Speaker 1 00:00:07 You are listening to right on radio on cafe 90.3 FM and streaming live on the
[email protected]. I'm Josh Webber. And tonight on, right on radio, Liz old's talks with , but as novel the other man, a heartwarming romantic comedy about finding happy ever after on your own terms, VED Mira is a closet of gay man who was pressured into an arranged marriage where he's faced a doomed future with a perfectly lovely Disha poor.
Speaker 2 00:00:37 And I'm Annie Harvey in the last part of the hour, Josh chats with gene SU the first professor of Chinese literature and comparative literature at Yale university about her work kingdom of characters, the language revolution that made China modern was larger than life characters and an unexpected perspective on the major events of China's tumultuous 20th century, Sue reveals how language is both a technology to be perfected and a subtle yet potent power to be exercised and expanded all of this and more. So stay tuned to write on radio.
Speaker 4 00:01:14 Hi fraud. Are you there? Hi. Yes,
Speaker 3 00:01:17 I'm here.
Speaker 4 00:01:18 Hi. Hi. Welcome to write on radio. We're glad to have you.
Speaker 3 00:01:23 Thank you. I'm honored to be here and you know, today's, especially my mentors because it's Republic day in India.
Speaker 4 00:01:29 Republic day.
Speaker 3 00:01:31 Yeah.
Speaker 4 00:01:33 Is that like there
Speaker 3 00:01:36 It's when the constitution of India was formed.
Speaker 4 00:01:39 Great. Well, that's, that's good because we'll get into that in a little bit here. Why don't we start though with a little description of the book and then go right into setting up your reading and doing a reading. Does that work for you?
Speaker 3 00:01:54 Yeah. Sure. So just to give you and your listeners, you know, an idea of what the other man is about, um, it's this heartwarming love story between two men from different parts of the world, different ages, different ethnicities, we're bound by one thing which is love. So there's Wade mirror, who is this Indian industrialist, mega industrialists, super successful, super rich good-looking, you know, the idea GQ man, so to speak seems to have it all on the outside. Um, but is ribbon by unhappy unhappiness inside because he's closeted and he's just come out of a bad relationship with another guy. Um, and in that whole moment of despair and, you know, sort of loneliness and hopelessness, he gives them to his mother's wishes, often arranged marriage to a girl, which is something that's way typical that happens over here with gay men in India, you know, so he gives him to Dolly's wishes, who is his mother, and she starts preparing this massive, big engagement party and know calling the who's who, of India.
Speaker 3 00:03:01 And just at that time, ironically, uh, he meets Carlos Silva. Who's an American visiting Mumbai on work and they fall madly in love. And then that's really the crux of the story, you know, does he have the courage to fight for the man that he loves? Does he have the ability to, um, sort of fight for his own happiness and love, you know, and come out and come out to his parents, come out to the business community who are pretty conservative out here. You know, it's not an easy decision to take it all. And, um, all really just given to his mother's wishes of an arranged marriage, like so many gay men do and sort of live this life of unhappiness, you know, of unhappiness. Um, so that that's really it, you know, it's this whole pit sand that goes on, you know, he's got one leg here and he's got another leg out here and, uh, he's really, you know, fighting, um, on both fronts, you know, and that, that's what the story is really about.
Speaker 4 00:03:57 Okay. And, uh, do you have a reading you can set up and go for it?
Speaker 3 00:04:02 Yeah, sure. I just do a brief reading, uh, Liz, um, the passage that I've chosen is, uh, for different reasons. And I just set it up for you. It's the first date that he's going on to meet the shadow girl that he's supposed to get engaged to that has been arranged by his mother Dolly. Um, but also the passage talks about what G you know, uh, dating for gay men is like in India, what that whole scenario really is. And that's quite universal, frankly, you know, once I read it, you'll get an idea of it as well as the whole idea of what Mumbai is a city is, you know? Um, so I just go for it.
Speaker 4 00:04:44 Yes. Go right ahead.
Speaker 3 00:04:46 Yeah. Wade arrived early, mainly because he wanted to take a quick look at the malls. Lou, the Lou hill was legendary in gay folklore before the luxury designer store statement, the mall was a train station making it prime cruising grounds. So gay men, there was no one on the loop besides the bathroom attendant. Not that way. It was really interested in booking up with some stranger in a bathroom. He couldn't even imagine how gay men in the city during the eighties and nineties, I put up for sex in south smelling train station, do CD massage powders for generals or the prominent, the gateway of India. The week as a Saturday, it's meeting another man like yourself was a pure stroke of luck. Proving that fate at dare to a good hand. Most of the time players lost it all in the game of chance that was gay dating in India.
