The Sunday Read: ‘The Art of Telling Forbidden Stories in China’

hi my name is Han Zhang and I'm a. contributor to the New York Times. magazine I write about the political and. literary narratives that are shaping the. Chinese world. this week's Sunday read is a recent. story of mine from the magazine that. started off as a profile of a Chinese. writer named Hao ching. how grew up in a farming Village but. because he tested well in his university.

entrance exam he got to go to school in. Beijing. I got a job in the corporate world in. the early 2000s but during a spell of. boredom he decided to take off creative. writing. he started posting chapters of a novel. online and it just exploded. quickly attracting an audience and the. attention of Publishers. the internet novel came out as a very. successful book and for the next decade. he enjoyed life as a best-selling author.

but all this came to an end in the early. 2010s when one of Howe's good friends. was detained by the Chinese authorities. this friend was a scholar who was. calling for political reforms. house spoke up in defense of his friend. and very soon afterwards Hal found out. that he was blacklisted. being blacklisted meant that it became. more or less impossible for him to.

continue to speak or publish whether. online or in print his writing career. was effectively over by taking a public. stance that was sympathetic to a. dissident Howe had become a dissident. himself. still in early 2020 Hal felt compelled. to write about the Wuhan covet lockdown. but he had to do it all in secret. he traveled to Wuhan and finished a. non-fiction collection called deadly.

quiet City detailing what he saw. his publisher urged him to flee China. before the book's release and today he's. living in Exile in Australia. how isn't alone. although my story started out as a. profile of how it quickly became a. broader story of today's Chinese writers. and about how the Communist party has. mobilized to totally control how China. is talked about. increasingly the internet under. president's Xi Jinping has become a.

place to exert power. it hasn't been uncommon for someone's. Social Media post on WeChat or weibo to. be scrutinized and deleted. but these days say something vaguely. provocative in a social media post and. your whole account might be wiped out. or you might get invited for tea by the. Chinese police which is a slang for. informal interrogations. while reporting this story I reached out.

to many Chinese writers. I think it's easy for people to think. about this world as being defined by. quote censorship. I was a little fixated on that framing. too at first but then one of the writers. I spoke to said it's the wrong way to. think about it. their wish is to be expressive to create. and that was a clarifying moment for me. there was a lot of good will but a. number of them told me it's just too. difficult for them to talk to a.

journalist right now. sometimes when I'm texting with a writer. I can tell from the bubble icon that. they are deliberating I see them tapping. away at a message and editing it for a. long time before sending it. and sometimes they retracted messages. they'd already sent to me. one writer said that life was like. walking a tightrope another told me that. it was like living in a cage. let's say you're a writer you read the.

wrong thing not only could your current. book be banned but so could the books. that you've already published that's. what you could be facing your career. could just disappear overnight. [Music]. so here's my article the art of telling. forbidden stories in China read by Emily. uzeller. on an August evening in 2021 the. best-selling Chinese novelist Hao Chun. who writes under the name wrong.

was procrastinating in his one-bedroom. apartment he needed to be at Beijing. Capital International Airport around 6. the next morning to catch a flight to. London but he found it hard to pack. alohau had a valid tourist visa to. Britain the Chinese government had kept. tabs on him for years and it was. possible that he would be prevented from. leaving other public intellectuals had. tried to travel abroad only to discover. that they were under exit bands. Howe might have been packing for a life.

of Exile or a feudal trip to the airport. [Music]. his forthcoming book deadly quiet City. would be published soon and house. editors were worried for his safety a. collection of non-fiction it was about. the terrifying kafka-esque early days of. the covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan where. residents had been subjected to an. unrelenting information suppression. campaign. lohanan Seafood wholesale Market was.

considered the pandemic's origin point. but the state had strangled reporting on. daily life there. when Howe arrived at the shuttered. market in April 2020 he was met by tired. guards who to discourage him from taking. photos presented coercion as patriotic. Duty. you know the Americans are exhausting. their ways to frame our country one of. them said it'd be no good if your photos. were used by Foreign media. please cooperate.

how was not deterred. square-faced and of average height he. has the look of a Chinese every man you. can picture him striking up. conversations with ease and over the. course of his reporting trip he talked. to people from all walks of life office. employees store owners taxi drivers and. migrant workers some introductions were. made by reporters who were forbidden to. cover many aspects of the pandemic these. meetings were often hours-long Affairs.

