Elegance Isn’t Pretended, Playing the Humble Fool Is - The Inner Journey of a Veteran Literary Youth
Translator: Lara Lee
Written in Guangzhou, May 6, 2026, Published by All Dimensions Press™ on May 7, 2026.
These days, “literary youth” hardly has a good reputation. In most people’s eyes, they are a bunch of eccentric drifters — either wandering around Dali or purifying their souls on the Tibetan Plateau, worshipping impulsive journeys and living without structure or reliability, ranking just one step above outright idiots.
But I have to admit: I once was a genuine literary youth myself. Back in the 1980s, though, we were called “literary young people.” Looking back, my companionship with literature has lasted more than forty years.
The first time literature truly moved me was in 1982, when the film In the Middle Age was shown. I was only in middle school then.
In the movie, the male protagonist repeatedly recited a poem:
I wish to be a stream,
A little river in the mountains,
Flowing over rugged rocks...
If only my beloved were a little fish,
Swimming happily in my waves.
I wish to be a ruin...
If only my beloved were green ivy,
Climbing intimately upward
Along my barren brow.
At the time, I had no idea the poem was written by the famous Hungarian poet Sándor Petőfi. I only felt that it was completely different from the classical Chinese poetry we had studied before. Traditional poetry seemed to circle endlessly around the same themes: unrecognized talent, wandering far from home, loneliness, sorrowful partings, women lamenting in their chambers. I could understand the literal meanings, yet never truly relate to them.
But this poem was different. For the first time, I realized that emotions could be expressed so directly and vividly. The language felt fresh, fluid, alive. That was the moment I first truly touched the charm of literature.
The early 1980s were also the age of “scar literature.” Swept along by the spirit of the era, I read enormous amounts of it, and among all those writers, Liang Xiaosheng influenced me the most. From This Is a Magical Land to Tonight There Is a Snowstorm, I devoured almost all of his early works.
I was intoxicated by the desolate vastness of the Great Northern Wilderness in his writing, and by the struggle and perseverance of a generation enduring hardship. At the time, I believed that only such a youth could truly be called meaningful, and through those books I fell deeply in love with literature.
Many years later, I came to understand that Liang Xiaosheng had greatly romanticized the educated youth experience, and overestimated the value of the individual during those extraordinary years. Even his own turn toward literature had originally been motivated by a simple desire to escape the fate of being sent down to the countryside.
Yet none of that diminished the young man I once was, sitting in the Guangzhou Library, utterly spellbound and moved by his words.
At the time, many literary critics dismissed “scar literature” as narrow in scope and shallow in style, insisting that the true pinnacle of human thought lay in the great European classics of the nineteenth century. Influenced by such opinions, I deliberately sought out stacks of nineteenth-century European novels from the library. But page after page left me utterly bewildered. I could neither immerse myself in the stories nor empathize with the characters, and more often than not, I gave up before finishing even twenty percent.
By the late 1980s, works from Hong Kong and Taiwan flooded into mainland China like a tidal wave. The novels of Jin Yong, Chiung Yao, and Sanmao swept through streets and alleyways alike, passed eagerly from hand to hand.
Back then, people joked:
“Men read Jin Yong,
women read Chiung Yao,
and the neither-men-nor-women read Sanmao.”
Embarrassingly enough, I had read almost everything written by all three of them, which briefly made me question my own gender identity. Fortunately, I ended up reading the most Jin Yong after all. His wuxia novels — “Flying Snow Shoots the White Deer; Smiling Book and Divine Hero Lean on Blue Mandarin Ducks” — I reread at least three times from beginning to end. That proved, to my relief, that deep down I was still a straight man.
The characters created by Jin Yong and Chiung Yao were vivid and multilayered, their plots dramatic and emotionally gripping. Once immersed in their stories, readers felt transported through time, following the protagonists across turbulent, exhilarating lifetimes of love, hatred, sacrifice, and longing. Their novels were adapted repeatedly into films and television dramas, maintaining enormous popularity year after year.
Yet in the eyes of professional literary critics, such popular fiction could never be considered “serious art.” It was consistently looked down upon and criticized. Meanwhile, mainland literary circles were already fading with the arrival of the market economy. As scar literature receded, even the once-prominent “Shaanxi School” of rural literature gradually became marginalized.
