Destruction and Sorrow beneath the Heavens: Reportage

The End, but of What? Tang Xiaodu

Zeng Laide, the calligrapher from Sichuan Province, lives in his own glass-palace museum in a northern district of Beijing. He is wealthy, influential and celebrated; all day long, assistants and students hand him whatever he needs, and, having won the unconditional respect of some of the most prominent members of the literary and artistic circles of the capital, now, on the occasion of his 47th birthday, they — these eminent literati — sit around the table next to relatives and friends from Sichuan. Undefined women standing close by serve magnificent, special, as-yet-untasted dishes from Sichuan, and the company, after a certain self-consciousness, quickly recovers; gay and ever-higher spirits dominate the gathering in which Zeng Laide himself — this pot-bellied, energetic person with serious, elegant eyeglasses (not really suitable for his round face) perched on his nose — is the most elated of all: he takes up the thread of conversation ever-more frequently, and tells stories and anecdotes in a loud voice, spouting the punchline to his audience who listen in grateful silence, until finally, when the dinner comes to an end, most of the guests respectfully take their leave and only a few remain.

Zeng Laide leads this small group into a large atelier where he uses one empty wall to put up — as one of his friends now explains to Stein in subdued tones — his calligraphic works, painted on finely grained, thick, snow-white paper: he puts them up here as soon as they are finished, so that he can examine them from an appropriate distance, but, really, all of them, both the large ones and the small ones, he completes them on a large table in the middle of the room, he keeps his brushes here too, it is said — Stein hears the account, he keeps the inks here, the jars, the basins, the cleaning tools, smaller pieces of paper, the plastic buckets containing prepared ink, the table is also big enough to hold quite a few books and the daily post’s most urgent missives along its edge. During the short introductory talk the guests become silent, the master himself speaks to no one, he picks up things and puts them down, walks around the table, choosing between the various pieces of paper, looking into the biggest pails like someone who must ascertain that the ink is sufficient and adequately thickened; indeed, even his countenance, which only minutes ago was so full of amusement, is serious now, concentrated, almost morose, as if something were disturbing him, the two guests are thinking that maybe it is they, the European visitors, László Stein and the interpreter from Shanghai, who, having turned up so unexpectedly, are disturbing him, although it soon emerges that exactly the opposite is the case: it is for them, the two Hungarians come from afar, that the master of the house, warmed up by the hot plum wine, is preparing to do something.

The silence is now complete, but the master still walks up and down and to and fro in the atelier, placing something a little closer here, a little further away there, scraping into a jar on the table, moodily pursing his lips, like someone displeased with what he has found, then he suddenly whirls round and runs to a corner of the workshop and, with one movement, pulls out an enormous roll of white paper, dashes with it to the table and spreads it out with lightning speed, then runs back and takes a giant brush from one of the plates at the same time as he picks up from the floor a red pail half filled with ink and jumps back to where the paper is, then — continuously stirring the ink in the pail with the brush — steps back, eyes the paper, pushes his funny glasses further up his nose, bends his head forward, looks up, steps closer, steps back again, mixes the ink and eyes the paper — in short, there is something in him which makes it hard to take him completely seriously, something which makes it seem as if the entire scene is a joke, just another roguish Sichuan prank, and that the laughter will break out again in a moment, just as it has until now, over there by the dinner table, because these preparations, as he takes the slow measure of this enormous piece of paper on the table, as he vehemently scratches away at the ink in the pail, are somehow exaggerated and theatrical: it is too amusing for anyone to think that this master, now, with all this aromatic plum wine in that notable belly, and with that huge pail and that huge brush in his hand, is going to paint something amazing for his illustrious company.

