Chinese Literature Today

By Dai Jinhua & Chenshu Zhou (Translator)

Abstract

In this article, Dai Jinhua problematizes the notion of the future in our current age of global capitalism. Her central question is “do we still have a future?” She connects the proliferation of end-of-the-world imagination in world cinema with an underlying sense of crisis that has spread across the world since the end of the Cold War. The end of the world in filmic representations, she observes, has evolved from being caused by manmade disasters to being the result of natural events, reflecting a shared inability to deal with the crisis of capitalism. Another prominent global issue that is manifested in recent science-fiction movies is the growing gap between the rich and the poor. Dai pays particular attention to the role of technology, which increases the polarization rather than promising a better future for all. Recognizing that a solution cannot be found within the current system, Dai calls for a renewed utopian imagination to bring humankind into the future.

What does the Future Mean?

As we walk deeper into the twenty-first century, the future—as a destination that has been set aside and that has almost entirely evaporated—has suddenly become real and urgent to me as a point of reference and a matter of debate.

However, speaking of the future is not speaking about time: although time appears as a natural, physical dimension, it is more of a conceptual “fact” of the human intelligence. Time in the “Chinese temporality” with which we are becoming gradually unfamiliar concerns natural cycles: the sun rises and sets; one sows in the spring and then harvests in the autumn. It is a monistic cycle, with dynasties succeeding one another and sea changing into mulberry field. Buddhism arrived later and introduced the notion of reincarnation, the coming and going of life and world. Of course, what we are more familiar with and what we have internalized is the Christian time: a directional time that has a beginning and an end. Paradise, paradise lost, and paradise regained. It gave rise to the so-called modern time—capitalist or modernist—that emphasizes progress, developmentalism, the self-improvement of humanity, and the infinite rise of human society. It is also known as linear time, in which the future is imminent and inevitable.

Yu Xiuhua 余秀华 became an overnight celebrity poet when her sensationally titled poem “Crossing Over Half of China to Sleep with You” (“Chuan guo daban ge zhongguo qu shui ni” 穿过大半个中国去睡你) went viral online in 2014. Because of Yu’s disability (cerebral palsy), gender, and background as a farmer in central Hubei, her poetry was initially popularized over the internet as the work of a “brainparalyzed peasant woman poet.” At the same time, her poems quickly garnered attention from scholars, who took notice of her piercing poetic voice and unconventional use of language. Since the online circulation of “Crossing,” Yu has published three books of poetry that have sold over 400,000 copies, signaling a major poetry craze that has not been witnessed in China since the 1980s Cultural Fever. Additionally, in 2018 Yu published a personal essay collection and an autobiographical novella. She accumulated an international presence after appearing in Fan Jian’s 范俭 2016 documentary film Still Tomorrow (Yaoyao huanghuang de renjian, 摇摇晃晃的人间), which chronicles Yu’s rise to literary fame and struggle for the right to divorce. Her story has been featured in mainstream media such as the New York Times, and in 2018 Yu was nominated for the Newman Prize for Chinese Literature alongside writers such as Bei Dao, Xi Chuan, and Xi Xi.