"Hello, Auntie Nieh!" "Hard to find your way here?" "It's cold" "Had any trouble finding your way?" "We did get lost" "Really?" "But we found our way back" "It's beautiful." "Nothing has changed" "Who?" "The place hasn't changed" "Who hasn't changed?" "This house" "I keep it in good condition" "Nice house" "It's still under repair, look" "Yes" "It used to be red" "Yes, it used to be red" "It used to be a shade darker" "There's still some breakfast for you" "How about coffee?" "Let's have some coffee" "Auntie Nieh, seriously" "Everything is the same, right?" "Exactly the same" "I don't want it to change" "Nothing's changed." "You don't like changes" "Exactly." "But every day things change" "I don't like changes" "Need my help?" "I can manage" "I'm used to this kettle" "We have been using this for a long time an old-fashioned drip style coffee maker a really old one" "Paul, Angie is back" "I have been very touched" "About the way she wanted and she still wants to, she is so eager" "She does everything possible to make the film about me, of course" "Most parts are about us" "¡¶One Tree Three Lives ¡·" "My Iowa home is up on that hill" "When I first came here" "I could see the river from my study" "It occurred to me that I come from the Yangtze River" "This is the Iowa River" "That's the Yangtze" "Where the two rivers meet is my home" "My grandfather was a poet" "He always wanted to be somebody somebody important, such as a government official" "He was once appointed mayor of a small town but on his way there, the revolution started and he was forced to return home" "He never did accomplish what he wanted" "His favorite pastime was socializing with friends mainly other poets and writers" "They would come to our home and recite poems" "They spoke clearly, loudly, poem after poem" "I loved the melody of the sounds" "I would peep into the room because the door was closed" "Very quietly I peeped through the keyhole" "I was a small child totally mesmerized by the ambience" "Imagine what it created in my subconscious" "Later, I went to primary school and with this influence my essays were outstanding sometimes the best" "The teacher would single me out" "It was so encouraging" "In Wuhan, my father was an officer in the police force under the Gui warlord" "In a very short time" "Gui was beaten by Chiang Kai Shek so my father went into hiding" "My mother looked everywhere for him and found him in the Japanese Concession" "It was safe for him there" "No one could go inside Concession areas without permission" "Not even the police" "So the whole family moved there and settled down" "When I look back" "I realize I felt like a foreigner in my own country an outsider" "The War broke out in 1 937" "Wuhan was taken by the Japanese and we had to run" "It was so hard" "We escaped in a boat up the Yangtze" "and arrived at San Dou Ping a small town surrounded by mountains" "Because of the mountains the Japanese found it difficult to get here" "I didn't like school when I was young" "I preferred playing with friends climbing the hills eating, singing and laughing" "We had such a great time as children" "My mother insisted I go to school" "You must study, she said" "We set out from the countryside to town to board a boat" "On our way she kept reminding me what I should do" "I saw my mother receding into the distance and I started crying, crying, crying my mother was crying too" "I didn't want to leave her" "I didn't want to be separated from her" "She was my refuge but I had to go" "With great unwillingness" "I left her" "I was fourteen when my tearful mother sent me off on a boat for Badong" "alone on the shore, she kept waving goodbye" "Tears blurred my eyes" "From then on, I became a wanderer" "Some of my friends had already arrived" "Knowing I was quite a spoiled brat at home they wondered how I would survive the hardship and the minute I heard that, I burst out crying" "The family support was cut off - no money" "There was no news from home at that time" "We were so homesick, crying all the time" "Life was very hard during the war" "Breakfast was only a plate of soya beans with porridge" "We were rationed one steamed roll but it was hard as a rock" "We called it a bomb" "The porridge barrel was put between the tables" "We were always hungry" "When we had breakfast we could hear the sound of every bit of porridge being scraped from the barrel" "We adolescents had aspirations" "We wanted to study, we wanted to save our country" "We wanted to contribute to the world" "We imagined what we would be in the future" "Everyone had a dream" "I designed the posters in our senior high school" "We usually worked overnight" "Our posters were the best in school" "To design posters, we had to edit essays not unlike an editor so I had basic knowledge in proofreading" "I believe that a dedicated writer is interested in language and also interested in people and literature" "These interests will lead to writing" "In 1 946, I was a university student in Chongqing" "In my freshman year, the war ended" "We were exuberant" "Our university used to be in Nanjing and we were happy about moving back but the Civil War broke out a year later" "My university was in turmoil" "Among the young students across the university nine out of ten were Leftists" "Communist leaning" "I was isolated" "Nobody wanted to talk to me" "I didn't want to join the Left nor did I want to be on the Right" "The Kuomintang didn't appeal to me" "I didn't feel like one of them" "I was torn between the Left and the Right" "The two parties were at furious odds with each other" "When the Left gave a speech the Right would plan an attack" "They turned off the lights, went onto the podium and started to fight" "I recall a Rightist young man pounced on a small-built Leftist and started beating him up" "The Leftist cried for help" "The hall was dark" "The Leftist cried, Stop!" "We're roommates!" "Such a situation struck me as absurd and tragic" "I wanted to write" "Thus, my first essay was published" "Metamorphosis" "A person changes according to the situation" "Metamorphosis" "Hastily, I married Wang Zhenglu, my schoolmate" "The wedding was carried out among a symphony of bullets and bombs" "Wang Zhenglu" "Weiwei and Lanlan's father, we were schoolmates" "He was considered a Rightist in school so we had to flee" "My father was killed by the Communist Party" "Seeing the Liberation Army enter the city made me uneasy" "My siblings