Zhang Chengzhi
Encyclopedia
Zhang Chengzhi is a contemporary Hui
Chinese
author. Often named as the most influential Muslim
writer in China, his historical narrative History of the Soul
, about the rise of the Jahriyya
(哲合忍耶) Sufi order , was the second-most popular book in China in 1994.
in 1948 to Hui parents of Shandong
origin. Despite his Muslim ancestry, he was raised as an atheist. He graduated from Tsinghua University Middle School
in 1967, at the height of the Cultural Revolution
. According to the People's Daily
, Zhang was the first person to call himself a "Red Guard
"; he used it as his pen name during his student days. Then on May 29, 1966, just two weeks after the People's Daily announced the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, Zhang convinced around ten other senior-level students to use the collective name "Mao Zedong's Red Guards" in addition to their individual signatures when signing a large-character poster
denouncing their school officials; three days later, they issued another large-character poster under the same collective name, entitled "We Must Resolutely Carry Out the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to its End", with over one hundred signatures. Soon, students from all over Beijing began to call themselves "Red Guards".
After his graduation, Zhang was "sent down
" to Ujimqin Banner in Xilin Gol League
, Inner Mongolia
, where he lived for four years before returning to Beijing. Soon after his return, he entered the archaeology department of Peking University
, graduating in 1975. He began his writing career in 1978, with the publication of a poem in Mongolian
entitled "Son of the People" (做人民之子/Arad-un-huu) and a Chinese-language short story "Why does the rider sing?" (骑手为什么歌唱). That same year, he entered a master's program in history at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
's Department of Minority Languages
, from which he graduated in 1981. In 1983, he received funding to go to Japan as an international exchange scholar, where he conducted research at Tokyo's Tōyō Bunko
, the largest Asian studies
library in Japan. Aside from Chinese and Mongolian, Zhang also speaks Japanese
, and once audited a class in Kazakh
at the Central University for Nationalities
.
("searching for roots"), despite the fact that he himself dismisses entire concept of xungen. His work repeatedly touches on the themes of martyrdom, everlasting tradition, and resistance to materialism and urban life. Unlike many other authors who lived through the Cultural Revolution and regret the chaos it created in their lives, even Zhang's early works such as Rivers of the North and Black Steed exhibit a noticeable level of idealism about his time as a Red Guard, and clearly demonstrate his desire to rebut the presumptions of scar literature
. Analyses of Zhang's impact on Chinese literature and thought vary greatly. Zhu Xueqin
expressed his admiration of Zhang for "casting off his old self" and taking a "firm stand" for idealistic values and against ethnocentrism. Dru Gladney, in contrast, analysed Zhang's popularity in terms of a larger trend of consumerist exoticisation of "ethnic chic" in 1990s China. Some scholars, both in China and abroad, go further in rendering harsh judgments: they denounce Zhang as "xenophobic" and criticise his continued support of Maoism
even after his conversion to Islam.
The early 1980s have been described as Zhang's "lyrical phase". As a result of his works during this period, he has been described as one of China's first practitioners of "stream of consciousness" fiction. In 1984, however, Zhang quit his job at the China Writers' Association and moved to China's Northwest, spending six years living with the Muslims of Xihaigu, Ningxia
. His time there resulted not only in his conversion to Islam and, in one critic's words, his "open renunciation of Chinese culture", but also in what is easily his most famous book: History of the Soul, a work of narrative historical fiction which explores personal and religious conflicts during 172 years of development of the Jahriyya tariqah
in China's northwest, interwoven with his own observations.
Hui people
The Hui people are an ethnic group in China, defined as Chinese speaking people descended from foreign Muslims. They are typically distinguished by their practice of Islam, however some also practice other religions, and many are direct descendants of Silk Road travelers.In modern People's...
Chinese
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
author. Often named as the most influential Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
writer in China, his historical narrative History of the Soul
History of the Soul
History of the Soul, written by Zhang Chengzhi, is a work of narrative history spanning 172 years, which explores the personal and religious conflicts among the Jahriyya, a Sufi tariqah in Northwestern China...
, about the rise of the Jahriyya
Jahriyya
Jahriyya is a Sufi order in China that once existed in Persia and the Turkish World. Founded by Hadrat Abu Yaqub Yusuf Hamdani, it was brought to China in the 1760s by Ma Mingxin...
(哲合忍耶) Sufi order , was the second-most popular book in China in 1994.
Biography
Zhang was born in BeijingBeijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
in 1948 to Hui parents of Shandong
Shandong
' is a Province located on the eastern coast of the People's Republic of China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history from the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River and served as a pivotal cultural and religious site for Taoism, Chinese...
origin. Despite his Muslim ancestry, he was raised as an atheist. He graduated from Tsinghua University Middle School
High School attached to Tsinghua University
The High School Attached to Tsinghua University , or Tsinghua High School for short , is one of the most prestigious and historically-significant high schools in China, located in Beijing.-Translation of its Name:...
in 1967, at the height of the Cultural Revolution
Cultural Revolution
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution , was a socio-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 through 1976...
