The representative science fiction works of Hao Jingfang

 

Most of the times, a person’s desires can be easily stirred and every tiny spark has the potential to erupt into a conflagration. However, the wet blanket of external doubt can extinguish such flames. Therefore, I am quite grateful to each teacher and friend whose recognition and words of encouragement have formed a protective wall, allowing my fondness for writing to grow and thrive.

I have been engaged in writing for almost a decade. My career thus far has not been productive—two complete full-length novels, two collections of short stories, and a collection of cultural prose—so I do not consider myself a professional writer. I would prefer to think of writing as a lifelong personal hobby instead of an occupation.
 

In the time that I have spent writing, I have been lucky to have several teachers and peers who have been an invaluable source of inspiration. My teacher of Chinese in junior middle school was a gentle young woman who was always tolerant and appreciative of things. She commented, accepted and recognized the rants and babble that flowed out of our mouths.

Young hearts that were inclined to try their hands at writing were guided by the light of her tender beacon. I will never forget that capricious sense of joy. I see that as the start of my love of writing.
 

I wrote short stories from time to time in high school. When an article I sent to a magazine was published, it was the first time that I saw my own words in print. Later, I attempted something longer, but I was overwhelmed by the gap between ideals and reality. As a result, some of my works written during that period when I was at a loss for words were hardly recognized by others.

At that time, Liu Cixin wrote me a long letter after reading my work, in which he said “the language is quite good—elegant but not resplendent; sedate and ethereal.” He also wrote that “he saw incisive reflection and vivid description of socioeconomics from the vantage of science fiction.”

Nevertheless, he did not hesitate to point out the shortcomings of my article but still expressed his high hopes for me. It was the biggest help for a girl who was disheartened.

Years later at Tsinghua University, I took a course on novel writing taught by Ge Fei (a Chinese contemporary writer, professor from Tsinghua University) and often sought advice on writing from him. It was really kind of him to show respect for a young student he did not know. The advice he gave to me was sincere, not just for any one particular piece of work, but for my writing in the long run.
 

In the past years, I have always been fond of envisioning the existence of different worlds. This kind of thought experiment is what fascinates me most about the process of writing. I like exploring the impact that society has on individuals. In science fiction, I conceive of several different cities and countries in which diversified social systems are operating. In realist fiction, I survey the transformation of Chinese society over the past three decades and the changes of human life.
 

Comparison is a theme of my writing. The contrived social circumstances are similar but different from reality as is reflected in the short science fiction works like Invisible Planets, Folding Beijing and the longer novels, like Wandering the Sky.
 

This is also explored in my realistic long novel Born in 1984. Is there any difference between the social transformation in reality and what is portrayed in this novel? To me, each imaginary world is a parallel universe, the comparison of which with other universes offers me new perspectives.

No single social system could be able to untangle the Gordian knot of worries and imperfection that haunts humanity. In some sense, my writing is an attempt to reveal such imperfections. Even if under a flawed social framework, the evolution of human beings can also be anticipated.

What I like to write about is also always the relationships between individuals. There is no one-size-fits-all approach that could collectively erase the friction between people, and only a person-to-person solution is feasible. Therefore, I seek to write about how an individual struggles with himself or herself and others, as well as how one perceives his or her own outlook on life and the universe.

In some sense, an individual is the product of the particular preconceived notions that are prevalent in a given time and place. Predating the individual’s arrival at the world, such preconceptions are imposed on the individual, coercing him or her into conformity. Under such circumstances, what attitude do we need to take in face of the other person? Do we engage in enough self-reflection? Are we able to, through communication, persuade the other person to also look inside?

However, it seems that it is far from being easy to realize this. Profoundly affected by one’s idea of faction as well as other preconceptions, human beings sometimes tend to judge each individual through the lens of cliques. Hostile toward people who are not in the group, a clique exists as the last vestige of ancient barbarism. With its insistence on benevolence, Chinese civilization aims to foster sincerity between people.
 

The ultimate goal of my writing is thus to dismantle the walls between people created in different social contexts to foster genuine mutual respect.