The importance of learning English in China – Zhang Lijia

  

Zhang Lijia

Author Zhang Lijia talks about the importance of learning English, for herself and for the country, as anti-Western attitudes in China make it today less important for students to dive into learning English and other languages, she tells at the weblog of the China Institute.

Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your (online) meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers’ request form.

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Zhang Lijia: a Chinese sensation at Jaipur Literary Festival

Zhang Lijia

A raving review of the appearance of Zhang Lijia, author of Lotus, a novel, on prostitution in China, at the Jaipur Literary Festival in London, at The Citizen. "I was very fascinated by prostitutes. However, the only prostitution I have done was intellectual prostitution,” Zhang Lijia says.

The Citizen:

A Chinese author has emerged as one of the sensations of the Jaipur Literary Festival underway in London where writers and their admirers have been mingling in the open air. 

Nanjing-born Lijia Zhang, who was employed in a Chinese rocket factory in her younger years, is the author of ‘Socialism is Great’, ‘China Remembers’ and ‘Lotus’, said “Writing in English freed me because in China there is censorship and writing in English meant I did not have to go through censorship.” Zhang was appearing on a panel headlined ‘Words Are All We Have’, alongside Indian writer Anjali Joseph and Sri Lankan novelist Rohan Gunesekera. In her presentation Zhang revealed how she discovered that her grandmother had first been a prostitute and later evolving into her grandfather’s concubine in 1948. 

“I was no rocket scientist, I was just a factory worker”, Zhang said about her own life.. “But I was very fascinated by prostitutes. However the only prostitution I have done was intellectual prostitution.”

More at the Citizen.

Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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The crude reality for women in the China market - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Liijia

London-based author Zhang Lijia, author of Lotus, a novel, on prostitution in China, recalls at Varsity the crude reality women have to face in China's economy, a story many outside China might not see, speaking at Cambridge PEN, about the process of writing her latest book.

Varsity:

“I want to show the crude reality of the Chinese market economy and the resilience of women struggling in the bottom of society,” Zhang adds. 

Like the characters in Lotus, Zhang has experienced what life is like in a rapidly changing China, having spent a decade working at a factory that produced intercontinental missiles. Although Zhang had dreamed of becoming a journalist and writer from a young age, she was taken out of school to work at a factory at the age of sixteen. Whilst working at the factory, Zhang taught herself English. 

“Reading gave me escape and enlightenment, and it gave me a route to escape the tough reality [of the factory] and to broaden my horizons”, she says. 

Upon completing a Master’s degree in Creative and Life Writing in London, Zhang returned to China and her dreams took flight as she began to write. She wrote a memoir about her time at the factory, titled “Socialism is Great!”: A Worker’s Memoir of New China. With Lotus being Zhang’s first fictional novel, she mentions how the transition from fiction to nonfiction writing styles was “extremely challenging”. 

“The freedom to create a fictional world was both exciting and intimidating.” Freedom also takes on another meaning in the context of contemporary China when it comes to censorship. A previous book she wrote in Chinese about the Western image of Chairman Mao was censored, Zhang decided to write in English in order to “freely express” herself. 

This helped Zhang overcome another type of censorship that was not political, but rather “a writer’s own self-censorship”, as she calls it. 

“By writing in English, I gained unexpected literary freedom. By not being inhibited by my mother tongue, I can also be bold as I experiment with the language. I use different words and I structure my sentences differently, consciously and unconsciously. Of course, my experiment doesn’t always work. But I enjoy the adventure.” 

Although having studied English for thirty years, Zhang says she still faces great challenges when writing in English, “I write too slowly, and I don’t understand the subtle meanings of certain words, so in that sense, I still regard myself as being a novice.” 

Throughout her journey, Zhang draws upon many literary inspirations. She cites George Orwell’s four reasons for writing: egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, and political purpose, as key drivers of her motivation to write. In particular, she remains drawn to Jane Eyre, “a plain-looking character full of spirit and longing”, Zhang comments. In more recent years, she mentions how reading her MA professor Blake Morrison’s memoir And When Did You Last See Your Father shaped the techniques she had used to complete her own memoir. 

