Examining History and Facing Reality

Guangzhou, 2011

One person’s strength is slight, but we are not alone. A bottomless pit has no time limit, but that does not mean we cannot persevere—thoughts prompted by this essay.

Through Qiming Liu’s performance Sensitive Words for a Day, I cannot arrive at any answer, result or conclusion. We should not take anything to extremes. I can only say that we should look at and analyze everything in it objectively: what I saw, learned, gained and reflected upon. Perhaps the true purpose of writing this essay is to hear the voices of us young people, our views, and the methods that might resolve problems. Nothing in the world is perfect, but we still have to keep on living in it.

History: History has left many problems unresolved. As an unavoidable contemporary issue, the “lower strata” of society should be reflected in contemporary art… because this is a problem inherited from history. A film called Petition seems already to be gradually slipping from people’s memory; it is rarely possible to find footage of it online now. Yet, in my view, its director Zhao Liang’s achievement in cinema is of the highest order. The documentary was given a five-star rating. He said: “I want to film something about the spirit—my own. At this age I also need to find an answer to the question of where my spirit belongs.” “I think everyone, at a certain age, needs to reflect inwardly on what oneself, one’s people, society and life really are.” Yet the real history he documented is little known. The Chinese American writer Iris Chang continually defended true history, but in the end she too fell in a pool of blood. There were many reasons, but the principal one was that people who disregard true history persecuted her to the point of suicide. Events of recent years are, to varying degrees, closely related to these things, but too few people can express them in this way.

Yin Jinan once directed CCTV’s Art Starry Sky. In an interview, he said something like this: you cannot look at art through art’s own eyes—not from an internal perspective, not from the viewpoint of a specialized profession. What should you use? An outside perspective: culture and society, a broader view of art. The program is for the public, not for specialists. This kind of performance art works in the same way. It lets viewers participate in the work and allows the public to understand the artist’s thinking and views. Whether those views resonate with them is a separate question. I think these words make a great deal of sense. As an art practitioner myself, I sincerely hope that we artists can transcend the constraints of time and space, and communicate as well as possible with the past and future. I hope we have the deepest sense of social responsibility, recording for the children of the future the beautiful things that are gradually receding. As so many great artists create passionately, night after night, for times gone by, the past becomes the present, and the present takes responsibility for the future. It is not about pronouncing what is right and what is wrong, but about analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of things, allowing more people to know that problems exist and thus to resolve them in earnest.

Teacher Wang Xiaobo of Beijing Film Academy has a saying: some people live in pursuit of material things, and some in pursuit of the spirit.

I did not understand as a child, but now I do. If everyone pursued spiritual things and no one fought over fame and profit, perhaps the world would be more peaceful. Why do so many bad things happen? All one can say is that interests cannot be balanced. Once some people use any means to pursue certain interests, they inevitably hurt others and disrupt the world’s order. One affects another, and so it becomes increasingly chaotic. In the films of cinematic artists, a person is merely a model, equivalent to a prop, however substantial or intense their part may be. A person presented purely in isolation is insubstantial. We need to begin with people’s relationships: the underlying historical problems of groups becoming part of society are what truly interest us.

In an interview, Qiming Liu said that he does not like simply recounting or depicting history, because the present is already a diversified mirror image of history. Past and future overlap today in simple, mechanical reflections. He selects figures or work titles carrying the labels of particular eras for one purpose only: to borrow their condensed information, with its symbolic and allusive qualities, to convey his understanding and judgment of life in the present.

Many artists today are impatient for quick success and immediate gain. They have little sense of responsibility toward society, and rarely face the existence of historical problems in earnest. They pursue formal qualities in pictures alone, paying no attention to spiritual liberation and communication. Painters like Qiming Liu really are rare. At this point I would like to say something about Zhuangzi. In The Spirit of Chinese Art, Zhuangzi’s artistic spirit seeks to realize an artistic life, allowing life to attain what was described above as “supreme joy” and “heavenly joy.” The true content of this joy is the free liberation of the human spirit. Such liberation cannot be sought in the existing world, nor, as in the cheap imaginings of religious thinkers, in heaven or the future. It can only be sought in one’s own mind—the mind’s state of activity, which Zhuangzi calls the spirit—in other words, by seeking free liberation within one’s own spirit. Liu is such a person. He hopes to use artistic means to convey his own understanding and judgment of contemporary life. For precisely this reason, when I see him concentrating his work on historical memory, I am deeply moved. I think he is an artist who will have a strong sense of social responsibility.