were very young" "My mother refused to leave China" "She told me to leave by myself" "I insisted that we leave together" "I insisted" "In 1 949, my whole family moved from Guangzhou to Taipei" "We were met by a roaring typhoon" "Our fragile house shook and swayed as if it would be shred into pieces" "The typhoon came and went" "The click-clack of wooden clogs sounding on the streets reminds me of my childhood in the Hankou Japanese Concession" "The unsettling days of war are over" "This island looks like a boat swaying under the moonlit night" "I was only twenty-four" "I brought my whole family to Taiwan" "Completely changed" "There used to be old houses here" "Japanese style homes lined the street" "Our house had wooden floors rather than tatami and we had a big yard" "This used to be my home" "But now, you are here" "They'd like to do some shooting" "But don't take the front" "What are you doing here?" "Here?" "Now?" "What do you do here?" "I'm a security guard" "Oh, a security guard" "In those days, we were afraid of guards" "You used to live here I used to live across from here" "Come, I'll show you." "Really?" "See the tallest building there" "That building" "China Daily" "Do you remember?" "You must have some impression?" "It used to be China Daily" "That was after my time" "About twenty years ago" "I was here forty years ago" "I was here then too" "Me, too" "You don't look that old" "I'm seventy already" "So you were my neighbor" "You look young" "Do you understand Taiwanese?" "(Taiwanese)" "Don't understand" "Are they Chinese or Japanese?" "What?" "But they look a bit Japanese" "Of course they are Chinese" "We've been living oversea for over forty years" "But you look a bit like Japanese to me" "She or me?" "Japanese" "You look Japanese too" "How can we be Japanese?" "I just mean you look that way" "I don't want to be Japanese in the least" "But you look a bit Japanese" "Me too?" "Yes" "I used to get really mad when people in the US said" "I was Japanese" "In California?" "No, Chicago" "It feels so different now" "It's just another place now" "It has nothing to do with me anymore" "I have been away for forty years already" "When Mr. Lei was recruiting for the magazine a friend of mine who knew him told him about me" "They needed someone to manage all the essays so I spent my first year handling all the texts" "I organized and classified them" "Mr. Lei came across two essays of mine and asked if I was a writer" "I said, Yes" "I think you're a pretty good writer, he said" "Why don't you join our editorial board?" "So I became one of their editors working alongside some of the brightest minds They were extraordinary individuals" "I was the youngest among them and the only woman" "It was a pivotal time in my life" "These intellectuals were a great influence" "At the beginning of each month we would discuss what to publish and what would need commentary" "Once it was decided writing assignments would be allocated among us Social issues were a big topic" "Yin Haiguang and Xia Daoping would write the commentaries" "Yin was a fine scholar and often critiqued Taiwanese politics including the KMT and also Chiang Kai Shek" "At the time, he was not yet married he would come to our place and eat with us" "Anyway, it started like that and we became family" "He was very close to my mother" "Their conversations would carry on and on" "In 1 962, my mother fell ill" "I don't know how he found out" "One day, he suddenly showed up at the hospital" "He was like that" "His stature was small, but he was larger than life" "He stood at the door smiling at my mother then he came in sat for a while and said" "Auntie Nieh, you rest well" "I shall come and see you again" "Then he left without another word" "That was Yin Haiguang" "He was very sensitive yet not very expressive" "I told him that his visit was very special to my mother" "He said it was the same for him" "In 1 960, Free China Journal was banned" "It was about nine o'clock in the morning and at the door, Bam!" "Bam!" "Bam!" "Someone was shouting, violently" "Open the door!" "When the door was opened, they dashed in and headed straight for my room" "I thought they had come for me" "But it was not me they wanted" "They turned around headed for Fu Zheng's room pounding on the door, pounding, pounding" "I heard Fu ask" "Who are you people?" "There was dead silence and then they forced into his room" "I remember the way Fu Zheng stood as he was arrested" "I remember my mother, petrified and my grandmother" "I ran up the alley and looked at the handcuffed Fu Zheng wondering why a good man like him would be taken away" "Why?" "How did you feel?" "Horrified" "Four editors were arrested" "I was also threatened" "I was in shock" "They couldn't accuse me of being a Communist spy since my mother was still getting a military pension from the KMT" "How could they say I was a Communist?" "They couldn't accuse me of anything" "Still, I didn't want t incriminate my friends and my friends didn't dare to visit" "I didn't want to see them either" "I didn't want to get them in trouble" "During that time, I was very isolated" "I was considered a mainlander in Taiwan and among the mainlanders in Taiwan" "I was still an outsider" "Mainlander, outsider, outcast" "I was alienated in every way" "So what did I do?" "I wrote" "I needed to support my family" "I wrote for a living" "That was how I supported them" "Two years later" "I came up with The Lost Golden Cicada" "Professor Nieh inspired me in my writing and it was this book" "The Lost Golden Cicada that influenced me tremendously" "It's poetic the language so lyrical and fresh and her understanding of human nature so revealing" "It was a complete eye-opener" "One sentence really hit me" "The nuances inspired me in writing my novel" "Listen to this" "I feel that a destructive finale arrived at through a path of passion is far less tragic than pain that is slow and quiet" "From the appendix of The Lost Golden Cicada" "She is so unique" "Usually novelists try to make a common story uncommon by adding twists, conflicts, and collisions heart-wrenching and tear-jerking" "They see these elements as crucial for a novel" "I recall a saying of Nietzsche's" ""Extraordinary scenery exists for ordinary painters while ordinary scenery exists for extraordinary painters"" "That was Nietzsche's insight on the essence of art" "Her use of words is poetic especially in her essays" "Her writing