Following the success of Lotus, Zhang is now turning her focus back towards non-fiction. She is working on a narrative non-fiction book about the children of migrant workers in China, also known as their ‘left-behind’ children. “There are currently 61 million children living in villages across the country without both or one parent,” she says. The book will focus on a rural community in Southwest China’s Guizhou province, to examine the human cost of China’s economic miracle. As preparation, “I am reading or re-reading outstanding literary non-fiction books on China, such as Wish Lantern by Alec Ash and Factory Girls by Leslie Chang.” 

As for aspiring writers, Zhang’s words of advice is to just “read and write and live your life.” “Just going ahead and writing is the best thing you can do,” she says with a smile.

More at Varsity.

Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more female experts on China at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

Why it is good to be an author in China - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

While most of the media stress government control on journalists and authors, Zhang Lijia, author of Lotus: A Novel on prostitution in China, sees huge advantages too, she tells the blog Women and Gender in China (WAGIC). "Internationally Chinese women writers are almost invisible. This is another reason that I want to keep writing."

WAGIC:

S: What would you say are the opportunities and challenges of being a (female) writer in China today? 

China is the seventh heaven for writers and journalists. Like any society that is going through such rapid social transformation, there’s always tension and drama – these are exactly what writers and journalists seek after.

It is difficult to be a writer anywhere in the world. In China, most writers have to deal with the extra challenge of facing censorship. Right now, the publishing and writing fields are still male-dominated. Internationally Chinese women writers are almost invisible. This is another reason that I want to keep writing. 

S: One of the areas that you talk about in your public speaking is the changing role of women in Chinese society. What would you say are the main challenges facing women today? 

LJ: The main challenges facing women today is the deeply rooted male chauvinism and the growing gender inequality. Market economy has placed women in an unfavourable position. But I am optimistic because women have taken the matter into their own hands, as reflected in the growing activism since 2012. It would have been much better if such activism is tolerated by the authorities.  

S: What do you have planned next? 

LJ: I am writing a literary non-fiction on China’s left behind children. Coming from a journalist background, I found fiction writing extremely challenging. In this non-fiction book, I plan to apply some fictional techniques I’ve learnt, such as setting the scene, good dialogue, sense of suspense and character development, which, hopefully, will make the book more engaging and literary.

More in WAGIC.

Zhang Lijia is a speaker on the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more experts on cultural change at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

  

Journalism and fiction: some common ground - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

Fake news has become rightfully a problem for journalists, but the relation between journalism and fiction is a bit more complicated. Beijing-based journalist Zhang Lijia, author of Lotus: A Novel covered some of the common ground at the literary festival at Ubud, Indonesia, she writes on her weblog.

Zhang Lijia:

Journalism and fiction cover a lot of common ground. There’s little wonder that some successful writers come from journalistic background, Mark Twin, Ernest Hemingway, Joan Didion, to name just a few. 

Some journalists got into the profession because they love writing. Then some find journalism frustrating and limiting. There’s a fundamental difference between the two: one is pure imagination and the other pure documentation. In journalism, you have to stick to what has actually happened. You can’t allow your imagination go wild. That’s a major restriction for some literary minded journalists. That was why in the 60s the so-called ‘New Journalism’ was launched in US where journalists generously borrowed techniques commonly used in faction writing, setting the scenes, good conversation, sense of suspense, character development. One good example is in Cold Blood by Truman Capote. 

I’d like to think that I’ve become a slightly better writer after spending years in completing the novel and I hope I can better apply the fictional techniques I’ve learnt in my future non-fiction books.

More at Zhang Lijia's weblog.

Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.
Are you interested in more stories by Zhang Lijia? Do check out this list.

Online literature writers make fortunes - Rupert Hoogewerf

Rupert Hoogewerf

While much of the book publishers try to get their act together now readers go online, China boast even a top ten of literature writers, earning more than US$150 million each. Chief researcher Rupert Hoogewerf explains to Global Times why the Harry Potter franchise did so well, also in China.

Global Times:

On Wednesday (last week), the Hurun Research Institute and domestic IP management agency Mopian released the Mopian Hurun Most Valuable Creative Works IP 2017 list, which lists the top 100 most valuable literature IPs in China after 1998. 