By the end of the 1980s, not only books but also large numbers of Hong Kong and Taiwanese films and television dramas entered the mainland, bringing with them their lyrical theme songs and soundtracks. Only then did we suddenly realize that songs did not have to be grand and heroic, nor endlessly devoted to lofty collective narratives. Melodies could be gentle and tender; lyrics could quietly confess private emotions, healing wounded hearts like spring rain moistening the earth.
Entering the 1990s, Hong Kong and Taiwanese music no longer depended solely on film and television. Cassette tapes and CDs spread everywhere. I still remember one evening, cycling home after work, when I passed a small record store by the roadside. A soft female voice drifted out slowly:
“I spent half a year’s savings
crossing oceans just to see you…”
The line pierced straight through me.
I stopped my bicycle, followed the music into the shop, and bought the album immediately. Only later did I learn that the song, *Across the Ocean to See You*, was written by Jonathan Lee and would become one of the classics of Mandopop.
After that, I gradually listened to most of Jonathan Lee’s works and became completely captivated by his talent. He wrote about ordinary human lives — love, regret, helplessness, compromise — with painful precision. Every lyric seemed to strike directly at the heart, even though the man himself jokingly carried the reputation of being the “patriarch of scumbag men.”
Later, I became obsessed with Lo Ta-yu as well. Songs like The Story of Time and Love Song 1990 played on endless repeat. His lyrics carried the weight of an era, filled with insight and even prophecy, possessing a depth far beyond ordinary love songs.
The more carefully one listened, the more obvious it became that the cultural roots of Taiwanese pop music were inseparable from our own — born of the same heritage, connected by the same bloodline — and therefore naturally easier for mainland listeners to embrace and empathize with.
Yet at the time, official media and cultural authorities routinely dismissed Hong Kong and Taiwanese pop music as “decadent sounds,” accusing it of weakening people’s willpower and encouraging moral decline. Only orthodox, serious music was considered the proper artistic path.
As a literary youth deeply immersed in all this, I did not want to be labeled shallow. So I deliberately sought out the works of classical masters such as Johann Sebastian Bach and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and tried hard to appreciate them.
The result was almost identical to my youthful struggle with Western literary classics: within ten minutes, my enthusiasm would evaporate completely, and I would quietly give up again.
In the years that followed, the world of arts and literature grew ever more vibrant, and my own interests expanded along with it. I explored novels, painting, music, film, television — almost every form of artistic expression — and enjoyed them immensely. Yet deep down, I always carried a lingering insecurity: I could neither truly appreciate Western classical literature nor enjoy classical music. I took this as proof that my aesthetic sensibility was shallow and my cultural depth insufficient. It became a quiet knot in my heart.
Around 2016, through programs such as *Luoji Siwei* hosted by Luo Zhenyu, I began systematically studying the history of Western art. Only then did I finally understand something important: Western classical art was never originally created for ordinary people.
Take Johann Sebastian Bach, for example. Most of his compositions served religious purposes and were deeply rooted in Western Christian culture. Most Chinese people, however, do not share that religious background, so it is perfectly natural that we fail to experience the same spiritual resonance.
The classical music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was, in essence, an aristocratic art form — entertainment born from the leisure of the upper classes. Transplanted into today’s fast-paced modern world and stripped of its original cultural soil, it is entirely normal that ordinary listeners struggle to understand or emotionally connect with it.
The same applies to nineteenth-century European novels. They were deeply concerned with the social transformations brought about by the First and Second Industrial Revolutions. Their historical context, social structures, and systems of thought were fundamentally different from ours. Separated by both geography and time, of course they often feel obscure and difficult to relate to.
By contrast, the works of Jin Yong and Chiung Yao became nationwide sensations across generations precisely because they were rooted in popular urban culture and aligned naturally with the emotional logic and lived experiences of ordinary Chinese people. Their purpose was simple and direct: to provide comfort, entertainment, and emotional companionship for everyday readers. They felt grounded, warm, and human, which made them easy for the public to embrace and empathize with. Their immense commercial success and enduring popularity are proof enough.
The literary establishment’s long-standing criticism of such popular works stems largely from the fact that many within those circles were financially supported by state institutions. They never needed to cater to ordinary audiences; their work only needed to align with approved cultural directions. The result was often writing so obscure and hollow that even their own family members had no interest in reading it. Yet these same people held cultural authority and looked down upon popular art from a position of superiority.
