Teeth Are the Second Criterion of Truth

Crispness and low tem-perature are the new personal relationship in my eyes

Zhang Li: I still remember the feeling while reading the Woman at Feeding Period in those days. It focused on the children left behind in the countryside. The kids rested their missing of their mother working outside completely on a woman who had no relationship with them. This moved many people. Last year. when reading it again, I felt that you catch a kind of personal relationship sharply: times changed and the personal relationship in China also changed, including a change in outlook.

Bi Feiyu: I wrote the Woman at Feeding Period in 1995 when my standing point was not yet “empty village” and “empty town”, but the disappearing traditional family mode. “Basic national policy” was implemented in 1982 since when our “family” has become a simple thing and relationship between men has become crispy. Why “crispy”? It is because a “family of three” is especially vulnerable. Facing the huge pressure from education, health, social security, insurance and employment, we may easily become nervous. Even with a small accident one family may collapse in a moment. In the meanwhile, we are also nervous, almost mad, for the future of our next generation. Under such premise, I have no idea about how our outlook will change, but I am clear about one point that our outlook will be accompanied with anxious symptom, and an uncertain and rushing tendency, without any tolerance and durability.

Zhang Li: in childhood, it was felt the goal of living was to live like those in the west: “with lamps and telephones available upstairs and downstairs”, thinking such life would bring about all, but now, it is felt that it was not so.

Bi Feiyu: Europe and America are also in market economy, but it is not the same. First, their game rules are effective, and second, they have the background of Christian culture. In the Bibles, there is a saying: “it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” Here comes a matter, which I call as “Paradise Pressure”. Carnegie left a famous dictum: “he who dies rich, dies disgraced”; Rockefeller also left a famous dictum: “get what you can and give what you have.” The two dicta are both directly associated with “Paradise Pressure”. Then, it becomes interesting: under the pressure of Paradise, their wealth has a warm and open target.

Zhang Li: we have neither para-dise pressure nor a sense of fear.

Bi Feiyu: it is very good that we have no paradise pressure. But, it brings about another problem. While we are creating wealth, actually wealth has no target. “Give it to my son” may be a target. “Why earning money”? As for this question, we are still at a stage of instinct and far away from being rational. It was under the background of “poor to be mad” that we walked on the way to earn money. Frankly, while earning money, we only think of money, but not people. In another word, we have no “others” in our heart. Making and selling counterfeit drugs and snapping charity money may be the most extreme and crazy examples. This brings about a second feature in personal relationship: temperature between men becomes lower.

Zhang Li: such novels as Woman at Feeding Period, Rainbow and Family Affairs show the change in morality of personal relationship of the Chinese in your eyes, also a relationship between development and social modernization to some extent. You are trying to express the general puzzle in our times.

Bi Feiyu: you have used one rather significant word: puzzle. As a writer, puzzle is what I have experienced most adequately. Why puzzled? For many problems, I have found that I would often fall into relativism. I have to say that I am a relativist for many problems. To get rid of such puzzle or relativist tendency, what I can do in facing problems is to set a criterion for myself: that is China. The so-called development is the development of China, while the so-called modernization is also the modernization of China. Then, things seem to be somewhat simple.

Zhang Li: many of your novels are based on “ the cultural revolution”, indicating that you are a writer never forgetting about “cultural revolution. Is “there are still carriers” your understanding of and attitude to “the cultural revolution”?

Bi Feiyu: we all know one term, true fact. For such true fact, its premise is “speaking out”; otherwise, it will not be a truth. So is truth. Any truth that cannot be expressed is definitely not a truth. So, I want to say, teeth are the second criterion of truth. Unfortunately, we are too addicted and fuzzy about such occult oriental aesthetics as “it’s perceived rather than expressed” and also the expression of tasting the cream. So is for “cultural revolution”: we only talk about the event, but not the spirit. At the end of the Plain, I arranged one role of carrier, for no other purpose but one to tell a simple fact: the event comes to an end, but the spirit remains.

Dignity is not a personal matter, but a social matter

Zhang Li: Massage desc-ribes about the life of a blind masseur. Has the disabled ever been a touch to your life.

Bi Feiyu: let us talk about something else first. I was born in the countryside of North Jiangsu in the 1960s. In the country of China in the 1960s, there were a huge number of disabled people. I wonder whether you have noticed the works of the educated-youth writers. In their works, the names of figures would be often characteristics, being often Erguaizi (cripple), Sanxiazi (blind), Sidaizi (dull), Wuyaba (dumb) and Liutanzi (disabled). What I want to tell you is that they were not a fiction made by educated-youth purposely. In our life, there were actually many Sanxiazi and Wuyaba.

Zhang Li: it used to be a com-mon phenomenon.

Bi Feiyu: I have always feared of the disabled. In the rural area, the folk wisdom has summarized the disabled as: the cripple is ruthless, the blind is bad, and the dumb is cruel. Why is the cripple ruthless? It is not convenient for him to move around. When being bullied by someone, the cripple cannot trace him and thus becomes full of hatred in heart, but once being caught by the cripple, he will beat you to death, so he is ruthless. The blind is bad in heart. Why is the blind bad? It is not convenient for him to move around. When being bullied by someone, the blind has no idea who is bullying him and thus becomes hostile to all others. Being hostile to others, he will cause trouble to others in the darkness. Why is the dumb cruel? He can move around, but he is also bullied. He comes to his position from the hideous and deformed smiles around him. Being mean and petty, he is often joked and laughed at by others. He knows it, but does not know why and thus becomes exceptionally revengeful. I have never studied the psychology of the disabled, but I am sure that in those, most of the disabled suffered from sever psychological disease, with their heart being highly twisted and highly malformed. Their heart was twisted by others as well as by themselves.

Zhang Li: Massage was published in October 2008. In the year, we had just experienced the earthquake—in two minutes, not only eighty thousand of our compatriots were killed, but hundreds and thousands of people were amputated. On TV, the young children in the earthquake were often brought on to the stage to describe their sufferings. They also had to accept gifts in front of the public, while the host asked them to say thanks continuously. While watching such TV program, I thought of Duhong in the Massage: facing the donations, she left quietly. There is a long way to go for understanding dignity, especially for the Chinese society today.

Bi Feiyu: the second draft of Massage was completed on May 10. Three days after, on May 12, Sichuan earthquake burst out. To be frank, I kept watching TV and it was in June that my feeling started be complex. What I want to say is that for the social change, it is really hard to make step over, without the so-called “leap-forward” develop, especially at the spiritual level. In comparison the oriental and western histories, we have many lessons to learn. Actually, it is not so important to miss some lessons, but we have to have the intention, in our brain, to make up such lessons. Some things show no difference between the oriental and western society, e.g., dignity which common in the world.

Zhang Li: Massage shows concerns to the groups that have been ignored by the society and makes them feel about their close relationship with the society. I have a report, saying that upon reading Massage, many of the blind people deem it as “our novel”. You have the reader groups that other writers do not have.

Bi Feiyu: talking about the reading of the blind, it is a really interesting thing. Do you know? On computer, there is special software for the blind to read, that is the voice conversion mechanism, with an extremely fast speed that can be adjusted. The speed is several times of our reading speed. Once, many of the blind friends read it. I really had not expected that Massage would have experienced such grand occasion. Again I experienced something that many other writers had no chance to experience. I want to tell you, if you ask me to rewrite Massage, I can write it even better, but, - but that’s too good to be true, and hindsight is never twenty-twenty. Except for a pity, what else could I say?