{"id":905,"date":"2014-05-26T18:23:04","date_gmt":"2014-05-26T18:23:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=905"},"modified":"2014-05-26T18:23:04","modified_gmt":"2014-05-26T18:23:04","slug":"q-a-chan-koonchung-on-tibet-sex-and-censorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/q-a-chan-koonchung-on-tibet-sex-and-censorship","title":{"rendered":"Q & A: Chan Koonchung on Tibet, Sex and Censorship"},"content":{"rendered":"

By JOYCE LAU MAY 25, 2014 6:00 PM<\/span><\/p>\n

\"23sino-book01-tmagArticle\"<\/a>
\nChan Koonchung checking the offerings at the People’s Recreation Community bookstore in Hong Kong.
\nJoyce Lau<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The shopkeeper at the small Hong Kong bookstore recognized the author Chan Koonchung right away. The People\u2019s Recreation Community \u2014 its initials are a play on People\u2019s Republic of China \u2014 specializes in books that are banned on the Chinese mainland, but not in the relatively free territory of Hong Kong. Mr. Chan found his own volumes on the shelf across from the cashier, while the shopkeeper brought over mugs of milk tea.<\/p>\n

\"23sino-chan02-articleInline\"<\/a>
\nCourtesy of Random House UK
\nMr. Chan, 61, a Shanghai native who grew up in Hong Kong and now lives in Beijing, caught international attention with \u201cThe Fat Years,\u201d his 2009 sci-fi novel in which a month disappears from the historical record \u2014 but citizens never notice because they have been brainwashed into being blindly happy. Predictably, given the book\u2019s not-so-subtle allusion to the cover-up of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, it has never been published on the mainland.<\/p>\n

His latest novel, \u201cThe Unbearable Dreamworld of Champa the Driver,\u201d about a young Tibetan trying to find his way in Beijing, was published in English this month. In an interview, Mr. Chan talked about sex, censorship, Tibet, stolen pets and people opening his mail. Excerpts follow:<\/p>\n

Q.
\nDid you try getting \u201cThe Fat Years\u201d published on the mainland?<\/p>\n

A.
\nSeveral mainland publishers came to me after the novel got published. I asked them to read it first before we talked. They didn\u2019t come back.<\/p>\n

But someone \u2014 I don\u2019t know who \u2014 typed it up in simplified Chinese and passed it around the Internet, where it stayed for about six months. There were at least two versions \u2014 one typed and one scanned \u2014 that were widely circulated, mostly as PDFs, until they were deleted. The censors were not so fast back then.<\/p>\n

Q.
\nDid a similar thing happen to \u201cChampa\u201d?<\/p>\n

A.
\nThis time, the controls are tighter. They are getting better at blocking things. And maybe readers are less keen. There are so many titles in China now. Why would people want to spend their energy looking for the censored ones?<\/p>\n

Q.
\nWhere do you get your own reading materials?<\/p>\n

A.
\nThere are one or two really good bookstores in Beijing, plus Amazon China. For English books, I can go to the U.S. Amazon.com and they get through most of the time.<\/p>\n

But banned books are a problem. I tried to get my own books \u2014 meaning books I had written \u2014 sent to me, and they were not allowed in. They are opening my boxes.<\/p>\n

Q.
\nWhat are you reading?<\/p>\n

A.
\nI\u2019m trying to finish these thick novels by Jonathan Franzen \u2014 \u201cThe Corrections\u201d and \u201cFreedom.\u201d I\u2019ve also read \u201c2666\u201d by Roberto Bola\u00f1o. I\u2019m not courageous enough to write such thick novels for Chinese audiences. And I read \u201cWhite Teeth\u201d by Zadie Smith. I liked that.<\/p>\n

Q.
\n\u201cChampa\u201d begins with an affair between a handsome young Tibetan and an older, richer businesswoman. She is the sugar mommy and he is the arm candy. Why did you turn this gender stereotype on its head?<\/p>\n

A.
\nThis is something I noticed in real life. Many Chinese women in middle age, when they go to Tibet their behavior changes. They become very flirty with their tour guide or driver \u2014 and they\u2019d never do that in Beijing. And these guys are quite handsome.<\/p>\n

