With its booming economic growth, the Olympics and Tibet (yet again), China is
never out of the headlines. And now, the cultural machine has kicked into
gear in Britain with China Now, a huge, year-long festival backed by big
corporate sponsors and the cultural diplomacy of the People’s Republic and
the British government. Given Beijing’s intransigent stance on censorship
(witness its recent blacklisting of Tang Wei, the star of Ang Lee’s Lust,
Caution), there are always concerns that political issues take precedence
over artistic integrity whenever Chinese cultural events are promoted in the
West.
And what constitutes “Chinese” culture, anyway? Are we to be restricted to
officially sanctioned mainland Chinese performers? What follows is a
cherry-picking of writers, film-makers, performing and visual artists who
are genuinely representative of contemporary Chinese artistic and cultural
expression. The list includes those who are banned in China itself - and,
indeed, some who are not even from China.
Literature
Two heavyweight Chinese novels arrive in Britain this spring. The first, Jiang
Rong’s Wolf Totem, has won the Man Booker Asian prize and
sold 4m official copies in China, with the counterfeit market adding perhaps
twice that. An explosive, if sometimes simplistic, mixture of social
documentary and action adventure, it recounts the experiences of a young
Beijing intellectual who volunteers to live with nomadic Mongol herdsmen in
the remote grasslands of northeastern China during the early years of the
Cultural Revolution. In this place of harsh beauty, Mongols and wolves have
established a complex relationship that works to preserve the delicate
ecology of the plains. But the arrival of Han Chinese migrants under Mao’s
new agricultural policies spells disaster for this way of life as the novel
reaches its crushing conclusion. The blend of large-scale storytelling,
intriguing detail and self-questioning discourse makes for a particularly
Chinese novel.
A different proposition altogether is Beijing Coma by Ma Jian, who
lives in the UK and whose work is banned in China. At once sprawling and
intimate, the novel is a record of the Tiananmen protests and the resulting
massacre of June 1989. Narrated by a young student, Dai Wei, the novel
reconstructs the atmosphere of the fateful period with startling clarity. As
the students gather in the square in makeshift tents, falling in love and
engaging in earnest discussions, their idealism is already tinged with a
dreadful foreboding; Dai Wei himself does not know that in a few days’ time
he will be shot in the head and spend the next 10 years in a coma, during
which his memories become more real than life itself. Pregnant with brooding
introspection, this is certain to be one of the novels of this – or any
other – year.
What of the younger generation? Two women stand out: Xiaolu Guo, author of A
Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, and Yiyun Li, whose
outstanding A Thousand Years of Good Prayers won the Guardian First
Book award. Brought up in a China already in transition, their work is
infused with a wry humour and concerned not so much with the restrictions on
individual liberty but with the difficulties of cultural change.
Performing Arts
The acclaimed Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan returns to the UK in
April with Moon Water, a work that examines Buddhist notions of time and
reality through choreography inspired by t’ai chi techniques and set to
Bach’s Cello Suites. When China’s cultural identity is becoming more
intricately involved with that of other countries, Bahok, the
collaboration between the Akram Khan Company and the National
Ballet of China, seems especially relevant. A powerful examination of
migration and alienation, Bahok returns to the UK in May.
The UK-based Silk String Quartet perform contemporary commissions and
modern interpretations of classical pieces on traditional instruments. They
will perform 12 concerts in the UK this spring and summer. Amid the dazzling
array of Chinese musicians in the western classical canon - Chinese
pianists, in particular, are taking the world by storm - it seems curious to
shine the spotlight on a guitarist. That the guitar, with its hot-blooded
Spanish influences, is such an unChinese choice of instrument makes Xuefei
Yang all the more remarkable. Alongside Joaquin Rodrigo and Francisco
Tarrega, she plays contemporary arrangements by composers such as Xiaoyong
Chen. This year, she will perform across the UK, including the Wigmore Hall
in London.
Chinese-language pop has a colossal following in East Asia, but it will be a
while before many western listeners learn enough Mandarin to sing along.
Those who can are likely to programme their karaoke sets to Wang Leehom,
whose stylish fusion of hip-hop, classical Chinese instrumentation and
full-on ballads has made him a household name even in non-Chinese-speaking
countries. Top off all this with a touch of bling, and you have the essence
of contemporary East Asia.
Film
The so-called Fifth Generation of Chinese film-makers led by Zhang Yimou, Tian
Zhuangzhuang and Chen Kaige brought Chinese cinema to the world’s attention
in the late 1980s. Charged with reinventing Chinese cinematic tradition,
they produced work rich with political undertones, which often brought them
into conflict with mainland censors. Today, Zhang has progressed from
controversial works such as Raise the Red Lantern to lavish blockbusters
such as Hero and House of Flying Daggers, and has been chosen as artistic
director of the Olympic Games ceremonies. His early collaborator Chen
Kaige has been more successful in making films that retain both the
startling visual aesthetic and the sense of loss and confusion that
distinguished his epic Farewell, My Concubine, one of the defining films of
the Chinese cinema revival. He is at his best pairing intimate personal
tragedies with a backdrop of socio-political change; his anticipated biopic
of the 20th-century Beijing Opera star Mei Lanfang is due out later
this year.
British audiences can sample the most underrated of the triumvirate, Tian
Zhuangzhuang, with the ICA screening an extended run of his brilliant The
Go Master, set against the Sino-Japanese war, alongside masterpieces
such as Springtime in a Small Town, The Horse Thief and the documentary
Delamu, highlighting concern for China’s ethnic minorities.
The leading light of what is already being nicknamed the “Sixth” generation of
mainland Chinese film-makers is Jia Zhangke. Despite winning the 2006 Golden
Lion prize at Venice for Still Life, set in a village being destroyed
by the building of the Three Gorges dam, he is still relatively unknown
here. Shot in an unflinching documentary style, his work can feel like a
conscious rejection of the lush cinematography of the Fifth Generation, but
in another way it is an entirely logical – and powerful –
evolution of the very Chinese qualities of loss, longing and introspection.
At the other end of the mainland film-making spectrum is Feng Xiaogang,
whose unashamedly commercial films such as The Banquet and The Assembly(on
release now) represent a different aspect of ultra-confident contemporary
China.
If we leave aside the (admittedly huge) political issue of Taiwanese
independence and concentrate on cultural sensibilities, it is illogical not
to include Taiwan in any discussion of Chinese culture. Not only do the
Taiwanese film-makers work in the same language and share actors, it is
clear the development of mainland cinema owes much to the great Taiwanese
names such as Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Edward Yang and, indeed, Ang Lee. Free from
political constraints, they were able to establish a more sophisticated
tradition of social commentary. The current star Taiwanese director is the
Malaysian-born Tsai Ming-Liang, the darling of art-house cinemas across
Europe and one of the leaders of the Chinese avant-garde. His work is full
of haunting beauty and uncomfortable social relations; his latest, I
Don’t Want to Sleep Alone, set in a derelict building in Kuala
Lumpur, is a stark examination of urban loneliness.
Exhibitions
The V&A’s China Design Now provides insight into a
quintessentially 21st-century Chinese attitude: obsession with advancement
and technology, and ruthless sweeping away of anything that might seem
obsolete or backward. On a more modest scale, the Chinatown Arts Spaceis
a valuable initiative based in London, providing support for British East
Asian visual and performing artists. It also organises the Five Circles
Arts Festival, on now.
The Harmony Silk Factory by Tash Aw is published by HarperPerennial