It isn’t possible to take in what’s going on, everything happens with such lightning speed, so that Stein can bring to mind later only the quick movements as he painted, the violent emotions clearly inundating him, and that passion, difficult to put into words, which manifestly possessed him as he worked, because now only that can be seen, after the earlier mixings of the ink and the walking around, the hesitations and the somewhat humorous concentration, suddenly there is on the piece of paper a startling, an enchanting, a genial painting, a monumental calligraphic work, composed of two hieroglyphics, daubed onto the snow-white paper with black ink, the interpreter reads it out softly from behind Stein: xie huai, ‘out of breath’, yes, a poet among them, Xi Chuan, who speaks excellent English, confirms it, but it emerges quickly that he is mistaken, out of breath, and the master motions to one of his apprentices, and the two quickly place it onto the wall with the magnets, and he stands back from it, assuming the same pose, shifting his weight from one leg to the other, now before the completed work, standing as he did before, looking at it in the same way, eyeing it, examining it, studying it, just as he did a short while ago with the blank paper, that is, everything is almost the same, because there is already something sober within him, the fact of this slow distancing can be felt in his being, the beginning of calm, he is beyond it now, even while he is still somewhat within it, he stands, moving his head from side to side, then he steps back again, as if he were cautiously emerging from out of this, he lowers the brush blindly into the pail, then puts it next to the table, and he has returned, he is among the others: he is smiling, laughing gaily, with grateful laughter he receives the exclamations of rapture from the company, as one after the other, every one of the guests, with the greatest enthusiasm, praises the creation that has suddenly taken place here; and Stein as well, who, among those present, knows the least about calligraphy, although he is capable of understanding it, after a while, with the help of another guest who is introduced to him by a Chinese living in Europe, and whom he has met here for the first time, is able to say: that what he has seen here, the speed of the contours, the plangent rhythm of the two signs, the black ink burning on the white paper, the pure natural impulse of the brush’s movement, the exact harmony of the proportions, that all this together is truly amazing!

The master nods, bowing his head a little in thanks for the praise, then turns away and begins to explain something to his assistant. In a fervently broken rendition of the English language, Stein, with his helper of a moment ago, begins a conversation with Tang Xiaodu, of whom he knows only the name, but a particular mannerism of his immediately strikes his attention.

After half an hour in his presence, Stein establishes that no one else smokes in the same way, not a single being anywhere puffs away at his cigarettes in such an engaging way — no one on this entire earth — as Tang Xiaodu.

At the beginning of the birthday evening, when they met at the entrance of the building at the agreed-upon time, while they and the interpreter were pressing the buzzer, and waiting for Zeng to arrive at the entrance from some far corner of his palace of concrete columns and glass, which took a few minutes to happen, Tang Xiaodu, who had just arrived, stamped out his previous cigarette and, in the fashion of a true smoker, pulled out the box of cigarettes from his pocket and took out three, so that, in accordance with Chinese custom, he could offer one to Stein, another to the interpreter as a token of friendship and smoke the third himself, but since they weren’t smokers he remained alone with his cigarette and, with the hungry movement characteristic of a passionate nicotine addict, he lit up, then turned the cigarette towards his palm, between his thumb and his index finger, holding it inward, keeping it concealed, and he smoked like that, slowly and deeply, and blew out just as slowly and deeply, cordially turning his head away so that the smoke would not be blown onto the guests, and then — as he turned his head — there came that accompanying movement: he struck the pose without being aware of it, sweeping the two Europeans off their feet at the same time and betraying everything about himself in one single instant, namely: he held out his right hand in which the cigarette was concealed completely distant from his body, so that the rising smoke would not disturb Stein or the interpreter, in short, so it would not disturb the people he was speaking to and who, in contrast, were not smoking. . but to be more precise, this was just one element of his pose; the other was the angle at which he held out his arm with the smoking stub turned inward towards his palm, and held it out again so that when the breeze, despite every precaution, still swept the smoke towards someone, in this case Stein, with his left hand he would try to wave it away quickly, well, all this put together was so touching, and so revealing, that it disclosed so profoundly the nature of the owner of these gestures, this carriage of the head, the movements of the hand, of this kind of secret smoking, that Stein, standing in the entrance of the Zeng house, felt a very deep sympathy for Tang Xiaodu, although he could not suspect that the reason he felt so close to him — as this only became clear later on, and gradually, one could say as the result of a double step — that is, not too long afterward he realized that Tang Xiaodu always keeps his hand holding the cigarette well away, and Tang Xiaodu always turns his head away when he exhales, even if he is conversing with people who are smoking just like him, so that after all this, but still before dinner, when they were just standing around the dinner table and talking, during the second encounter, Stein at once perceives that in these movements, so characteristic of a dear, tactful, cordial, elegant and modest person, that what is really most moving in this deportment is that Tang Xiaodu smokes in exactly the same fashion even when there is no one next to him.

