ASTRAY:

Q&A: 'Unlike the Wolf, Sheep Are Afraid of Freedom': Interview with Jiang Rong, author of 'Wolf Totem' (IPS, 6/06/08)

IPS: How do you explain the continuing popularity of the book?

JR: It is quite a phenomenon. For the first three years after its 2004 publication, "Wolf Totem" was, continuously, the most read book in China. Now, in its fifth year, the book is still at number five on the most popular books charts. I don’t think there has ever been another Chinese novel to preserve its popularity for so long. It is not only the pirated copies that prove it. Some big companies have financed its reprint themselves and distributed it to their employees. Corporate executives like the book. So do people in the military.

IPS: Why?

JR: Because it attacks the weakness of the Chinese national character. Chinese people are inherently weak; they can’t stand up for themselves. They need an emperor to protect them. Even when they rebel, ultimately they still want to install a better, more enlightened emperor. In my book, I have compared Han Chinese (the dominant ethnic group) to sheep. Sheep are always afraid of freedom. Unlike the wolf, which roams free, the sheep needs shelter and protection. It is cattle. "Wolf Totem" summarises my own experiences in organising liberal democratic movements in China. Each time, I had people who rallied with me. But at the end, they all ran away and I was always the one left to suffer the consequences. I was labeled a "counter-revolutionary" five times in my life. I was sent to prison twice.

IPS: What is the meaning of the wolf in your story?

JR: The wolf symbolises the free spirit. In traditional Chinese culture, which is inspired by Confucianism, all wolf stories are bad. Wolf is a swear word. But in my book, the wolf totem revered by nomadic Mongols, stands for freedom, independence, competition, strength and teamwork. If Chinese people want to be free, they need to nurture these characteristics. They need to change their national character. National character is the reason behind the failure of Chinese political movements.

IPS: What about the role of Mongolian grasslands in your book?

JR: The book is based on my own experiences as an educated youth sent for "re-education" in the grasslands of Inner Mongolia during the Cultural Revolution. But there is more to the autobiographical element. I wanted to write a book attacking China’s sheep like mentality and criticising our nation’s cultural roots. Unlike Japan, which has learned to embrace Western ideas, China has always resisted the West’s influence. Chinese people resist Western culture because they believe their own culture is superior. In the past this way of thinking has often prevented them from advancing. Obviously, I couldn’t use the West as comparison to make my point. I had to choose the grassland culture of nomadic people, which lies between China and the West.

IPS: Some foreign critics have called your book racist. What is your opinion?

JR: I wrote the book as a self-reflection. I needed to make Chinese people look inside themselves and see their weaknesses. In my original epilogue I explain the motives for my call to emulate the wolf as a way to make Chinese people stand up and fight for freedom.

You know you have a problem when you compare unfavorably to the "independence" of the Japanese.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 6, 2008 10:40 AM