at the time people had a strong desire. to talk Howe recalls one interview with. the citizen journalist named zhangjan. lasted from noon until after dusk. all the while he tried to shake off the. Eerie suspicion that he was being. watched. it was a paranoid hunch but it wasn't an. irrational one. after all the guapao or Chinese secret. police had shouted him for the better. part of a decade. in Wuhan he conducted conversations at.

odd locations on a street lined with. Office Buildings abandoned during the. pandemic or by the windy Bank of the. yongsu river. in his hotel room he sometimes made. phone calls under a blanket to ensure. privacy. one night the sound of two men speaking. in hushed voices outside his door left. him thinking of Citizen journalists who. had disappeared after posting reports. from the city. a distant memory flashed five or six.

years ago in Beijing how was invited to. a celebration at the Swedish Embassy a. couple of guabao officers showed up at. his home a day before the event. you won't be able to go one of them. informed hell hinting that they would. physically stop him if he tried feeling. rebellious Howe insisted that he would. go but the go about taunted him. look at yourself one of them said how. many blows would you be able to. withstand.

the men in the hallway eventually left. but how was covered in cold sweat. days after he departed from Wuhan he got. word that Zhang had been arrested. deadly quiet city which was published in. the United States in March by the new. press captures how such State enforced. silence combined with inadequate access. to Medical Care intensified ordinary. people's despair during the crisis. reading these stories you not only feel.

for house subjects but also fear for the. political trouble housed unflinching. Clarity invites. after Howe submitted the manuscript to. Hardy Grant books his Australian. publisher in Spring 2021 his editors. urged him to leave China out of concern. for his safety. he equivocated a few years in prison was. a price he was willing to pay for the. book's publication. his editors continued to press him and.

by mid-summer he had decided to flee. he boarded the flight to London. successfully and after a spell moved on. to Melbourne. when he spoke to me in late January he. seemed to be in a bit of disbelief at. where his life ended up. Exile in Australia was worlds away from. the circumstances in which he first rose. to prominence. as China strove for a larger role on the. international stage at the turn of the. century the arrival of the internet and. a relatively relaxed political. environment sparked an unprecedented.

boom in self-expression afforded new. license many writers of house generation. tested the boundaries of Chinese. literary culture writing stories that. portrayed the lives of the rapidly. growing middle class and the opulent. Nouveau Rich while revealing the ethical. toll in increasingly materialistic. worldview took on their Nation. these writers experimented with subjects. that were quotidian but taboo on the. page. corruption sexual desire and evolving.

gender roles often wielding confession. to upend Convention. there is a Chinese idiom. spilled water will not flow backward. this period opened a Floodgate of. creation that forever altered. contemporary Chinese literary culture. where the government once vetted all. writing for its Conformity to State. values the internet provided a. Marketplace of ideas where writers could. independently attract tremendous.

audiences. in today's China though the pursuit of. free expression requires writers to. weather new political pressures and. operate under the ever watchful eye of a. complex State surveillance system this. can resemble a high-stakes game of. whack-a-mole in which writers editors. and online Publishers try to outmaneuver. the Chinese Communist party's apparatus. using any opportunity and resource at. their disposal to Chronicle life as they. see it.

[Music]. in 1978 as China emerged from Mao. zedong's Cultural Revolution and Decades. of isolation the Chinese leader Deng. Xiaoping inaugurated his opening up. policy this was both an overture to. foreign business and a kind of domestic. Glasnost. over the next few decades openness. became a political buzzword. by 2001 that ethos had borne its most. symbolic fruits after campaigning for.

more than a decade China became a member. of the World Trade Organization and was. selected to host the 2008 Summer Olympic. Games. successor applied the old man's Vision. to cultural work which as he said at the. 2002 National Party Congress should be. geared toward modernization the world. and the future. soon the government introduced policies. like tax relief for companies that.

transitioned from state-owned. bureaucracies to market-driven. Enterprises that equipped creative. Industries to produce Dynamic and. competitive work. this General openness coincided with the. popularization of the internet which was. new enough that it largely eluded. outmoded print-era censorship for much. of the first decade of the New. Millennium the great firewall the. infrastructure that bans an ever-growing. list of foreign websites hadn't yet been. erected. Chinese citizens could access Facebook.