Fights Breaks Sphere written by 27-year-old author Tiancan Tudou ranked first on the list. Other well-known works that have been adapted into other mediums such as TV shows or movies in recent years, including Nirvana in Fire, Fighter of the Destiny and Grave Robbers' Chronicles also made it into the top 10. In the Name of People, a novel that was recently adapted into the hit anti-graft TV show of the same name, came in at 21. 

According to Hoogewerf, the ranks of the works on the list were determined by looking at data such as online viewership, number of fans and the number of times a work has been recommended on literature platforms, followed by a second round of assessment during which the Hurun Research Institute and veteran literature editors gave these additional points based on their social influence and literary value... 

Talking about China's IP market, Hoogewerf mentioned the Harry Potter franchise, one of the highest-earning IPs in not just his home country but around the world. 

"The Harry Potter franchise and the huge industry behind it had a great impact on the British economy," he said. 

"And for me, it's a meaningful thing to participate in China's IP industry," Hoogewerf  said, mentioning that he hoped the list will help improve the confidence of people who are considering entering the IP industry.

More in Global Times.

Rupert Hoogewerf is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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Silkroad, a short story - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia at the BBC

Author Zhang Lijia, author of the bestseller Lotus: A Novel, wrote a short story, the Silk Road, for Discovery the magazine of Cathay Pacific and tells in an interview about her preferences while traveling and a new book project on China's left-behind children.

Zhang Lijia

One evening in July 1986, a puzzling incident took place at the chemistry laboratory at Beijing’s Tsinghua University. Lin, a freshman from the chemical engineering department, was found lying unconscious on the floor, next to an open bottle of chloroform. The classmate who had discovered him and called for help wasn’t sure if Lin, who had been strangely quiet lately, had accidentally sniffed too much of the sweet-smelling yet toxic solvent, or was experimenting to attain a hallucinatory thrill, or had simply attempted suicide. After emergency treatment, Lin, still in a coma, was placed on a breathing machine in an intensive care unit. He lay motionless in his bed, separated by curtains from other patients, oblivious to the coming and going of the nurses and doctors. What occupied his cloudy mind were vivid scenes from another hospital stay two months earlier.

More in Discovery.

In the interview for the magazine Zhang Lijia tells how it works to write in English, while keeping a Chinese mindset:

Your stories are usually based in China. How would you describe your relationship with the country?

Intense, I would say. I am one of the few Chinese writers based in China while writing in English for international publications. Even though English has been my working language for years now, my sensibility remains Chinese. And compared with my Western colleagues, I have something different to offer: my insights into the Chinese society.

Silkroad is a travel magazine, but we’re trying something a bit different by publishing an issue of original fiction. How do you feel fiction can inspire travel in a way non-fiction or travel articles don’t?

I think the project is wonderful and exciting. Good fiction can entertain and educate the readers. My fictional works can be read as non-fiction as it is rooted in reality.

What do you read when you’re on holiday?

I read what I must read for my two book groups in Beijing. I also have my personal project: to re-read classics, such as all the works by Tolstoy, which I read in Chinese in my youth.

What do you do when you’re on a flight? Are you reader, worker, film watcher?

I work when I must. Then I read. When I am too tired to read, I watch films. I finished the short story for Silkroad while flying from Beijing to London. I was so obsessed with getting the story right that I couldn’t sleep a wink or watch any films.

What do you think about fiction in an inflight magazine?

I think it’s absolutely cool!

Finally, what are you working on at the moment?

I’ve started a literary non-fiction book project on China’s left-behind children, a term for the children of migrant workers. Right now, 61 million children are living in China’s villages without one or both parents. Focusing on one village in southwestern China’s Guizhou province, the book exposes the heavy human cost behind China’s so-called economic miracle.

You can read the full interview here.

Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more experts on cultural change in China? Do check out this list.

The poor mental health of migrant factory workers - Zhang Lijia

+Lijia Zhang 

Former factory worker, and now author Zhang Lijia looks on her weblog into the fate of Xu Lizhi, a 24-year old Foxconn worker, who of many who jumped to death on September 20. Xu was not only a migrant worker, but also a poet, she tells us.
Zhang Lijia:

Xu came from a poor village in Guangdong. Having completed senior middle school, he joined Foxconn in February 2011, when the ripples caused by the spate of suicides were dying down. The monthly salary of 1,700 yuan (HK$2,150) seemed a fortune to him at first. But the changing shifts and repetitive and tedious work on the assembly line soon took its toll. He poured his bitterness in his poems. 

