an exposé of the mismanagement of rural economy during the Mao era, focusing on two characters in an agricultural commune who represent the opposing forces within the party between the self-serving ideologues and the truth-seeking realists. Ru’s writings tend to pay more attention to characterization than plot development. She is a writer of subtle emo- tions and her language is straightforward but vivid and fresh. See also WOMEN. – S – SAN MAO, PEN NAME OF CHEN PING (1943–1991). Born in Chongqing, the wartime capital of the Republic of China, San Mao moved to Taiwan with her parents. A precocious child, she had trouble fitting into the public school of Taipei and was subsequently home- schooled. She began publishing stories in her teens, but did not gain fame until the release of her first book, Sahala de gushi (The Sahara Tales), which records her personal experience in the African desert. Most of her later works are also based on her own experiences abroad. Wan shui qian shan zhoubian (Trip to South and Central America) is a travel journal commissioned by the Lianhe Daily after San Mao re- turned to Taiwan in the wake of her Spanish husband’s sudden death in a drowning accident. San Mao taught creative writing at the Chinese Culture University and delivered guest lectures all over Taiwan. Her popularity reached new heights after she committed suicide in a Taipei hospital. See also WOMEN. SCAR LITERATURE (SHANGHEN WENXUE). Derived from the title of a short story written by Lu Xinhua and published in 1978, the term refers to literature written in the late 1970s and early 1980s that treats the devastating effects of the Cultural Revolution—the “scars” it left on the minds and souls of the Chinese youth. Liu Xinwu’s “Ban zhuren” (The Homeroom Teacher) is another work that helped define the humanistic literary movement. While the mainstream of scar litera- ture exposes the negative impact of political movements in the past de- cades, others focus on the moral and spiritual rectitude of the individual and the compassion of ordinary people. Cong Weixi’s “Da qiang xia de hong yulan” (The Red Magnolia under the High Wall) and Zhang Xianliang’s “Tu lao qinghua” (Love in a Prison) reflect the fortitude of 162 • SAN MAO, PEN NAME OF CHEN PING the political prisoners as they endure trauma and torture; Zhang Jie’s “Senlin li lai de haizi” (A Boy from the Forest) and Ye Weilin’s “Zai meiyou hangbiao de heliu shang” (On the River without a Navigation Mark) shed light on the triumph of the human spirit and love despite difficult circumstances. See also WANG MENG; FENG JICAI. SEBO (1956– ). Fiction writer. Born in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, Sebo spent his childhood in Fenghuang, Hunan Province. In 1973, he went to the northeastern province of Liaoning to study medicine, and after graduation in 1975 he worked for several years as a medic in various parts of Tibet. Sebo started writing in the early 1980s. His short stories, such as “Yuanxing rizi” (Circular Days) and “Zai zhe shang chuan” (Getting on the Boat Here) portray capricious characters at odds with both Tibetan culture and outside influences. The illusive world created by Sebo reflects the predicament of modern-day Tibet as well as his philosophical views about life. Some critics consider Sebo an existen- tialist for his pessimistic characters engaged in a perpetual search on a lonely, circular journey. Sebo’s works, firmly anchored in Tibetan culture, explore the clash of civilizations and cultures and what that clash means to the survival of indigenous traditions. His Tibet is full of contradictions and complexities, different from the utopian world por- trayed by some of his fellow Tibetan writers. Like many young writers in the post-Mao era, Sebo is influenced by Western literature, such as works by Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges, Milan Kundera, and William Faulkner. Sebo currently lives in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. SHA TING (1904–1992). Novelist. Born in northwestern Sichuan, Sha Ting is best known as a chronicler of the agrarian society of his hometown. His works can be roughly divided into two categories: the ideological stories, written in response to Communist Party policies, and the hometown stories, based on people and events he personally encountered. From the very beginning of his career, Sha tried to fit his writing to the templates of the proletarian literature advocated by Mao Dun and others in the Left-wing Association of Chinese Writers, which he joined in 1932. His eagerness to embrace its ideology may have contributed to the dogmatic and moralizing style found in some of his writings. Yet, throughout his life, Sha struggled to stay close to his birthplace, repeatedly abandoning a promising political career, often to the chagrin of party leaders and his friends, in order to return to his roots for creative inspiration. Deep in his heart, he did not see himself SHA TING • 163 as a politician and he got greater satisfaction from writing novels than from being a bureaucrat. His best works are those inspired by the real people of his hometown, who serve as prototypes for his characters. He was less of an imaginative writer than a keen observer and superb portraitist. The characters that populate