The Transformation of Satire: Satirical Fiction in Wartime Chongqing (1937-1945) Chia-ying Shih A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2014 Reading Committee: John Christopher Hamm, Chair Yomi Braester Zev Handel Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Asian Languages and Literature - 1 - ©Copyright 2014 Chia-ying Shih - 2 - University of Washington Abstract The Transformation of Satire: Satirical Fiction in Wartime Chongqing (1937-1945) Chia-ying Shih Chair of the Supervisory Committee: John Christopher Hamm, Associate Professor The Department of Asian Languages and Literature This dissertation investigates the development of satirical fiction published in wartime (1937- 1945) Chongqing and its influence on the subsequent development of Chinese satirical fiction. Through the examination of newspapers and literary periodicals published in Chongqing, it identifies the wartime period as a turning point in the politicization of Chinese satirical fiction. "Politicization" here indicates the narrowing of satirical fiction from a range of different cultural, social and political issues to a more dominant concern with political problems. Writers use satire to expose various aspects of government problems or to express their discontent toward political authority. The extent to which writers reflect the expectation of reform from a political system which might self-correct should be judged from the political and social context in which they write and their attitude toward the authority. - 3 - Chapter 1 Introduction I. Modern Chinese Satire: An Important but Understudied Literary Mode On October 11, 2012, Chinese novelist Mo Yan 莫言 (1955- ) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. His winning of the prize stirred up many debates in China and the West, as his close relationship with the Chinese Communist government presented a major problem for those who claimed he did not deserve to win. His political stance also affects the way literary critics evaluate his novels. When Perry Link1and Charles Laughlin,2 two U.S. scholars renowned for their studies of modern Chinese literature, argue over whether Mo Yan’s novels are satirical, the answer for them is associated with Mo Yan’ s political stance as well. Their dispute is related to how they frame several characteristics of satire in modern Chinese literature, including the function and goals of satire, and how writers use it. Nevertheless, due to a lack of studies on the topic, our knowledge of modern Chinese satire is deficient. The goal of my project is to contribute to the understanding of this literary mode that has been virtually ignored over a long period of time. 1 Perry Link (1944- ) is the Chancellorial Chair Professor for Innovative Teaching Comparative Literature &Foreign Languages in College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at University of California, Riverside and Emeritus Professor of East Asian Studies at Princeton University. Link’s long-term interest is Chinese popular culture. His Mandarin Ducks and Butter Flies: Popular Fiction in Early Twentieth-century Chinese Cities (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981) is one of the few academic works written in English on modern Chinese popular fiction. After the Tiananmen Square Protests (April 15, 1989- June 4, 1989), Link also paid attention to human rights of Chinese intellectuals in China. Along with Andrew Nathan and Orville Schell, he translated Tiananmen Papers (New York: Public Affairs, 2001), a book which is believed to contain secret government documents about the Tiananmen Square Protests. 2 Charles Laughlin is the Weedon Professor of East Asian Studies at the University of Virginia. He is best known for his thorough exploration of modern Chinese reportage in his Chinese Reportage: The Aesthetics of Historical Experience (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002). - 4 - On December 6, 2012, when Mo Yan arrived in Stockholm, Sweden, to receive the Nobel Prize five days later, The New York Review of Books published Link’s essay, “Does This Writer Deserve the Prize?” In this essay, Link describes Mo Yan as a writer “inside the system.” He argues that, after 1989, Mo Yan chose to present sensitive historical events with “daft hilarity.” These historical events include the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, in which millions of people died from famine and humiliating torture.3 Laughlin offers a retort to Link’s opinions in the essay, “What Mo Yan’s Detractors Get Wrong,” published in ChinaFile on December 11, 2012. For Laughlin, working inside the system does not necessary mean a writer is a coward or loyal to the Party. Some may choose to function inside the system because “they prefer not to live in