The
Pen is Nastier Than the Sword China's
great literary catfight pits the salacious, no-holds-barred prose
of one bad-girl writer against that of another
Literary infighting is rarely as gripping as it has been in China
this year. The battle royale between Mian Mian, 29, and Wei Hui,
27—both apparently vying for recognition as China's "bad
girl of letters"—has captivated even those who have not read
their remarkably similar and steamy novels about sex, drugs and
dropout chic. In April, Beijing banned both books. Soon U.S. readers
will have a chance to see why, when both are published in the
States. Here is an advance look, in the first English-language
excerpts from the novels.
LAMENT
FOR LINGZI
When it rains I often think of Lingzi. Lingzi once told me about
a poem that went: "Rain falling in the spring,/ Is Heaven and
Earth making love." These lines were perplexing to us, but Lingzi
and I spent a lot of time trying to unravel various problems.
We might be trying to figure out germs, or the fear of heights,
or even a phrase like "love is the fantasy you have smoking your
third cigarette." Lingzi was my high school desk mate, and she
had a face like a white sheet of paper. Her pallor was an attitude,
a sort of trance.
Those days are still fresh in my mind. I was a melancholy girl
who loved to eat chocolate and did poorly in school. I collected
candy wrappers, and I would use these, along with boxes that had
once contained vials of medicine, to make sunglasses.
Soon after the beginning of our second year of high school, Lingzi's
hair started to look uneven, with a short clump here, a longer
hank there. There were often scratch marks on her face. Lingzi
had always been extremely quiet; but now her serenity had become
strange. She told me she was sure that one of the boys in our
class was watching her. She said he gave her "steamy" looks—"steamy"
was the word she used—and I remember exactly how she said
it. She was constantly being encircled by his gaze, she said.
It made her think all kinds of unwholesome, selfish thoughts.
She insisted that it was absolutely out of the question for her
to let anything distract her from her studies. Lingzi believed
that this boy was watching her because she was pretty. This filled
her with feelings of shame. Since being pretty was the problem,
she decided to make herself ugly, convinced that this would set
her back on the right path. She was sure that if she were ugly,
then no one would look at her anymore; and if nobody was looking
at her, then she could concentrate on her studies. Lingzi said
she had to study hard, since, as all of us knew, the only guarantee
of a bright future was to gain admission to a top university.
Throughout the term Lingzi continued to alter her appearance in
all kinds of bizarre ways. People quit speaking to her. In the
end most of our classmates avoided her altogether.
Then, one day, Lingzi didn't come to school. And from then on,
her seat remained empty. The rumor was that she had violent tendencies.
Her parents had had to tie her up with rope and take her to a
mental hospital.
I sneaked into the hospital to see her. One Saturday afternoon,
wearing a red waterproof sweat suit, I slipped in through the
iron mesh fence of the mental hospital. In truth, I'm sure I could
have used the main entrance. Although it was winter, I brought
Lingzi her favorite Baby-Doll brand ice cream, along with some
preserved olives and salted dried plums. I sat compulsively eating
my chocolates, while she ate her ice cream and sweet olives. All
of the other patients in the ward were adults. I did most of the
talking, and whenever I finished saying something, no matter what
the subject was, Lingzi would laugh. Lingzi had a clear, musical
laugh, just like bells ringing. But on this day her laughter simply
struck me as weird.
What did Lingzi talk about? She kept repeating the same thing
over and over: "The drugs they give you in this hospital make
you fat. Really, really fat."
Some time later I heard that Lingzi had left the hospital. Her
parents made a series of pleas to the school, asking the teachers
to inform everyone that Lingzi was not being allowed any visitors.
One rainy afternoon, the news of Lingzi's death reached our school.
People said that her parents had gone out one day, and a boy had
taken advantage of their absence. He had brought Lingzi a bouquet
of fresh flowers. This was 1986, and there were only two flower
stands in all of Shanghai, both newly opened. That night, Lingzi
slashed her wrists in the bathroom of her family's apartment.
People said that she died standing.
From Candy, by Mian Mian. Copyright (c) 2000 by Mian Mian.
English-language translation to be published by Little, Brown.
Translated by Andrea Lingenfelter. Originally published in China
in 2000. Reprinted by permission of Little, Brown
ALSO IN YOUNG CHINA: THE ARTS 
