believe me, those errors are good raw material for late night talk show. So I took the time to translate the article. I include its original version, too. This is part of my bridging work.

Easy to Stoop down but Difficult to Stand up

By Hong Huang*

Several days ago I was asked by Group M Advertisement, Inc. to give a speech on “Embracing Changes”. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to go there, so I made a video of the speech and sent it to them. Group M President Li Qianling is my good friend. She asked me more than half a dozen questions – all about how to face changes in our lives.
 

I grew up as an obedient child. I didn’t say anything when my parents sent me to a boarding school at the age of 9. I was placed by mistake in a class in which I was one year younger than my classmates. I didn’t complain. I was bullied in the dorm, but I didn’t tell. When I reached the age of 12, I was sent to America, away from home. I took it as an honor. In America I didn’t understand what people were talking about but I blamed myself for lack of vocabulary. Therefore, I tried hard to memorize English words. I felt I was really a good child for being able to tolerate so much. As far as I remember, I never thought of making a fuss to my parents.

For that reason, my first answer to her question was like this: "The Chinese attitude about changes is, usually, trying to resign yourself to adversity, that is, to go on with your life as you can and never mind about other things." I felt that was our great strength. I had done the same thing myself in the past.

So that was the hole I unconsciously dug for myself and I even had the audacity to identify with the forces of “reactionary feudal” culture, asking other Chinese to go on with that kind of tolerance.

I did not realize my answer in the video was “reactionary feudal” till last night when I watched Meng Jinghui’s drama To Be Alive, which suddenly dawned on me about the nature of my answer. I like Meng’s dramas. His artistic expression is always trend-setting. He manipulates dramatic skills naturally like fish in water. Watching his drama work makes you feel it is familiar but refreshing, enjoyable but not superficial.
 

 I watched the show at China Grand Theater, which I liked.

Way before I watched the show, I had read the story in book and watched it in movie but didn’t remember a lot of details. The story is about how a Chinese spendthrift resigned himself to adversity, a kind of Chinese version of Les Miserable story. Meng intertwines the tragic ups and downs of the story with modern-time singing and dancing, even mini episodes so that in the midst of the overwhelming sadness suddenly you get a chance to catch your breath and you temporarily forget the sadness. I thought of the videoed speech I sent to Group M when I was watching the show. Then I felt like wanting to slap myself on the face. How could I teach people to follow the teaching of meek submission to oppression like that? Was I crazy?

Probably this was the moment when the idea popped into my mind: the protagonist of the story was happy to realize that if he had not gambled away all the land and wealth he inherited, most probably the person who was executed as a landlord during the land reform movement would not be his gamble buddy Long Erye, but himself instead. It was at that time when I felt enlightened: We are always ready to find a self-deceiving excuse for sufferings and keep telling ourselves, “Tolerance of sufferings is a disguised blessing.” Anyway, we consider the attitude to be a virtue.

However, is meekly submitting to oppression a virtue?

There is another fundamental reason why I cannot tolerate picturing sufferings in Chinese art. That is because all the pains are not to be sublimated into anything and what we do is only struggling painfully in the deep water to keep our heads out of it.

Victor Hugo’s Les Miserable is a sad story, too. However, due to the compassion and protection by Bishop Myriel, the protagonist Jean Valjean transforms from a victim who submitted to adversity at beginning to a man who controls his own destiny toward the end. His adopted daughter Cosette falls in love with young revolutionary Marius, whom Jean Valjean rescues when he is wounded in the uprising. In the end when Cosette’s voyage comes to a safe and sound ending, Jean Valjean redeems himself with love. His attitude tells us that the experience of his sufferings is eventually sublimated into wisdom and value.

If you think Jean Valjean is too dramatized, then you may like John Steinbeck’s The Wrath of Grapes.  In the story, Tom Joad is not an easily tolerant person in the first place. Otherwise he would not go to jail. He is forced to go to the West, looking for jobs during the Great Depression. Intolerant of  exploitation, he doesn’t mind being on the run a second time.

To be Alive, Les Miserable, and The Wrath of Grapes are all stories about human sufferings. And they all have screen versions (more than one) and stage versions. The greatest difference between them is that in To be Alive, there is no deliverance for sufferings, and that all the sufferings the protagonist has experienced do not bring about a little bit of rebellious spirit. When the historical turmoil turns his initial bad luck (the loss of 100 Chinese acres of land) into an inadvertent luck (evasion of being executed as landlord), he simply believes he gains something. He does not stand up and protest against the injustice; the only thing he does is putting up with anything coming his way. That is the difference between Chinese-style sufferings and French- or American-style sufferings. We have a higher level of tolerance of sufferings than any nations in the world!

Is it a good thing to be tolerant like that? Isn’t it an encouragement to tyrants? Isn’t it true that this kind of submissiveness equals giving up life itself?

Did we get it from Buddhism? Or from Confucianism? What has made us to be so subservient, so easy to stoop down but so difficult to stand up, so meek to oppression, so obedient, so yielding?

