Tiger writing: A tale of cultures and the interdependent self
Print Edition
IT is a bit difficult for me to comprehend Gish Jen, who has been thinking for nearly her whole life about the cultural and aesthetic differences between China, from where her parents emigrated in the 1940s, and America, where she was born and raised.
“With globalization in full swing, many people feared the Chinese would be one day more like the Americans, in the way they live and dream. But I don’t think so, because the two are, in the bones, at contradiction to one another,” Jen told Shanghai Daily recently.
To elaborate her point, she got up and moved another chair to my side of the table and asked: “Suppose you walk into a Starbucks and you want to sit down at your place, but this chair is right in front of you. What will you do?”
I said: “I will squeeze in through the gap and sit down.”
“Will you move the chair aside for your convenience?” she asked again.
“No. Why would I?” I replied.
She smiled and said: “See, that’s the difference. We Americans will move the chair ... When we see the chair in our way, we move it because it blocks the way. However, only 2 percent of southern Chinese, for example, Shanghaiers — according to a study done by Thomas Talhelm, a professor at the University of Michigan — will move the chairs if they are in the way. Instead of seeing it as a block, you see the gap in between.”
Expounding her thoughts further, Jen said the way we see things reflect a particular focus on different constructions of the self.
“By this I mean the independent, individualistic self that dominates in the West, especially America, and the interdependent, collectivist self that dominates in the East, including China …,” a thought she elaborates in her book, “Tiger Writing: Art, Culture, and the Interdependent Self,” which is a collection of talks that she delivered as the Massey Lectures at Harvard University.
It is also her first nonfiction effort.
Drawing on a rich array of sources, from paintings to behavioral studies to her father’s striking account of his childhood in China, this accessible book not only illuminates Jen’s own development and celebrated work but also explores the aesthetic and psychic roots of the independent and interdependent self — each mode of selfhood yielding a distinct way of observing, remembering and narrating the world.
“I used my father’s story to begin the book,” Jen said. “I don’t understand why he’d write it in that way. He doesn’t start with ‘I was born ...’ He doesn’t mention his birth at all until page 8, then he puts it in parentheses in conjunction with another event. That is very striking to me; this narrative is very different from the narratives I see in novels all the time.”
Jen said she sees writing as culture-making. The novel is fundamentally a Western form that values originality, authenticity, and the truth of individual experience.
By contrast, Eastern narrative emphasizes morality, cultural continuity, the everyday and the recurrent.
Gish Jen is currently teaching fiction writing at the New York University Shanghai. She will give a talk about “Tiger Writing” at M on the Bund on November 20. The book has been translated into Chinese and will be published by the Beijing World Publishing Corporation by the end of the month.
“I’m glad my publisher is very enthusiastic about the outcome of the Chinese edition of my book. I have a big interest in seeing the culture open up and lighten up, and I have a very big interest in helping it float a little bit. Float and be fluid and responsive to human being,” Jen said.
What does reading and writing mean to you?
Reading and writing mean a great many things. They are a source of entertainment; of understanding; of solace; of stimulation; and of pleasure. Of all those things, though, I would probably single out understanding as the most important. We can get the other things from many sources. Reading and writing, though, afford us an unusually direct link to the hearts and minds of others.
What kind of books/stories do you prefer to read these days?
I read everything! I don’t care anymore if the fiction that I read is technically — line-by-line — perfect, only that it is moving. Most recently, though, I have trying to understand what my daughter responds to and why. She loved Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude” and Annie Dillard’s “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.” Less interesting to her is a book that we in America tend to assume all teenagers like, “Catcher in the Rye.” Why? — I’m not sure.
What do you think is a major criterion for being a good writer?
A great many things go into a good writer. However, above all, perhaps, good writers must be good listeners; and to be a good listener. A writer must be open-minded and open-hearted.
In which way, do you expect your books to be useful to readers?
I hope they will be useful to people and to the culture. I hope it will steady the part of the culture that’s reflective and thoughtful. And I hope that it will be liberating ... that I have provided a place for reflection that has enabled people to become more thoughtful. I do think that’s a manifestation of an interdependent orientation.
About the Author
Gish Jen was born Lillian Jen in 1955 in New York City to Chinese immigrant parents from Shanghai. She has already published five works of fiction and a nonfiction. Her first novel “Typical American” (1991) was one of the finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award of the year. “Who’s Irish?” (1999), is a collection of eight short stories. Two stories from the collection have recently been selected for the 10-volume world literature anthology published earlier this year by Peking University Press. Both have been translated into Chinese.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
