張隆溪教授講辭
Zhang Longxi
Chair Professor of Comparative Literature & Translation
City University of Hong Kong
The Cultural Revolution that raged from 1966 to 1976 was a disastrous period in recent Chinese history, a decade of senseless political infighting and tremendous damage to China’s culture and economy. The tight ideological control made it impossible to have any literary works produced at that time, as all literature, be it Chinese or foreign, was condemned as poisonous weeds and almost all books were committed to destruction by fire. The creative desire and energy among young people, however, was irrepressible even in such dark times, and there was already a sort of samizdat literary production, a few works handwritten on thin paper and circulating in secret among young students who were sent down to the country to work in the mountains or the paddy fields. Jintian《今天》or Today became a shining example of such literary creativity that drew its inspiration and rich materials from the painful experience of life under repression.
The end of the Cultural Revolution following the death of Mao in 1976, and particularly the reopening of universities in China after a decade of standstill, became the great turning point of China’s fate, a vital step towards reform and opening up that gradually succeeded to get the country back on its feet. For millions of young Chinese at the time, the reopening of the university and resumption of the examination system meant tremendous opportunities to change their lives, to get out of the dark shadow of the Cultural Revolution and its ideological repression into the liberation of the mind and new prospects of their lives. Literature became a way to give expression to their ideas, their new hopes and visions. What is known as “scar literature” became the first wave of new literature in the late 1970s that exposed the physical and mental damage to the average Chinese perpetuated during the Cultural Revolution, and significantly the term came from a short story entitled “Scar” (shang hen 傷痕) published in the Shanghai newspaper Wen Hui Bao in 1978, written by Lu Xinhua, a freshman at Fudan University at the time. Literary magazines and poetry groups mushroomed in almost all university campuses and provided young students with many opportunities to express themselves. The collection of publications of such literary groups of college students in post-Mao China thus has great value as evidences of an important period of recent history yet to be fully explored for its meaning and lessons for all of us, and when we look back at that period of history after more than thirty years, when we read those poems and literary works composed at the time, we may have a strong sense of the excitement of the big changes taking place in China then, and we may still feel inspired by those young authors, their hopes and desires for a new future, and we are also reminded of the violence, cruelty, and senselessness of a nightmarish past that is too close to be brushed away easily. China now has changed so much that the Cultural Revolution and its apparent irrationality seem to have faded into a remote past, not least because of the official policy that still forbids or discourages open discussion of that period of history. For that very reason, the literary works collected here at CityU becomes even more valuable as testimonies to a period of history we need revisit and reflect upon for the benefit of the future.
Chair Professor of Comparative Literature & Translation
City University of Hong Kong
The Cultural Revolution that raged from 1966 to 1976 was a disastrous period in recent Chinese history, a decade of senseless political infighting and tremendous damage to China’s culture and economy. The tight ideological control made it impossible to have any literary works produced at that time, as all literature, be it Chinese or foreign, was condemned as poisonous weeds and almost all books were committed to destruction by fire. The creative desire and energy among young people, however, was irrepressible even in such dark times, and there was already a sort of samizdat literary production, a few works handwritten on thin paper and circulating in secret among young students who were sent down to the country to work in the mountains or the paddy fields. Jintian《今天》or Today became a shining example of such literary creativity that drew its inspiration and rich materials from the painful experience of life under repression.
The end of the Cultural Revolution following the death of Mao in 1976, and particularly the reopening of universities in China after a decade of standstill, became the great turning point of China’s fate, a vital step towards reform and opening up that gradually succeeded to get the country back on its feet. For millions of young Chinese at the time, the reopening of the university and resumption of the examination system meant tremendous opportunities to change their lives, to get out of the dark shadow of the Cultural Revolution and its ideological repression into the liberation of the mind and new prospects of their lives. Literature became a way to give expression to their ideas, their new hopes and visions. What is known as “scar literature” became the first wave of new literature in the late 1970s that exposed the physical and mental damage to the average Chinese perpetuated during the Cultural Revolution, and significantly the term came from a short story entitled “Scar” (shang hen 傷痕) published in the Shanghai newspaper Wen Hui Bao in 1978, written by Lu Xinhua, a freshman at Fudan University at the time. Literary magazines and poetry groups mushroomed in almost all university campuses and provided young students with many opportunities to express themselves. The collection of publications of such literary groups of college students in post-Mao China thus has great value as evidences of an important period of recent history yet to be fully explored for its meaning and lessons for all of us, and when we look back at that period of history after more than thirty years, when we read those poems and literary works composed at the time, we may have a strong sense of the excitement of the big changes taking place in China then, and we may still feel inspired by those young authors, their hopes and desires for a new future, and we are also reminded of the violence, cruelty, and senselessness of a nightmarish past that is too close to be brushed away easily. China now has changed so much that the Cultural Revolution and its apparent irrationality seem to have faded into a remote past, not least because of the official policy that still forbids or discourages open discussion of that period of history. For that very reason, the literary works collected here at CityU becomes even more valuable as testimonies to a period of history we need revisit and reflect upon for the benefit of the future.
