A couple of weeks ago on a Friday night I was lying in bed trying to go to sleep--but thinking of China. A thought came to mind that crystallized many other thoughts concerning Seeking the Soul of China. The thought that came to mind was, "Every Chinese I know is in pain." That thought was followed closely by another,"Every Chinese I know of is in pain." Pain is a sensation so primal that if it is true, as I indeed believe it is, that pain afflicts more Chinese than, say Americans, and that this has historically been true, then, as in the diagram, pain affects everything else Chinese and is at least a powerful marker to the soul of China.
Jung Chang said something to me once that I have never forgotten: "there is a greater tolerance for cruelty among Chinese," and that statement is consistent with the theme here. Cruelty is an extreme form of pain. Kill a person in America in a "heinous, atrocious or cruel" manner and you can get yourself executed. There is unspeakable cruelty in Chinese history--as there is in American history and in every people's history. Ms. Chang's statement was not that Chinese are cruel or more cruel. Ms. Chang's statement was that there is a greater "tolerance" for cruelty among Chinese, that is that the Chinese people accept it more readily. And this is the key difference from say, America: Chinese tolerate cruelty more readily even when they are the victims of cruelty. Bian Zhongyun knowingly walked to her death on August 5, 1966. Girls, "good girls," beat her to death. Good girls also watched her being beaten to death. That is "tolerating" cruelty, as a people. There is great cruelty in American murder but Americans as a people do not tolerate it. We execute people who inflict it, we are compelled to be witnesses to it in our courts of law.
And this tolerance of cruelty by Chinese is historically ancient. Practices such as the Nine Exterminations, Death by Slicing, and "swap child, make food" are not confined to a discrete, aberrational period. They have been practiced for many centuries. These practices are aberrational in the sense that only a small percentage of Chinese engaged in them, but the rest of Chinese tolerated them--and well into the twentieth century. In this sense then I believe it is accurate to say that pain, even the extreme form known as cruelty, is a significant part of, and an important marker to, the soul of China.
This thing, the soul, of China, has occupied me for many months. I believe that it is meaningful to attempt to get at it. I don't think it is too amorphous for serious seeking. I believe that a people have an "identity," as Americans, I believe, can be meaningfully identified as, among other things, a "happy" people. A people's identity is not necessarily immutable, I believe in fact that human beings are supremely mutable. Without mutability our species would not have survived. So a people's soul, happy, sad--and whatever pain points to--is not "The End." The soul of a people, just as the soul of a person, can change, and I hold that there is some meaningful way to speak seriously about the soul of a person, or a people. That is, I believe that the soul as an intellectual concept is "seekable."
I have not been able to get at the soul of China. But my night thought pointed me somewhere where I hope that I might, or at least get closer. I do see pain in all Chinese I know, and that I know of. In my communications with Chinese through whatever medium, I see pain. Sometimes it is directly expressed. A friend began to write for Public Occurrences about his experiences in the Cultural Revolution but then emailed me and said it was too painful to continue. In response to my Christmas greeting last year, XYZ wrote, "Too many sad things in China this year, bad signs." In others the pain is more indirectly expressed. There is what I would term a "plaintive" tone. Do you remember how the person who discovered the bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman described having his attention drawn to that horrific scene? The man said it was the "plaintive wail" of Nicole's little dog. Instantly, we all understood that, we could hear it ourselves. It was a poignant, supremely eloquent description. And that was a human being interpreting--accurately--the sound made by another species.
The note that I received with the Hu Jie film is very positive but there is there too what I see as this same plaintive quality. When, for example, the author writes, "I believe we can fully understand each other in heart!", I see it. "Heart" is very close to "soul," maybe synonymous.
Again and again I see the same thing when Chinese write to me, there is a plaintive reaching out, from the "heart," to a person so foreign and so distant. I think, as the author of the note alludes to, that Chinese feel misunderstood and that they are...desperate maybe, maybe that's too strong...but something like that, "very desirous," of expressing themselves and being understood. And there is a plaintive quality to their desire and their reaching out.
I do believe that all of this is true, and it will serve as preamble to future writing on the subject. It also applies to the following email that I received a couple of weeks ago:
Dear Mr. Benjamin Harris:
I make bold to write to you requesting your kindness help. I know you are a compassionate Lawyer and have interest to Chinese Culture Revolution.
I send you an article wrote by me “The whole process Chinese Culture Revolution is a series of coups”, hope that you have interest and have time to correct it to publish, and we could share to sign the author names, becauce the article now is not worth to publish, and I am not a sociology or history researcher, only I interest it and I have experienced the Culture Revolution.My father was persecuted to death during the Culture Revolution. Now the Chinese people really has the trend of forget the history, I think it is my duty to remind people the lesson of Chinese Cultural Revolution history.
My name is Chang Mu. Now I am a retired professor of biochemistry in*, China. I was born in 1949, now live in*and have time and interest to write story about the the Culture Revolution. Some of the stories I have translated into English I need some one help me to correct my bad English writing to publish in USA.
If you have the interest to cooperate with me to write articles to introduce Chinese Cultural Revolution to the world, I will soon send several articles to you. I hope you will be interested and will kindly do what you can do for me and give me a reply at your earliest convenience.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sncerely,
Chang Mu
Don't you see it, too? Is there not a "plaintive" quality in this dear man's communication?
With this introduction, I will begin next time to publish Chang Mu's writing.
*ellipses denote deletions to protect identity.
