Fat Years - Chan Koonchung [90]
Whose idealism is the most radical, Fang Caodi’s or Little Xi’s? The answer is Little Xi’s. What do we mean by radical? The original classical meaning of radical is root (from the Latin radix), to find the essential root of something. Fang Caodi has a plain and simple sense of justice, of working on behalf of Heaven’s Way; added to his naturally stubborn character, this sense of justice spurs him on to search tirelessly for that missing month. Little Xi’s sense of justice is more abstract, more philosophical. The socialist and internationalist education that she received as a child engraved the bright words equality, justice, friendship, and mutual aid firmly on her heart. She really didn’t understand the hypocrisy of the Chinese Communist Party. In college she studied the Roman and Napoleonic law that was taught again after the Cultural Revolution ended. During the 1980s and 1990s she was baptized in the tide of Enlightenment values such as Reason, Liberty, Democracy, Truth, and Human Rights. Both romanticism and rationalism made deep impressions on her, and she adopted the idealism of a typical contemporary Westernized Chinese intellectual. Although her idealism is not without its blind spots and intrinsic limitations, due to all of the above, we know that Little Xi is more radical, and hers is a radicalism that will remain steadfastly loyal to the end.
Think about it. What was it that sustained Little Xi for the past few years as she underwent such great suffering and social marginalization? We have already read how she was the female host of an intellectual salon in the 1980s and 1990s. During those years, she mainly listened to the views of prominent personalities of the time, and very rarely offered her own opinions. In the last two years, though, when the intellectuals appeased the government or were “harmonized,” Little Xi rose up in opposition and threw herself into solitary combat. Without a backward glance, she argued strongly for truth and justice, expressing her opinions on the Internet. This process forced her to clarify her own thoughts and use rational arguments to state her case in the face of her opponents, who used emotive language, rhetoric, populism, and even violence. She’s become increasingly dispassionate and clearheaded. We should not, therefore, make the mistake of thinking that Little Xi is still the weak legal clerk-secretary with a sense of justice that she used to be, or a Petöfi Club salon woman, or an unemployed and helpless mother who cannot even control her own son, or a crazy woman who scurries around like a frightened animal. She is already an obscure but genuine public intellectual, though she would never consider herself as such. This is her armor, her vocation, the air she breathes to live, her loveliness and her repulsiveness. She is willing to endure the greatest suffering, hardship, and personal humiliation as long as it brings her closer to the truth.
To live or die together
After staying at Miaomiao’s house for a couple of days, on the weekend Lao Chen went back to his Happiness Village Number Two apartment, changed into a set of clean clothes, and went to Starbucks for a latte grande. On Sunday evening, he attended another one of Jian Lin’s old-movie screenings. In recent months only Jian Lin, He Dongsheng, and Lao Chen had been present at these monthly soirées. To tell the truth, these screenings had become events that Jian Lin organized just in order to accommodate his cousin, the Party and national leader He Dongsheng. Lao Chen was simply a guest necessary to keep He Dongsheng company. If Lao Chen didn’t go, and there were only the two cousins there, it would be rather embarrassing and hard to continue the screenings. For friendship’s sake Lao Chen felt he had a responsibility to attend. He explained