Speaker 3 00:05:37 The guy you met could end up being a petty black mailer, a truck driver, or an IM comprehensively horny Arab looking for a quick Charlie, no longterm love no way to find your dark spot. All of that seemed to change with the invention of online dating apps. Suddenly the possibilities seemed endless and the game of chance seemed much less perilous after having been in the world of online gay dating for years where it wasn't so sure that he was more likely to find a future with another gay man in the era of technology on Grindr guys, posing guys, sporting pictures of a hairy ripped body turned out to be hairless only 18. Year-olds when a man claimed he had an eight inch monster Wade, nobody expected any more, anything more than a weasel. Juggalos posed as students, students poses, experience levels, flabby old men described themselves as muscular.
Speaker 3 00:06:29 And Jim said the app made it easy to deceive. What was worse. It was Wade's only option at the very least where it was a B bid was able to find short term companionship before the apps, even that had been tricky with soon stepped into the high ceiling art deco interiors of your sink. Some said it was a carbon copy of 11 Madison Park in New York city. The way it thought this restaurant was much cozier with all the tables allocated their own corners of privacy. My chatter surrounded the space around them. The clientele was clearly very well. The members of India's rising class, rising rich class men gorged themselves on caviar. Twofers by reclining back in their chairs to loaded and custom-tailored Italian suits. Women were surrounded by shopping bags from Chanel DOI. So you name it a mix of expensive colognes through the air. There was such a variety of booking bags in the room that together they would have made a rainbow.
Speaker 3 00:07:31 All the smiles, all the faces, smiles stretch free of any indications of age while he was dressed in his own designer, clothing with couldn't help, but shift on easily in a seat. As he waited for the shop, the pressure his mother was putting on him that night didn't help either. It was weird. We'd had no interest in marrying Disha yet. He knew he had to perform well on this date. If he didn't, he would risk incurring his mother's disappointment. And that was so much worse than a rot. What kind of son would he be? FEMA, if he embarrassed her father, the boss already had, what kind of son would he be if he denied her? The one thing that she had dedicated her life to is future happiness. Disha, couldn't be the one to see that she didn't enjoy where it's comfortable after all art was the London-based busybody socialite, the Lupita Erez, whose father made a fortune by inventing wet wipes for the buck to make things worse or better.
Speaker 3 00:08:28 And in his opinion, the Shah's father was telling me, ended up the founder and CEO of the brewing company, the most prestigious investment firm in the country. He was ranked number five on the Forbes billionaire list and only owned offices all over the world, including in London, Dubai, and motor shifts, more than a marriage proposal, Dolly, this is a business deal to help it expand prince company. It didn't matter that Dolly had lost all financial stake in Mac Mira electronics after divorce. What mattered was that a star son still had a stake more than a stake. A son was to inherit the entire weight of the company. And she'd be damned if he didn't inherit a successful one that would secure prosperity and comfort for his future. So that just gives you an idea, uh, Liz, you know, off of the entire aspect of the arranged marriage scenario out here, as well as what Mumbai is like as a city, you know, um, a lot of novels tend to, um, make India way exotic, uh, you know, snake dramas and that sort of thing. But Mumbai is a trapping pulsing metropolis. You know, some of the richest men in the world, we have Bollywood stars that live here, and I really wanted to bring out that aspect of the city. Um, you know, the rich glossy aspect that I found a lot of novels were not bringing in for some reason, frankly.
Speaker 4 00:09:57 Um, well, let's one of the things that struck me was, uh, uh, section 3 77 of the India penal code, which has, wasn't a reveal, uh, repealed until quite recently. Uh, could you talk about that? Tell us what it is and what it was like to live under that.
Speaker 3 00:10:18 Yeah, so section 3 77, um, basically criminalized same-sex relationships and it was something that wasn't placed when the British were in charge of India. I think it was back to the, you know, put in place in something like 1861 around then. And even after the British left of some reason it didn't leave, it wasn't removed, you know, a lot of, uh, uh, till just three years ago, you know, when, when a lot of gay men decided to, you know, uh, put across better options and, uh, uh, Beatles in the court and, you know, and it, then it was slowly overturned, but it was something that was in existence, um, for years on end. Um, and, um, frankly it was, it was the one thing that a lot of people, um, you know, some homophobic people used as a way to say, um, that being gay was abnormal, uh, or a disease from the west, as they would say.
Speaker 3 00:11:18 Um, you know, and this, this was their sort of like a whipping one, you know, that it is at the end of the day, uh, criminalized by law. So how can you say anything against that? You know, how can you argue against that? But luckily three years ago, um, it was finally knocked out and that's led to a lot of great change coming about, um, you know, there's, there's been a lot of greater representation in the media of, of the LGBT people. Um, there's a lot more, um, you know, I, in the fashion world that in a lot of like John's, um, fashion spreads coming about, you know, chance celebrations in terms of even models on the ramp, you know, you see a few Johns models now on the ramp, uh, a bank recently introduced, um, the idea that, you know, partners could open a bank account together, which was not possible earlier.
