C.T. Hsia dies at 92
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/09/books/c-t-hsia-scholar-of-chinese-literature-dies-at-92.html
Dr. Hsia, colorful and contentious, did not back down from critics. He argued that Chinese writers suffered from an “obsession with China” and that they did not embrace universal human concerns that transcend China’s borders.
Comments
Those two NYT sentences reflect the quality, or lack thereof, plus the prejudices of CT Hsia so it is little wonder the NYT should deliver an obituary to the professor-bigot.
NYT:"Hsia...did not back down from critics", which seems as if Hsia himself has a spine. A man with a spine doesn't sink to name-calling (Lu Xun, a communist 'running dog'; Ding Ling is a 'nothing'; Zhao Shuli 'clumsy' and 'clownish'）-- all because those writers don't share Hsia's western ethical bias agented through some third-rate, liberal American university where Hsia lives and "teaches".
NYT again: Chinese writers don't "embrace universal human concerns that transcend China’s borders." Which is to infer that writing about Chinese lives, in China, is not a part of the universal human concerns. Because if they are, then they would have to 'transcend China'.
Can you, Paper Republic editors, see the stupidity in the illogic? The contradiction? And further on, the contempt? The bigotry? The racism? Casting the Chinese as inferior and inhumane? Or are you one of them but pretending to be empathetic and aesthetic?
CT Sin, January 12, 2014, 6:24a.m.
Can you, Paper Republic editors, see the stupidity in the illogic? The contradiction? And further on, the contempt? The bigotry? The racism? Casting the Chinese as inferior and inhumane? Or are you one of them but pretending to be empathetic and aesthetic?
Interesting questions. The site Paper-Republic.org doesn't have editors, though, and we don't have a line to promote or protect vis-à-vis the politics or aesthetics of Chinese literature. We have administrators, with an array of beliefs and opinions about how Chinese literature does and should relate to various political programs and so forth, reflecting our own ideological views and blindspots.
But I think it would be a mistake to assume that the links on our site reflect things we as a group hope will be necessarily agreeable to the readership. I didn't post the link to the NYTimes obituary, but your nationalist response is equally the reaction I hope to get to such an article as would be a cosmopolitan view calling C T Hsia a genius whose contribution to cross-cultural understanding deserve undying praise.
Lucas
Lucas Klein, January 13, 2014, 4:38p.m.