I swallowed a moon made of iron, 

They refer to it as a nail. 

I swallowed this industrial sewage, these unemployment documents. 

Some of his poems were first published in his factory’s newspaper and then migrant literary journals. He even earned himself a reputation among migrant poets. 

Most of these poets write while living in the city. After a few years, they go home and get married. Xu wished to take roots in Shenzhen, a city he felt he had a connection with. In some ways, Xu is the modern Chinese version of Jude the Obscure, the hero in Thomas Hardy’s classic novel, a stonemason who dreams of becoming a scholar. Xu’s failed path to success was as narrow as that of a working class lad in Victorian England. 

The migrant workers are more or less chained to their production line, which Xu found stultifying. An avid reader, he tried to find a book-related job. He applied unsuccessfully for a job as a librarian at Foxconn, and later for a job with a bookstore, which also was denied him, possibly because of his status as a migrant. 

China’s hukou system – the household registration system that divides the population into two distinct categories of the urban and rural – makes things harder for the migrants, who don’t have the same access to job opportunities, health care and education as other city residents. They are often discriminated against in terms of salary and treatment. 

The Chinese government recently announced a plan to relax control over the system in a bid to narrow the gap between rural and urban areas and to help migrants better assimilate into city life. But the process will be a long and slow one. 

In the meantime, actions must be taken to address the mental health problems of migrant workers. Professor Cheng urges the authorities to introduce compulsory mental health testing in factories, along with the annual health check which has been in place for some time. He recommends that employers provide workers with more time and opportunity to socialise so that they will not feel so lonely. And he calls on all factories to introduce the practice of "positive psychological intervention", involving setting up hotlines and counselling services. After the spate of suicides, Foxconn, under pressure from all sides, has indeed introduced such a practice. This was certainly the right move. However, in light of the mountain of challenges migrant workers face, the measure alone can’t solve all the mental health problems. The workers’ struggle is likely to continue.

More at Zhang Lijia´s website.

Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´ request form.

Are you interested in more stories by Zhang Lijia? Check out this regularly updated list.  

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Why the Chinese read fewer books - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

Drooling foreign publishers are trying to enter the Chinese market, like recently on the International Book Fair in Beijing. But author Zhang Lijia warns on her weblog for too high expectation, as the already limited number of books per Chinese is even dropping. Zhang Lijia:

 Eyeing at China’s massive potential, the publishers all asked me about the reading habit of the Chinese. I felt a little embarrassed to tell them that today’s Chinese don’t read much. And we are reading less and less, though more books than ever, domestically produced, imported and translated, are on offer. 

According to one survey, only 5% of the Chinese have the habit of reading. And on average, each Chinese reads 4.5 books a year comparing to 50 books for an American, 55 for a Russian and 65 for a Jew. Those being surveyed blame the lack of time for not reading while others admit that they don’t have the habit of reading. 

Of course, the digital world has taken away some readers. But that’s the challenge faced by the world. 

And if the Chinese read anything, it’ll be likely practical books that will help them to go far in life, books related to their account degree, MBA, or books such as how to become a millionaire, how to lose weight, how to deal with relationships or how to find a rich husband. If they read fiction, it’ll be likely cheap thrillers, tomb raiders, predictable romance, strange ghost stories or such. 

The Chinese seem to be too restless to read, to restless to read serious books.

More on Zhang Lijia's weblog

Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.

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Dealing with identity - Zhang Lijia

Zhang LijiaThe famous author Zhang Lijia tells in her new weblog how she deals with questions about identity from her two daughters, while traveling in Bangladesh. "Well, if I tell people I am Chinese, people wouldn’t believe me."

Zhang Lijia:

True, May doesn’t look very Chinese, with her fair skin and brown air, especially the way she carries herself. My younger daughter Kirsty, who has darker complexion and more delicate facial features, looks a little more oriental. Yet they both identify themselves as British, culturally, even though they describe themselves as “half-Chinese and half-British”.