transforms scenes into profound images and her language is pure Chinese not westernized in the least" "Although she has been exposed to other literatures she has remained quintessential Chinese" "Something penetrated the voice" "Maybe it was joy, but I heard grief" "No, maybe it was not grief not the grief of suffering humanity but something else something deep, thin, and distant something that exists as long as life exists" "I 'm not particularly fond of her novels" "Frankly" "I prefer her short stories" "They are very well written" "The plots of her novels do not interest me" "Her story on Yin Haiguang was brilliant and the one on Lei Chen equally marvellous" "These are in her book of short stories" "Many of them are very fine pieces and many of my friends love to read them" "Some people are very touched" "They are outstanding essays" "Her life in Taiwan was really hard" "She worked in Free China during the day and in the evening taught English at a night college" "She worked day and night" "When she was pregnant she still rode her bicycle to work" "Very tough, indeed" "In 1 951 my brother died in an aviation mission" "My mother would have been devastated if she knew" "First, the sudden death of her husband then the loss of her son" "Traditionally, in a Chinese family, the eldest son is supreme" "I was not as important" "Even though I supported the whole family my brother was seen as more important" "She loved me of course but that was her eldest son" "He wasn't around very often but he was a good son" "The news would have destroyed her so I started lying to her" "The whole family hid his death" "Several months later" "I returned home after teaching and asked, where is Mother?" "I was told she was in bed" "I went to her room and she looked at me" "I could tell she had been crying for a while" "You've been lying to me, she said" "And I burst into loud tears tears that I had kept back for months" "Something else happened after she found out" "Up until then she would pray to Buddha every day and burn incense" "She had been a devout Buddhist" "But with the news she threw the incense ash into the air and got rid of her incense burner" "She no longer believed" "Buddha hadn't answered her prayers" "She coughed for long time" "I insisted we find out what was wrong and brought her to a doctor" "The doctor suggested X-rays" "When she had the X-rays, we waited outside" "Then the doctor asked for me and took me to his office" "It was her lung, he said" "lung cancer" "Again, I decided not to tell her and hid the truth" "This went on for months" "Suddenly one day she looked at me as if at a stranger" "Who are you?" "What are you doing here?" "She started talking to herself, talking, talking about her life's sufferings and sorrows" "She talked the entire day then she reached for my hand" "Hualing, you are here and looked at me with tenderness" "I felt her gradually letting go of my hand" "Just like that" "It was not yet dawn when my mother woke up" "She saw me at her bedside and reached for my hand" "Guess whom I have been thinking of these days?" "After all these years, why do I still think of him?" "He walked into the room, smiling but not speaking" "I asked, why are you here?" "I have brought up our children now you are here for the harvest?" "He laughed and said, I have come for my better half!" "She would talk about her time in Taiwan and about how she felt after the purge" "After almost half a century what she experienced at that time" "still has an impact on her" "I believe that even now the fear still comes back to haunt her" "It was known as the White Terror period" "What happened in the Free China incident" "led to her departure from Taiwan to begin her new life in the States" "It left a big dent and became her complex entwining her whole existence" "I said to myself that I would never return" "Anthea looking for Gran" "Hello" "Hi Anthea" "Where are you?" "I'm home" "I don't want to see her" "Oh" "I don't want to see her" "I don't..." "She lied to me" "I don't..." "I don't trust her" "Well, I don't know what to say" "I don't either" "Yeah, but you cannot reject her, Anthea" "You can't" "You cannot reject her" "You can... this problem... you can write her" "You write each other" "You cannot confront her" "Okay?" "Okay" "You write her, write her long letters" "Okay" "Okay, Bye" "It's a mother-daughter thing, Angie" "Her mother smokes" "I see" "She promised to quit but broke her promise" "Anthea found out and can't accept it" "I have to be the mediator" "She is very close to me" "She said I am the most important person in her life" "Because she is wise" "She has a lot of wisdom" "So whenever you see your gran what do you do?" "I hug her but not too hard" "Take this side" "I have a scar here" "Not that side" "I think we have a relationship that is really particular to grandmother and granddaughter" "Sometimes without the mother and father in between" "It's a different kind of relationship" "It's easier, in some ways" "Grandchildren and grandparents are always easier" "Yeah" "Maybe because you can be more of a role model to me and guide me more, and not have to discipline me or... when I was growing up" "And be more, just... more of a figure, rather than a parental figure to me" "So where was this trampoline built?" "It was here where this cord was over there" "It was flat and had two sides" "And... it was just one of the things I did all throughout my childhood" "Just to entertain myself" "I would jump on the trampoline with my grandfather" "Without my grandparents" "I'd be in a different place today" "She tells me stories of all the hardships in China" "I always listen intently to any stories she tells me" "From before when she was in China growing up, and taking care of the family" "To me, the two most important people in my life are my mother and Paul Engle" "How would you describe Paul Engle?" "To me, he is a mountain" "A mountain?" "Yes, a mountain" "Be it light breeze or heavy storm he welcomes with open arms" "He was the embracing earth" "The job of the poet is to put into intense language" "those things in his life which move him intensely" "It is not what you write about" "My sense is that he was a larger than life figure" "Somebody who, like Hualing had enormous energy" "Somebody who could do a lot of things in the same way that she does" "Teacher, administrator, fundraiser" "One of those people who, it seems to me was dedicated to a larger vision