Hong Kong Book Fair ｜ Cha Jianying： Cross-regional, cross-contextual and cross-stylistic, so writing is very painful.

On July 16th, famous writer Cha Jianying and critic Huang Ziping held a talk on "Advantages and pitfalls of cross-context/cross-regional writing" at the Hong Kong Book Fair. Over the years, Cha Jianying said frankly that it is very natural and unrestrained. In fact, the process is full of painful entanglements and doubts, and it is necessary to constantly adjust and learn.

Going to America: People don’t know what they look like until they look in the mirror.

Cha Jianying studied in Peking University, the University of South Carolina and Columbia University from 1978 to 1987, and returned to China in 1987 and the United States in the 1990s. In 2003, he won the Guggenheim Writing Fund of the United States and returned to China. The experience of constantly traveling in different countries has formed her unique experience of "cross-regional" writing. She is not only good at writing in Chinese, but also good at writing in English. She once wrote for The New Yorker magazine, and her long-term English writing experience gave her a unique perspective of writing across contexts.

Cha Jianying summed up that in addition to cross-regional and cross-context, he actually experienced a cross-stylistic writing transformation, from the initial novel writing to the current documentary style. For example, "Interview in the 1980s" and "Wandering in the Tide" have attracted wide attention at home and abroad. Looking back on his experience in these years, Cha Jianying said that he went to the United States before he was 22 years old, and he has been wandering between the two countries since then. Although he wrote in English, the core problem he dealt with was how to look at China and tell Americans the story of contemporary China. "People have to get out of the original area and look in the mirror before they know what they look like. What I didn’t expect at that time was that after this foot stepped out, it would affect how I look at China."

But the trap is that many Chinese are trapped in a context of "Little China" after going out. For various reasons, Cha Jianying went to a remote place in the United States. At that time, she could not speak a word of English, so she was very grateful to the visa officer. At that time, the visa officer talked with her for a few sentences and said, "I think they made a terrible decision.". At that time, when she heard this, her heart was half cold, but unexpectedly, his second half sentence was, "go ahead and good luck."

I was an early individualist, but I was still trapped in the 1980s.

At that time, there were almost no Chinese in the University of South Carolina in the United States, and it was almost cut off from China. At that time, her friends teased her and said, "Xiao Xiao, you are in Guizhou, the United States!" At first, American individualism and independent thinking had a particularly great influence on her. In the 1980s, she returned to Beijing to experience the "cultural craze" of that era, and then returned to the United States. "Speaking of it, I was an early individualist, but I was still trapped in the 1980s, and later I wanted to face it again."

After returning to the United States, I realized the importance of writing at a distance, which opened the writing from novel to documentary. "I began to reflect on the thick-line, elite-conscious, romantic and passionate writing in the 1980 s." In addition, I have seen some new news writing in the United States. Although it is a writer’s style, it is very calm and objective. It is represented by the style of The New Yorker that I began to learn. How important it is to keep a distance, be independent and consciously take a marginal position for writing, and professionalism has also inspired me a lot. It is important for both sides to constantly blend and reflect. "

Wandering between the two countries, Cha Jianying admits that every time he returns to Beijing, he is in a tangle of "distance can’t be opened". "I am completely two people in English and Chinese, especially twisting the bar, and returning to my mother tongue is immediately a kind of love and hate, and distance can’t be opened. The United States is like a place where I recuperate. I can retreat and distance myself. "

Experience of The New Yorker: Write it down and write it without passion.

Over the years, non-fiction writing has begun to rise, and reportage has declined. Cha Jianying is also particularly opposed to including his own works in reportage. "Reportage has a pattern, which is linked with a grand narrative, with a very passionate and subjective will, a broad vision, a high moral level and a literary passion. I write a report, not a literature or a literary report." She cited the editor of The New Yorker and her own experience as an example. "He said that you are a good writer, but you must pay attention to it: write it down and write it without passion. They always think that what I write is special literature. "

In addition, a Hong Kong friend reminded her to change her narrative style. "He said that passion is like a faucet. After the faucet is turned too big, it splashes everywhere. It is necessary to screw it down, not big, but accurate. Just like the traditional saying in China, the golden mean is misunderstood as having no edges and corners, but it is not the case. I have to keep reminding myself to wring the water dry. "

In Cha Jianying’s documentary style, repeated "conversations" and infinite "conversations" have become one thing in common. She said, "I am the kind of nature that delves into the dead end, and the other is professionalism. I want to see all aspects of a person. Those who love him and those who hate him, you have to listen to both sides to get the truth. It is absolutely impossible for" Frolic in the Tide ". These characters in the book are all overwhelmed. Although they are glamorous on the surface, this is real life. "

Today’s era: under the surface of extremely rich information, there is real poverty and homogenization.

Some readers suggested that Cha Jianying was not so handy when writing about entrepreneurs in "Wandering in the Tide". She said frankly, "Entrepreneurs are another kind of animals. I have been thinking that if I only write about familiar people-intellectuals, there is a limitation. I am not good at writing about people in small towns, workers and migrant workers. I didn’t write them, but there are some entrepreneurs in the city, or people I can associate with. It is also many times.

In the writings of Habermas and Benedict Anderson, the so-called "community" comes from "conversation". The two guests laughed and said that today we "have no conversation, only WeChat". Cha Jianying believes that in Anderson’s view, the establishment of civil society used to be through various means and methods, such as the establishment of a national museum to preserve the memories provided by the public. Habermas believes that cafes also have the same function. But in her view, today, that era is disappearing. "The new era brings new confusion. Under the surface of extremely rich information, there is real poverty and homogenization, and there is a lack of real community. How to re-establish it is a very difficult problem. I just recorded how some individuals face this era. "