Literary Master 1983

Chapter 170 Recognizing the Ancestor and Returning to the Clan
When Yu Qi learned about this, he was not surprised at all.

Since the reform and opening up, overseas Chinese investment has accounted for more than 60% of China's foreign investment. Whether in the war years or after the reform and opening up, Chinese compatriots have always enthusiastically supported the development of the mainland.

The "foreign capital" introduced in the 1980s was completely supported by overseas Chinese.

At that time, the mainland had not yet demonstrated economies of scale, and giant multinational corporations were cautious and stingy in their investments, believing that all aspects of the mainland, from production lines to management systems, needed reform.

When Zhang Ruimin, who was transferred to be the factory director of Haier Electric Appliances Company in the north, first arrived, his first rule was "Employees are not allowed to poop in the workshop!"

These things seem incredible today, let alone mature multinational companies in the 1980s. The overseas Chinese made initial foreign investments in various industries based on their feelings that transcended the business model.

Yu Qie was soon pulled in to be interviewed and appear on a show.

A TV station established by local Chinese invited him to talk about the "behind-the-scenes story of the creation". He talked about his original intention: "I originally wanted to write a novel criticizing capitalist society, but I ended up seeing the Chinese people's inheritance of culture, and I saw our persistence and pride. I felt that I had the ability and obligation to write a novel."

The reporter asked him: "From Kowloon Walled City to Nanyang society, how do you view the 'culture' in your novels?"

"Culture is a state of civilization. If you want to understand our nation, you cannot look at it from the perspective of a conventional administrative entity. China is here. It is a living state, and everyone is a part of it."

"Can you describe it a little more specifically?"

Yu Qie gave an analogy: "In our mainland, UFOs (unidentified flying objects) and aliens are now popular. I think if there is such a high-dimensional civilization in this world that exceeds the scale of all civilizations, they are determined to destroy some civilizations and preserve some civilizations. They set a question and asked, what is the area formula of a triangle?"

"Then we answered 'half the width times the base', which means that the area of ​​a triangle is equal to half the product of the height and the length of the base. Of course, this view is still very superficial for that higher-dimensional civilization, but they know that this is a nation with its own culture and its own thinking. This civilization is worth preserving. We think so too."

Yu Qi's answer was meaningful. Some people believed that what he meant by "high-dimensional civilization" was the Western civilization after the Industrial Revolution. He said that although Chinese culture is now materially backward, it has found the way and has great potential.

Some people also believe that Yu Qie is once again criticizing the persecution of the Chinese by the indigenous people, because as we all know, the entire development history of Southeast Asia is that the mainlanders brought the intensive farming technology and social ethics, and the local indigenous people’s rejection of the Chinese is simply the opposite of heaven.

In Thailand and several neighboring Southeast Asian countries, the novel "A Way Out" also caused a sensation in the Chinese literary world.

Nanyang Chinese literature has always been a little-known small branch, from which many good writers and good works have emerged, ranging from early travel notes and escape notes to modern epics, novels and essays.

Starting from the 20s, Nanyang writers represented by Qiu Shuyuan combined the local customs of Nanyang with the national salvation movement on the mainland at that time, and once led the literary scene of the local small country.

However, in the 1950s and 1960s, after several setbacks from reality, this type of novel temporarily died out. Historically, it was not until the late 1980s and early 1990s that new Chinese writers began to trace back to past history and create works such as "The Bloodless Revolution in the Philippines", "Wild Bodhisattva", "Tropical Rainy Season", and "Monsters on the Equator".

Yu Qie was the first to fire the first shot, and his novel served as a rallying cry:
In those days, Yu Dafu wrote "Sinking" and Qian Zhongshu wrote "Fortress Besieged", both of which involved things about Southeast Asia. Does this mean that for novels about the history of Chinese in Southeast Asia, we can only wait for our compatriots from the mainland to write them for us?
Can’t we write it ourselves?

The writers active in the Nanyang circle either created some short stories and published them in magazines and journals, or directly made a literary appreciation of Yu Qie's "The Way Out".

Zhang Guixing, a Malay who just graduated from Formosa Normal University, wrote a paper titled "Chineseness and Performativity: On the Limits of Malaysian Chinese Literature and Culture". His viewpoint points directly to the core contradiction of Chinese literature:

In the past, Nanyang Chinese literature was subordinate to the "May Fourth Literature" and was a branch of domestic literature that spread overseas. It was a novel that was closely coordinated with the national salvation movement.

But today, with the passage of time and the change of circumstances, Nanyang Chinese literature has lost its vitality. People superficially believe that writing "calligraphy, lion and dragon dances" is Chinese literature. However, this kind of thing is just performative literature, written for the sake of writing.

Nanyang has its own historical characteristics, and the society grew up in misery. Instead of writing about those happy cultural symbols, it is better to face the bleak reality.

As soon as this article came out, it immediately triggered even greater controversy. For a time, there was the "weaning theory" that announced the end of ties with the "motherland" and strived to develop a complete local literature; there were also those who pointed out that the traditional culture of the mainland was the root and source of Chinese literature, and that it could not be left behind no matter what.

Literary professors from Malaysia, Thailand and other places expressed their opinions and engaged in a series of literary battles. Although Yu Qie did not get involved in these local debates, it was because of his novel that everyone realized many problems in the original novel, and everyone was watching the final ending of "A Way Out".

In early September, the final chapter of "A Way Out" was published in the "Zhonghua Daily". At the same time, the single volumes of the novel "A Way Out" were compiled into a book under the arrangement of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce and were ready to be put on the market.

Readers only saw that the original protagonists all came to the end of their lives after entering the 1980s. They all returned to the mainland to visit their relatives. With the help of the mainland government, the wanderers who had been away from home for decades re-engraved their names in the family tree. They bowed to their dead ancestors and strolled on the ridges they had walked on when they were children. The fragrance of the soil and the noise of firecrackers brought people's memories back to the war-torn 1920s.

Before they left, they were teenagers, some even younger, but now they are old, with gray hair on their temples. Their parents and elders have all passed away, and business and careers no longer seem to be important, and all kinds of ideologies and political ideas have been diluted.

All that remains is endless sorrow and memories.

There, children with the same surname and generation as them were looking at them with smiles on their faces.

"You're here?" Another child, a child of the same generation, clapped his hands, "Brother, you're finally back."

The ending of the novel "A Way Out" is destined to go down in history!

(End of this chapter)