The Sigla Blog

Wei Hui’s frank account of Chinese youth, sexuality and a love of popular culture ensured it was banned in her native China. She returns, unrepentant as ever with a follow-up, ‘Marrying Buddha’ and spoke to Sinéad Gleeson on a recent visit to Dublin.

Wei Hui InterviewFor most writers, the first words they commit to a page are the toughest words they’ll ever write. The fear that the choice of words might not capture your thoughts can put even the most determined author off. Wei Hui, one of China’s youngest and best-known writers has never had that problem. “The first time I ever wrote anything, I felt very empowered and felt that I could get out a lot of emotion and bury it in the story”, she says. “Luckily that’s how writing affected me, because I tried to do lots of other things, like being a journalist and an editor but I wasn’t very good at either!”

As she sits across from me in Dublin’s Clarence hotel, Wei Hui is a combination of mischievous party girl and Zen tranquillity. For all her apparent youth (she’s 29), she has written six novels, two of which have been translated and published in the UK and Ireland. Her debut, Shanghai Baby was banned in her native China for its frank account of contemporary China’s youth and its attitude to sex, relationships and the West. So how did that make her feel?

“I was quite shocked initially, but the book’s subject matter was very frightening for mainstream China not just because of the sexuality, but because it reflected what was going in the newer generation. The values and attitudes are very different, so we don’t believe in Communism like our parents; we’re more influenced by Western popular culture, music and films. It became about hedonism that had never been so overt, in a way”.

As any publicity guru will tell you, there’s no such thing as bad publicity and the book’s notoriety raised Wei Hui’s profile and ensured the book was a bestseller. “In the beginning the media in China weren’t interested in me because it was banned”, she tells me. “China these days is a much more Capitalist society and the ban was a bit of a sugar-coated pill. People bought it for the sugary outside but realised that there was something more to it. Four years on, it still sells a lot so the ban doesn’t have anything to do with it anymore.” Coming from such a traditional and family-orientated country, one invariably wonders how her parents reacted to Shanghai Baby.

“My mother has never read it and it caused chaos in China when it was published there in 2000. I was a national Bitch, and was portrayed by the Press as something of a bad girl, so there was some initial embarrassment for them. They’re good-natured people though, they really care about me. My mother even tried to help me after the book was banned, by coming to my apartment. She’d answer the phone to journalists and say ‘She’s not here’ so they’ve accepted I’m different - I’m the black sheep of the family.”

After the success of Shanghai Baby, she moved to New York and, like many writers before her, found that exile gave her an even clearer perspective to write about her home country and culture. “Moving to New York was a real turning point for me. Living there makes me feel closer to China in a way. The geographic distance brings me emotionally and psychologically closer to it. Sometimes you have to go away from something in order to get a clearer view of it. I could never read books about Taoism or Buddhism in China, because there’s a real economy fever attitude, a real sense of materialism that I don’t feel in New York”.

It’s an exceptional book, and timely in its assessment of morality and mortality. It has already been tipped as an early contender for the Booker Prize, something Ishiguro is unconcerned about. “I just ignore that stuff’, he laughs, “I was nominated so much early in my career that I was branded as an applicant for the Booker! I was relieved when I actually won it for The Remains of the Day.” Like his Booker-winning novel, there are plans to adapt Never Let Me Go for the big screen. “We’re very close to the end of negotiations for the films rights with a very exciting team but I’m not allowed to say anything about it until it’s all finalized”, he adds mysteriously.

Although both of the novels are presented as fiction, they lean heavily towards autobiography. Any author will tell you that they write what they know and draw on their own experiences, but is it difficult to write so honestly when there seems to be such a thin line between fiction and reality? “For me it’s quite easy but actually only about 35% of the book is really me. That’s one of the best things about being a novelist, you can live a fantasy life - you can be a butcher or prostitute if you want to. Writing is quite healing for me; sometimes I include things in the books that I really aspire to. When I look at my main character Coco, I think she has more guts than me but still, her spirit is 100% me, we’re like twin sisters.

Despite her love of partying and shopping, Wei Hui is a motivated writer and tries to pen something on a daily basis. “I suppose you have to be quite disciplined and I take notes every day. For some people it’s writing a journal entry but for me it’s literally one note about something that strikes me that day, perhaps an idea or an interesting encounter I’ve just had on the street. If you really have passion in your heart for writing, it’s easy, it doesn’t require discipline.”

The books are not without their humour and in one of the funniest passages in the book Wei Hui describes her efforts to be a domestic goddess and cook a romantic meal for the man in her life. Despite it being a disaster, and her aversion to cooking in general, food features heavily in the book. All manner of oriental spices and flavours waft from the pages and resembles Banana Yoshimoto’s classic Kitchen. “I love eating!” she laughs, “Food is very sensual and eating good food is like loving your body. I associate it with a Zen practice and the three levels of enlightenment in Buddhism. I like to think that I’m striving for the third one. 99% of people, especially urban people are at level one, they’re very distracted. They don’t live in the present and are always somewhere else.”

Again and again while we chat, she tosses out uncontrived snippets of wisdom, pronouncements that are simple but still have me thinking after the interview has ended. “I’m on this path as a writer,” says Wei Hui, “and although I don’t know what kind of books I’ll write in the future, they’ll always include spirituality. I feel I’m on this path for a reason and I’m not turning back.”

Sinéad Gleeson