Wikipedia and Google somewhat freely and. the state had yet to develop a robust. mechanism to track sensitive words as a. way to curb the spread of inconvenient. information. by the end of the decade Scholars and. writers debated public affairs on weibo. a twitter-like platform elsewhere. vibrant communities emerged around Niche. passions the poet who writes under the. name xiaoyin remembers the new poetry. websites of that era as chaotic and fun.

spaces on sites like poetry life his. peers quarreled daily over matters like. the possibilities of colloquial poetry. writing anyone could start their own. bulletin boards he told me it was like. Bandits occupying Hills and claiming to. be Kings. this internet-based community. constituted a sea change for Chinese. literature until the mid-1990s jobs were. assigned by the government for. generations of writers membership in the.

state-sponsored writers association and. staff jobs at party Publications or. state news agencies were more or less. the only path to a career in letters. some of China's most. known for their realist novels about the. Village Life of their youth published. their debuts while serving in the. people's Liberation Army. but by the 2000s such formal. affiliations were no longer a. prerequisite.

anyone with a computer and an internet. connection could share his or her work. on literary forums where censorship was. nascent and piecemeal. free from the scrutiny of editors and. sensors writers had a more direct. relationship with their readers who. relished their refreshingly unabashed. accounts of their historical moment. explaining the differences between these. generations to me over the phone the. celebrated novelist who writes under the. name aii borrowed Concepts from classic.

martial arts stories traditional writers. he told me inhabited meowthong or. temples and courts whereas writers of. the internet age inhabited jung-ho or. the unkempt natural world. unburdened from the institutional gaze. they explored subjects and feelings that. didn't align with the state's values one. essayist writing under the name mudsume. earned her reputation by publishing sex.

journals detailing her one-night stands. and flirtatious encounters with rock. stars and other public figures if the. era's cosmopolitanism was thrilling it. was also morally ambiguous. sometimes upward Mobility could engender. a spiritual hollowness. without the relative Freedom that the. open internet provided how might never. have started writing after testing into. a university in Beijing and studying law. in 2000 he got a job in HR at a.

Cosmetics company and moved to the. southern Metropolis Shenzhen the. heartland of dung's reforms. when Howe became a writer he was an. untethered man his parents who had been. farmers in his rural home Village had. both died by the time he was in college. he was briefly married in the late 1990s. but that relationship ended in divorce. in 2000. browsing one of the literature. bulletin boards he came across a. serialized novel titled my Beijing.

published under the pseudonym Drunken. Fish. the story of a group of friends Finding. their way in the rapidly growing and. suddenly wealthy Capital inspired how to. try his hand at a story that reflected. his own time in China's Urban. environments we wrote about the stories. happening around us. our own anxieties expectations and sense. of rootlessness he told me. soon he had begun a novel about a recent. University graduate in the southwestern.

City Chengdu navigating office politics. and questioning his marriage. by April 2002 he was posting chapters to. several bulletin boards under his new. pseudonym. a name reminiscent of a hero in a. martial arts novel eventually titled. leave me alone the novel captured the. hopes and delusions of recent college. graduates who like Howe grew up in. modest circumstances and now found.

themselves surrounded by Temptations of. Fast Cash and meaningless sex. house depiction of chengdu's CD. underbelly became a sensation on forums. like tianya one of the period's largest. blogging platforms once a colleague. recommended the novel to how without. knowing that he was murung. within two months he was approached by. booksellers and Publishers and the novel. came out that December. he enjoyed the spoils of success.

frequently treating friends to fancy. dinners and letting them borrow money. when they needed it. Beijing is divided into six concentric. Rings radiating from downtown generally. speaking the closer to downtown the more. prosperous the neighborhood. by 2010 Howe lived in a penthouse in the. third ring. house fiction tended to explore. imperfect protagonists abuse of power. and the moral corrosion of City Life in.

his 2008 best-selling novel dancing. through Red Dust the narrator Wei da is. a well-connected partner at a law firm. who moves with confidence through. gambling dens and corporate offices. alike. way comes from a simple family but in a. world where money keeps everything in. motion and compassion is weakness his. survival instincts and desire for. influence overwhelm his better nature. in one scene way runs over a poor farmer.