his hometown stories are peasants, local gangsters, landlords, government officials, and small-town intellectu- als: the wide spectrum of people he met while growing up and through his uncle, the leader of the Society of Brotherhood, a well-known gang in Sichuan. The tone he often adopts in these tales is humorous and at times satirical. His satire is subtle; he never lashes out directly but lets his characters speak for themselves. “Zai qixiangju chaguan li” (In the Teahouse), a short story written in 1940, exposes the collaborations be- tween the local gangsters and military officers. The political purpose of the story is to expose and satirize behaviors that hinder social reforms and the war effort. The message is conveyed not through moralizing and explicit propaganda, but through the words and acts of the characters. Sha does not rely on lengthy descriptions or psychological analysis to portray his characters; rather, his stories consist mostly of vivid dia- logues in colloquial speech. Tao jin ji (Gold Rush), written in 1942 and considered his best work, is the first of his many novels. The story revolves around a piece of land that is the center of a fight among local gentry, gangsters, and officials. Tao jin ji is a consummate study of local customs, language, and social networks, as well as the author’s understanding of his own roots. Sha laments the ignorance and selfishness of small-town Chinese, whose energy and cleverness are misplaced. Instead of uniting to fight against the Japanese, they go to extreme lengths to destroy each other in order to protect their own interests. The inspiration for Kun shou ji (Caged Animals), a novel about elementary school teachers in rural Sichuan, came from his brother-in-law, whose elopement with the concubine of a wealthy landlord, leaving behind a wife and three children, caused a stir in town. Sha was intimately familiar with rural schoolteachers, his wife and his mother-in-law having taught in the country for many years, and was sympathetic to what they had to endure in such an isolated envi- ronment. Huanxiang ji (Homecoming), finished during the Civil War, focuses on the negative consequences of the Nationalist government’s conscription campaign in the countryside. 164 • SHA TING After 1949, Sha tried to keep up with the times by writing about the accomplishments and transformations taking place in the country, but his work failed to achieve the same force and appeal as his hometown stories. In the 1980s, he refocused his attention on Sichuan, resulting in Hong shi tan (The Red Rock Beach), a novel regarded as the sequel to Tao jin ji. While the older book describes an old order essentially untouched by external events, the new book rings its death toll. In Hong shi tan, those who used to rule the insulated agrarian world make their last desperate attempt in the 1950s to hold on to power. Sha was much more at home and much more enthusiastic about portraying the old era than the new one he helped to usher in. SHEN CONGWEN (1902–1988). Fiction writer. A self-described “coun- try bumpkin,” Shen Congwen hailed from the backwaters of a mountain town in western Hunan. Following the local tradition, he enlisted in the army at the age of 14, hoping to succeed in the military like his paternal grandfather who had risen through the ranks to become a general. Disil- lusioned by military life and uninterested in spending the rest of his time in small towns, he left the army and went to Beijing to seek a new life. With only an elementary school education, he could not pass the col- lege entrance exams, so he audited classes. While attending lectures at Beijing University and devouring books in the city library, he began to write pastoral stories. By the end of the 1930s, he was one of the most respected Chinese writers. Fiercely independent, he was wary of politi- cal interference, which, he maintained, would rob literature of its soul. In the 1930s, at the height of his career, he infuriated his colleagues by criticizing the lack of individuality and frivolous pursuits of modern writers, which catapulted him to the center of a heated debate. He was denounced by both the left and the right; the left accused him of mis- leading the youth by encouraging them to withdraw from society; the right found his call for a literature of “flesh and blood” too ideological. For his writings, Shen drew mostly from the wealth of his early ex- periences, the host of people he had met as he roamed western Hunan as a soldier and the old customs and street scenes that fascinated him as a child, to illustrate a world in direct contrast to modern urban life. This pastoral landscape is simple, but not simplistic. The world of the mountain villages in western Hunan that appears in some of his stories seems timeless, untouched by Confucian morality or modern concepts, and runs according to a different set of rules and values. The child SHEN CONGWEN • 165 bride in “Xiaoxiao” (Xiao Xiao) escapes a severe punishment when her out-of-wedlock pregnancy is discovered by her in-laws. Shen does not depict Xiaoxiao as either a victim of or a rebel against traditional morality, however, as a progressive writer would do: her life is spared partly because the head of her family “has not read Confucius.” In “Bian cheng” (Border