yesterday yang qian and i participated in the second nanshan district writers federation council meeting on literary creativity. yang qian was made a council member and i was made an honorary council member.

artistic federations are quasi-governmental organizations that promote the arts. just recently, for example, when fat bird invited the theatre practice to shenzhen, it was the nanshan district united artists federation (文联) that sponsored the event. federation members assume that a good working relationship between the government and artists is necessary to establish a creative environment. moreover, members assume that the arts are necessary for various reasons. one is to civilize society. another is to educate the public. yet another is to bridge the differences that separate different groups of people. these tasks are regulated by the bureau of dissemination (or propaganda, depending on your dictionary’s understanding of 宣传部). altogether, nanshan has 8 arts federations (戏剧 theatre、影视 broadcast、舞蹈 dance、音乐 music、曲艺 traditional stage arts、摄影 photography、书法 caligraphy、美术 fine arts), which are administratively under the united artists federation（文联), a government department in the ministry of dissemination/propaganda. zhang ruoxue (张若雪) heads the nanshan district united artists federation.

established in 1997, the writers federation specifically supports the development of writing (fiction and non-fiction) in nanshan. federation members come from both government and non-government institutions. several members are independent artists. the chairman of the writers federation, nan xiang (南翔) teaches in the shenzhen university department of chinese, while the secretary (秘书长) is zhang ruoxue, head of the united artists federation. perhaps unexpectedly to westerners accustomed to thinking of social conflict in terms of government and anti-government groups, divisions within the nanshan writers federation (at this meeting at least) did not fall along an official-unoffical axis. instead, the contradiction between high and popular forms of literature was the most salient axis of difference.

nan xiang, for example, gave a long talk on how chinese writers should pay attention to the chinese writer communities outside of the mainland. he also encouraged nanshan writers to pay attention to those foreign writers being celebrated abroad. in this way, nanshan writers could begin to interact with a larger world. ding li (丁力), however, took a strong stance in favor of writing from local experience for local audiences. indeed as each writer spoke about their current projects it became clear that their were two primary kinds of writers, with different funding sources an intended audiences. these groups were metaphorically characterized as the temple (庙堂) and the river and lakes (江湖) writers. “river and lakes” refers to the unofficial worlds of bandits and travelling performers. crudely, the temple writers wrote for an elite audience, including foreigners and looked to the government and (international) agencies for funding to produce high art. in contrast, the river and lakes writers wrote for the mass of chinese readers and looked to the market to support themselves. in this sense, elite artists positioned themselves as more dependent on the government than did the mass artists. during the meeting, elite audiences were more sensative to ideological constraints, while the mass artists tended to celebrate the market as an index of literary value.

a third group, women writers were the palatable absence in all this conversation. outnumbered in representation, they also spoke less than the other council members. indeed, their silence posed the question about multiple fractions within the group, or differences that have yet to be articulated. likewise, the difference between literary criticism and literary production was glossed in conversation. it may be, however, that as china’s economy continues to become polarized between haves and have-nots other social differences seem less important.

below i provide links to sites by or about some of the writers who attended the meeting.

independent writer 丁力 writes about 8 to 10 books a year on his shenzhen experiences. this site is from his “ding li commercial books series”;

shenzhen university professor 钱超英 has written on the new chinese language movement among overseas chinese in australia;

nanshan policeman 肖双红 also writes about his shenzhen experiences;

middle school teacher 严凌君 reports from shenzhen. he also organizes a website for young writers;

independent writer 谢宏 has his own blog;

shenzhen university associate professor of chinese 汤奇云 critiques the relationship between aesthetics and social position in 王晓华’s《西方生命美学局限研究》;

government official and telenovela script writer 张友高 talks about developing characters;

shenzhen university associate professor, 谢晓霞 critiques magazine articles before reform;

haiwang enterprises executive, 吴迪 has written a fictional account of the student soldiers (学生军) who helped build the third line of defence during the cultural revolution;

independent writer, 王十月 blogs about art;

shenzhen university assistant professor, 曹清华 has uploaded his academic papers.

[shenzhen]