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Common Ground: Shared Textuality and Visuality in China and Latin America

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Transpacific Literary and Cultural Connections

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Abstract

This article offers a sharp comparative reading of recent cultural products developed in China and Latin America. By focusing on how minority voices (indigenous) in both regions are represented in audiovisual, literary, and visual arts, this piece shows the collateral damage caused by the equation of nation building and economic growth under neoliberalism. Methodologically, Rojas-Sotelo embraces a cultural, economic, and environmental approach. ‘Common Ground’ examines works by visual artists Libia Posada (Colombia) and Qin Ga (Mongolia/China); poetry by contemporary Wayúu writers, Vito Apushana and Estercilia Simanca; and films by Zhao Liang (Behemoth, 2016), Lixin Fan (Last Train Home, 2009), Cary Fukunaga (Without a Name, 2009), and Oscar Quemada-Díez (The Golden Cage, 2014).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Chile was the first country of the region to have diplomatic relations with the Peoples Republic, due to Pablo Neruda’s deeds (he was a diplomat in the 1930s in Shanghai and traveled in China in the 1950s) and consolidated in December 1970, just before Neruda’s Nobel Prize. Also, Cuba’s relations with China helped to establish a generation of philologist that after the “cultural revolution” would translate dozens of titles of the literary boom. The most well-known was the “colecciones de la literatura Latinoamericana” by Yunnan People’s Publishing House, which translated close to fifty titles between 1986 and 1991(Jian, 2016). At the end of 1985, Premier Zhao Ziyang embarked on what was the first high-level leadership visit from China to Latin America, visiting Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina. The visit consolidated diplomatic relationships after the long period of stabilization of the Peoples Republic. Benjamin Creutzfeldt (2019) recalls how “His discourse was couched in terms of ‘Third World’ friendship and emphasized the need to strengthen South-South dialogue, while reiterating a commitment to the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence.” The visit left a cultural mark on the public: documentaries, films, and children stories from China were broadcasted and widely shared during that decade along several other productions coming from the eastern bloc. There have been many cultural/artistic events, and film festivals about Latin America held in China in recent decades. In 2016, China, in collaboration with 14 Latin American countries, held the largest (and longest event) called “The Year of Chinese-Latin American Cultural Exchanges.” The event included the areas of arts, literatures, films, books, media, cultural relics, and tourism in the forms of performances, joint performances, exhibitions, forums, film showing and translations. The opening ceremony was held in Beijing; the closing ceremony was held in Lima, Peru, attended by Chinese president, Xi Jingping.

  2. 2.

    China’s Open Door Policy was accepted by the U.S., the U.K., Japan, and other European powers, allowing those countries to have equal access to the Chinese market. It was created in 1899 by American Secretary of State John Hay and lasted until 1949, that is, after the conclusion of the Chinese civil war. It has been considered a colonial rule by the Chinese. A new spin on the policy has been taken under the Trump administration, reversing the once “open door policy” for one bilateral policy that we can name as “control window.”

  3. 3.

    After the Nobel Prize of García Márquez, China saw the potential for a new literary movement in post-socialist period. Via the Latin American Institute in Beijing and literary magazines such as “Arte y Literatura Extranjera” in Shanghai, dozens of works were translated. Large print outs of most of the authors of the Latin American Boom were produced, the favorite by far was García Márquez (Yian & Jun, 2001).

  4. 4.

    Mo Yan, winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize, second for a Chinese, commented on his attraction and influence for the genre of “Magical Realism,” in particular William Faulkner and Gabriel García Márquez. Chinese and international press commented about it in 莫言:《我不是“中国的马尔克斯”》,《南方日报》, 2011年6月28 日. (Mo Yan, “I am not the García Márquez of China”, Daily of the South, June 28, 2011) quoted in (Jian:51); and “Mo Yan and China’s ‘Nobel Complex’”, Evan Osnos, The Newyorker Magazine, October 11, 2012.

  5. 5.

    For over two millennia, the Chinese thought of themselves as a civilization rather than as a nation. It was not until the nineteenth century that China called itself a nation state in a Western sense. However, as Martin Jacques explains in his bestseller When China Rules the World (2008): “The most fundamental defining features of China today, and which give the Chinese their sense of identity, emanate not from the last century, when China has called itself a nation-state, but from the previous two millennia when it can be best described as a civilization-state.” How China is shaping itself currently is based on this notion; the recent Belt and Road Initiative is another clear demonstration of how this “civilized” turn is shown in policy and action. The China we know today dates back to 221 BC, the date that marks the end of the Warring States period and the birth of the Qin Empire, which was able to consolidate a territory similar to what China is today (particularly its eastern half, the most populous and prosperous).

  6. 6.

    In this brief passage, Qin Ga recalls part of the expedition. “It was really like the Red Army in the ’30s. We crossed the snowy mountains, the swampy grasslands, through Tibet, over the Himalayas, and the Kunlun Mountains, some of the harshest natural conditions along the route. When we finally arrived on the banks of the Yellow River in Sha’anxi, we had encountered nearly everything. This experience was completely different from imagining your Long March travels in my studio when you first set out in June 2002. Then, everything was based upon what we learned in the public education here about the grand story of the Red Army and the Long March. The two-year interval between this work led to the two parts being very different as well, but the Long March Project has also changed a lot. However, the metaphor of the Long March is something that we all know continues to remain the same.” From the Long March Project. Accessed 9 September 2019. http://longmarchproject.com/qin-ga-miniature-long-march/.

