Zhang Beihai Photo: Courtesy of BCA

Who's Zhang Beihai?

Before famous domestic director, Jiang Wen, announced his plan to do an adaptation of Zhang's wuxia novel Xia Yin (meaning reclusive knight errant), Zhang was a virtual nobody in China's mainstream literature and film industry. Known only to a small group of people, Zhang is used to write quietly and avoid the spotlight. But those days are over. Jiang's announcement has thrust Zhang into the epicenter of public attention.

Having settled in New York since 1972, Zhang seldom returns to China. However, he recently made a rare appearance at a salon at the Beijing Center for the Arts (BCA) to discuss, with writers including Ye Yongqing, Xu Lei and Xu Zhiyuan, the disappearance of old Beijing, his thoughts on culture identity and the chivalry depicted in his now famous Xia Yin.

The 'oldest hippie in China'

Born in Beijing in 1936, Zhang left for Taiwan with his family in 1949. After graduating from a local college in Taipei, he left for the US in 1962, settling in New York since 1972.

Before he turned 60, his writings were all about New York. He wrote on almost everything from the subway to its jeans culture, local rock'n'roll and the Statue of Liberty. His sensitive observation and humorous tone in his early work held great appeal for those Chinese who arrived in New York for the first time in the 1980s and 90s.

"He's like a moth in New York. Even if it's just an obituary notice in the New York Times, Zhang could use it to facilitate our understanding of the city. So if any of you want to truly get to know the city, please read Zhang Beihai," artist Chen Danqing once said of Zhang's work.

Chen and other Chinese cultural celebrities including, writers A Cheng and Wang Anyi, and director Ang Lee often visited Zhang in his New York residence.

In the eyes of many of his readers, Zhang's work also greatly reflects the writer's personal temperament or charisma. Alcoholism, political movements and the blacklist, all these seemingly not-so-positive words have been connected to Zhang, though, his works have managed to deliver positive energy to people.

"Xia Yin is actually an old work of Zhang's. The reason it was picked by Jiang Wen to be adapted into his next film, besides the fact that it's consistent with Jiang's previous two films (in theme), is in great part thanks to the personal charisma of Zhang," news website thepaper.cn said in April in response to Jiang's announcement.

Described by his niece, famous Taiwan actress, singer and director Sylvia Chang, as "the last old hippie in China," Zhang even had famous music composer Bobby Chen, the equivalent of Bob Dylan in the US, write a song for him in 1997. The song "Old Hippie" which was hugely popular at the time.

"I've never spoken in public," said Zhang. He was speaking at the BCA salon on October 24.

"Before the 1980s, my books were even banned in Taiwan. But later, when my book started to be published there, and those young editors asked me who do you think have influenced you most in your writing, I couldn't come to a clear answer then."

"But today I understand," he said. "What truly influenced me is not a specific writer or book, but those several different eras that I have experienced, they are the foundations of my writing."

A search for identify

Having experienced turmoils in different eras and different places, Zhang said what he went through is not just a cultural shock, but a blow to his mind. He escaped the civil war between the Communist Party of China and the Kuomintang (1945-1949) on the mainland only to meet martial law in 1950s Taiwan. While there he came across various social movements such as sexual liberation and the anti-war movement in America in the 1960s. A foreigner in a country undergoing change, Zhang increasingly turned to his roots, where he was born and spent his childhood, for stability and a clear sense of self.

It is out of this identity-seeking or questioning of self and identity that Xia Yin was born.

 In the book, Zhang digs deep into his memory of Beijing in the 1920s and 30s partly out of tribute to his family but also partly because of his strong attachment to the city.

"The novel (Xia Yin) was set in the 1930s in Beijing where I was born and spent my childhood. I wish I could record what happened to the city then. Now, as I recall that period, the memory in my mind is one of the hardest to forget," he said.

Zhang spent two years collecting various historic materials about the city's culture and convention, politics and society, its streets and its traffic patterns. It took him six years to complete Xia Yin, which was first published in Taiwan in 2000 and again in 2007 on the mainland. Acclaimed by media as a pioneering work that erected a new model for wuxia writing, Xia Yin is lauded for showing readers that chivalry still works in modern China.

"I wanted to restore people's livelihood in the 1920s and 30s in Beijing, and how they disappeared, so fiction was not an option," Zhang said.

Fast approaching his golden years, Zhang no longer believes in the mysterious, and fantastic kung fu skills made up in traditional wuxia novels. That's also why his characters are based on real historic figures.

Hoping to inspire more writers to explore modern wuxia writing via his Xia Yin, Zhang said knight errant does not only live in ancient times but also today.