A century of experience

Yang Jiang

Cover of Chinese version of After Baptism Photo: Courtesy of People's Literature Publishing House

A diligent writer of talent who has continued to produce new works despite her age, Yang Jiang, now 103, has been breaking people's expectations of what senior citizens can accomplish since she was 70. Now Yang has surprised her readers once again: She has written a sequel to her 1988 novel Baptism, titled After Baptism.

Featuring the same characters, Yang explained the sequel was born out of her desire to give her favorite characters a happy ending.

"It would be troublesome if someone rushed out a sequel after I die. So I thought I'd better put an end to it while I'm still alive," wrote Yang in the book's preface.

Happy endings

Published by the People's Literature Publishing House, the title of the first book is an euphemism for the period of "ideological reform" Chinese intellectuals went through right after the founding of the PRC. In the book, Yang depicts the lives of a number of intellectuals who lived through this period.

In her book, Yang shows this "baptism" was actually a very ineffective form of brainwashing, as no one was willing to voluntarily take part in the movement. Meanwhile, she paints a picture of the darker side of human nature with many of the characters in the story, some are selfish and snobbish, some are arrogant and mean, and some narrow-minded and spiteful.

Depicting the lives of a great variety of intellectuals during that time, the novel doesn't follow one or two main characters beginning to end like other novels. However, among this group of characters that are scheming against each other for a tiny bit of benefit, two characters, Xu Yancheng and Yao Mi, stand out for their nobility, simplicity and willingness to be better persons.

Many readers have seen these two characters as the hero and heroine of the novel, because they tend to be more likeable than the others. In the novel, Xu and Yao are a couple who like each other but cannot be together because Xu is married. Their relationship and the love triangle between Xu and Yao and Xu's wife are seen as a big highlight of the novel.

Under Yang's pen, the two manage to restrain their love for each other and maintain a pure friendship that has won the hearts of millions of readers. However, as Yang wrote in the preface to the sequel, there have been plenty of readers that have made wild guess about the amorous goings-on that they believe must have taken place between Xu and Yao throughout the novel, something which Yang finds distasteful.

"I meant to stress the pure friendship between Yao and Xu, but some people have spoiled that idea. So I figured I should put an end to it while I'm still alive, so as to protect the purity of their friendship and give readers a happy ending," Yang wrote.

The 45,000 character new novel is set in the 1950s-60s, and depicts how Xu's wife, who has been accused of being "right-wing," develops feelings for another character Ye Dan while they are forced to do manual labor in the countryside as a punishment.

She asks for a divorce from Xu after returning to Beijing, which frees both to get married again. This gives Xu and Yao the chance to get together.

To again stress her intention for writing the book, Yang ends the novel with a statement. "Xu Yancheng and Yao Mi have married. The story is over and set. There is nothing left for those who want to write a sequel."

Popularity

Yang's Baptism became immensely popular after it was published for its depictions of the psyche of intellectuals at that time.

Shi Zhecun, a writer and senior literature critic, likes Baptism so much that he regards it as "a combination of A Dream of Red Mansions and The Scholars (by Wu Jingzi)" for depicting a complicated picture of life and intellectual circles at that time. Some critics even said the novel is better than Fortress Besieged, written by Yang's famed writer husband Qian Zhongshu (married 1935-98), in terms of illustrating the ridiculous side of intellectuals during that period.

According to the People's Literature Publishing House's Liu Xin, Yang began writing the sequel in 2009 when she was 98 years old and kept revising the work untill this April when she handed it in to the publishing house.

For readers who want more of her work, a revised and updated version of the collection of Yang's complete works, nine volumes in total and also containing the new book, is also out for the readers.

The new collection is based on the eight-volume version of the collection published in 2004 when Yang was 93. Over the past decade, this prolific author has never stopped writing, publishing several collections of short stories and essays.

"Yang has never forgot about the duty as an intellectual. She persists in translating and writing and never stops thinking," said Zhou Xuanlong, vice editor in chief of the publishing house, as quoted by Beijing Youth Daily.

Major events in the life of Yang Jiang

1935: Yang studies in Britain and France.

1938: Yang begins teaching as a professor at Tsinghua University.

1933-1934: Yang's plays Satisfactory, Pretence Becomes Reality and Playing the Field performed in Shanghai.

1953: Yang becomes a research fellow at Peking University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences for literature research.

1956: Yang's translation of Alain Rene Lesage's The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane published.

1978: Yang's translation of Don Quixote published.

1981: Yang publishes Six Chapters from My Life 'Downunder,' an account of her time in a reform camp during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76).

1985: English version of essay collection Invisible Cloak published.

1986: Yang publishes Recalling my Father, Recalling my Aunt and A Note about Qian Zhongshu and Fortress Besieged.

1992: French version of Baptism published in Paris.

2003: Yang publishes We Three.

2004: Eight volume collection of Yang's works published.

2007: Yang publishes Reaching to the Brink of Life.

2011: Yang publishes Sitting on the Brink of Life.