Ge Liang’s Cultural Writing And Cultural Pursuit

“City" has been one of the focuses of Ge Liang’s literary writing which can be frequently found while going through his genealogy of work.Its origin is his personal experience of living in cities.After going deep into the text,we can find another theme-"culture" which corresponds to "city".Different cultural fields can be found in his understanding of city.The author has been repeatedly focused on the representation and communication of different cultural dimensions.Ge Liang’s inspiration in writing is drew from his complex experience of living in Nanjing,a prominent historical city,and in Hong Kong,a modern city.The confrontation between ancient and modern civilization urges him to question his own cultural subjectivity.Therefore,Ge Liang created a number of literary work on the conflicts,conversations and exchanges between antient,modern and Western civilizations.The work on promoting traditional cultures accounts for a large proportion of the whole.Three themes were described in these work: first,the impact of modern civilization on traditional society;second,the essence of traditional cultures with an aim to cure the "trauma" caused by the clash of modern urban civilization on traditional cultures;third,the practice of helping contemporary writers deal with subjectivity and helping civilizations build up cultural confidence through dialogues and exchanges among different civilizations.This paper aims to explore the three issues mentioned above by analyzing the three dimensions of Ge Liang’s cultural writing.Chapter One explores the three dimensions of cultures,namely traditional,folk and foreign cultures of Ge Liang’s novels.Ge Liang expressed his interests in Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism as well as the cultures of Wei and Jin Dynasties through root-seeking.Using folk craftmanship,he described the complicated situation and the possibility of inheritance of folk spiritual culture.From the perspective of "alien",he focuses on traditional Chinese culture and promotes the "communication" between and "reflection" on the traditional,modern and foreign cultures.Chapter Two explores the "diversified" features of traditional culture in Ge Liang’s novels through analyzing various images and figures.The essence of traditional cultures include the core,"benevolence and righteousness",and the concept of "ethics","harmony" in Confucianism,the thought of “abandoning the secular life” in Buddhism,“yadan” and “renliang” in the Wei Jin culture.Chapter Three analyzes foreigners ’ "Chinese complex" and the interactions between Chinese and foreign cultures to shed some lights on their roles.It is aiming to bring back traditional Chinese culture to the sight of the public.Chapter Four explores Ge Liang’s cultural pursuit which was constructed on the cultural reflection of "reality defect".The "confrontation" between traditional and contemporary cultures stems from the understanding and persistence of traditional culture,as well as the resistance and reflection of the reality.His novel has cultural purposes of retaining traditional cultures and reflecting contemporary cultures.Ge Liang constructed a "cultural utopia" by presenting the three dimensions of cultures,namely traditional,folk and foreign cultures.Within the utopia,the traditional cultures such as Confucianism,Buddhism,Taoism and thoughts in Wei and Jin Dynasties were carried forward.The “decline” folk culture was also "inherited".While dealing with the relations between domestic and foreign cultures,instead of being closed and isolated,a rational attitude was adopted to actively communicate with Western civilization to reach a common ground.The uniqueness of Ge Liang’s cultural writing lies in his "weakening feudalism" towards traditional cultures from the perspectives of aesthetics.His writings reveals the gentleness and politeness of human and the trueness and goodness of the human society and thus allow cultures to develop in a harmonious manner.Ge Liang’s cultural pursuit is to revive the "de-feudal" traditional culture through the interactions between "tradition" and "modern" which provides a living and writing benchmark for individuals and the society as a whole to examine their values.