Liu Yuan （刘原）and Ye Fu （野夫）
Liu Yuan, a well-known media figure and columnist, has worked for media outlets such as Southern Sports (Nanfang Tiyu), Southern Metropolis Daily (Nanfang Dushi Bao), and Southern Morning Post (Nanguo Zaobao). Author of Even Stray Dogs Feel Homesick (Sangjiaquan Ye You Xiangchou) and Loving the Mundane World (Yu Chenshi Xiang'ai).
Ye Fu, whose real name is Zheng Shiping, also known by the pen name Tujia Ye Fu, was born in the Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture of Hubei Province. An independent Chinese writer, he has published about one million characters across poetry, essays, reportage, novels, papers, and scripts.
【Editor’s Note: In a cross-border midnight conversation, Liu Yuan and Ye Fu reflect on life, exile, and memory. Liu inquires about Ye's secluded life in Chiang Mai, a place first made significant to him by Teresa Teng's legacy. Ye finds solace there, resonating with its simplicity and harmony. Despite years of displacement, Ye remains tethered to his homeland, a bittersweet attachment shaped by cultural heritage. He views writing as a mission to document the overlooked lives of ordinary people, filling gaps left by official histories. When asked about his deepest regrets, Ye names his parents and past lovers, underscoring personal losses amidst broader historical reflections. In a hypothetical apocalypse, Ye contemplates a long farewell, expressing gratitude and remorse before fading into obscurity. His musings highlight a life entwined with public and private struggles, ultimately trusting karma to resolve lingering conflicts.】
The last time I drank with Ye Fu amidst the blooming and falling of cherry blossoms, I never imagined that our next heartfelt chat would have to be online in different time zones. Thus, we had the following cross-border midnight conversation.
Liu Yuan: You've been abroad for years now, and many friends are concerned about your life. They often ask me about you and request that I pass along a "Sawasdee ka." After a tumultuous half-life and now living in seclusion overseas, are you still using wine as ink, writing your unfinished chronicles of blood and tears?
Ye Fu: Writing may be the only slender joy and self-imposed mission that can sustain us for the rest of our lives. For reasons well known, it not only fails to bring fame and fortune but more often brings the pressures of the times. Our generation has encountered many unimaginable events; if no one records them, that might be a deeper shame than tacit consent. Without words, in such an era, we are actually good for nothing.
Liu Yuan: You once hibernated in Dali for over a decade, and now you continue your seclusion in Chiang Mai, two thousand miles directly south of Dali. Previously, my only impression of Chiang Mai came from Teresa Teng (Deng Lijun); her poignant songs cleansed the souls of generations who stayed by their radios. In the end, she never returned to the homeland beyond the clouds and waters, not even to that orphaned island, leaving her final fate with Chiang Mai. The name of this place sounds profoundly tranquil and distant. So, why Chiang Mai?
Ye Fu: The first time I heard the name Chiang Mai was indeed because of Teresa Teng—unfortunately, it was her untimely death that made us aware of this lonely little city. At that time, I was still a prisoner of Chu, shedding tears by the window for her early passing. She was the one who initially awakened our youthful literary passions, and I thought I should go there someday to pay my respects. By the time I came here, I had already surpassed the age at which she bid farewell to the world.
The people of Chiang Mai are grateful for her making this ancient city famous and for her charitable deeds, such as donating to build some schoolhouses; they still preserve her guesthouse to this day. I began to understand bit by bit her fondness for this place—quiet and simple, even somewhat outdated and lagging behind the times, yet with an open and inclusive international style. Prices are so low that one feels ashamed to haggle; the people are honest and kind. I have yet to see any local people quarrel.
For someone like her, who grew up on an isolated island with no intention of returning to her homeland, perhaps she could find the flavor of home here—that is, the kind of homeland described in books and legends: bustling streets, blooming trees, households with cooking smoke, all exuding an unassailed harmony. For those of us who have little money and have been through struggles, this is indeed a place where the heart finds peace.