while driving drunk. in the end the farmer is forced to pay. away for damaging his car. 's transition from a Pulp Fiction writer. to a daring documentarian and critic of. the government was a natural progression. from the get-go he has been completely. obsessed with how people are corrupted. by the environment in which they live. Says Megan Walsh author of the subplot a. book about contemporary Chinese. literature. in reading his work she says you come to.

believe that people can exist in and. perpetuate horrendous cycles of. Injustice. authorities mostly viewed how and other. newcomers with suspicion at National. writers association conferences leaders. urged literature workers to fight. against diversification of thought ideas. that subverted authoritarian patriarchal. Norms later at a propaganda meeting the. deputy party Secretary of Chengdu.

criticized house fiction for damaging. the city's image a more correct local. performance artist Li bossing accused. how of failing to present the city's. mainstream features to him Lee said in. an interview Chengdu was a beautiful. kind and tolerant mother who also has a. graceful figure. disgusted by the lust and greed. portrayed in Hal's work Lee insisted. that writers should focus on the city's.

relaxing atmosphere famed history of. brocade production and beautiful Chinese. hibiscus. as Hal went through a political. Awakening that distrust turned into. persecution. in 2011 Hal learned that his close. friend run Yoon FEI a scholar of. classical Chinese was arrested and. charged with subversion after he warned. that if China didn't make reforms it. risked an upheaval like the Jasmine. Revolution protests in North Africa. on way boa where how had millions of.

followers he denounced the arrest and. called run the conscience of the country. run was released from detention that. same year but house encounter with State. repression radicalized him until that. point I had enjoyed my life as a. best-selling author and avoided getting. into trouble he says but when their. hands reached those close to me I had to. step up. housewriting steered to social. commentary and he began contributing to.

the international New York Times. the repercussions were Swift how was. banned from weibo and before long it. became clear that he was blacklisted in. 2014 he started to receive invitations. to tea slang for informal police. questioning. in the next few years he had tea about. 40 times as often as once a month. sometimes as if they were old friends. officers would ask what Howe had been up.

to or what he had been thinking about. his writing career essentially came to. an end he never published another book. in China and he made his living by ghost. writing screenplays for movies and TV. shows. when out of habit he reached for the. bill while out at dinner friends. dissuaded him and insisted that he. needed to think about his future by the. time he left China he had rented a. studio apartment outside beijing's fifth. ring. 36 of his friends writers Scholars.

activists and lawyers had been detained. or sentenced to prison late at night as. he fell asleep he wondered when his turn. would come. I didn't have long-term plans he says. because I felt that I had one foot in. prison already. [Music]. under President Xi Jinping who took. office in 2013. the Communist party has. sought to assert China's position as a.

rising Global power. domestically she's government has shown. less tolerance for the kind of writing. that dung's reforms fostered and has. been keen on creating a centralized. discourse that nurtures national pride. through an emphasis on telling China's. story well a piece of ubiquitous. political boilerplate that she. introduced into the national. Consciousness in the spring of 2013 less. than two months after she became. president State Outlets reported on a. party central document that instructed.

cadres to prioritize the struggles in. the ideological sphere and to reinforce. our management of propaganda on the. cultural front and cut off channels of. erroneous ideologies and speech at their. headwaters. this course correction was a tacit. admission that dung's opening up policy. stoked growing conversation about. Notions like feminism queerness and. civil rights and that their discussion. needed to be curbed.

to that end the state has developed a. robust surveillance and censorship. apparatus. local police officers publishing. authorities and digital surveillance. tools are all mobilized into a. multi-faceted operation whose purpose is. to control China's story. that Machinery has transformed the. internet from a place of experimentation. into exhibit a of the state's power this. often takes the form of a 404 error page. a notice that the state has deemed an.

article or a piece of social media. content unfit for public consumption no. one is immune in 2021 former prime. minister wenja Bao published an essay. remembering his mother writing that. China should be a country full of. justice and fairness on the popular. social media app WeChat users couldn't. share wen's essay on their timelines or. private chats. she's approach has strangled free. expression.

according to Freedom House which surveys. internet Freedom around the world by. tracking control measures the freedom of. the Chinese internet has dropped by 40. since 2011. and for the last eight years. China has earned the ignominious. distinction of being the most repressive. among the countries that the. organization monitors in publishing each. new title requires individual approval. which can result in an exhausting. process once a publisher decides to.