Speaker 3 00:12:14 So there've been, you know, corporates and cooperating a lot of, uh, inclusive policies because the spotlight of inclusivity around the world is so strong right now. And that is also out here. Uh, you know, so, you know, whether it's having a bathrooms as issue and a, um, or, you know, policies in, in, uh, companies that there is this churn that's happening, there is this movement that's happening. Um, there is good stuff. There is a lot more work that needs to be done. I mean, this is not the be all and end all because, uh, you, you know, um, same-sex marriages are still not legal out here, so that is the next, um, you know, fight per se. But there has been a lot of great stuff that's come about since, uh, 3 77 was knocked down and, you know, it was about time that it is that it was because, like I told you, it was, it was there when the British were around and they left a long, long time ago.
Speaker 3 00:13:12 So it was high time, this wind to, you know, it, it was just a remnant that was there, frankly. Um, and, uh, Juliana, you'd only read about it in the papers. So, uh, in some sordid story about, uh, you know, usually like when it's a closeted man or mad men was looking, was having sex with somebody quietly on the side and got blackmailed in the process. And they would use that as, as they were, you know, to say that it's illegal by law. So it was used in a lot of different ways that we're not, not that we're not great at all for the gay community. And, and thankfully it's been removed.
Speaker 4 00:13:47 I was wondering if, uh, here, before, uh, thanks for repeal. The, the bars were often raided by the police and people would, people's names would get put in the paper and whatnot. And now you talk about parties that happened. Uh, did the police get involved or was it pretty safe to go to these parties as far as being,
Speaker 3 00:14:09 It was, it was pretty safe, thankfully. Um, I think that that was all pretty much, uh, seemed to, uh, you know, beforehand the thing is, I think there, there is, uh, you know, uh, people will let you, you know, live and let live sort of that attitude exist. And, uh, the parties went on perfectly well. Um, for years before that also there was no problem on that front, at least the ones that I went to, I, you know, I didn't see any problems at all. Um, and those were just a great way to, you know, meet other gay men. Uh, they, they were a great way to, you know, chill out, have a drink, um, sort of interact, which wasn't possible. But again, those have also just come into play, uh, you know, maybe in the last 10 years, you know, uh, um, a decade or so, um, you know, before that, it wasn't at all, like when I was in college, it was, it was a pretty, you know, a crazy situation where nobody even used the word gay.
Speaker 3 00:15:14 Um, there was no talk about it. There was no conversation about it because there was no internet at that time. So there was no way to really get any information on it, you know? Um, it was you, whatever I could gauge from was if you saw it on, uh, you know, uh, cable television in Ida, on MTV, um, or through Oprah or something like that, or through some foreign magazines. I mean, that was all the information that one really got, because it was never even mentioned in the papers. You know, um, the, the few instances that one saw of gay men in safe English theater, um, would be sort of these characatures of gay men, you know, and which were always sort of like a punchline of ridicule, you know, punchline to make you laugh. Um, so it wasn't taken seriously. It wasn't treated seriously and less.
Speaker 3 00:16:09 That is because we didn't see gay men around us. We didn't see them in the, in the papers. We didn't hear about them. We didn't, uh, nobody was coming out and speaking up. Um, and so there was really no visibility besides maybe, you know, two or three people, um, which is what has changed so much, you know, especially in the last three years. I mean, there's so much more visibility, there's so much more openness. Uh, so many more youngsters, you know, coming out to their parents online, or, you know, on the day that the 3 77 world was announced, you know, they were coming out, sending the parents videos about it. Um, so there's just been a lot more, I mean, that's just helped empower the community a lot more for sure.
Speaker 4 00:16:51 Um, why don't you talk about you talk to them in your, uh, introduction and reading about the, uh, online dating scene that sort of helped people meet each other. Uh, why don't you talk to them about the history of that and how that you said, uh, you know, when you were in college, there was no internet, so
Speaker 3 00:17:11 Yeah, he knows, uh, um, uh, it's, it's, it's really strange. So just to give you an idea of how sort of barren, uh, uh, you know, the conversation was in some sense of college. So I was in college in around the nineties. Um, and at that time, you know, the pop stars were the superstars really of, uh, you know, the world in some sense, you know, whether it was Madonna, George, Michael, and, uh, you know, Cindy LOPA and all these people. And, um, even amongst friends, you know, I mean, even if a friend of mine taught that I was gay and wanted to discuss it with me, um, they didn't know how to approach it because the language didn't exist. She didn't, she, or he wouldn't know how to. And they always felt that maybe I'd get offended, frankly, I was in the closet at that time.
Speaker 3 00:17:57 So even, I don't know if I would have gotten offended. Um, so there's a strange situation, you know, and, um, to just give you an example, the first time a friend of mine has sort of broached the subject with me, it was when we were just hanging out at night one day. And, um, she said, you know, Farrah, I just want to ask you something a little personal. And I was like, sure, like what? And she was like, are you a little bit like George, Michael? And I was like, I'm completely like George Michael. And that conversation was broken general. Um, so you can understand how, how sort of, uh, difficult it was at that time. You know, the biggest they literally was knowing summation. Um, there was no conversation happening, you know, and nobody took, took, uh, th th in the entire concept of LGBTQ didn't even exist as, as a term.
