“Between a good hell and a counterfeit paradise – which one would you choose?”, the Shanghai-born Hong Kong writer Chan Koonchung asks in his novel The Fat Years, published in 2009. Although one should always be wary when given only two stark opposite choices, I imagine many who grew up in or are familiar with the fabric of a Leninist state will feel the chill of the willing collective amnesia as depicted in his fiction. In the universe Chan observed, those who stubbornly hold on to their painful memories not only gain little sympathy from the public, but are swiftly labeled and treated as “minorities” to encourage further marginalization. One of the protagonists in the novel, however, opts for the “good hell” because at least in there, “everyone is fully aware that they are living in hell.”
Nearly a century ago, Lu Xun painted a similar dilemma in his famed “windowless iron house” metaphor: should you wake up the lighter sleepers and turn their complacency into agony in the face of an inevitable suffocation, or just let them be? The writer concluded that even just a few awoken fighters might stand a chance to break through the stifling and walled construction. Therefore, as part of the then chattering classes, he would not acquiesce to the existing condition.
The chattering classes in the mainland, nonetheless, have suffered the most violent political persecution and intimidation over the past decades since Lu Xun’s time. Many of my peers are no strangers to the stories in our own families. As a result, instead of the outcry, surviving intellectuals learned to murmur over time, limited their influence, or talked around issues while leaving institutional problems unscathed. To me, it has been a great tragedy for three generations. And even decades after the Cultural Revolution, fueled by the state-approved rhetoric, the public has still been led to use the term “intellectual” with contempt, triumphing over the latter’s past privileges during times of a more rigid class system.
I feel the loss in Hong Kong every day these days, for I have known the freedom of chattering without restraints. Yet for people who never enjoyed this freedom, what has caused their dismay and anger towards those on the other side of the border? Do some blame the lack of imagination, concern or empathy from those who were once more fortunate so much that they have forgotten who has real power over their lives? Or is mass amnesia in fact something everyone practices to a certain extent? After all, humanity shares the same inevitable destination on earth, if not literarily an iron house – we will eventually give back all we have, whether or not we have been aware of our personal and universal circumstances. So why spend our years on rumination? Why not simply focus on enjoying our days?
I believe it is the nature of some people to hold dear their memories, even when they find few companions, and even when these memories bring pain. And I believe that a political and social structure that attempts to wipe clean or martyrize suffering will have no growth. We all want a happy medium between counting our blessings and aspiring for change. However, as a recipient of government-sponsored “gratitude education” from an early, spirited age, it is disheartening to witness the imposed complacency on a new generation of children and adolescents here in Hong Kong, as if in exchange for the euphoric, harmonious stability as described in The Fat Years.
Flora Qian is the author of South of the Yangtze. She lives in New York with her husband and daughter.