If such terrible sufferings fail to let us achieve sublimation like Jean Valjean or to rebel like Tom Joad, unless we are destined to be rich and powerful, the sufferings truly serve us right.

Source: Southern Capital Weekly

*Hong Huang is a well-known Chinese public figure. She is from a privileged family. Her mother was Mao’s English teacher and interpreter. Her stepfather was China’s foreign minister. They had a close relationship with first President Bush and his wife. After the 10-year-long havoc of Cultural Revolution was over and Deng Xiaoping came to power, the couple was accused of being involved in the Gang of Four’s conspiracy and put in jail for some years.

Recently Hong Huang appeared and commented in the documentary film Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry.

 

能屈不能伸

洪晃

几天前 Group M 广告公司开全体大会，要我去发言，题目是“拥抱转变”。由于不能前往，只好做了一段录像发过去。公司老总李倩玲是我一个好朋友，给我提了七八个问题。都是问我怎么面对生活中的变化。

　　我从小就是一个逆来顺受的好孩子，9岁时父母送我去住校，我没反对。插班插错了，我比同班同学都小一岁，我没吭声。宿舍里受欺负，我从来没告状。12岁又给弄去美国，背井离乡，我只当光荣，听不懂英文，我只当单词不够，接着死记硬背。我觉得我其实是个好孩子，这么多变化我都忍过来了，似乎从来没有跟父母抱怨过。

　　所以我的第一个答复是：中国人对付变化的态度通常就是逆来顺受，埋头过小日子。不去想其他的。我觉得这是我们的一大优点。我也一样。

　　就这么不知不觉地我给自己刨了一个坑，居然和那种“反动封建”的文化势力站在一条线上，要求中国人继续忍下去。

　　我当时并没有意识到我的话“反动封建”，直到昨天晚上，看孟京辉的话剧版《活着》，我才恍然大悟。我喜欢孟京辉的戏，他的艺术表现手段永远那么当代，他是在玩戏剧，而且玩得如鱼得水。看他的戏总是觉得不陌生，但是又新鲜，很享受，但是不肤浅。

　　演出是在中国大剧院。我喜欢。

　　《活着》的书我很早看过，电影也看过。但是细节已经忘了。《活着》的话剧很好看，讲了一个败家子逆来顺受的故事，是中国版的“悲惨世界”。孟京辉在波浪般的悲情中穿插了一些当代情节的歌舞和小品，于是苦海中突然就有了喘气的机会，就不觉得那么苦了。我在看这个话剧的时候，想起了我给广告公司的录像，我开始想抽自己嘴巴子，我怎么能提倡逆来顺受哪？我疯了吗？

　　大概在看到这个情节——剧中主人翁高兴意识到，如果他没把家里最后的田地输光，那么在“土改”中被枪毙的“地主”就不是他的赌友龙二爷，而是他自己了——的时候，我就发现了：我们很会给自己的苦难找自我麻醉的借口，总是跟自己说“吃亏是福、吃亏是福”，我们认为这是美德。

　　但在苦难中逆来顺受真的是一种美德吗？

　　我看不得中国艺术中的苦难还有一个最根本的原因——我们所有的苦难不能升华，我们就泡在一池塘的苦水里面来回扑腾。雨果的《悲惨世界》也很惨，但是有了主教的怜悯和保护，主人公冉阿让也从一个逆来顺受的人变成了一个主宰自己命运的人。他的养女爱上了革命青年马洛斯，马洛斯在起义中负伤昏迷，冉阿让救了他。最后在女儿有了好归宿之后，冉阿让带着赎罪的爱离开人世。冉阿让的态度告诉我们，他的苦难已经升华到一种智慧和价值观念。

　　如果《悲惨世界》中的冉阿让太戏剧化，那你也许喜欢斯坦贝克的《愤怒的葡萄》。

　　在《愤怒的葡萄》里面，约德本来就不是一个善于忍受的人，不然就不会进牢房了。美国的经济萧条使他被迫去西部当长工，而最后，他因为反抗剥削而第二次出逃。

　　《活着》、《悲惨世界》、《愤怒的葡萄》都是叙述人间苦难的文学著作，都被拍成电影（甚至不止一版），也都被搬上舞台。但其中最大的不同是，《活着》的苦难是没有解脱的，主人翁的一切不幸永远不会带来半丝反抗的精神，而当历史的变迁，把他原来的不幸（丢了100亩地）变成了后来的侥幸（没把他当地主枪毙）。他还觉得赚了。他不会反抗，他只会受着。这是中国式苦难和法国、美国式苦难的区别，我们对苦难的承受力比任何民族都强大。

　　这是好事吗？这么能忍受，难道不是去纵容暴君吗？这么听话，难道不是放弃生命吗？

　　是佛教？是孔子？到底是什么让我们这么老实、这么能屈不能伸、这么逆来顺受、这么乖、这么听话？

　　如果那么大的苦难都不能让我们获得冉阿让的升华和约德的反抗，那也许我们这群人就是富贵的命，真的也就活该了。

来源: 南都周刊