of what might be possible" "I often think one dean made a decision to grant graduate credit for creative work" "Paul Engle turned that decision into the Writers' Workshop" "And then with Hualing into the lnternational Writing Program both of which laid the groundwork for Iowa City being designated the third UNESCO City of Literature" "a place where the word is honored" "Back in Taiwan she was reserved and introverted unlike what she is now" "But this is her innate nature" "It was Paul who unleashed her true nature" "Hualing is a very strong woman" "Only a man like Paul Engle could impress such a woman" "I think a woman even the toughest woman wants a shoulder to lean on at critical moments" "To me, Old Pa was such a man who, when in times of trouble whenever we needed him was always there for us" "Paul appeared at the right time in my life" "My previous marriage wasn't going well" "Weiwei's father had been in the U.S. for seven years" "We were not compatible" "A good man he was, a very good man" "I was confused and lonely while he was studying in Chicago" "It wasn't easy for him either" "He had to to work hard taking odd jobs such as in the library in order to support himself" "However, he seemed different" "His personality changed and our relationship got worse" "So after I settled here and when my two daughters arrived" "I said that we should separate divorce" "She never talked to us about her relationship with my father so I don't know but I believe they were once in love or else she wouldn't have married him, right?" "What I know is that she really loves Old Pa" "She still misses him dearly" "It has not been easy" "Paul Engle drove me to the airport to pick up my daughters" "When they walked towards me it was so emotional for me" "I had tears in my eyes seeing the two of them together" "Then" "Paul Engle said to me" "It's wonderful to see you and the girls together" "It's wonderful, he said" "From then on, I knew he would be good to me" "I knew that whatever happened he would be good to us" "His talent, his sense of humor he was so humorous" "He was always in good spirits, always made me laugh" "He was accepting of everyone and everything" "He had respect for people and always listened with an open mind" "What more can you say about a man like that?" "Yu Kwang-chung invited a dozen friends to dinner" "It was perhaps Yu who seated me next to Paul" "Paul seemed surprised to see me there" "Over dinner he talked and laughed and amused us with his jokes" "Suddenly he turned to me and asked" "Would you like to go to Iowa?" "Hualing was young and beautiful" "She is still beautiful" "Yes" "She was in a Qipao and high heels, right?" "I could feel the sensuality within this petit and delicate body" "I was immediately drawn by her beautiful personality" "Paul Engle" "Paul was instantly attracted to Hualing when he first saw her in Taipei" "He wanted to marry her, he said" "After dinner he offered to take me home" "He asked the taxi to stop at the corner of the street and said, I will walk you home" "So we walked" "There were a few stars out" "He said in the States when stars appeared people make a wish" "That night we saw stars" "He asked me my wish" "I said I wanted nothing" "And what about him?" "He said, I want to see you again, again, again, again" "Endlessly again, again, again, again" "An American friend said we were a miracle couple a myth" "It couldn't happen in real life" "Maybe it was fate" "We got married in 1 971." "You were here and you sang and played the guitar" "It was a glorious time" "Paul Engle and Nieh Hualing got married in 1 971" "and they came here for their honeymoon" "Paul suggested that I should see America so we took a road trip" "It was very spontaneous and fun" "We stopped wherever we wanted" "We would buy food and beer from grocery stores and picnic in the woods so carefree and leisurely" "We drove all the way to Santa Barbara" "Santa Barbara is a famous town very romantic, with mountains and sea" "It's a quaint and peaceful town with an artistic atmosphere" "The Harbor Restaurant is old" "It's been here for decades by the sea with a great view" "There's a piano bar inside" "They sang Nat King Cole songs having a very romantic time" "Nieh Hualing was radiant" "Her laughter rang like a nightingale" "Paul swam, I read by the beach" "We spent a gorgeous week there" "a memorable and precious time" "They stayed in the Miramar Hotel on the beach" "I still remember the blue rooftop" "I think it was the sweetest time in their lives" "He was an American poet, I'm a Chinese novelist" "It wasn't easy for two writers to live together" "Our relationship was like a ping-pong game" "Pong, pong, pong, back and forth" "like a friendly game" "lots of fun" "However, when it came to Chinese-American issues we would debate vigorously" "Once we had an argument" "I said he was a foreigner who didn't understand Chinese issues" "He said" "You call me a foreigner in my own hometown in Iowa?" "I realized then that I was the foreigner" "I have always been plagued by the idea of "foreign"" "I had to admit" "I was a foreigner in front of my husband" "We moved into this house in 1 969" "Paul and I got married here" "Weiwei and Lanlan were both here" "This house has lots of good memories" "There is a basement down there" "At the time, Iowa was a conservative town" "Sometimes I was a victim of racism" "I couldn't rent a place because of my race" "I still remember the real estate agent" "She was a big woman" "I wrote a novel named "Outsider"" "The meaning of this word goes beyond geographical boundaries" "It connotates alienation in mind and body" "Later I realized that many writers have this sense of being an outsider" "Maybe it is the fate of a writer" "A writer always stays on the outside otherwise he can't be objective" "I believe a writer must keep a distance in order to gain perspective" "It's possible writers choose to be outsiders" "All together how much" "So I am just showing you" "I am going to charge you less than that" "But I am just showing you if I did everything by the hour twenty-five dollars an hour, per man" "Okay, okay" "That it comes out more to what I charged you" "Do you understand me?" "You charged me all, I will show it to you" "I charged you 350 and 250." "Yes, 1, 1 80 dollars" "Why is it here?" "Because look at this, this and this is three, four, five, six hundred" "For what?" "This, right here, the power washing" "This is where