In essence, this detached form of creation became a kind of “new aristocratic art,” completely disconnected from the emotional needs of ordinary people.
Times move forward relentlessly, and aesthetic tastes evolve with them. After the arrival of the internet and the age of short videos, the works of Jin Yong and Chiung Yao gradually lost their hold on younger generations. This is simply the natural course of cultural change. Every generation has its own forms of spiritual entertainment. Outdated classics are like old pagers: they carry memories of the past, but no longer fit the present. They deserve to be treasured nostalgically, not forcibly promoted as eternal truths.
The core audience for these works were people born in the 1960s and 1970s. They belong to our generation’s youth and memories. There is no need for us older people to lecture the young or demand that they embrace what once moved us.
Today’s younger generations have short videos, video games, and infinitely more diverse and vivid forms of entertainment. Their world is far richer than ours ever was.
When we were young, we too were swept along by mainstream values, forcing ourselves through dense and obscure European classics that left us confused and emotionally untouched. Likewise, if today’s post-90s or post-00s generations were required to quietly read the “classics” of our youth, they would probably find them tedious, dull, and impossible to relate to.
Our society has always had a habit of placing literature and art on an excessively high pedestal, constantly assigning them grand missions — enlightening minds, reshaping thought, even saving the nation. In reality, none of that is necessary.
For the overwhelming majority of artistic works, their greatest value lies simply in offering comfort, entertainment, and healing within ordinary life. Commercial success and genuine public affection are, in themselves, the greatest proof of artistic achievement.
Looking back, even European classical art flourished in its own era largely because it was supported financially by aristocratic patrons. As times changed, aristocratic culture declined and popular culture rose in its place. Ordinary people naturally wanted art that was accessible, lively, emotionally immediate, and connected to real life.
Those mainstream artistic circles that disdain popular taste are often simply performing sophistication while clinging to cultural authority.
As Guo Degang once put it with brutal precision:
“Elegance isn’t pretended, playing the Humble Fool is.”
Postscript
I divide life into three stages:
The first is learning and growing.
The second is working and striving.
The third is aging peacefully and enjoying one’s later years.
Now that I’ve stepped back from the front lines of work, the second stage is nearing its end. It feels like the right time to pause and take stock of my life.
The reason I’ve been writing so many essays lately is actually very simple: after a lifetime of experiences, knowledge, and accumulated thoughts, there is simply too much stored up inside me. In these remaining years, I want to organize decades of reflections, confusions, and realizations into words — to bring things to a proper close.
Once things are sorted out clearly, the heart can finally let go. Only then can one move forward lightly. If a person remains trapped in inner confusion, unable to untangle their own thoughts, it becomes impossible to think more deeply or explore further horizons.
And when all of this has finally been written through and laid to rest, I suppose I will truly enter the third stage of life — loosening old knots, putting down obsessions, living freely within one’s own boundaries, and spending the rest of life with ease.
To be honest, before writing this essay, even my own understanding of literature and art — and the long emotional journey I’ve traveled with them over the decades — remained vague and blurry to me. For forty years I simply moved forward by instinct, never really sitting down to examine when art first moved me, when my own thoughts gradually formed, or how I slowly began to understand things more clearly.
Real life is naturally chaotic — a tangled web of experiences and emotions, all knotted together in disorder. Writing, however, is different. Writing forces you to carve a clear thread out of that mess. You have to decide which memories connect, which can be discarded, and which fragments matter. It is like panning for gold in sand: selecting useful pieces one by one, then stringing them together into a coherent line of thought — like gathering scattered beads into a necklace. It takes far more effort and mental energy than people imagine.
I also understand that topics like artistic taste and the inner reflections of middle age are niche by nature. Few people will patiently read through them, and they are unlikely to attract much popular attention.
But these essays were never written for traffic or applause. They are simply my own reflections and conversations with myself.
I do not expect everyone to agree.
I only wish to write honestly and calmly about my own forty-year journey through art and literature — the disillusionment, the demystification, and the gradual awakening.
That is enough.
About the Author
Eddy Lee traces his lineage to Yashan, site of the last battle of the Southern Song dynasty in 1279. A member of the Third Front generation—families relocated during China’s industrial campaign of the 1960s and 70s, he now lives in Guangzhou, China.
© Eddy Lee 2026 Copyright
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Article Information
Category: Non Fiction / Essay
Tags: Literature / Music / Growth