. According to the People's Daily
People's Daily
The People's Daily is a daily newspaper in the People's Republic of China. The paper is an organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China , published worldwide with a circulation of 3 to 4 million. In addition to its main Chinese-language edition, it has editions in English,...
, Zhang was the first person to call himself a "Red Guard
Red Guards (China)
Red Guards were a mass movement of civilians, mostly students and other young people in the People's Republic of China , who were mobilized by Mao Zedong in 1966 and 1967, during the Cultural Revolution.-Origins:...
"; he used it as his pen name during his student days. Then on May 29, 1966, just two weeks after the People's Daily announced the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, Zhang convinced around ten other senior-level students to use the collective name "Mao Zedong's Red Guards" in addition to their individual signatures when signing a large-character poster
Big-character poster
Big-character posters are handwritten, wall-mounted posters using large-sized Chinese characters, used as a means of protest, propaganda, and popular communication. They have been used in China since imperial times, but became more common when literacy rates rose after the 1911 revolution...
denouncing their school officials; three days later, they issued another large-character poster under the same collective name, entitled "We Must Resolutely Carry Out the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to its End", with over one hundred signatures. Soon, students from all over Beijing began to call themselves "Red Guards".
After his graduation, Zhang was "sent down
Down to the Countryside Movement
The Down to the Countryside Movement was a policy instituted in the People's Republic of China in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As a result of the anti-bourgeois thinking prevalent during the Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong declared certain privileged urban youth would be sent to mountainous...
" to Ujimqin Banner in Xilin Gol League
Xilin Gol League
Xilin Gol is one of 12 prefecture level divisions of Inner Mongolia. The capital is Xilinhot, the area is 202,580 km². The league's economy is based on mining and agriculture....
, Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in the northern region of the country. Inner Mongolia shares an international border with the countries of Mongolia and the Russian Federation...
, where he lived for four years before returning to Beijing. Soon after his return, he entered the archaeology department of Peking University
Peking University
Peking University , colloquially known in Chinese as Beida , is a major research university located in Beijing, China, and a member of the C9 League. It is the first established modern national university of China. It was founded as Imperial University of Peking in 1898 as a replacement of the...
, graduating in 1975. He began his writing career in 1978, with the publication of a poem in Mongolian
Mongolian language
The Mongolian language is the official language of Mongolia and the best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the Mongolian residents of the Inner...
entitled "Son of the People" (做人民之子/Arad-un-huu) and a Chinese-language short story "Why does the rider sing?" (骑手为什么歌唱). That same year, he entered a master's program in history at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences , established in 1977, is the premier and highest academic research organization in the fields of philosophy and social sciences as well as a national center for comprehensive studies in the People's Republic of China. It was described by Foreign Policy...
's Department of Minority Languages
Languages of China
China's many different ethnic groups speak many different languages, collectively called Zhōngguó Yǔwén , literally, "speech and writing of China", which span eight primary language families. Most of them are dissimilar morphologically and phonetically. Even within each family, most are mutually...
, from which he graduated in 1981. In 1983, he received funding to go to Japan as an international exchange scholar, where he conducted research at Tokyo's Tōyō Bunko
Toyo Bunko
The , or "Oriental Library", is Japan's largest Asian studies library and one of the world's five largest. It also functions as a research institute dedicated to the study of Asian history and culture. It has greatly contributed to the development of Asian Studies through the acquisition of books...
, the largest Asian studies
Asian studies
Asian studies, a term used usually in the United States for Oriental studies and is concerned with the Asian peoples, their cultures, languages, history and politics...
library in Japan. Aside from Chinese and Mongolian, Zhang also speaks Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, and once audited a class in Kazakh
Kazakh language
Kazakh is a Turkic language which belongs to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic languages, closely related to Nogai and Karakalpak....
at the Central University for Nationalities
Central University for Nationalities
Minzu University of China is a national-level university located in Beijing, China designated for ethnic minorities in China. Minzu University is the top university in China specially for ethnic minorities and aims to be one of the best universities of its kind in the world. With the strong...
.
Literary career
Zhang is often identified as a representative of the so-called xungen movementXungen movement
The xungen movement is a cultural and literary movement in mainland China emphasizing local and minority cultures. It began in the late-1980s. Its premise is that the Cultural Revolution destroyed a pluralistic Chinese identity that had existed for centuries, and that the reconstruction of that...