At the back of the atelier, sectioned off by shelves, Tang Xiaodu has his new friend sit down in a comfortable armchair, he sits down next to him, pours him a cup of tea, and it can be seen that he feels at home at Zeng’s place, and Stein is happy that at last he has a chance to talk to him, and after he listens, as Tang Xiaodu slightly rectifies the explanation of a moment ago concerning the two Chinese characters, that is, the two signs conceal a release of the soul’s tension as well as an inundation of the spirit, nearly bursting-out — the visitor from far away starts to say something, how he feels himself to be in such a difficult situation, for that which he admires so much, which at the beginning of this journey to China he thought still lived in the depths, unbroken, which he thought still nourished the China of today from these depths — well, he is happy that he can complain about this now to Tang Xiaodu: because he, Stein, sees this last ancient civilization, this exquisite manifestation of the creative spirit of mankind, as dead, and he is afraid that apart from Tang Xiaodu there is no one to really talk to about this, and he is afraid that there won’t be anyone to talk to about this, because his experience is that people consider the opposite to be true, and celebrate the renewal of Chinese traditions in cultural monuments restored in the most dreadful and coarse ignorance, or their attention is engaged exclusively by modern life, and are altogether unconcerned with that which was, even if it has passed, their own spiritual tradition.

Tang Xiaodu begins to speak, brokenly, very softly and with long pauses:

tang. I grew up in a world, after Mao, in which nothing was important. We had no clear goals. My generation’s way of thinking really oversimplified things. We were indifferent to everything. And we did not confront the real problems.

What was essential in the ancient world was that everything we call culture was somehow applicable to everyday life: How can poetry, philosophy, music, painting, calligraphy be made personal, transmuted into the essence of everyday life, that is, how can all this become life itself — will it become my life, in the final analysis, and am I capable of leading my life according to the concepts of a highly refined tradition? In ancient tradition, art, philosophy and life were not sharply differentiated. In today’s world, the connection between tradition and everyday life has been shattered.

He is silent for a long time, like someone wondering whether he has expressed himself precisely and modestly enough. It can be seen, however, that in the silence nothing remains with which he might continue his train of thought, so Stein asks: If things are like this, then what can be done?

tang. Not much. It is possible for us to suppose that we can attempt to modify, transform, change, elevate and make ourselves, as well as the direct reality around us, more valuable. For example, a few of us intellectuals have founded a society on the basis of the old shuyua, where from time to time we conduct dialogues around the possibilities of regenerating the old culture. Here of course there are extraordinary difficulties: on the one hand, the ancient culture is deeply connected to the classical Chinese language. And on the other, particular problems are caused when we use our language of today, even when speaking of the renewal of ancient culture based upon the ancient language.

Stein knows a little about the shuyua: informal, unaffiliated academies where every now and then the illustrious literati gathered and debated questions judged to be of eternal merit. Every attempt to renew this tradition is fantastic, he says, but can it be said that this, or similar attempts, are characteristic of the intelligentsia of today?

tang. The intelligentsia is divided. The ones known in the West as the technical intelligentsia have forged ahead here in China to an extraordinary extent, and they do not have much of a connection with intellectuals in the humanities. Neither with tradition, nor even our own classical tradition. But I have to say that this isn’t such a new development. The situation of classical scholars was always dramatic in China. Things were always just as difficult for truly original thinkers and artists, as they are today — they lived solitary and oppressed in their own times, just as they are solitary and oppressed today.

They drink the tea and look at each other wordlessly. Then Tang Xiaodu bows his head, puts out a cigarette and immediately lights a new one. His shoulders are bent, his fatigue and sadness are evident. He excuses himself for being able to say so little on this topic. Later, when he comes back from the great journey, Stein will have to talk to Ouyang, Xi Chuan and Miss Wang. They know much more about this. They are all here, and introductions are made, but the conversations, as Tang Xiaodu predicts, occur only weeks later.

Because weeks are coming, weeks among the ruins of this long, nightmarish, last remaining ancient civilization.