China's Intellectuals After Tiananmen

...A glossary of the names and terms given in pinyin, with the corresponding Chinese characters, is helpful...

...In the end, all who could came to the United States—and the rest wanted to...

...Li, while he was serving as the spokesman for the democratic movement "did not shy away from being compared to Nelson Mandela...

...C-SPAN watchers may remember the scene at a recent Senate hearing where Wei Jingsheng, the self-proclaimed "Father of Chinese Democracy," was challenged by another leader who felt neglected by the media...

...Barmé has no illusions about the democratic movements' prospects, and he does not hide his disdain for these socalled democratic dissidents...

...This says it all...

...As for Chai Ling, Barmé quotes an interview with her from The Heavenly Gate of Peace, a documentary film detailing the Tiananmen uprising that he coauthored...

...In its artistic and literary circles, he is known to all, friend to many...

...Barmé ends his book with a description of an artwork by the Beijing artist Ai Weiwei called A Study in Perspective: 1995, 1996, 1997...

...Battles among the dissident leaders sometimes spill over to the public...

...Foreign devils (Americans) are just plain unreasonable...

...It is even rumored that the exiled intellectuals have not been able to shake off their habit of "divvying up donated funds according to the official bureaucratic ranking they had held on the mainland...

...They ve been getting away with ripping off the Chinese for ages...

...He has translated several works, and travels in and out of China frequently...

...Communist China is rife with hypocrisy, and Barmé reads the national psyche with precision...

...themselves made an annual pilgrimage to the enemy camp to 'nurture Green Cards' (yang luka...

...Barmé comments: "Particularly galling was the fact that some of the most vocal critics of America...

...They quarrel about contributed funds and their leaders squander money on international junkets, luxury hotels, phone bills and the like, to the dismay of overseas Chinese who have contributed hard-earned cash in support of their cause...

...Embassy siege may be found in the chapter "To Screw Foreigners is Patriotic...

...You may be sure those students who recently attacked the American Embassy in response to the "U.S.-led NATO" bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade feel the same way...

...City College, City University of New York The plight of China's exiled intellectuals has attracted a great deal of sympathy, but they do not fare well in Geremie R. Barmé's critical account of the contemporary cultural scene in the People's Republic and abroad...

...In their elections, candidates are often predetermined, just as is the custom at home...

...The young in China have great admiration for the U S., though their enthusiasm may be tinged with a nationalist grudge...

...An explanation of the ferocity of the U.S...

...Their most precious or hoped-for possession is still a Green Card...

...He has since parted with the movement and established "a high-risk hedge fund on Madison Avenue...

...Regrettably, both readers of English and bilingual Chinese will find In the Red tough going...

...Reviewed by Timothy Tung Former research professor and China specialist...

...Although its originator, the best-selling Wang Shuo, has been attacked by traditionalists, he was defended by the respected novelist and former Minister of Culture Wang Meng, who resigned in the wake of Tiananmen and advocates cultural pluralism...

...Barmé is also illuminating on the subject of new developments in Chinese literature...

...It is the publishing community that Barmé knows most intimately, and he shows how it has become a powerhouse in China...

...Moreover, their names are rendered in pinyin spelling—the transliteration system devised in 1959...

...Currently a senior research fellow at the Australian National University, he is the author of Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Career of a Great Leader and, as Bai Jieming, of two volumes of essays in Chinese...

...I am going to go right on copying whatever comes my way...

...So comprehensive is Barmé's personal knowledge and access to source material that he covers almost every aspect of China's culture today: Western-influenced pop music, art, TV programs, movies, advertisements and, of course, literature...

...Barmé notes that Wang Meng's own short sketch lampooning the Communist leadership's ossification, "Tough Porridge," was attacked as well and became a major literary event...

...It consists of three photographs, one of the White House in Washington, the second of Hong Kong Harbor, and the third of Tiananmen Square in Beijing...

...At international gatherings, he observes, they articulate their views "in a language reminiscent of the ideological newspeak of Chinese politics...

...He singles out two, ChaiLing and Li Lu, for criticism...

...And he has remained part of the Chinese cultural scene...

...In the foreground of all three photos, a hand is outstretched toward the subject, middle finger extended...

...One new genre, so-called liumang wenue (ruffian literature), glorifies the urban life of rootless petty criminals...

...Indeed, they will be the first in line to apply for visas once the United States Embassy formally reopens after the debris is cleared up...

...Both became international media stars and have since thrived in capitalist America with American admirers' help...

...She fled the square, she said, "because my name is on the government's blacklist...

...At one time he served as a literary columnist for a Chinese newspaper in Hong Kong, a feat few foreigners can match...

...Nearly a hundred pages of detailed notes prove to be fascinating reading— but again, a large portion of them are in pinyin, which neither a foreign nor a Chinese reader can easily fathom...

...He speaks and writes Chinese, and has contributed essays to Chinese publications under the name Bai Jieming...

...I want to live...

...Why not simply: "Beijingers: Autobiographical Accounts of 100 Ordinary People, Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, 1986...

...Then "Commanderin-Chief" of the demonstrators at the square, Chai Ling exhorted students to sit tight (later to be massacred), while she herself escaped...

...Split into two camps by the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, those who left the country before and those who were smuggled out afterward, émigrés engage in faction fights, and bicker over media attention...

...In describing the cultural wars raging between officials and dissidents, he contrasts the government-sanctioned arts with the countercultural, the traditional with the rebellious, the period before the 1989 Tiananmen confrontation with the period after...

...Here the author seeks to examine nationalistic and ultrapatriotic sentiments reflected in such works as China, Just Say No!, a best seller in 1996...

...For example: "Beijingren: 100 ge putongrende zishu, Shanghai wenyi chubanshe, 1986...

...Other writers, most notably Jia Pingwa, have been seduced by huge profits into producing pornography...

...Old practices die hard, though...

...That would have made a valuable book far more valuable...

...In assessing those who fled China after the June 4 Beijing tragedy, Barmé remarks that they were not so much independent thinkers as they were "mere official and unofficial intellectuals who had lost the patronage of the state...

...Neither do the young student leaders of the Tiananmen uprising receive Barmé's praise...

...To give readers a sense of what the free-enterprise-influenced young are thinking today, In the Red quotes an entrepreneur of the massive Chinese pirating industry discussing intellectual property: "The way I see it, pirating software is no big deal...

...Despite (or because of) the author's erudition, the narrative is handicapped by the incessant presence of scores of well- and lesser-known authors, artists and officials...

...As one who has lived, studied and worked in China, Barmé's credentials for writing about contemporary mainland life are impressive...