Foreign writers delve into world of fresh ideas

2015年01月13日10:21 來源：Shanghai Daily 作者： 點(diǎn)擊: 次

WHAT happens when you bring nine writers from different countries and unleash them in Shanghai for two months? While there’s no concrete answer to the question as yet, the 2014 Shanghai Writing Program hopes to inspire the scribes in such a way their future creations will portray the city in a positive light.

The program, launched in 2008, allows the writers, most of whom have had little exposure to China, to experience the city’s vibrancy, meet its people and visit cultural heritage sites so they can somehow find a connection between here and their home countries.

New Zealand writer Alison Wong describes the program as “charming” because she can spend time “with other writers from all around the world who speak different languages and share their experiences.”

American novelist Jervey Tervalon from California also admires the program due to its heterogeneity.

“I’m very committed to diversity myself and I’m quite impressed by the diversity of the program,” he says. “Nothing I’ve experienced in the US has approached such diversity. We hang out together all the time, talk about all kinds of issues, and we almost do everything together. I really admire the selection process of the Shanghai Writers’ Association. Whatever they did to select the writers, I hope they continue with it in the future.”

The African-American writer has also been active in organizing literary activities, especially events that help raise awareness for writers of color. He is the cofounder of the now-annual Litfest Pasadena and the online literary journal Literature for Life.

Inspired by the Shanghai Writing Program, Tervalon has also been working on a similar project back in California, where he wants to bring Chinese writers.

Shanghai Daily speaks with Wong, Tervalon and Colombian writer Jamie Panqueva, three of the nine writers in this year’s program, about their work and the program.

Jamie Panqueva

Panqueva’s debut novel, “The Rose of China,” explores the experiences of Catarina de San Juan, nicknamed China Poblana, an Indian slave taken to Mexico a few hundred years ago and who was later considered a legendary prophet and saint.

Back when the East and the West had little knowledge of one another, San Juan was seen by Mexicans as a Chinese woman who invented what was called the China Poblana, a Mexican-Chinese dress.

“I first came into this story when I got to Mexico and learned about the Keicho Mission, when Japanese diplomats and merchants traveled to Europe and Mexico in the mid-17th century to negotiate trade terms with Westerners,” Panqueva says.

The Colombian native says he studied and worked in both Germany and Spain before arriving in Mexico, shortly after he decided to leave a marketing job and start writing, a passion that dates to his childhood.

“During my research about the mission, I got fascinated by this ‘rose of China,’ who came to Mexico as a child slave and lived here into her 80s,” he says.

Before arriving in Shanghai, the writer says he stopped in Sendai, Japan, to see the Keicho Mission ship that was rebuilt and is now a tourist attraction.

Panqueva also plans to visit Nanjing, capital city of Jiangsu Province, and learn more about Zheng He (1371-1433), the Chinese diplomat and fleet admiral who commanded expeditionary voyages to Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and East Africa in the 15th century.

Some historians also contend that Zheng was the first explorer to sail around the world and that his fleet discovered the New World decades before Spaniard Christopher Columbus.

Alison Wong

Before arriving in Shanghai, Wong says she visited two villages in Xintang near Guangzhou in south China’s Guangdong Province. Her great-grandparents from both sides were from Xintang and were among the first Chinese immigrants to New Zealand in the late 1800s.

As a fourth-generation Chinese who was born and grew up in New Zealand, Wong says she didn’t really think about her heritage when she was growing up even though there were not many Chinese around.

“Sense of identity can change throughout your life,” she says. “As you mature, you may become less insecure and more interested in it. It was only after I grew up that I realized there were in fact very strong Chinese influences in my upbringing, even after four generations.

“For example, the issues about family, about wanting to make your parents proud of you, about respecting your elders, these are all strongly rooted in my heritage,” she explains.

Such awareness prompted Wong to learn more about her roots. In 1983, she studied at Xiamen University on a New Zealand-Chinese student scholarship. Wong and her classmates were then the first foreigners to study in the city.

In her first novel, “As the Earth Turns Silver,” certain aspects of her family history anchor the story, giving it a sense of time and place. Her book follows a love affair between a Chinese man and a European woman set in the 1890s and early 1900s, when such cross-cultural relationships were unacceptable in both societies.

Wong says the program has proven to be very stimulating.

“It’s very interesting for a writer to learn something of another language, which has really interesting ways of expressing itself, so it feels very creative and very stimulating as a new way of seeing the world,” she says.

“The misunderstandings, as well, are interesting. I really like to play with language. It is very important to me. There is not a big difference between my poetry and my prose. I’m interested in how the language sounds, works and feels,” she adds.

Jervey Tervalon

Tervalon, who was born in Louisiana and grew up in Los Angeles, has recently published “Monster’s Chef,” his sixth novel. It draws heavily on the celebrity culture of LA, telling the story of a chef who works for a secretive hip-hop musician.

Of the nine writers, he perhaps has the most China and Shanghai experience as his wife is Chinese and used to work in Shanghai.

“I’m very impressed with the rise of women in China,” he says. “The most impressive people I have met here have been the women.”

Tervalon is interested in diversity, and helping minority writers break into the still dominantly white publishing business in America is important to him.

“It is an ongoing battle,” he says.

He has cofounded Litfest Pasadena and the website Literatureforlife.net, an online journal featuring the work of both established writers and students. He says the site allow students to see their lives reflected in contemporary literature since a school’s curriculum is often outdated.

He is now working on a memoir about his first visit to China, when he visited both his wife’s hometown in northern China and Shanghai in the summer of 2013.

“The experience here has been very welcoming,” he says. “It may sound odd, but I go to some places and I don’t feel like a minority here. There’s a sense of personal safety, and I have a role here and it doesn’t make me feel like I’m less. I’m different, and I don’t need to pay a price for being different.”