Speaker 3 00:18:48 You know what I mean? It, it, it wasn't taken seriously. It wasn't given it to do it all. And, um, I think things changed a lot. Um, um, uh, you know, a couple of years down the line, uh, with, I remember first there was gay.com, which was the first online, uh, gay meeting spot, you know, which I remember going on and which was create, you know, and, and the few people you could connect with in Mumbai, you connected with them. Actually, I still, I'm still in touch with some of those people that I met at that time, you know? Um, but then I think the real revolution that came about was when, uh, the apps started, you know, when we got the smart phones and the apps like Grindr crafts and all the other areas, ones that are there came about, and that I think really burst, open a lot of doors, um, in a great way.
Speaker 3 00:19:40 I mean, on one hand, you know, it really depends how you use the app. On one hand, like I gave out the passage, you know, it is an app that can deceive, you know, people pose as all sorts of things, and you have to sort of screen them, uh, you know, with your own sensibilities. But on the other hand, it's also a great way to make friends, to meet people, or to even just have a conversation which didn't exist. Audio. There was no way to connect with other gay men. Um, it was the stifled atmosphere, you know, this pattern stifled atmosphere where you just, you didn't really know how to, how to meet another gay man, unless it was at a bar somewhere. And if a friend had told you that, I think he's gay. And you know what I mean, that, that old side club is easy, not get into all of that. So this is just in much easier, um, progressive way of just, you know, whoever's online, you chat with them. And of course there are the, the pitfalls of, you know, people post images of themselves when they're not that person at all, or they say things that are not true at all. And you just have to start it out. I mean, you know, it's, it's sort of a,
Speaker 4 00:20:49 You talked some about, uh, uh, V and the, uh, arranged marriage, and I'm wondering he had some difficulties inside himself about it, and what was going on in his heart about Carlos and, and about the, uh, the woman, uh, who he was supposed to get married to. And, um, I'm wondering if you could talk about how he coped, what kinds of things he was going through his, in his heart about the situation. And, uh, there was a lot of difficult stuff he had to go through. I'm wondering if you could share some of that, uh, uh, spiritual, physical, mental, uh, wife.
Speaker 3 00:21:32 Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was it's, you know, it's really what any gay man who's closeted based in some sense, uh, you know, you feel like you have a thousand bricks on your shoulder all the time. Um, you feel stifled, you feel choked up, um, in, in Wade's case, um, he was in this relationship with this guy, which he taught would, you know, be, you know, be the, the relationship for him. And he would come out to his family and then that goes bust because, uh, that man goes on to get married to a woman that his parents choose. Ironically, Wade falls into that same trap later. Um, and that's something that was really at the center of this booklet is, you know, um, on one hand I wanted to give her inside view of what is it, what is it like to be gay in India?
Speaker 3 00:22:22 If you're a closeted man, um, how difficult it is, but that's something that's universal, you know, any gay man anywhere in the world will, uh, see that, you know, it's not easy for anybody. You know, it is a difficult process that there's a lot of to and throw. You're constantly like if I did this, what will happen? Well, I get ostracized when my family threw me out. When my company told me out, what are the repercussions? Do I have the courage to do it in the first place? But on the other hand, a really important aspect of this book, um, which I wanted to highlight, especially for international readers, was to show, um, something that's very peculiar to India, which is this whole concept of arranged marriages. And unfortunately, a lot of gay men and women, um, are pushed into it by their parents are Jewish.
Speaker 3 00:23:12 They haven't come out to them. Uh, in some cases that I've known, you know, they've even come out to their parents and said, you know what, I am gay. And, and the parents would be like, you know what, um, you will be fine now, you'll be normal after this marriage, uh, everything will work out for you. You know? So it was something that had heard about so much, you know, um, around, and I was like, it's about time. This was written about and spoken about. And, and it was to really highlight that whole aspect that, um, you know, he, he gives into his mother's wishes because a lot of Indian men feel dutiful to be, um, they feel duty bound to keep their parents happy. And in this case, his parents had divorced. So he was already filled with guilt about that. So he's always trying to sort of, you know, keep them happy and keep his mother happy.
Speaker 3 00:24:02 And he gives them to her wishes, thinking that, you know what, I'll just figure out some excuse later and tell that it's not working out. Um, you know, I'll just, I just get out of it somehow. Um, but he just gets sucked into it because his mother's, you know, sort of planning this entire massive engagement party. And that is, again, something that's so important for parents out here. You know, the kids, marriage is biggest moment in their lives and they really go all out for the big Indian wedding. Um, so the moment, you know, there's a marriage and the family that, you know, plenty of ceremonies and there's plenty of, uh, you know, stuff being planned. And it's really this great big celebration, which is what she's planning. And just at that time, you know, he finds the man that he's really in love with.