Personal factors account for the greater part of his work. Looking at his earlier works, none directly depicts political or historical events. He always uses an understated mode of expression to convey his feelings about history on the verge of disappearing. His works consistently express things that are about to be forgotten. He hopes these memories can be preserved. This is not only a painter’s sorrow over historical experience that has been discarded, but also art’s lament for the utilitarianism of today’s restless society. It is precisely this feeling that makes the artist want to preserve personal historical memory.

Overall, his paintings have always emphasized one issue: history must never be forgotten.

Reality: In the diary of a foreign master who came to China sometime in the 1940s: “I do not know whether the things moving like insects on this land can be called human.” And then: “A student returning from overseas stabbed his mother. A crowd watched, and only a foreigner reached out to help.” If China’s five-thousand-year tradition of culture and morality has come to this, then it truly is time for us to reflect. We must face this problem: the collapse of morality! The most false reality is the present. Recently I have kept wondering what is still safe to eat in China. Contraceptives are added to fruit, melamine and plasticizers to food; even rice is grown with pesticides and growth-promoting chemicals. Can we still eat this genetically modified food? Yet most Chinese people carry on in ignorance. Why do we say Chinese people have such high drug resistance? Because we have eaten so much of this food. Ignorance! How convenient that food and the medical industry have become such good partners: you ruin people’s bodies, and they bring money to our hospitals for treatment and medicine. Multiple gains in one move—why wouldn’t they do it? But when these things are reported, the public remains just as indifferent. Every evening I read the news on my phone. What greets me is either a celebrity taking drugs, someone being arrested, a girl being raped somewhere, or an urban-management officer beating a man in his sixties to death. Reading the mobile news makes me feel ill every time. Sometimes I really want to swear… What has happened to this society? Must the central words of life all revolve around these terms? Of course, conflicts inevitably occur in society. What we need to consider is not how to resist them, but how to find a reasonable way of resolving them.

Some awkward realities: in the minds of people in Taiwan, where exactly are we from? Whether we are foreigners or mainlanders, this sensitive topic is concealed in their minds. Whenever this sensitive term is touched, it stirs people deeply. This is a very interesting video shared on my Xiaonei account. These Taiwanese children represent a typical Taiwanese view of the mainland. The video is titled Mainland China Through the Eyes of Taiwanese Children {a sensitive topic—worth watching, truly worth sharing}.

The Taiwanese children say, pointing at China’s flag, that it looks like North Korea’s. What is the mainland? The mainland is a country. The mainland… is very far away.

This is the only child with a little knowledge.

People say foreign countries are paradise. But is that really so? If it is, why have so many great figures returned? One can only ask whether a place suits someone or not. Is democracy there really as good as people imagine? Those who understand democracy would not resolutely declare things like “China should copy foreign democracy in its entirety.” We have to view these matters objectively, comparing them with China’s history, considering Chinese tradition, and taking China’s deeply rooted ideas into account. What suits us, and what does not? We cannot merely say, “China should practice democracy too.” In Western countries, democracy can also be spoiled, while humanity’s common interests are harmed at the same time. In fact, I think some sensitive words really do need to be prohibited. China differs from other countries: it has an enormous population. It is impossible simply to copy Western democracy; that would throw China into chaos. This has always been my attitude toward Western democracy. Although elections are held all day and politicians constantly present themselves as close to the people, ostensibly for the people’s benefit, is this really suitable for China? Elections alone waste so much time and money. How much practical work has democracy actually accomplished? Look at those democratic countries fighting to seize power. They say it is for the people’s interests, but is it really? I do not think so.

History: As long as we face it squarely and learn from it, we can certainly create a better present. But worldly affairs cannot be perfect. What we need is to be more objective!

References: The Spirit of Chinese Art, Guangxi Normal University Press