pursue a book proposal it will be. reviewed by in-house editors before they. submit a request to the National. administration of press and publication. which decides whether the idea will. materialize in the last decade the. publication of new titles categorized as. literary has decreased by 15. 7 out of 10 literary titles published in. 2013 were new works by 2021. reprints made up half of Publications.

in this environment of intense. censorship and fractured cultural. infrastructure writers must be flexible. willing to forego old forms and move. fluidly among genres if they want to. continue making meaningful work. journalists become serial entrepreneurs. who dream up new ways of creating to. fill the lacunai they see when one. project becomes infeasible they move on. to another. zhangwan mean a veteran journalist who.

writes under the name Jiang shui became. known for her coverage of a 2002 civil. rights case in which four policemen. showed up at a newlywed couple's home. because they were watching porn. among many colleagues there had been the. consensus that no matter what they had. to try to say a little more Zhang. recalls sensing increasing pressure she. quit institutional journalism in 2015 to. become a self-publishing blogger.

with long straight hair Zhang dresses. simply in contrast to these Steely. insistence on common sense in her. writing there is a vulnerable shyness in. her physical presence. I've never been cool she joked softly. her arms draped in front of her body on. WeChat she wrote stories about. dissidents something no news Outlet. would allow she said because it's like. violating a Tien tell a statute Sent. From Heaven.

she was uninvited from journalism events. she lost her way boy and WeChat accounts. becoming virtually invisible. friends and family think I went too far. Zhang said. when her City Xi'an went into lockdown a. friend offered her own WeChat account to. publish Zhang's journals they went viral. but also drew a tax. the worsening media environment in the. last 10 years makes people see things. upside down she said when you do the.

most normal thing it appears abnormal. elsewhere an even more bottom-up kind of. writing Community appeared its. participants are assisted by affordable. technology three-quarters of the Chinese. population are smartphone owners. allowing a wider swath of people to. publish more varieties of writing. while house generation of writers was. predominantly middle class and upwardly. mobile the spread of Internet enabled. technology has allowed working-class.

people without degrees to pursue. literature on social media platforms. like Kwai Shoal where users post short. video clips Factory workers masseuses. and truck drivers started to compose. poems. in 2017 a 44 year old single mother van. yusu became a literary star almost. overnight after her autobiographical. essay I am fan yusu went viral on WeChat. beginning with a striking line my life.

is a hard to read book. Destiny bound me poorly. it narrates her rural Youth and eventual. employment by an uber-rich Beijing. businessman who hires her to take care. of the child he shares with a mistress. six days a week she leaves her own. daughters behind and attends to the love. child she started writing in her free. time because she thought to live you. have to do something besides eating.

the journalist and editor Yang Ying has. been a champion for overlooked stories. and the platforms that host them she has. managed to build a successful career. despite cycles of setback and rebirth a. former reporter for a business weekly. she left that magazine in 2014 after. growing dissatisfied with conventional. media along with a couple of other. editors she started a popular digital. Outlet whose name translates to. curiosity daily that covered subjects. like the Shanghai Pride Parade a Texan.

who moved into a dumpster for a year to. explore sustainable living and the work. of the Japanese auteur hirokazukore who. once commented that creators should keep. influence of the state at Bay. after the authorities suspended the. outlet twice for illegally building a. news Gathering and editing team the. outfit dissolved in 2019. young persisted following that project. with a digital magazine called xiaan Yao.

or little birds in which she published. literary writing on subjects that could. no longer be explored in journalism. literature is our last Refuge young told. me. in stories people can communicate with. one another Zhang Jia ping a journalist. turned media entrepreneur and founder of. the fellowship zaichung or on the scene. told me their Joys and sadness become. relatable. with today's news outlets it's.

increasingly hard to achieve that. as journalism institutions collapsed. Zhang built daichung to create a. community and a ladder for aspiring. journalists to learn to tell such. stories editors like young and Zhang. want to correct that dearth of. connection by normalizing what Young. called everyday messiness topics that. the state considers counterproductive. like disappearing traditional Villages. and the rising diagnosis of anxiety in.