Speaker 3 00:24:50 He finds that, yes, he's, you know, he wants to, um, lead a happier life. He wants to find the, uh, somehow find the courage to come out. Um, you know, but it is a, it is a really difficult process, you know, and I don't think it's easy for any gay man or woman across the world. You know, whether you're in America, whether you're in the UK, uh, it's, it's as difficult to process for anybody else. It just might be easier if, if your surroundings are, you know, uh, far more progressive and open, but it's still a difficult internal process to go through. And that was something I wanted to bring out for sure. Um, you know, because, um, Liz, one of like, I feel one of the responsibilities of queer literature is to make it empowering is to make it sort of joyful, you know, this whole idea of queer joy that we're just seeing us late, frankly, in, in novels.
Speaker 3 00:25:49 You know, it's not something we've seen for a long time. I mean, I, I remember reading, um, a lot of these great authors, like Alan Holling, hers, um, I admin white, a lot of them while growing up, you know, by finding myself and, you know, sort of finding my forte, um, to help me. And they always had some misery, some unhappiness, um, some, somebody whose heart was ripped out, somebody died, somebody committed suicide. I mean, there was always some misery at the, at the heart of a gay novel, you know, and I was like enough of this doom and gloom, especially since the last 18 months, you know, that we've been through, we don't need any more of it, you know? Yeah. And, and, um, so that was the idea because the idea was to really celebrate, uh, love between two men and, um, you know, to, to, to just bring that about, because there have been so many incidences out here asked, and I'm sure it's even across the world of men committing suicide, because they haven't been able to come out or because they haven't been able to deal with, uh, you know, with the darkness that sort of bonds their journey.
Speaker 3 00:26:56 And I really feel one of the onuses of queer literature is to see to it that the story empowers the reader makes them feel even a little bit of comfort or courage in that moment. Um, doesn't leave you sort of in this heap of, you know, deflation of hope, in some sense, you know, which I found that very often with a lot of the novels I read, you know, they were great, they were great writing. They were great stories. Um, they have their space, uh, in, in, you know, in the Canon of literature for sure. But they were always, I always found them to be extremely unhappy novels at the end of it. You know, even the movies, I mean, call me by your name or Brokeback mountain. I mean, they never ended happily. And I always wondered why, you know, why, why does the, uh, death and heartbreak have to take a step above, uh, you know, queer joy and queer love? I mean, why can't be celebrated more? Why can't we show that side that yes. The not so great relationship ships, you know, you find love, you find somebody, um, you know, to, to, to sort of help you along your path to make you a stronger person to empower you, um, to just be a happier person. And I just felt it was about time, you know, um, an Indian novel for sure. Brought that about,
Speaker 4 00:28:15 Well, we unfortunately have run out of time, but that's a really good way to end our interview is the concept of, uh, queer joy and, uh, having a novel that I don't want to give away the ending, but it is a fun, novel and serious in its own way too. But, uh, but, uh, queer joy, that's a good way to end our interview. Thank you so much. We've been speaking with FARA daddy, boo juror. I hope I pronounced that. Right. And, uh, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate it. And, uh, it was very fun. So, uh, thank you very much.
Speaker 3 00:28:51 Thanks Liz. Thanks a lot. This is great.
Speaker 4 00:28:54 Okay. Take care. Bye bye. Bye
Speaker 5 00:29:24 I'm joined today by Jim Zhou, the John M Schiff professor of east Asian languages and literatures and comparative literature and share the council on east Asian studies at Yale. We're going to talk about her latest work, came up characters, the language revolution that may China, modern preaching. Sue, thanks so much for being on radar on
Speaker 6 00:29:44 Radio. Thanks for having me Josh
Speaker 5 00:29:47 In the early 20th century, the Chinese language struggled to adapt to changing times involving the west, influencing the east with new ideas. What were these major struggles?
Speaker 6 00:29:59 Well, Nilay 19th century. Now this is about, you know, 56, uh, years after the opium war. So China and had been adjusting and learning about the west, but the late 19th century, a number of other conflicts really drove home the message that China was on the brink of collapse, right? It cannot go on as the way it did. It needed a modern military and needed a different political system. The old empire was dying. Um, it was not serving as people. Well, there were lots of revolutions and uprisings, um, both, um, near the Capitol, which I talk about the boxer rebellion. There's also a number of Muslim uprisings into the Northwest. So there's a lot of problems in and out, including famines, et cetera. So all these influences, all these factors feed into China's sense that it was at a crossroads.
Speaker 5 00:30:53 I love this idea. You introduced very early notebook from modern theorist. That language is a conceptual technology that forms the bedrock of Western science and technology, the Chinese language fates scathing criticism, though, from Westerners. I know you quoted here and I, I had to bring this up to you. GWF Hegel describing the language as a great hindrance for the development of the sciences. I was wondering you get to talk about this.