("searching for roots"), despite the fact that he himself dismisses entire concept of xungen. His work repeatedly touches on the themes of martyrdom, everlasting tradition, and resistance to materialism and urban life. Unlike many other authors who lived through the Cultural Revolution and regret the chaos it created in their lives, even Zhang's early works such as Rivers of the North and Black Steed exhibit a noticeable level of idealism about his time as a Red Guard, and clearly demonstrate his desire to rebut the presumptions of scar literature
Scar literature
Scar literature or literature of the wounded is a genre of Chinese literature which emerged in the late 1970s, soon after the death of Mao Zedong, portraying the sufferings of cadres and intellectuals during the tragic experiences of the Cultural Revolution and the rule of the Gang of Four.The...
. Analyses of Zhang's impact on Chinese literature and thought vary greatly. Zhu Xueqin
Zhu Xueqin
Zhu Xueqin is a Shanghai-based Chinese historian and public intellectual. He is a major exponent of contemporary Chinese liberalism.- Background :...
expressed his admiration of Zhang for "casting off his old self" and taking a "firm stand" for idealistic values and against ethnocentrism. Dru Gladney, in contrast, analysed Zhang's popularity in terms of a larger trend of consumerist exoticisation of "ethnic chic" in 1990s China. Some scholars, both in China and abroad, go further in rendering harsh judgments: they denounce Zhang as "xenophobic" and criticise his continued support of Maoism
Maoism
Maoism, also known as the Mao Zedong Thought , is claimed by Maoists as an anti-Revisionist form of Marxist communist theory, derived from the teachings of the Chinese political leader Mao Zedong . Developed during the 1950s and 1960s, it was widely applied as the political and military guiding...
even after his conversion to Islam.
The early 1980s have been described as Zhang's "lyrical phase". As a result of his works during this period, he has been described as one of China's first practitioners of "stream of consciousness" fiction. In 1984, however, Zhang quit his job at the China Writers' Association and moved to China's Northwest, spending six years living with the Muslims of Xihaigu, Ningxia
Ningxia
Ningxia, formerly transliterated as Ningsia, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Located in Northwest China, on the Loess Plateau, the Yellow River flows through this vast area of land. The Great Wall of China runs along its northeastern boundary...
. His time there resulted not only in his conversion to Islam and, in one critic's words, his "open renunciation of Chinese culture", but also in what is easily his most famous book: History of the Soul, a work of narrative historical fiction which explores personal and religious conflicts during 172 years of development of the Jahriyya tariqah
Tariqah
A tariqa is an Islamic religious order. In Sufism one starts with Islamic law, the exoteric or mundane practice of Islam and then is initiated onto the mystical path of a tariqa. Through spiritual practices and guidance of a tariqa the aspirant seeks ḥaqīqah - ultimate truth.-Meaning:A tariqa is a...
in China's northwest, interwoven with his own observations.
Works
- 黑骏马 (Hēi Jùnmă/The Black Steed); 1981
- EnglishEnglish languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
edition: The Black Steed; 1990, Panda Books, United States of AmericaUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. ISBN 0835120775. Translator: Stephen Fleming. - JapaneseJapanese languageis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
edition: 黒駿馬, 1994, Waseda University Press, JapanJapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. ISBN 4657930362. Translator: 岸 陽子. - FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
edition: Mon beau cheval noir; 1999, Philippe Picquier, FranceFranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. ISBN 2877304353. Translator: unknown. - Movie adaptation A Mongolian TaleA Mongolian TaleA Mongolian Tale is a 1995 Chinese film directed by Xie Fei and adapted by the novelist and ethnographer Zhang Chengzhi from his novel, Black Steed.- Plot :...
released in 1995 by Beijing Youth Film Studio
- English
- 北方的河 (Bĕifāng de Hé/Rivers of the North); 1984
- JapaneseJapanese languageis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
edition: 北方の河, 1997, Romandō. ISBN 479521042X. Translator: 磯部 祐子
- Japanese
- 金牧场 (Jīn Mùchăng/Golden Pastures); October 1987
- 心灵史 (Xīnlíng Shĭ/History of the Soul); January 1991
- 回教から見た中国―民族・宗教・国家 (Kaikyōkara mita Chūgoku: Minzoku, Shūkyō Kokka/An Islamic view of China: Ethnicity, Religion, Nation); April 1993, Chūō Kōbunsha. In JapaneseJapanese languageis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
. ISBN 4121011287. - 清洁的精神 (Qīngjié de jīngshén/A Clean Spirit); 1994
- 鞍と筆―中国知識人の道とは何か (Saddles and pens: The path of China's intellectuals), November 1995, Ohta Books. In JapaneseJapanese languageis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
. ISBN 4872332261.
See also
- Islam in ChinaIslam in ChinaThroughout the history of Islam in China, Chinese Muslims have influenced the course of Chinese history. Chinese Muslims have been in China for the last 1,400 years of continuous interaction with Chinese society...
- NaqshbandiNaqshbandiNaqshbandi is one of the major Sufi spiritual orders of Sufi Islam. It is considered to be a "Potent" order.The Naqshbandi order is over 1,300 years old, and is active today...
, a shaykh who had a large influence on Jahriyya thought and practise