Liu Yuan: You once said, "Those who have a hometown are fortunate." I have always been puzzled that after experiencing the ferocity of my hometown and the abyss of the years, I turned my back on my native land and felt no more homesickness. Yet you have always stood amid the dust and wind, stubbornly loving your hometown, like a remnant elder of the land of Chu or like Wei Sheng clinging to the pillar. I know that a few years ago, you built a nest and lived in Lichuan, intending to spend your final years there. But homesickness was severed by worldly affairs, and you could only choose another place under the setting sun. If it were me, having encountered the cruel events you did, I would have long ceased to love my hometown. So, in your life, how much weight do your hometown and motherland really hold?
Ye Fu: That may be precisely my sorrow, akin to the tradition of lamentation among the people of Chu starting from Qu Yuan. Grieving yet resentful, loving yet angry, and damn it, exiled but homesick, often lingering in melancholy. This is a certain "cheapness" of cultural conservatives—we had no choice but to be born and grow here, knowing our motherland through our mother tongue, always mindful of wanting it to evolve into the true goodness that a mother of humanity should have, and to safeguard the eternal beauty of its rivers and mountains.
So we always think about returning to the mountains, even if we can add just a bit more civilization to a small piece of land. The ridiculous result is that we drift further and further away, and in the end, it's hard to return home. Marx said that the proletariat has no motherland; Franklin said that where there is freedom, there is my country. In my view, the hometown or motherland in the cultural sense, at least for our generation, is still like an appendix we can't cut off—you don't feel its existence in daily life, but when it flares up, it can cause severe pain.
Liu Yuan: Your close friend from the 1980s, Zhang Zao, now buried by the Xiang River, once had a famous line: "Whenever I think of the things I regret in my life, plum blossoms fall all over the southern mountain." In your life, having experienced countless separations and deaths, what are the things that cause you the deepest sorrow, the most knots in your heart, the greatest regret? Who do you think you have wronged the most in this life?
Ye Fu: My parents. And, of course, those women who loved deeply and truly hurt.
Liu Yuan: In your writings, there is your own wandering life, as well as the turbulent lives of your parents, uncle, and grandmother; there are celebrities like Wang Shuo and Yi Zhongtian, and also common folk like Su Jiaqiao, Liu Zhenxi, and Granny Wang Qi. One can sense that you are diligently recording folk history. In your view, where is the distinction between unofficial history and official history? What do you think is the significance of your recordings?
Ye Fu: Official history is political history; it's the genealogy of emperors and tyrants. It's difficult to find the lives of ordinary people in them. In the grand narratives compiled by imperial historians, there is no joy or sorrow of individual lives. Unofficial histories or literature fill precisely this gap. From "The Charcoal Seller" (Maitan Weng), we learn about heating and market prices in the Tang Dynasty; from "The Stone Moat Official" (Shihou Li), we glimpse the governance and hardships of the common people in that prosperous era. The significance of my recordings is that I hope that, after the fires of Qin, for thousands of years to come, people can still know a little about the lives of people in this era.
Liu Yuan: Before the rumored 2012 apocalypse, I once joked in my column that if the end of the world came, my greatest wish would be to fill a nightclub with lobsters, foie gras, and 1982 Lafite and call upon all the hostesses to sing Chyi Chin's (Qi Qin) "Till the End of the World" (Zhidao Shijie Mo Ri) with me. If this question were put before you, how would you choose? Would you slay your enemies with your own hands, drink thousands of cups, or rush through the dust to the one you love most, tell her that in this life you've loved, been cold, fought, been weary, and now you just want to hold her and perish with this world?
Ye Fu: As the ancient poem says—"What I once jested about matters after death; now all comes before my eyes." When truly faced with something, it's easier said than done. I've faced this question more than once and imagined countless scenarios, but in the end, I sigh with regret. The love, hate, and grudges in this life make it truly hard to achieve genuine reconciliation or resolution.
Perhaps it would be a long farewell, wandering through familiar cities, going door to door to say thanks or apologies, saying that I'll owe the debts of this life for now. Then, turn and leave, withering away in the final smoke and dust. I'm someone who rarely makes enemies, or rather, I have public grievances but few personal grudges. From the classics of various great faiths, I vaguely see the words "retribution." A high monk once said—"If right and wrong in the world are hard to settle, then leave it to karma..."
Humanities China
Nov 18, 2024
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