Speaker 6 00:31:18 Yes, well, the, you know, even the way that outsiders looked at Chinese has gone through its ups and downs. You know, Hagle was talking much later because in the 17th century, when the Europeans first encounter Chinese script, they were fascinated by it. In fact, they were thinking that Chinese language was closer to the mother tongue of God, because it looked, I was less mediated, right? It was not abstract. It actually seemed like it was depicting things as they looked as they were. And then 18th century, there was also the fetishism of, you know, there were in Europe, posting love for the Chinese language. They thought I had a secret key to universal knowledge. Um, they were competing to master it. They were speculating, imagining what is forming that eating graphic form, what symbolism that had, but in 19th central over that's when evolutionary theory took hold, you know, the rise of nations. So all of a sudden Chinese became primitive, right? The Chinese writing system once admired for its beauty and elaborate, and elaborateness became a hindrance to modernization.
Speaker 5 00:32:24 What historic figure we're called the monk in this book, he snuck into China after his XL to Japan for two years, hiding his robes, China's linguistic destiny. What was his pamphlet? And why was it so significant?
Speaker 6 00:32:39 Our monk? What was, should say a fake monk? Cause that was only his disguise. Whereas he was actually wanted fugitive, you know, he was born and, and right during the transition, he lived through the transition from empire to nationhood in China. And he was a mom, these early language reformers who thought you the key to Chinese monetizations that you need to give power to its people. And you cannot give power to his people until you give them the power of language of literacy, because literacy was still a privilege reserved for the few, for the elite. So Walter doll, our character wanted to broaden this access. So when he was in Japan, two years in exile with nothing else to do except missing home because he was a Patriot, he used that time to basically develop key sort of spelling system. Um, for Chinese at that time though, he was not using Western alphabet letters. He was actually taking inspiration from Japan who started alphabetizing earlier than China. And who were, you know, who in his assimilation of Chinese century, Chinese language over the centuries started to, you know, simplify character writing. And so he took lessons from that. He also took lessons from Manchu language. Now the Manchus was the ethnicity that actually ruled the last Chinese dynasty. And they had a way of also sounding out Chinese. And so he combined those systems and thought he would bring that back and save China.
Speaker 5 00:34:08 The Chinese language has hundreds of dialects and from various languages like Cantonese and Mandarin, despite sharing one written script, what it takes to reinvent the Chinese language.
Speaker 6 00:34:20 Yeah. So prior to the 20th century, there was not even one standard spoken tongue in Chinese, right? We have, we had over 300 dialects. There were between, you know, anywhere between seven and 10 major language groups. In fact, what we call Mandarin today, which is what we think Chinese speak Mandarin was actually a dialect, a Northern based dialect. And it was kind of created for official communication. And so, you know, there's a famous guitarist linguists who had this very quotable saying that, you know, the difference between language a dialect is that a language is a dialect with nav. So, you know, the power standardizations basically, you know, when you know languages compete and for one to become the standard tongue, that was also in part our monks contribution. Cause he put Mandarin forward as a national standard
Speaker 5 00:35:12 Standardizing the Chinese language to provide national union was crucial. But a major impediment you talk about in the book is, was their technology. I want you to talk about the bamboo engineer and his role in mapping the ideographic Chinese keyboard.
Speaker 6 00:35:26 Ah, yes. So Toho Quinn. Our bamboo expert, young engineer was among the first Chinese to be educated in the states. He, this was here in 1912. He had transferred to MIT from university of Illinois and he was studying aeronautics engineering. So he was not even, uh, he didn't even go there to invent typewriting or do engineering, but in the process he realized how important it was that he was at this exhibition in Boston and realized how important it was because he saw how typewriters worked and how was changing America's workplace. And he realized that this may be the one thing that he could bring back to China. There'll be more important and more practical than airplanes. So he spent night and day when he was not working on the thesis, developing a Chinese keyboard. Now, when you think about Chinese typewriting, the obvious question is, you know, as I'm talking to you now, Josh and I'm looking down like computer keyboard is still just designed for 26 letters.
Speaker 6 00:36:23 Now you have thousands of characters in Chinese, right? So how are you supposed to fit that on here? So one way was, well, I guess you create one key per character. So I guess you need a gigantic typewriter to the room of, you know, the size of a room that I'm in right now. But you know what Joel Quinn did was he figured out how to store it. So economize a storage inside the machine so that it could still be relatively usable, right? Not, not so challenging, but the true innovation came for one of his, uh, peers, limi, Tom, who actually realized that, you know what, even better than that, why don't we just figure out how the Chinese character logic could be made modular, like the alphabet, right? 26 loves the alphabet. Once you learn them, you can compose any word out of it. Now, Chinese characters, he thought, why can't we also somehow break down the characters into a finite set of parts. And then as we manipulate those parts, we can also reassemble any character we need. So his big innovation was, he figured out how to do that and map those character parts onto the keyboard so that when you combine different taps, key strokes of the keyboard, you basically get to reassemble parts of a character. So essentially to make Chinese character, um, think and act like an alphabet without actually using the alphabet.