Town), another masterpiece of Shen’s, he depicts an idyllic world inhabited by characters, the rich and the poor alike, who are kindhearted, generous, and trustworthy. Other than the stories reminiscent of his hometown, Shen also wrote about city life, including “Shengshi de taitai” (The Gentleman’s Wife) and “Ba jun tu” (A Portrait of Eight Steeds). Unlike the sincere, nostal- gic tone in his hometown stories, a satirical voice describes the urban scene, making fun of the lack of morality in the polite society of high officials, university professors, and college students who maintain an exterior of propriety and intelligence underneath which hides their mean and vulgar nature. While exposing the sordid side of high society, the author also depicts the lives of the lower classes, particularly the struggle of folks from the countryside, like himself, for dignity and respect. In general, his city stories never reached the same degree of achievement as his rural tales. After a painful period of soul-searching, Shen concluded in 1949 that his pen was out of date and he could not transform himself fast enough to keep up with the new society. He stopped writing fiction and sociopo- litical essays altogether and reinvented himself as an expert in the field of antiquities. His work resulted in several groundbreaking scholarly books on ancient Chinese silk, costumes, lacquer, mirrors, and other cultural relics. Shen made a successful career as a scholar of antiquities but is best remembered as one of the greatest writers of 20th-century China. See also NEW CULTURE MOVEMENT; NATIVISTS. SHEN RONG (1936– ). Fiction writer. Shen was born in Hankou, Hubei, and had an eventful childhood due to the wars and political upheavals that surrounded her. She moved with her parents from one place to another and eventually settled in Chongqing. After 1949, she worked as an assistant in a publishing house and studied Russian at the Beijing Institute of Russian Studies. Shen began writing in the 1970s under the influence of socialist realism. Her best work in the 1970s is “Yongyuan shi chuntian” (The Eternal Spring). Set against the background of the decades between the Sino-Japanese War and the Cultural Revolution, 166 • SHEN RONG the story portrays a female revolutionary cadre. Shen’s breakthrough, however, did not come until the publication of Ren dao zhongnian (At Middle Age), a story about the difficulties faced by middle-aged profes- sionals as a result of the collusion of political ideology with pervasive bureaucracy. When the story was turned into a movie, Shen became an instant celebrity. After Ren dao zhongnian, Shen continued to write about the dam- ages the Cultural Revolution did to the nation. Rendao laonian (At Old Age) was published in 1991 when Chinese society had undergone fundamental changes since the late 1970s. The three main characters, all professional women who were college classmates in the 1950s, experi- ence a sense of loss and disillusionment in the midst of a rapidly com- mercializing society. Unable to fit into the new world, they have only one consolation: their memories of the idealistic 1950s when they, like the newly founded country, were optimistic and full of energy. SHI SHUQING, A.K.A. SHI SHU-CH’ING (1945– ). Novelist. Born and educated in Taiwan, Shi Shuqing, whose influence crosses the geographical and political boundaries separating Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the mainland, began her literary career with stories about her native Lugang, a small town in Taiwan. Tales such as “Bihu” (Gecko), “Ci Guanyin” (The Porcelain Guanyin), and “Nixiangmen de jidian” (The Fiesta of the Clay Statues) are teeming with characters who are physi- cally and psychologically disfigured and whose world is rampant with madness, psychosis, morbidity, and death. With these gothic stories, Shi was recognized as an experimental, avant-garde writer interested in exploring the alienating effects of modern society on the lives of the individual, a theme that would make recurring appearances in her later works. After Shi moved to New York to study theater at the City Uni- versity of New York, she wrote a series of stories on immigrants’ lives in the global capitalist economy. In 1979, Shi settled in Hong Kong, which became the setting for some of her major works, including stories collected in Xianggang de gushi (Hong Kong Stories) such as the novella “Weiduoliya julebu” (The Victoria Club). Her most celebrated books on Hong Kong are her Xianggang sanbuqu (The Hong Kong Trilogy). This ambitious project traces four generations of one family from the late 19th century, when the British took possession of Hong Kong, to 1997 when the city was handed over to the Chinese. The protagonist is a woman named Huang SHI SHUQING, A.K.A. SHI SHU-CH’ING • 167 Deyun, whose metamorphosis from a village girl, kidnapped and sold into prostitution, to a powerful businesswoman serves as a representa- tion of Hong Kong during its turbulent century of colonial possession, as it changed from its humble beginnings as a plague-ridden port to a gleaming metropolis, the “pearl” on the crown of the British Empire. Grand in its epic scale, the novel is also a rich study of race and gender, providing interesting material for postcolonial and feminist studies. In