the aftermath of disasters in cheese. China though publishing this work means. courting unwanted attention. during shanghai's covet lockdown Xiao. published a special edition that. collected Haunting real stories. including one about a young woman who. evaded the rules to cross the city to. see her critically ill father soon young. was treated to tea by her local police. apparently swamped with tea appointments.

they asked her to remove the entire. issue from the publication's mobile app. she complied. without public distribution channels the. special issue of Xiao lives as a PDF. passed around among friends. I have no idea how far it has reached. young said. there is something sami's dot like to it. she said referring to the underground. literature of 20th century Eastern. Europe which circulated hand to hand.

in today's China people create knowing. that publishing is transient in nature. online articles can be taken down books. can be removed from the shelves writers. can be blacklisted bloggers can be. disappeared. one of the websites xiaoine frequented. poetry life announced its shutdown on. July 13th. poetry life was born on the internet. where it will dissipate the announcement. read. it has been a mirage as well as our real.

land. yet many people go on writing in. whatever capacity they can manage. if the goal was to escape censorship. then we wouldn't be in this business. young said. they focus instead on creating a new. possibility of public writing a vibrant. breathing thing. here people are quick to forget she said. sometimes they are forced to forget. other times new events overwrite the old.

before you know it. it's like we live in an environment. where people can't keep going if they. don't learn to forget. she paused to search for the precise. words. literature is a good way to help people. remember things. earlier this year zhongwen mean and Howe. were introduced by mutual friends and. met while they were each traveling. pondering her future Zhang was both. curious about and daunted by the. examples of how and other expatriate.

writers. at a dinner with other Chinese writers. she spoke almost to herself. how does a writer come to accept their. status of Exile. in Melbourne Howe is curious about his. new surroundings every experience. presents opportunities for discoveries. after Contracting kovid and speaking. with a public health official on the. phone he was prescribed free medication. isn't this socialism he wondered he went.

to observe a local election and chatted. with people outside. it's eye-opening he says there is a. party representing sex workers there is. also a party for animal rights. how is eager to master his new language. but is baffled by the choice of other. exiled writers like the late Milan. kundera to abandon their mother tongues. in their work. the act of writing of making sense of.

one's experiences is so bound up in the. language a person speaks along with all. the little intricacies and inexplicable. imagery within it to abandon it is. almost like abandoning yourself. he told me the story behind his favorite. Chinese phrase. or a fleeting dream as the golden Millet. Cooks. it refers to a story in which a young. man falls asleep at an inn as The. Innkeeper steams a pot of millet in his. dream the man marries a beautiful woman.

from a wealthy family Rises to power in. court politics and narrowly escapes. death after jealous Rivals set him up. after a lifetime he wakes up. the Millet isn't done yet. which is the reality. eventless destitution or surreal. Splendor punctuated by viciousness. how has readily joined a growing. community of Chinese activists and. writers in Exile.

as the environment grows dire he wrote. to John on Signal the encrypted. messaging service we are a generation. that's destined to be uprooted and. Scattered to drift through the world. privately though how is still processing. the past. since self-exiling how has experienced a. measure of survivor's guilt his tally of. Arrested friends has risen to 41. last. fall when thousands of citizens. protested the arbitrary covid policies.

how had an intense feeling of missing. out. one day perhaps he thought he would. decide to return home as abruptly as he. left. in his early essays Howe depicted. himself to be a somewhat feeble man when. he encountered physical conflict in the. streets he tended to avert his eyes and. avoid getting involved. it's different however when the conflict. is intellectual. he finds himself oscillating between. weary caution and Reckless bravery he.

cannot stomach the government's. authoritarian grip on China's literary. culture and public life. who gives you the right to rule this way. he wondered aloud. last year Howe began writing fiction. again at the age of 48. he is in the middle of a new novel he is. calling homeless dog the working title. is inspired by a friend's experience. during a tea session when a global. officer scolded him don't fancy yourself.

to be some kind of big figure to me you. are merely a homeless dog. seen in this light the title poses a. question. who gets to Define writers like how. I had to make many difficult choices but. I'm proud of the Life I Lived house says. in may he was touring for his Wuhan book. in Norway. in drizzling rain on a train passing. through unfamiliar cities he dozed.

a Dream came. he was 18 again and about to take the. college entrance exam. he was feeling unprepared he woke up. feeling jittery then remembered that the. old days are long gone. he is far from home. [Music].