Speaker 5 00:37:53 Joe was poised to be a leading scientist within aeronautics, but chose instead to return home. What ultimately was
Speaker 6 00:38:00 Now, this is, I love this story because it really kind of reminds you how despite China's path to modernize and technologize is still a country with very, very deep traditions and cultural values. And one of the reasons why Joe ho Quinn returned home was actually very deeply personal his father. So he grew up without a mother. His mother died very young and his father was never able to overcome his grief. Um, but what he did was focus all his energy on raising his son properly. And so he was very close and he taught Joel all the classics. So Joel Quentin, despite being a Western IC, a Western educated engineer was also very well versed in classical Chinese learning. So when he went back to China, one was as, as I said, earliest, because he thought he could bring back a typewriter that would be a greater service to China than airplanes.
Speaker 6 00:38:56 And the second was his father's getting older. You know, he was the only son and he wanted to be by his side. And that's why many ways that chapter two, despite all the glorious achievements of Chinese typewriting era, it ended on a very personal note because I was very drawn into, you know, what he did in his life after he went back because his father died, um, soon after he went home. And so he kind of Joel Quinn always remember that. And it took him about several decades to finally publish his father's writing. And I discovered this in a library in London, archiving London, where it actually had an insert of a map that he drew about where his father lived. So he can tell, like he had a very strong sense of tradition and duty, which is exactly why he also brought back to typewriter for going his own, you know, fame and glory and a perfectly good engineering job with an airplane company in the United States.
Speaker 5 00:39:54 Let's talk about calligraphy in China under the existing rules of international typography in 1925. Why were the users of the Chinese language at a considerable disadvantage?
Speaker 6 00:40:07 Well, it has another bottleneck that China to deal with because if you think about, okay, 26 letters, the other advantage of the Chinese, uh, alphabet had was it was spaced all the important global communications technology was built in the image of the Western alphabet. So telegraphy was the internet of the 19th century, right. But in order to send a telegram, you know, you basically had to use Morse code, which has combinations of dots and dashes, right? For each letter of the alphabet. And then they also had combinations for zeros, uh, numbers zero to nine, but none of that worked for the Chinese. So how has Chinese supposed to put itself, you know, use this wonderful communication technology where you can like send information, coordinate contracts, I give commands, right? This is utterly crucial. And so what China had to do is figure out how to do this, but this is where it kind of missed out a window of opportunity because when telegraphy was proposed to China, by the Russians in the 1870s, China was still thinking of the opium war and what the Western powers had done to carve it up little by little and how he came and broke through its gates.
Speaker 6 00:41:21 So China said, no, thank you. We have a nice traditional system with good men on horseback and they can deliver our letters and correspondences it's okay. We don't need telegraphic wires. So the Russians came and went and then the French came and went. And finally the Dames who would not to be discouraged by China saying no also because the Dames, you know, Denmark was actually a great, uh, telegraphic power in the late 19th century. They almost dominated that industry with Britain necessary, other us as you're possibly only rival. So the Dames wasn't gonna, they weren't gonna take no for an answer. So I was described this in chapter three, on a moonless night, they basically send a small team. They snuck onto shore to Chinese soil, lay down the cables and then left before Dawn. So just like that, that was done with, or without China's consent.
Speaker 6 00:42:17 So, you know, that kind of opened up where it took a couple more decades. China tried to fend them off, you know, the Chinese people didn't like telegraphic wires because the Western was just like burying them underground for Chinese. They buried that's where they bare their ancestors. So the idea of like disturbing the full Shea on the, and the, the spirits of their ancestors, it's really blasphemous. And the Chinese people will complain to the officials and the fish will try to buy more time and so much so that, you know, the famous uprising, the 19 hundreds, the boss's rebellion, these peasants were very anti foreign. You part of us because they saw how this, this, this, this encouraging Western technology and they were tearing up telegraphic cables as a, as a, as a protest.
Speaker 5 00:42:57 I want to ask you now about the great diplomat, I think on behalf of China involving the proceedings of telegraphy and China who was weighing Jean shoe, and then what was his diplomatic role in the Paris proceedings?
Speaker 6 00:43:09 Yes. So wanting Tron is, um, he was a, an official bureaucrat. So not like our typewriter, you know, a young vibrant student engineer, nor he, nor was he like the old Mandarin, like long, tall, he was going to be a bureaucrat, but he rose through the ranks little by little, you know, he didn't look like you're, you know, he's very soft-spoken so you wouldn't expect them to have this persuasive presence or personality, but then there, he was, he was sent to Paris with the Chinese delegation in 1925 to make a case for China before the international community. This is the international telegraphic union. Now, at that time, you know, international Telegraph union really start out as a handful of European members and then later kind of enlarging corporate, uh, to include non-European membership. And, you know, they were debating each other about, you know, setting tariffs and their rates and how to be fair.