Weixun caizhuang (Blush of Intoxication), her first novel since her return to Taiwan, Shi turns her attention to the process of Westerniza- tion. The novel treats the business of importing Western wine and its consumption in Taiwanese society during the late 1990s, delivering a powerful exposé of the culture of a wine market created and manipu- lated by a group of imaginative but shady business dealers. SHI TIESHENG (1951– ). Fiction writer and essayist. After middle school, Shi Tiesheng left Beijing and went to work in a village in Shaanxi, where he stayed until an illness brought him back to the capital. For 10 years after that, he worked in a small factory. Shi gained fame in the early 1980s with a series of lyrical stories, including “Wo de yuaoyuan de qingpingwan” (My Far Away Qingpingwan), which is based on his life in the village. Shi casts an affectionate eye on his characters: the honest farmers who know nothing but hard work and suf- fering and the equally innocent city youths who have come to accept the harsh realities of the northwestern loess. In a controlled but loving tone of voice, Shi calmly relates the small aspirations of rural people. Laowu xiaoji (Record of an Old House), an autobiographical novel, relates the first few years of his life in the factory after he was paralyzed from the waist down. The straightforward narrative style Shi uses for this work has been adopted in many of his other stories. The novel Wuxu biji (Notes of Discussions of Impractical Matters), published in 1996, is widely considered his best work. Other writings include prose pieces about his personal struggle with illness, such as Bing xi suibi (Fragments Written between Illnesses) and “Wo yu ditan” (In the Temple of the Earth), a touching confessional essay that records how little scenes in the park changed his perspective on life and prevented him from com- mitting suicide. Years of living in a wrecked body made him prone to melancholic ruminations but his illness also made him more philosophi- cal with regard to the meaning of life and death, a frequent theme in his writings. 168 • SHI TIESHENG SHI TUO, A.K.A. LU FEN, PEN NAMES OF WANG CHANGJIAN (1910–1988). Fiction and screenplay writer and essayist. Shi Tuo spent his childhood in the backwaters of the eastern Henan countryside. In 1931, he went to Beijing and his involvement in the protests against Jap- anese aggression led to the publications of his first short stories. Encour- aged by Ding Ling, Shi continued writing stories that exposed the evils of the government and the bitter sufferings of the poor. In 1937, his story “Gu” (Rice) won the Dagong Daily Prize, marking the beginning of the most productive period of his career, which saw the publications of three more collections of short stories: Limen shiji (Notes of Limen), Yeniao ji (Wild Birds), and Luori guang (Light of the Setting Sun). Shi’s stories contain vivid descriptions of scenery, a distinct local flavor, and a biting satirical tone, but, lacking in plot development, they are essentially lyri- cal prose. In the 1940s, Shi, living in the Japanese-occupied Shanghai, began to work on longer pieces, producing one novella and two novels, Jiehun (Getting Married) and Ma Lan (Ma Lan), which are considered his representative works. He also wrote screenplays during this period. After 1949, Shi worked as a screenplay writer and editor for the Shanghai Film Studio and became a member of the Shanghai Writers’ Association. He published one novel, Lishi wuqing (History Is Un- sympathetic) and some historical plays, including Ximen Bao (Ximen Bao), before the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution. See also SINO- JAPANESE WAR. SHI ZHECUN (1905–2003). Fiction writer, poet, essayist, translator, and scholar. As an artist, no one among his contemporaries was more inventive than She Zhecun. From composing classical poetry to creating modern verses, from his Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies (Yuanyang hudie) tales, to his New Sensibility (xin ganjue) stories, he put his energy to narrative innovations and is credited for having spearheaded the modernist movement in 20th-century Chinese literature. Best re- membered for his psychoanalytical fiction, Shi was one of the first Chinese writers to use Western modernist techniques such as stream of consciousness and montage in his writings. Among his fictional work, “Jiangjun de tou” (The General’s Head), a historical tale, and “Meiyu zhi xi” (One Rainy Evening), a languorous story about a chance meeting between a man and a woman, are some of the best illustrations of mod- ernist literature. With their exquisite descriptions of the psychological SHI ZHECUN • 169 interiors of the characters, Shi’s works depart in a significant manner from the mainstream of modern Chinese literature. After 1937, Shi gave up creative writing altogether for an academic career, becoming a prominent scholar on classical Chinese literature. In the Mao era, his name was erased from books on modern Chinese literature. He resurfaced in the 1980s, however, and his books were put back on the shelves of libraries and bookstores. Shi was equally at home inside the “four windows” (in his own words) he had opened: the study of classical literature, creative writing and editing, foreign