exile” and are creating a “stimulating and diverse” Chinese contemporary culture. In addition, Laughlin argues that Mo Yan elected to write about some sensitive moments “because they were traumatic, not because they were hilarious.” He claims that Mo Yan’s fiction is satirical. It satirizes “the inhumanity of self-serving and hypocritical government officials” and “the style and narrative conventions of the orthodox socialist literature of the past, with its celebration of unbelievable heroes and cartoonish oversimplification of society and history.”4 In this passage, Laughlin uses the word “satire” to explain the approach that Mo Yan uses as a means of exposing the harm that Chinese experienced in history and the negative political influence on literature. Link, in turn, fought back against Laughlin in his “Politics and Chinese Language: What Mo Yan’s Defenders Get Wrong,” also in ChinaFile on December 24, 2012. Here Link argues 3 Perry Link, “Does This Writer Deserve the Prize?” The New York Review of Books, December 6, 2012, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/dec/06/mo-yan-nobel-prize/ (accessed March 2, 2013). 4 Charles Laughlin, “What Mo Yan’s Detractors Get Wrong,” ChinaFile, December 11, 2012, http://www.chinafile.com/what-mo-yan%E2%80%99s-detractors-get-wrong (accessed March 2, 2013). - 5 - that Mo Yan’s language, according to comments of another critic, Sun Xiaodong, is “a jumble of words that juxtaposes rural vernacular, clichéd socialist rhetoric, and literary affectation,” which “is hard to read as satire and at least some of it seems quite inadvertent.” Link insists that Mo Yan avoids the cruelty of history, seeing only flippancy in Mo Yan’s language. For Link, Mo Yan “distorts” history in order “to preserve his career prospects under Party rule.”5 In other words, in Link’s opinion, Mo Yan, as a writer inside the system, cannot possibly satirize problems of that system. In part, the dispute between Link and Laughlin revolves around different understandings of what ‘satire’ entails or about how to identify it. We will address the question of how to define satire later in this chapter. When we talk about whether Mo Yan’s works are satire, we are also talking about the relationship between a political system and Mo Yan and/or his works. Mo Yan’s case is not the only one. In fact, whenever we discuss Chinese satire after 1949, it is almost inevitable that we consider the relationship between the writer, his/ her works, and the government. For instance, between 1956 and early 1957, in the Hundred Flowers Campaign (“Baihuaqifang yundong” 百花齊放運動), which was launched by Mao Zedong (1893-1976) and during which intellectuals were encouraged to speak out freely, Wang Meng王蒙 (1934-) made use of satire to expose the drawbacks of officialdom within the Party in his “A Young Newcomer at the Organization Department” (“Zuzhibu xinlaide qingnianren” 組織部新來的青 年人), published in People’s Literature (Renmin wenxue人民文學) in September 1956. Wang’s devotion toward the Party can be clearly seen in this story. He seemed to believe that officialdom was a problem involving only a small number of officials. However, the result was that Wang, 5 Perry Link, “Politics and Chinese Language: What Mo Yan’s Defenders Get Wrong,” ChinaFile, December 24, 2012, http://www.chinafile.com/politics-and-chinese-language (accessed March 2, 2013). - 6 - together with other intellectuals who criticized the Party or provided suggestions to the Party, was labeled rightist in the Anti-Rightist Movement of 1957 and sent to laogai 勞改 (a labor camp for dissenters). In the present time, blog articles by Han Han 韓寒 (1982-), a writer influential among young Chinese people since the end of the 20th century, have often been censored for their satiric commentary on government corruption. The faith toward the Party seen in Wang Meng’s satirical story cannot be found in Han’s works, which seem instead to indicate that the Chinese government is unlikely to correct its mistakes. Meanwhile, among intellectuals, because Han Han’s satirical essays point out many political, social, and cultural problems in contemporary China, are embraced by younger generations, and seem to create pressure on the authorities, there are discussions about whether Han Han could be the next Lu Xun.6 Works of political satire constantly influence the development of contemporary Chinese literature. In those works, writers use satire to expose various aspects of government problems or to express their discontent toward political authority. The extent to which writers reflect the expectation of reform from a political system which might self-correct should be judged from the political and social context in which they write and their attitude toward the authority. When did political