it comes from" "Right here, see?" "Everything is right here" "We could explain tomorrow" "I'll charge you much less." "I have no problem." "I don't want you to think" "I have no time here, they are making a film on me" "But I just don't want you to think..." "You come tomorrow, Okay?" "Okay, I will, I will" "Thank you, Mrs. Engle" "I am really disappointed" "Sorry about that" "I am sorry too" "Read my papers, you'll understand" "I think a person who does not have strong convictions can not be a writer" "One writes because he is in distress" "If one writes not for fame but out of necessity he then writes for a profound personal reason" "I have experienced deaths, wars and being an outcast" "It has not been pleasant but when I think about it" "I realize how unique my experiences are" "Whenever I write" "I don't write for a reason" "I write to express my feelings and my recollections of the past" "After I arrived in the U.S., I tried to write in English which was natural" "In fact, I would have had many advantages if I wrote in English" "Paul Engle could help me publish" "And I wasn't too worried about my English" "He could help with proof-reading" "In spite of such enormous advantages" "I failed to write a single English word" "There was a huge struggle in me" "Should I write in English, or in Chinese?" "Then one day in the seventies on the Chinese writing paper" "I wrote "Mulberry Green and Peach Pink"" "You see, Mulberry Green and Peach Pink" "What does it convey?" "When I wrote this novel" "I had visions of colors vivid with emotion and personality" "The title was a symbol of what I wanted to communicate" "It was more than a metaphor" "It was more complex than these five words" "Mulberry Green and Peach Pink is, I believe a huge artistic success" "It's about two different persons who actually are one suffering an identity crisis caused by the dislocation of mind and body" "It is my trick." "You are dead, Mulberry Green!" "I am Peach Pink." "I am alive." "I am breathing." "I am independent." "You don't know me, but I know you." "I am different from you." "We merely live in the same body." "(How unfortunate!" ")" "The protagonist is a very independent woman whose life epitomizes Chinese history from the forties to the seventies" "It was a time when people were constantly leaving China and living in exile, be it in Taiwan or USA" "In short, she was writing about the Chinese exodus" "I will wander the marked places on the map." "If you want to catch me, go ahead." "I am not Mulberry Green anyway." "One stop after another" "I have no fixed destination." "I am always on the road." "I believe her writing was avant-garde and creative for the time" "I find the cultural traverse so interesting" "One leaves one's motherland undergoes changes in a new culture and in the process transforms into another identity" "On the surface one may seem the same yet really has become a different person" "What has happened between the original and new identity?" "Maybe this is indicative of a metamorphosis of geographical and cultural change" "Nieh Hualing is a legend" "Her literary life is legendary" "She started to write at a very young age" "From The Lost Golden Cicada to Mulberry Green and Peach Pink" "we can detect a very strong theme around feminism and feminist issues" "Her quest for" "freedom and equality was obvious" "Her protagonists resilient and strong very similar to herself" "She combines literature with life" "I doubt she could create such characters if she hadn't left Taiwan for the US" "The characters are a testament of conflicts of identities" "I can feel the dilemmas of the people in the twentieth century in terms of their predicament psychological and emotional" "I have strong feelings for Taiwan as well as for mainland China," "This is a dilemma" "I have been in exile all my Iife" "As a child, I was a Chinese girl" "In a Japanese Concession in China" "During the war, I was a student wandering from place to place in China" "I was termed a "mainlander" in Taiwan" "A Chinese immigrant in America" "And an overseas Chinese in China" "I can't help but find this ironical" "Where exactly is my home?" "I used a split personality as a metaphor for the situation of the people in the twentieth century" "I realize that we Chinese have been constantly on the run" "It seems the Chinese either had to leave or succumb to the control of an autocratic regime" "I find the plight of the Chinese mirrors the plight of the world in the twentieth century" "This is my insight through conversations with writers which have also affected my writing" "Hsien-yung :" "Remember the autumn leaves in Iowa?" "Exile is the result of repression from the motherland, from oppressive governments" "The turbulence of our nation has led to the degradation of our culture" "and the disintegration of morality and trust in our people since the nineteenth century" "Our Chinese soul is a wounded soul wounded" "I think the wound has yet to heal" "Although she has been living in America her roots are in China where she was nourished" "She is a daughter of the motherland" "She is different from her western counterparts" "There is true grit in her a modern day heroine" "I came across his letter earlier today" "Yes" "No, you can't read that one" "Oh please, I was going to ask you" "Please, let me read his letters" "He wrote me this one" "Only one thing can be said as I go off for the last hard two weeks of this trip" "Other women seem so dull to me when I think of you" "Whether it is good or tragic for you to have met me" "I do not know" "But for me, it has been lovely and strong and authentic beyond anything I could have hoped even including the jokes we have together" "I feel that way about us" "I yearn for the moment when we meet in terrible haste and in full love" "That's his expression" "In terrible haste, in full love" "Paul" "Both of us were strong-charactered but were open to each other" "One must be tolerant and understanding" "Of course love is important" "I once said" "Young couples love with passion" "Old couples' love transcends to another level" "The love is affection and intimacy" "You see old couples together so intimate and loving" "He was wonderful" "Most husbands didn't like doing chores but he loved doing them with me" "He enjoyed it so did I" "We loved to go to the supermarket together" "Remember the Hi-V supermarket on Church Street?" "We used to shop there" "We would push a cart and