Madeleine Thien - Do Not Say We Have Nothing

I am grateful for financial support from Simon Fraser University, University of Guelph, Nanyang Technological University Singapore and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec. Thank you to Katharina Narbutovič and the DAAD Berliner Künstlerprogramm who hosted my partner, and welcomed me not only as family but as an artist in my own right. Do Not Say We Have Nothing began in the freedom and openness offered to us in Berlin.

To my students and fellow faculty in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at City University of Hong Kong, which was closed down as a result of internal and external politics, and to my friends in Hong Kong, thank you for six beautiful years.

A small group carried me through difficult times, financially, artistically and spiritually. Thank you Ellen Seligman, Y-Dang Troeung, David Chariandy, Sophie McCall, Steven Galloway, Sarah Blacker, Phanuel Antwi, Johanna Skibsrud, Amanda Okopski, Priya Basil, Xu Xi, Sara O’Leary, Anita Rau Badami, Elee Kraljii Gardiner, Michelle Garneau, Dionne Brand, Guylaine Racine, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Claudia Kramatschek and Tobias Wenzel.

To Emily Wood and John Asfour, and to my mother, Matilda Thien, who left this world far too soon. As John wrote, “When death catches me on the sidewalk of a poem, I will only regret not having had you in my arms long enough.”

To my father and Katherine Luo, for their love and faith. To Rawi Hage, for everything.

Not everyone who supported and strengthened this story can be named. To my beloved friends in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Beijing and Dunhuang, thank you for accompanying me through this book of records and an alternate memory of history. Remember what I say: Not everything will pass.

“Watch little by little the night turn around…” Adapted from Pink Floyd lyrics for “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun,” adapted from Tang Dynasty poet Li Shangyin’s “Untitled Poem(iii)”, from Poems of the Late T’ang , transl. by A. C. Graham (New York: New York Review Books, 2008), 147.

“You and I are forever separated by a river…” “A Trip to Xinjiang”, News Plus, China Radio International, Beijing. November 1, 2013. Radio.

Lyrics from a folk song translated from Russian to Chinese, collected by musician Wang Luobin who once dreamed of studying at the Paris Conservatory. At the age of 25, he encountered and fell in love with Xinjiang music and, over decades, traveled throughout the region, collecting and adapting more than 700 songs into eight albums. He spent 19 years of his life imprisoned.

“My youth has gone like a departing bird…” “A Trip to Xinjiang.”

“I would also like to be wise…” Bertolt Brecht, “To Those Born Later,” transl. by John Willett, The Faber Book of Twentieth-Century German Poems (London: Faber and Faber, 2005), 71.

“The marriage of a girl, away from her parents…” Adapted from Wei Yingwu, “To My Daughter on Her Marriage into the Yang Family,” in Witte Bynner, The Jade Mountain: A Chinese Anthology, Being Three Hundred Poems of the T’ang Dynasty , 618–906 (New York: Knopf, 1930), 212.

“When the mind is exalted…” adapted from Wei Yingwu, “Entertaining Literary Men in My Official Residence on a Rainy Day,” The Jade Mountain , 208.

“How can you ignore this sharp awl that pierces your heart?…” From a song by Jesuit missionary, China scholar and musician, Matteo Ricci (1552–1610), as quoted in Rhapsody in Red: How Western Classical Music Became Chinese (New York: Algora Publishing, 2004), 59.

“These kids have never even seen an instrument in their dreams!” Li Delun, who brought donated musical instruments to Communist headquarters at Yan’an in 1946, and became the founder, instructor and conductor of the orchestra. As quoted by Sheila Melvin and Jindong Cai in Rhapsody in Red , 176.

“We told each other secretly in the quiet midnight world….” Adapted from Bai Juyi, “Song of Everlasting Sorrow,” in Witter Bynner, The Jade Mountain , 120.

“I am lovesick for some lost paradise…” adapted from Ch’u Tz’u, or Songs of Ch’u , “The Far Journey,” transl. by J. Peter Hobson, Studies in Comparative Religion , Vol. 15, No. 1 & 2 (Winter-Spring, 1983).

“Family members wander…” Adapted from Bai Juyi, “Feelings on Watching the Moon” http://www.chinese-poems.com/bo3.html

“Moonlight in front of my bed…” Li Bo, “Quiet Night Thoughts,” transl. by Burton Watson in Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 204.

“The streets our brushes…” Vladimir Mayakovsky, “An Order to the Art Army,” December 1918. Transl. Anna Bostock, as quoted in John Berger, Art and Revolution: Ernst Neizvestny, Endurance, and the Role of the Artist (New York: Vintage, 2011), 44.

“Yellow dust, clear water under three mountains…” Li He, “A Sky Dream,” in Tony Barnstone and Ping Chou’s The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry (New York: Anchor, 2005), 199.

“We shouldn’t be afraid of our own voices….” adapted from Chin-chin Yap’s interview with Ai Weiwei, Ai Weiwei: Beijing — Works, 1993–2003 (Hong Kong: Timezone 8, 2003), 41.

“The beauty is in the machinery,” Prof. Henryk Iwaniec, from Alec Wilkinson, “The Pursuit of Beauty: Yitang Zhang solves a pure-math mystery,” The New Yorker , February 2, 2015.

“…deletes 16 percent of all Chinese internet conversations” David Bammam, Brendan O’Connor and Noah A. Sing, “Censorship and Deletion Practices in Chinese Social Media,” First Monday , 17.3 (March 2012).

“Could I awake now and cross towards her?” Inspired by “Thus, in fainting we yunguoqu 暈 過 去 ‘faint and cross away’, and in awakening we xingguolai 醒 過 來 ‘awake and cross toward here,’ ” Perry Link, An Anatomy of Chinese: Rhythm, Metaphor, Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013), 9.

“Even the beautiful must die…” Friedrich Schiller, as quoted by Jan Swafford in Johannes Brahms: A Biography (New York: Knopf, 2012), 463.

“A birch tree, a spruce, a poplar is beautiful…” Excerpted from the section of Schiller’s letter to Körner of February 23, 1793, which is entitled, “Freedom in the appearance is one with beauty.” This translation is taken from Friedrich Schiller, Poet of Freedom, Vol. II, Schiller Institute, Washington, D.C., 1988, pp. 512-19. See http://www.schillerinstitute.org/transl/trans_schil_essay.html

“Those representatives of the bourgeoisie who have sneaked into the Party…” Mao Zedong, “May 16 Circular”, as quoted in Michael Lynch’s Mao (London: Routledge, 2004), 181.

“Leave their allotted space and march to the centre of the stage” adapted from Jonathan D. Spence, The Gate of Heavenly Peace (London: Faber and Faber, 1982), 22.

“All revolutionary intellectuals, now is the time to go into battle…” Nie Yuanzi, “What have Song Shuo, Lu Ping, and Peng Peiyun Done in the Cultural Revolution?”, Peking Review , Volume 10, May 25, 1966.

“We wash away insects, and are strong,” Mao Zedong, “To Guo Moruo,” in The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry , 360.

“The water of socialism nourished me…” Lyrics from the song, “Longing for Mao Zedong”, arranged by Li Jiefu. Hongweibing gesheng [The voice of the Red Guards] (Beijing: Houdu dazhuan xuexiao Hongweibing daibiao dahui, 1969), 99.

“The old ferryman couldn’t guess what the obstacle was…” Shen Congwen, Border Town (New York: Harper Collins, 2009), 96.

“This is the beautiful Motherland…” From the famous patriotic song, “My Motherland”, lyrics by Qiao Yu and music by Liu Chi.