They go to British School in Beijing and almost all of their friends are English-speaking. It’s been a battle to inject the Chinese part of the culture into them. I speak Chinese to them and they often reply in English. For half of the time they stay with me (they spend another half with their father, my ex-husband) I try to ask them to write a few characters or I read them a story in Chinese. They see this as a task, a burden and a bargaining tool to get their pocket money instead of “an amazing opportunity that will open doors for them in the future”. They like Chinese food but prefer western food... 

What concerns me is the fact that my children seem to think the western culture is superior – though they may not make such statement. If they describe something, for example, someone’s outfit, hairstyle or manner, as ‘very Chinese’, it usually contains negative connotation.

More in Zhang Lijia's weblog

Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.

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"The epitome of the new China hand" - Paul French

Paul French

Paul French started off his latest book tour for "Midnight in Peking" in Australia with some raving reviews by local media. "He has discovered there is a growing audience who, like him, is fascinated by the world of the old China hands," writes the Australian. The Australian:

The book is set in the 1930s -- the victim is killed in 1937 -- and Chinese readers are intrigued that there were white Russians and Jews in Beijing in those days, French says. He encountered the story of the mysterious and shocking murder of Pamela Werner when reading old newspapers. But because it had not been solved he presumed the ending would have to remain open. However, French later had a "eureka moment" when, trawling through the British National Archives in Kew, he discovered an investigation, previously filed but lost in the chaos of World War II, that effectively solved the murder. French's stylish third-person narrative has also been something of a eureka moment. "Just a historian before", French is now being recast as a literary figure, and he's enjoying the resulting upmarket treatment.

More in The Australian Paul French is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.

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My quest for personal and political freedom - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia by Fantake via Flickr

Celebrity author Zhang Lijia tells in Expressbuzz.com how her now famous book "Socialism is great" came into being. She was still a factory girl in a plant producing rockets:

It was in the factory that she started to write. She also began to study English. It opened her mind to the world outside. A few years later, she embarked on a career as a journalist. And one day, she happened to meet Peter Hessler, an American author and journalist. They became friends. “Once, during lunch, I accidentally mentioned to Peter that I had worked in a missile factory,” says Lijia. “He looked surprised. Peter probably thought that I came from a wealthier background, and was better educated.”

Peter asked Lijia whether she could write a piece for the Asian Wall Street Journal, for which he contributed. Her piece was published in December 2000. “When my friends read it, they said, ‘Why don’t you write a book’?” says Lijia. She did some research and discovered that there were very few books set in China in the 1980s....

Lijia says that China has changed enormously. “Not many people know that the ordinary citizen now enjoys so much personal freedom,” she says. “They can choose their own lifestyles, and select where they want to live. However, there is still a cage. But for many, the cage has grown so big that they simply don’t feel the limit. But I don’t see any major democracy movement coming up in the near future.”

More in Expressbuzz.
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Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.

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Zhang Lijia to visit Kovalam festival in India

Zhang Lijia in India Fantake via Flickr

Celebrity author Zhang Lijia of the novel "Socialism Is Great!": A Worker's Memoir of the New Chinawill be attending the Kovalam literary festival in India in the fest week of October, local media announced here and here. Last she also visited the literary festival in India last year.
Zhang Lijia's novel is fast getting an international audience, as she will be in Brazil in September to promote her book in Portuguese. A documentary about Zhang is now being made in Italy.
Zhang also contributed to the book by the China Speakers Bureau, A Changing China

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Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting, conference or festival? Do get in touch.
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Mandate of heaven returns home - Gore Vidal

Shanghaiist obtained a ticket and came back with this nice write-up of the session of the 2007 Shanghai International Literary Festival with American writer and celebrity Gore Vidal. One quote really makes this session into a historial one:

I was on top of the Westin Hotel being shown the sites of the city, and I had a sudden crisis as I looked out at the extraordinary skyscrapers the architecture and the art deco. I thought to myself, well, the mandate of heaven has passed from us and come home. And I did write that once, in the world as it was shaped after the war, it's quite clear that Japan [was]... only standing in for China.

Although he avoided a few "smaller" issues. More at Shanghaiist (who also made the picture.)