throw things in" "We threw everything we fancied into the cart fruit, vegetables..." "We loved fresh produce" "We were thrilled" "I wonder why both of us" "loved shopping at the supermarket?" "Maybe because we experienced hunger as children" "There's a Lake McBride in Iowa" "A fairly large lake among the hills" "He liked boating" "He had a motorboat for water skiing" "Hualing didn't like water skiing" "Sitting in a fast boat brought no pleasure to her" "So he said" "Hualing, let me buy you a house boat for leisure" "Paul Engle had a small boat he often invited" "writers on his boat" "I said, you run such a famous Writers' Workshop here but we overseas writers feel a bit out of place among the native young writers" "I am going to ask a very simple question here" "All I want to know is" "The when and the why and the how of the start of this program" "You know, what purpose you have" "What do you hope to accomplish?" "First of all, eight years ago" "Second because foreign writers had been coming here for many years to Writers Workshop" "And third" "Because this foreign novelist came from China" "And said, after she'd been here" "You have a program for young American writers" "Why don't you have one for foreign writers?" "So I made the obvious reply," "You're crazy" "You can't bring a lot of foreign writers here" "What would they do to the campus?" "What would they do to each other?" "and who would pay for all of this expensive air travel?" "She made the obvious comment" "Let's try" "Wang Zengqi once commented" "Hualing Nieh is idealistic, impulsive yet managed to succeed" "Many writers came from" "East European countries behind the lron Curtain or from South African countries under military autonomy" "There were diplomatic confrontations between the U.S. and these countries" "So Paul asked for the U.S. government support and it promised to allow writers to enter the U.S." "regardless of nationality as long as they were invited by Paul Engle" "Iowa City is a small town in the Midwest with lots of cornfields" "It has a great university and a great international Writing Program amidst the university" "Which invites writers from all over the world" "The nucleus of this program was the Engles' living room" "Her house was a mini-United Nations" "Writers from different countries congregated there regardless of language differences" "The most important language there I think, was laughter" "Their house was like a chicken coop" "Forty, fifty writers there" "She was always screaming" "Paul!" "Paul!" "Paul was always screaming, Hualing!" "That's how they found each other" "Well said" "Funny!" "You're here" " Hello Professor Nieh" "I thought a troop was coming" "I wanted to come earlier, but" "Xinwei, it's so good to see you again" "Here you are, finally" "Yes, am finally stepping foot in your home" "Nice to meet you, Professor Nieh" "Come on in" "They weren't running an impersonal academic program" "The program was about the people" "All the writers were away from home visiting America" "They ate, drank and chatted till late" "The exchanges were important" "I am usually critical of any arts-related workshops or seminars not my cup of tea" "But lwp is seldom criticized perhaps because it never controls nor restricts you" "You can't criticize what doesn't upset you, can you?" "Or you have yourself to criticize since you are basically on your own" "How long do the writers stay?" "What do they do?" "The idea of the program is" "You do whatever you want" "Paul once joked that" "If you want to jump into the river, so be it" "It seems to me, therefore, that this ought to be a symbol of the world" "In which people who are imaginative know and trust people who are imaginative" "After all, if you are reading poetry to each other" "You are not fighting each other" "For writers suddenly to be alone here in Iowa" "Confronting only his own talent and this landscape, and this language was a great and shocking experience" "Some couldn't take it, you know" "They couldn't write their books There was silence" "That's true" "When the writer drops from the heaven to the ground suddenly" "He finds the reality" "His life... suddenly he is stripped bare naked, you know" "Oh, I look like this" "This part is beautiful, this part is ugly" "He finds this reality about himself and his writing too" "He has to compete with so many talents from other parts of the world" "It's a reality too which he couldn't find in his own country" "I came to know people from countries I seldom knew before" "It is interesting and revealing when a dispute arises in a discussion you will see conflicting viewpoints clashing" "and finally realize the difficulty of the human condition" "I remember very well" "An Egyptian and an Israeli writer were here that year when Egypt and Israel were at war" "When they met, they threw glasses at each other" "We were all shocked" "In Taiwan, I already heard about the war" "But I never imagined that the hatred was that deep and the rift that wide" "It was so personal for writers" "Four months later when we were leaving" "I saw them embracing and crying" "It was so moving" "I believe that the significance of this program is in the bringing together of different viewpoints and providing a platform for people to meet and speak their minds so that they can embrace and reconcile" "Iowa is made special not so much by the program but by Paul Engle and Hualing" "Whose encompassing love enables the free exchange of writers" "You can speak without imposition or judgment" "That's rubbish" "I didn't make any..." "That's got nothing to do..." "You're bringing..." "This is about integrity of a human being" "I never brought the idea of integrity into it" "I'm bringing it in" "I'm saying you haven't got any integrity if you're..." "That's what we were talking earlier, prostitution" "Because you want to be applauded by people you will go to any length to make them applaud you" "Artistic prostitution, for me is a person who does the same thing not with his body but sells his mind and his artistic talent for money" "Steve Wright, Phil Glass haven't had a concert in a concert hall for months and months" "I heard bloody..." "Only the galleries, and the art galleries would put the concerts on" "Stop" "I wouldn't put him on a bloody field, mate in the middle of Iowa because it's crap" "It's a prostitution of art" "Art must not get like Phil Glass" "He must not be degenerate in a way that you and