literature translation and introduction, and ancient tombstone inscriptions. See also CULTURAL REVOLUTION; MODERNISTS. SHIZHI, PEN NAME OF GUO LUSHENG (1948– ). Poet. Born into a military family, Shizhi began writing verses when he was in the third grade. Considered the most influential poet in the underground poetry movement during the Cultural Revolution, Shizhi expressed the spirit of defiance as early as the late 1960s. A forerunner of post-Mao poetry, he has influenced Bei Dao, Yan Li, and many others of the Misty genera- tion,. His exuberant poems, such as “Xiangxin weilai” (Trust the Future), “Yu’er sanbuqu” (Fish Trilogy), and “Si dian ling ba fen de Beijing” (Bei- jing at 4:08) were hand-copied and circulated widely among the educated youth, showing them the dark realities of the era and giving them hope for a better future. In 1973, Shizhi was diagnosed with schizophrenia and has spent much of his time institutionalized since the 1980s. He began using the pen name Shizhi (forefinger) in 1978, signifying his indifference to the public’s finger pointing because of his mental illness. He continued to write after being institutionalized, and his poems appeared in the under- ground poetry journal Today, founded by Bei Dao, Mang Ke, and others. He became a member of the Chinese Association of Writers in 1997 while still in the Beijing No. 3 Social Welfare House, a mental ward outside the city. Shizhi attributed his intellectual and political independence to his ill- ness: “Since I wear the hat of being insane, I can do whatever I want to: to be absolutely independent in thought and spirit, like a horse in the sky traveling at its own speed and direction without any restraint, all because I am insane.” He is indeed known as the “mad poet.” SHU TING (1952– ). Born in Fujian, Shu Ting rose to fame in the early 1980s as the most prominent female poet among the Misty poets. Shu began to write in the years of the Cultural Revolution when she was working among peasants. Compared with the poems written by other 170 • SHIZHI, PEN NAME OF GUO LUSHENG Misty poets, her work is much more accessible and less abstruse. Shuan- gwei chuan (The Double-masted Boat), Hui changge de yiweihua (The Singing Iris), and Shizuniao (Archaeopteryx) are some of her poetry collections. She has also published several collections of essays. For her association with the underground literary journal Jintian (Today), Shu came under attack during the Antispiritual Pollution Cam- paign in the late 1980s. While many other Misty poets have left China and obtained foreign citizenships, Shu has remained in China. See also WOMEN. SHU XIANGCHENG, PEN NAME OF WANG SHENQUAN (1921– 1999). Poet, novelist, essayist, and painter. A native of Hong Kong, Shu began publishing vernacular poetry and short stories in the 1930s while still a college student. When Hong Kong fell into the hands of the Japanese in 1942, Shu went to the mainland and stayed on till after Japan surrendered. The difficult experiences he suffered during these years while traveling through the Chinese hinterland provided rich material for a novel, Jianku de xingcheng (An Arduous Journey), and other works. In 1948, Shu returned to Hong Kong and soon reached the most productive period of his career. While working at his daytime job in the office of various businesses, he wrote at night, resulting in a large number of stories, poems, and essays, published under more than a dozen pen names to avoid jeopardizing his job and to protect his identity when researching for new stories. Shu’s work also benefited from his many trips abroad, including his participation in the 1977 International Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa. A realist writer, Shu was a true believer in the representational mode. He practiced an art that sought to reflect life truthfully. Born and raised in Hong Kong, he was familiar with the history and environment of the city, and the thoughts and customs of its residents, and tried to re-create them in his works. For many years, Shu remained Hong Kong’s favorite writer, whose works were appreciated by a wide spectrum of readers. Most of his fictional works deal with life in the lower echelons of society with its squalid conditions as well as its energy and humanism. “Liyu men de wu” (Mist over the Carp Gate) is a nostalgic tale about a man returning to his hometown with fond memories of the past. Bali liang’an (On the Banks of the Seine), inspired by his trip to Paris, features a French artist whose aspirations are repeatedly dashed by a materialistic society. Although set in a foreign land, this story resonates with the feelings Shu had about the SHU XIANGCHENG, PEN NAME OF WANG SHENQUAN • 171 . spearheaded the modernist movement in 20th-century Chinese literature. Best re- membered for his psychoanalytical fiction, Shi was one of the first Chinese writers to use Western modernist techniques. stories. By the end of the 1930s, he was one of the most respected Chinese writers. Fiercely independent, he was wary of politi- cal interference, which, he maintained, would rob literature of its. come until the publication of Ren dao zhongnian (At Middle Age), a story about the difficulties faced by middle-aged profes- sionals as a result of the collusion of political ideology with pervasive