The Wounded

A Scarred Youth

"Scar" Literature, aka "wound" (shanghen 傷痕) literature, is the term for the soul-searching stories that came out in a flood immediately following the Cultural Revolution. Writing about recent literary trends in 1984, scholar Judith Shapiro describes "scar" literature as enjoying a brief heyday between the fall of the so-called "Gang of Four" (Madame Mao and three other Chinese leaders who ended up taking the blame for the Cultural Revolution) and the Deng Xiaoping's consolidation of power in October, 1980. Yang Jiang's memoir Six Chapters of a Cadre School shares many of the general themes of scar literature stories: the abused intellectual class, confused and disillusioned youth, and the general madness of intense, years-long political movements that swept up virtually all of the urban classes. Still, an almost constant refrain has it that Yang Jiang's writing is far better than any stories from the "scar" literature movement.

Well, what are some of these "scar" stories, anyway? I figured I'd better check some out myself.

Lee, Bennett, ed. The Wounded: New Stories of the Cultural Revolution, 77-78. Hongkong: Joint Publishing Company, 1979.

"Ha, everything is lies, lies. I've seen through it all!"

"Sacred Duty," "Class Counsellor," and "'Awake, My Brother!'" all feature members of the older generation, the generation that had experienced the war years and the first decades of Communist rule. Though Bennett Lee's introduction focuses only on the younger generation that came of age during the years 1966-1976, the so-called "lost generation," it is these members of the older generation who re-store faith to the "lost generation" in all of these stories. In each case, young people are compelled to leave a state of apathy or non-action, to re-enter the "mundane world" with a renewed faith in Chinas new leaders. While returning to a state of political engagement required members the "lost generation" to spurn the actions of the Gang of Four, Lin Biao and other leaders of China during the Cultural Revolution, it was also necessary for the young people in these stories to find viable role models in the older generation.

Wang Gongbo: Not just a Communist, but a Good Person.

I particularly liked the story "Sacred Duty," a tale of a hardened but ultimately faithful and virtuous police inspector, Wang Gongbo, who is released from a cadre school in 1975 at the age 59. Wang has been pulled from the labor camp and placed in charge of a special investigation regarding the case of an innocent man convicted of rape. As the plot twists and turns, we learn that the alleged rape victim, a girl named Yang Qiong, has been co-erced into false testimony against the innocent man, Wang Shuo, as part of a plot among her parents and other dastardly affiliates of the Gang of Four. These enemies of the state told Yang Qiong that her false testimony was a necessary sacrifice for the nation, but after Wang Shuo is convicted of rape and sent to prison, Yang Qiong is not able to forgive herself. Intrepid investigator Wang Gongbo tracks her down in another town, where she has fled her past and taken a new name, Ai Hua:

Ai Hua was looking thoughtfully at the hardened and experienced old man in front of her. Something that had always been very difficult for her to grasp suddenly became clear: this is what a common, yet at the same time great, man was like. It was in that same instant that she realized she had the courage to say what she had made her deepest and most carefully kept secret for the past eight years. She leaned against the windowsill, her hand shaking uncontrollably. Her face was stiffened by mixed and conflicting emotions, yet it was already lit with something new, a spirit of determination.

This is the existential moment when Ai Hua makes the decision to return to the world, to live again with certainty about what is good. I like it very much, partly because the clear, simple language of the passage shows us a member of the "lost generation" inspired by the very appearance of this upright old man. Visual cues in this and other stories -- a firm, implacable look, worn clothes with all the buttons done up just so -- are crucial in convincing lost youth that the world is more than a pack of lies, and that there is goodness in the world. Another reason this scene works is that it comes as the conclusion to a crime thriller. The perpetrator has been caught by the expert police work of our hero, despite aggressive opposition from the forces of Lin Biao and the Gang of Four -- at the very moment the passage above occurs, a contingent from the Public Safety Bureau has been sent to arrest Wang Gongbo and stop his investigation from getting to close to the truth. Wang Gongbo has caught his man, and she has turned out to be a young person whose trust has been sadly betrayed by her own parents. But that trust can be regained, if she joins him to stop the forces of corruption and right the wrong she committed during the Cultural Revolution. Wang Gongbo is just a touch younger than Yang Jiang would have been in 1975, and also a man and a political leader for young people to look up to. But I wonder if there is a connection in that Yang Jiang's readers have always included young people with a still-developing set of political and moral values. We might closely compare the cool, implacable way that both elders carry themselves: each in their own distinct ways preserve at all times personal dignity and respect for others. As A. would say, they carry themselves through the difficult times "with aplomb." Broadly speaking, I think that Yang Jiang shares with other scar literature portraits of good people; the main distinction is just in the character of the portraits.