Yang Jiang's Newest Interview (2/2)

The interview

Throughout her report, Lily Hsueh draws family-style ties to Yang Jiang. Why does Yang Jiang welcome, and even seem to like, Lily? Because, Lily surmises, Lily is just the age that Yang Jiang's daughter would be, if she were still alive. And Yang Jiang is just one year older than Lily's mother who died the previous spring. Mother and daughter alike had enjoyed all of the biographical literature by and about Yang Jiang since 2003; both had admired her as a role model. Lily brought a gift of an illustrated book about cats to give Yang Jiang, exactly as if Yang Jiang were an elder relative. Most importantly, Lily thinks of Yang Jiang with a high level of respect, to the point of reverence for her age, her person, and even the domestic space of Sanlihe, Yang Jiang's home.

Sanlihe, the old-style apartment where Yang Jiang has lived since 1979, is a special space for Lily Hsueh, a sanctuary from the ever-changing face of Beijing, a place where time seems to stop and move backward, and a place with an almost mystical presence of humanistic aesthetic feeling. Almost immediately upon entering the building, Lily Hsueh feels more peaceful, and more at ease.

Yang Jiang herself is a living icon for Lily Hsueh. Her very person, well-preserved at great age is of great interest -- her appearance: good teeth, red lips, clear complexion. Even her hearing loss, now severe, is the subject of a humorous anecdote that serves to increase the level of reverence for her elder status. The person Yang Jiang, it is evident, serves as a symbol for her literary work, which is a form of preservation:

保存对一个人的宝贵记忆，最妥善的方法，不也是通过文字留存吗﹖

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Ms. Hsueh sees in Yang Jiang's preserving-personality and writing traces of both Jane Austen, who Yang Jiang studied in the 1950s, and Huang Fu 黄蓉, a character in a Jin Yong novel who must take care of a warrior-husband the way Yang Jiang took care of Qian Zhongshu. The combination of traditional and modern, Chinese and Western, is a deep inspiration to Hsueh.

In 1995, when Hsueh accepted a signed copy of Qian Zhongshu's poetry collection from Yang Jiang, Yang signed her name and Qian's as well, because Qian had already become so ill he lived in a hospital, isolated from all but Yang Jiang and close friends. Yang Jiang signed Lily Hsueh's copy of the book with the note

『夫在先，妻在后』The husband comes first, and the wife follows.

This had upset Lily at the time, because she could not understand why such a sophisticated and independent woman would so submit to old cultural codes. Only years later did she learn what Yang Jiang really meant: that it was better the husband become ill and pass away first, because the wife is stronger, more able to care for him than he for her. So in the proper course of things, the husband should die first, and the wife will follow along in good time. In this way, Yang Jiang gives new value to a traditional concept, effectively empowering female subjectivity -- hence in the end, Lily affirms that Yang Jiang is a 'role model' for the younger woman.