  7. 7.

    All translations from Spanish are my own.

  8. 8.

    As bronze consolidated the early dynasties, gold and silver fueled the conquest of the Americas, establishing the structure of modern Europe and the subaltern state of the colonial territories. Coal’s unit per energy has driven the industrial revolution from Great Britain, to the United States, to contemporary China, in the past two and a half centuries.

  9. 9.

    The Carboniferous Period lasted from about 359 to 299 million years ago during the late Paleozoic Era. The term “Carboniferous” comes from England, in reference to the rich deposits of coal that occur there. These deposits of coal occur throughout northern Europe, Asia, and midwestern and eastern North America. The plant life of the Carboniferous Period was extensive and luxuriant, especially during the Mississippian and Pennsylvanian periods. It included ferns and fernlike trees; giant horsetails, called calamites; club mosses, or lycopods, such as Lepidodendron and Sigillaria; seed ferns; and cordites, or primitive conifers.

  10. 10.

    Including the massive coal-miners strikes at Homestead in Pennsylvania in 1898, Yorkshire in the UK in 1984, and China’s recent Heilongjiang strikes in 2015 and the 2016 strikes in Jiangxi Province.

  11. 11.

    Zhao’s 2009 documentary Petition: The Court of the Complainants as well as Behemoth are banned in China. Petition is about corruption and other aspects of the Chinese legal system; the film was shot over a period of twelve years and details the plight of Chinese citizens traveling to Beijing to file complaints with the central government about local officials. Zhao was born in Liaoning Province, near the North Korea border, and graduated from Luxun Academy of Fine Arts in 1992.

  12. 12.

    Arijúna translates from Wayuunaiki “those who destroy” and refers to the white or outside people in their territory.

  13. 13.

    At El Cerrejón, low-ash, low-Sulphur bituminous coal is excavated. Exploitation began in the mid-1980s. Total proven reserves are estimated at 503 megatons. The mine is controlled by transnational capital Xtrata Inc. However, prosperity has not brought the promised progress and development offered, the benefits of modernity, to the people of the region. La Guajira is the second poorest province in the country, with 61 percent of illiteracy among the Wayúu, and with one of the highest mortality rates in the nation (DANE 2013). As in the case of Inner Mongolia, for the inhabitants of La Guajira, and the Wayúu in particular, development is another phantom while living in the storm of the times.

  14. 14.

    See: Tasa de mortalidad por pertenencia étnica en la Guajira. Instituto Nacional de Salud, Colombia. Accessed from: https://www.ins.gov.co/Direcciones/ONS/publicaciones%20alternas/boletin8-wayuu/popUp6.html.

  15. 15.

    La Jaula de Oro is the first film by Diego Quemada-Díez who previously made two shorts: I Want to Be a Pilot (2006), about a child in Kenya, and La Morena (2006), on prostitution in Mazatlan, Mexico. After working on dozens of films, many of them documentaries, the director decided to use real locations and real people, and the crew moved along the migrant corridor from Central America to the Southern U.S. Casting occurred some weeks in advance of the shooting. Real migrants, refuges, and trains are depicted during the story.

  16. 16.

    The film took approximately seven years to make, collecting testimonials from migrants at different points of their trip: in shelters, jails, deportation centers, in Guatemala, Mexico, and the U.S. From these, Quemada-Díez developed a fictional narrative. The film, rather than focusing on sadness, hate, discrimination, or violence, instead focuses on hope, camaraderie, and love. “Several children told me how immigration (ICE) agents would beat them to make them sign what they called a ‘voluntary departure from the U.S.’ form so that if you came back, you were a criminal on paper and that they could put you in jail if they wanted…. There are detention centers across the United States that resemble concentration camps; it is very impressive.” Quemada-Díez’s said in an interview in Cinemaerrante in 2016.

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Acknowledgement

Thanks to visual artists Libia Posada, Qin Ga, and poets Vito Apushana (Miguel A. López), Estecila Simanca Pushaina, and Daniel Rodríguez Moya for their generosity in allowing to used their work in this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. International and Global Studies, Center for Latin American Studies, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Miguel Rojas Sotelo

  2. North Carolina Latin American Film Festival, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Miguel Rojas Sotelo

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  1. Miguel Rojas Sotelo
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Correspondence to Miguel Rojas Sotelo .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Modern Languages and Literature, University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA, USA

    Jie Lu

  2. Department of Modern Languages and Literature, University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA, USA

    Martín Camps

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Rojas Sotelo, M. (2020). Common Ground: Shared Textuality and Visuality in China and Latin America. In: Lu, J., Camps, M. (eds) Transpacific Literary and Cultural Connections. Historical and Cultural Interconnections between Latin America and Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55773-7_6

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