Mulberry and Peach (35 page)

14
Let me emphasize from the outset that by “vision,” I do not mean Nieh's consciously held and rationally explicable views, which are, in any case, sometimes inconsistent. Instead, I am referring to the totality of presented details in the novel, which Nieh the artist realizes with a fullness beyond extractive summary. In other words, I consider Nieh in her “creative” mode more capacious, more inclusive of contradictions, than Nieh in a more “instrumental” mode. Although, in admiration of her artistry and for convenience, I often apply volitional terms to Nieh—indeed it is difficult to entirely avoid volitional terms in literary analysis—I do not subscribe to the belief that a writer can be in absolute, premeditated
control over her work. Such seems to be the case with the feminist elements in Nieh's novel. Hence my emphasis on
reading
—on what a reader from a certain perspective sees in what is shown.

15
This point, frequently made by postcolonial critics, is presented in an especially compelling form for Chinese readers by Lydia Liu, “The Female Body and Nationalist Discourse:
The Field of Life and Death
Revisited,” in
Scattered Hegemonies: Postmodernity and Transnational Feminist Practices
, eds. Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994), 37-62.

16
Pai Hsien-yung, “The Wandering Chinese,” 211.

17
Cynthia Enloe,
Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 54. I thank Rachel Lee for drawing my attention to this analysis.

18
See the critique of Euro-American feminism in Chandra Talpade Mohanty, “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses,”
boundary
2 12 (1984): 333-58.

19
The following biographical sketch is a composite drawn from various Chinese pieces written by Nieh herself and from Li Kailing, “Nie Hualing qiren qizuo” (The life and works of Hualing Nieh) in
Nie Hualing yanjiu zhuanji
(Anthology of studies of Nieh Hualing), eds. Li Kailing and Chen Zhongshu (n.p.: Hubei jiaoyu chubanshe, 1990), 3-13. Anglophone readers may be interested in Peter Nazareth, “An Interview with Chinese Author Hualing Nieh,”
World Literature Today
(Winter 1981), 10-18.

20
“White Terror” refers to terror committed by the non-Red, non-Communist, Chinese.

21
In 1988
Sangqing yu Taohong
was published in full by Hanyi seyan chubanshe in Taiwan. Another edition was issued in 1997 by China Times Publishing in Taiwan. Ironically, these Taiwanese editions are Nieh's favorites: they are unexpurgated and feature beautifully designed, high-quality covers and interiors.

22
In 1986 in Hong Kong the publisher Huahan wenhua shiye gongsi reissued the complete text of the edition published by Youlian chubanshe.

23
At the time, all the mainland publishers were under direct government control. In an interview with me (Iowa City, Iowa, 23 March 1996), Nieh noted that, given the political and cultural conditions in China at the time, it would have been impossible to publish
Sangqing yu taohong
without cuts. Her preface to the expurgated edition carefully avoids mentioning censorship but refers instead to issues of artistic restraint and targeted audience.

24
In her 23 March 1996 interview with me, Hualing Nieh informed me that the unexpurgated versions were published respectively by Dongfeng wenyi chubanshe and by Huaxia chubanshe as part of its “haiwai huawen zuojia xilie” (overseas Chinese-language writers series).

25
In her 23 March 1996 interview with me, Nieh expressed second thoughts about the lists of characters, but interestingly, the lists inadvertently reinforce the performative aspects of
Mulberry and Peach
, which are adumbrated in Nieh's nonessentialist views on gender. I thank Tina Chen for her reading on this.

26
New World Press, which specialized in foreign-language publications, was under government control, like all publishers on the mainland at the time.

27
Pai Hsien-yung, “Shiji de piaobozhe: chongdu
Sangqing yu Taohong
” (The wanderer of the century: Rereading
Mulberry and Peach
),
Jiushi niandai yuekan
(The Nineties Monthly) 12 (1989): 93-95. Pai's piece is a revisiting of Nieh's novel in a post-Tiananmen Square Massacre context.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am profoundly grateful to the author, Hualing Nieh, for so generously allowing me to interview her extensively in March 1996 and for sharing with me her collection of various editions of
Mulberry and Peach
, reviews and critical essays, and documents related to its publication history. I thank her especially for the honor of writing this afterword. Such a possibility was beyond my wildest dreams when I first read
Sangqing yu Tuohong in Ming Pao Monthly
—with dim comprehension and much bewilderment, I must say—over two decades ago.

Brief sections of the afterword are drawn from “The Stakes of Border-Crossing: Hualing Nieh's
Mulberry and Peach
in Sinocentric, Asian American, and Feminist Critical Practices” in
Disciplining Asia: Theorizing Studies in the Asian Diaspora
, eds. Kandice Chuh and Karen Shimakawa (Durham: Duke University Press, forthcoming). I thank the editors for the opportunity to clarify my thinking on Nieh's novel and to receive feedback on the essay.

Upon reading the above essay both Rachel Lee and Colleen Lye raised pointed questions about the significance of mediation by Anglo-American feminism (and its variety of internationalism). Their questions have helped shape this afterword, and for this I am most appreciative.

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Published by The Feminist Press at The City University of New York City College, Wingate Hall, Convent Avenue at 138th Street, New York, NY 10031

 

First Feminist Press edition, 1998

Copyright © 1981 by Hualing Nieh Afterword copyright © 1998 by Sau-ling Cynthia Wong

 

Lyrics to “Blackbird” © 1968, “Nowhere Man” © 1996 by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Reproduced by permission of Northern Songs. All rights reserved.

 

No part of this book may be reproduced or used, stored in any information retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission of The Feminist Press at The City University of New York except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

 

Originally published in 1988 as a Beacon Paperback by arrangement with The Women's Press, Ltd. Translated from the Chinese
Sangqing yu Taohong
.

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nieh, Hua-ling, 1926–

[Sang Ch'ing yü Y‘ ao-hung. English]

Mulberry and Peach : two women of China / Hualing Nieh ; afterword by Sau-ling Cynthia Wong ; translated by Jane Parish Yang with Linda Lappin.

Originally published : Boston : Beacon Press, 1988.

eISBN : 978-1-558-61731-5

1. Nieh, Hua-ling, 1926-—Translations into English. I. Yang, Jane Parish, 1946–. II. Title.

PL2856.N4 S213 1998

98-12259

895.1'352—dc21

CIP

 

The Feminist Press is grateful to Jane S. Gould, Florence Howe, Joanne Markell, and Genevieve Vaughan for their generosity in supporting this publication.

 

Printed on acid-free paper by McNaughton & Gunn, Saline, MI
Manufactured in the United States of America