408 chapter twelve
a connection of the Standard Language, Maoist discourse, central
state-sanctioned ideological and literary orthodoxy, official realities
of propaganda and the public sphere, utopianism, abstraction, meta-
physical spirituality, formal diction, foreign-influenced literary elitism,
Intellectual Writing and so on—what he calls a hard (⹀) type of lan-
guage—with works by orthodox Political Lyricists He Jingzhi and Guo
Xiaochuan, Obscure and Post-Obscure poets such as Bei Dao, Yang
Lian, Wang Jiaxin, Haizi, Ouyang Jianghe and Xi Chuan, and poet
of the masses (ӫ) Wang Guozhen. The obvious implication is the
relegation of Bei Dao, Yang, Wang, Haizi, Ouyang and Xi Chuan to
an orthodox and artistically hackneyed position, in spite of their gen-
erally perceived avant-garde status. Yu Jian writes that, on the other
hand, regional languages, life in the (Southern) provinces, marginality,
unofficial realities, relaxation, humor, playfulness, intimacy, concrete-
ness, physicality, indigenous culture, colloquial diction, Popular Writ-
ing and so on—in what he calls a soft (䕃) kind of language—are found
in works by Third Generation authors such as Han Dong, Yu himself,
Lü De’an, Zhai Yongming, Yang Ke, Zhu Wen, Lu Yimin and Yang
Li. In itself Yu Jian’s attention to differences between the Standard
Language and regional languages is entirely justified, but the leaps and
bounds that lead to his literary genealogy remain unsubstantiated.
Still, “The Hard and the Soft” is a paragon of reason and clarity
when compared to “The Light” and to several of Yu’s later contribu-
tions. Yu Jian offers original ideas but his style is often gratuitous, cha-
otic and aggressive. Like Shen Haobo, he achieves considerable effect
because he excels at invective, has an unfailing instinct for what is hip
in artsy and “ordinary” circles, and can be very funny. “The Light”
suffers from a questionable internal logic, but it contains most of the
core elements of the Popular-Intellectual Polemic.
Before we proceed to review these, another translatory note is in
order, on ⇥䯈 ‘popular,’ ‘folk,’ ‘of the people,’ ‘among the people,’
‘people-to-people,’ ‘non-governmental,’ rendered as Popular through-
out this study. This rendition has an unfortunate overlap with popular
as in 䗮֫䇏⠽ ‘popular reading matter’ in the sense of pulp fiction.
On the other hand, rendering ⇥䯈 as of the people would lead to unwar-
ranted association with Ҏ⇥ ‘the people,’ a key term in PRC political
discourse, in phrases like Ҏ⇥݅ ‘the People’s Republic’ and Ҏ
⇥㕸ӫ ‘the masses of the people.’ People-to-people or non-govern mental
only cover a small part of the connotations of ⇥䯈 in the Polemic.