people like him, are trying to make it" "Did you call me degenerate?" "Yes" "Writers are not an easy bunch of people" "Imagine coming from different cultures different languages" "Men, women, different ages with different experiences behind them yet they mingled well in Iowa City the credit goes to the host and hostess, Paul and Hualing" "She often took us out to dinner" "One meal would cost seventy to a hundred dollars" "She was extremely generous" "She treated us every week to different restaurants with good food but she never solved her computer problem" "I told her to throw away her old computer and buy a new one" "She went on the internet to find herself a new model" "We had discussions and I made suggestions and she continued to research for the cheapest one just to save fifty dollars" "That task took her a long time proving she was very frugal but not to her friends" "She was writing My Three Lives, her memoir at the time and she was frustrated with the old computer decrepit and problematic" "She had it repaired many times" "I insisted she change to a new one and get it over with" "She thought spending four to five hundred dollars on a new computer was too much" "At the time, a brand new" "Dell computer cost around five hundred dollars" "She would spend one hundred on a meal for friends" "I told her don't go out to dinner five times and you will have a new computer" "She told me that this table has witnessed more than six hundred writers from all over the world" "This table alone is history" "She always sat there and I always sat here" "She used very nice plates and served bite-sized morsels of food" "She would put one plate here and push it slightly towards me as we talked" "She kept repeating this motion" "When she was not paying attention" "I would push the plate back to the middle then she would push it towards me again" "This lasted the whole evening" "It might be a trivial gesture but you could tell" "She cares about you" "Paul rushed into the bedroom" "I have some good news" "What's that?" "I asked" "He told me the news about the U.S. and China" "I was so happy and he was delighted too" "He believed that it was a good move on the U.S part" "America would certainly benefit from the better relations" "Paul and I were very excited because we could start to invite Chinese writers over" "We had tried for many years without success" "No response" "After 1 979, we started inviting writers from China" "The first one was Xiao Qian" "Before him, we never had any" "Mainland writers in America" "When he came to Iowa everyone was friendly to him and wanted to speak to him" "Finally, a Chinese writer had arrived from the motherland and brought its earth with him" "Yes" "Paul Engle and I created our first Chinese Weekend seminar" "In the sixties, seventies and even eighties" "It was not easy to invite mainland writers" "like Liu Bingyan and Ding Ling" "For Taiwan writers in the sixties and seventies such as Chen Ying-chen" "It was their first time abroad" "They had never left their country before" "At that time, mainland China and Taiwan were still hostile with each other" "Although writers from mainland and Taiwan speak the same language and read each other's writing they were mutually unfamiliar" "In Iowa, they began to talk with each other" "Xiao Qian was prudent with his words since he was the first writer invited abroad" "He was very cautious because he was accused of being Right Wing in the Cultural Revolution" "Ai Qing seldom spoke" "In fact, I don't recall him speaking at all" "Ding Ling was an interesting person" "She suffered a lot, of course" "She was one of the earlier writers who joined the Left Wing in Shanghai and then went to Yan'an and was welcomed by Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai" "She was a good orator" "Later, she was prosecuted as Right Wing because of her speeches and writings" "The prosecution continued through the Cultural Revolution" "She was beaten and jailed" "Yet, she was still very good-natured" "We were sorry for her but she said it was nothing, that it was over" "They were helpless and isolated" "No one lent them a hand" "They were old and confused" "Their lifelong faith was challenged" "Ding Ling was an early Communist" "When her first husband Hu Yeping was killed she fled to Yan'an with the help of Cai Yuanpei" "Communism was her unwavering faith" "Even when a few writers challenged her about her belief in Communism she was undaunted" "I was very moved" "Once we went to Chicago and took her out on the town to a bar for some drinks" "We were on top of the Sears Tower overlooking Chicago by night" "There was a woman in a mink coat sipping her wine" "Ding Ling, in her weathered clothes and aging white hair" "looked in every way like an old woman from the countryside" "I was observing her wondering whether she would feel uneasy" "She touched me gently and whispered" "I looked exactly like her when I was in Shanghai" "I couldn't imagine Ding Ling in a mink coat all chic and glamorous" "The story of Chen Ying Chen" "We tried to invite him in 1 968 but later that year, he was jailed" "Hualing and Paul Engle tried very hard to talk Washington into putting pressure on Taiwan" "Because they were always ready to help repressed writers they relentlessly tried to get the writers out from dire situations" "After Chen was released, we invited him again but we failed" "We tried again and again" "Finally he came in 1 983" "He was yearning for his motherland" "That was why he was branded a traitor" "Suddenly in Iowa, he met writers from China" "He called mainland China his motherland" "That year, three mainland writers were here including Wang Anyi, Ru Zhijuan and Wu Zuguang" "Chen was elated" "They talked late into the night" "I believe he was having the time of his life" "It was his first time abroad meeting his beloved comrades" "He was like a fish in water" "Wang made a comment about me" "Hualing Nieh was trouble" "She invited the Left Wing from Taiwan and the Right Wing from China" "She's a rebel rouser" "When they arrive in Iowa politics doesn't matter rather, it is about people and the human condition" "The inspiration from the Writing Program is that the arts is about humanity" "The basic entity is humanity and our ultimate concern is about people" "That has been my experience of the lwp" "I find in Paul Engle And Hualing a generosity that they might not have been aware of" "Before the Berlin Wall came