The protagonist is a Tibetan young man. He is intelligent, but not highly literate. He likes his women, his wine and his cars. I tried to write it as directly as possible. He isn\u2019t deep. He\u2019s deeply flawed.<\/p>\n

Q.
\nHow does the Tibet you depict differ from the usual stereotypes?<\/p>\n

A.
\nMy ambition was to write an antiromantic novel about Tibet. I didn\u2019t want to write about this Shangri-La-type place that was spiritual and exotic.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been to Tibet many times. Lhasa is very modern. Half the population is not Tibetan, and many Tibetans work for the state \u2014 for example, as police. These young people behave just like other Chinese, with their fake designer jeans and obsession with cars. These guys \u2014 they do love their vehicles. So I wanted someone who was not a herder or a farmer.<\/p>\n

Q.
\nHow much has Tibet changed in one generation?<\/p>\n

A.
\nI started researching Tibet because I was supposed to be producing a movie for Francis Ford Coppola\u2019s studio. I started visiting Tibet in 1992, and it has changed a lot. There are more Chinese than ever from the mainland. The number of Chinese tourists has broken all records, but there are fewer international tourists because it is hard for them to get visas. Sometimes they will let elderly Westerners in in small groups, but the young backpackers are largely gone. The same with foreign NGOs. There are very few left in Tibet.<\/p>\n

Q.
\nThere are two graphic scenes in which Champa seems to force himself on women, including both this businesswoman and her daughter. Would you call this rape?<\/p>\n

A.
\nIn one case, you have a young girl who is quite unsure of her sexuality, and a young man who did not enjoy doing it. It is really a gray area. While both women did not like it, they did not resist much, either.<\/p>\n

I wanted to create sexual relationships that were as complex as possible. It\u2019s a metaphor for Chinese and Tibetan relationships. Tibet and China are engaged in a very complex co-dependency. You should feel uncomfortable reading these passages.<\/p>\n

Q.
\nWith his Tibetan looks and Tibetan papers, Champa has a hard time finding a place to stay. Would you say that the Chinese were being racist to him?<\/p>\n

A.
\nThey\u2019re pragmatic. The hotels want to avoid trouble, and so they overreact. Landlords, too. And the result is not so subtle.<\/p>\n

Q.
\nThe only job Champa can get in Beijing is \u201csecurity work in a hotel,\u201d which is a euphemism for \u201cthug in a black jail\u201d \u2014 an extralegal detention center. How common is this practice?<\/p>\n

A.
\nThe one thing a Tibetan guy can do in Beijing is be a security guard. In fact, Beijing has held recruiting campaigns for young Lhasa men to do this work in the capital. So Champa goes to work for one of these \u201chotels.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the government rounds up petitioners, they are kept in these \u201chotels\u201d until they can be sent back to their home provinces. There are also \u201chotels\u201d that the local security officials use for people when they don\u2019t want to press official charges. It\u2019s a non-place.<\/p>\n

Q.
\nChampa gets involved with activists trying to save a truckload of dogs headed for the slaughterhouse. Does this really happen?<\/p>\n

A.
\nEating dog is legal in China, and the dog meat restaurants need supplies. But nobody actually rears meat dogs \u2014 it\u2019s too expensive \u2014 so they just steal them.<\/p>\n

These incidents really take place. A group of activists will stop a delivery truck with their cars \u2014 they have cars because they are generally middle-class. Then they buy up the stock of stolen dogs. I find it encouraging that people are organizing things not related to their immediate interests.<\/p>\n

Q.
\nYou\u2019ve worked with Greenpeace and local environmental groups. You also predict a dark ecological future in your novels. How bad is the situation in China? Is the damage reversible?<\/p>\n

A.
\nSome rivers could still be cleaned up \u2014 some, maybe not all. The air quality could be improved if they made an effort to phase out coal. Forestry is almost gone. That\u2019s too late. You can\u2019t replant biodiversity. But the main problem is the underground water \u2014 it\u2019s so polluted. This is the most serious crisis: the water supply.<\/p>\n

From :http:\/\/sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com\/2014\/05\/25\/q-a-chan-koonchung-on-tibet-sex-and-censorship\/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=1&utm_content=buffera5f09&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer&<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By JOYCE LAU MAY 25, 2014 6:00 PM Chan K … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[232,35],"tags":[],"views":1059,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=905"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":909,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905\/revisions\/909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}