down the wall" "had already come down in Iowa City" "I had an interesting discovery which is as I was walking up the stairs at Hualing's home" "I saw a chair piled with old newspapers brown and ancient looking" "I was curious" "They were all dated to 1 991" "It was the day her husband Paul Engle died at an airport" "I felt that time had come to a standstill on that day" "On the morning of March 22nd we started out from Cedar Rapids going to Poland to accept the Medal of Merit for Cultural Service from the Walesa government not the previous Polish government but the newly elected Walesa government" "The Polish writers who had been to Iowa asked the government to give the Engles the award" "They believed we opened the door to the world for them at the time" "a time when they were under political oppression" "There we waited for our plane" "We were early and he wanted to go buy a copy of Newsweek for us to read on the plane" "I told him to leave his stuff with me and off he went" "Soon it was time for boarding but he was not back" "I got worried that we might be late for the plane" "I carried his bag and looked for him" "It was around five" "At this time of the day, he liked a drink" "I thought he might be in some bar" "When I arrived at one of the bars someone was down on the floor" "I saw the shoes and I knew it was him" "Someone was trying to resuscitate him" "I saw him" "lying on the floor" "I went up to the man and said, That's my husband" "Then and there I knew he was gone" "I simply knew it" "It all happened so suddenly" "What if I were to leave you behind one day, Paul said" "We would still be together, I said" "You were so loud" "Yes, I was shouting at you" "Where is your medal?" "My medal" "Why aren't you wearing it?" "I was so happy to see you all there yesterday" "It was so wonderful" "What kind of medal is it?" "What medal?" "The medal you received yesterday" "It's just a medal" "You like it?" "Not big enough" "Didn't you notice it yesterday?" "He even put his hand on mine" "Professor Nieh, that is so risque" "He was all smiles" "I was too" "Still intoxicated by his hand?" "Professor Nieh is so easily conquered" "In two days, conquered by Ma Ying-jeou" "You are no exception" "Just two days conquered in two days she has become his fan" "His big fan" "His big fan" "Your speech was so good yesterday" "What an experience so emotional" "Finally you said" "I am home" "It's the best thing to happen for Ma Ying-jeou this month" "It sure is" "I was invited by Mr. Chen Hongzheng together with other friends to attend the 40th anniversary of Yin Haiguang's death and the 30th anniversary of Mr. Lei Chen's death" "I am especially happy to see Mrs. Yin here" "We've been friends for forty years" "What a great occasion to see an old friend an old friend of my family's" "To our surprise, President Ma you showed up on the last day of the anniversary" "We weren't sure what to expect of you" "I must say you have surpassed our expectations" "Your apologies to those politically oppressed in the past are very sincere" "So I want to thank you" "Don't mention it" "Thank you" "We were wrong and we caused much suffering to many innocent people" "It's history now but we still owe you our apologies on behalf of the Kuomintang" "So President Ma took the opportunity bowed and apologized to people once oppressed" "I apologize with all my utmost sincerity" "And at the moment he said that" "I felt I had come home" "Infused with subtle emotions by the inspiring conversations" "I retired to the balcony for a cigarette" "The early autumn trees were thinning their fallen leaves carpeting the wooden floor" "Those noble senior souls" "I always admired seemed to have left behind their witty remarks and hearty laughs in Professor Nieh's living room where time lost its erosive power" "I was young and naive unaware of the injuries hidden in the dark that happened before my time" "With my inexperience and limited knowledge" "I could never have arrived at the nucleus of the darkness" "Fortunately" "I was endowed with such a mystic opportunity to visit the relic of what was once glorious" "I was a young wanderer yet, Professor Nieh welcomed me with her indiscriminate hospitality" "Later, I discovered that my writing had changed" "It was Professor Nieh who taught me what a whole person and a whole writer should be" "I believe it is a conviction a trust in humanity that stops one from being bitter or angry in solitude or becoming disappointed by the sight of darkness and giving up" "She went to middle school with my eldest daughter Xiao Wei" "She used to come over and stay with us" "She was a little girl back then" "Later she came to Iowa" "My home is always her home" "It's so good to see her" "It's already forty years, isn't it?" "You are like a mother to all of us" "She loves Paul Engle" "I remember Hualing's laugh" "It is truly remarkable" "She uses her laughter to laugh off her difficult experiences" "Surprise!" "Oh, no" "I cannot believe it" "I kiss everyone" "How many?" "Eighty-five?" "There should be eighty-five candles." "I spent one third of my life here in this house" "The memories have kept me going" "Of course life has not been easy" "And now I am getting old" "I have to be careful even with the garbage a bit nerve-racking" "I can't help it" "But I can't live elsewhere" "I don't think I could survive anywhere else" "I insist on staying here" "We were drinking by the fireplace that night" "Suddenly Hualing urged me to come with her" "She wanted to show me something before I left" "I was curious" "Come with me, she said" "We went to her bedroom" "She opened a chest" "I want to show you what I'll be wearing when I leave this world" "She took out a pink dress of delicate silk" "It was a set with matching flower-embroidered shoes" "With a glass in one hand and her funeral dress in the other she asked for my approval" "At that moment, I saw a woman with a resplendent life before her" "No one has a life like hers" "I felt sad" "How would I look in this dress?" "she asked" "Like a bride, I replied" "And she laughed" "I'm like a river flowing slowly now" "First it was the Yangtze, so strong" "Now smaller, narrower" "The speed so much slower" "It will eventually rest in a valley" "I resent nothing, regret nothing" "When the final moment comes" "I will wave to say goodbye and be taken by the wind" "Nieh Hualing still lives in Iowa City and advises on the International Writing Program"