Speaker 6 00:44:04 You know, there were companies there, there were government representatives, but none of them were talking about China's disadvantage because they didn't understand it. So one of the problems, the major problem is when the Dames laid the cable on Chinese soil, they also did something more to break into the Chinese market, which was, they devised a telegraphic code for the Chinese language, but they did that in a very random way because you're right. They couldn't send any alphabet letters. What they decided was they were assigned for number codes to every Chinese character, but it did in such a random fashion that actually, it was very easy to make mistakes when you started to send a Chinese telegram and it took a long time to try to match and try to look up character by numbers, because also done a very unorganized there's no logic to it.
Speaker 6 00:44:51 So anyway, so ones I'm trying to explain to the international community, why this was costing China more because in general, when you send something by Morse code, it takes much more to send telegrams by numbers. It took more dashes in lines. And at some point when they started discounting normal telegrams, because economy of scale, China was locked out of that advantage as well. So wanting to really had to correct a wrong here, he was sent to Paris to explain to the international community how this works. And he had to be diplomatic because he knew that, okay, Westerners work in a certain way. They like talking about international consensus international law. So he had also adjusts as manners and coordinate. But luckily he went to Yale. I'm happy to say, given that's where I teach. So you he's one of our own, and he's learned the mannerisms that were work. So he came back triumphantly and help China push through that particular bottleneck.
Speaker 5 00:45:45 As you describing the book, the responses that utilizing the Chinese language within type writing and photography were retrofitted for technologies that weren't designed with the intention of using Chinese characters. It raised the question. If the Chinese script was a problem itself, how do librarians enter the scene for coming up with a filing system for Chinese?
Speaker 6 00:46:07 Thank you for asking about that. Cause that's my favorite character out of the book. So all I bury him called himself. He liked he had a Chinese name, but he liked calling himself. Bismarck do cause his last name. He lied to comes out Bismarck because that's what he was going to do. He was going to rule the field of library science with an iron fist. And he actually got his degree in library science, which actually was a kind of a new field. And he got in Philippine. So, you know, he wasn't, he didn't go through like Ivy Lee. He wasn't like our typewriter guy who went to MIT, but he had one demented. He was incredibly meticulous, methodical and undeterred. So my favorite story about him is, um, when the Japanese invaded in 1938, he was a university librarian down south and he was told to evacuate like everybody else.
Speaker 6 00:47:01 But instead of doing that, the first thought that crossed his mind was what am I going to do with all the books that are under my stewardship? Like I got to save them. So he ordered his subordinates who all want to go home and escape with their family. He said, no, no, no, you have to stay here. We have to pack up, you know, 300,000 books into these boxes that we'll have to make from scratch and open it, tear down the cardboards and undo these boxes crates. And we have to recover them into boxes. And we're going to put them in the area of safety and part of them, you will have to seal the basement because subordinates say, well, wait a minute. That can't be right because the city will soon be flooded with refugees. Like shouldn't we save the basement for shelter when people need them and leave it open.
Speaker 6 00:47:44 And he had this ingenious response, which to me really captures the kind of eccentricity and perseverance at a heart of so many of these characters. I came across writing this book. He said, well, casino, humans will always be clever enough to find a way out, but books don't have legs. They can't very well run away on their own they'll can they? So he basically forced them to do this. And everybody thought he was completely inhuman, but precisely that kind of tenacity, right? And that insistence and commitment to the idea of Chinese character writing and Chinese information processing that actually made him think about Chinese the whole other way. He eventually developed his filing system using only times character. So no Dewey decimal systems, the library of Congress, it didn't have alphabet letters. It didn't have numbers. It was all just based on character and breaking down characters into parts.
Speaker 5 00:48:37 I have a page full of questions to go over, but we are almost out of time. So I'm going to have to finish up here with my last question. What do you envision will happen to the Chinese language in the 21st century? Do you foresee any attempts to simplify it? It script further? What are your thoughts?
Speaker 6 00:48:53 Ah, well, you know, in our biggest symphony of 20th century and they actually, most people know that had been simplified twice, there was actually another simplification, but it didn't quite work. I think as far as simplification goes, China's gone as far as it could. And then the idea is really about how Chinese language would be at the fast, in the digital era of AI of five G of natural language processing. Because certainly now, you know, it's now you don't even really need to learn Chinese in a way you put whatever you don't understand. You're putting the Google search box and Google translate, right. And I'll translate it for you, but how does a computer know how to do that? So all the worth there being done behind the scenes, right? You want to write algorithms that teach machines, you know, mobilizing deep learning to help machines predict and to basically assimilate the way Chinese language thinks. And to use that of, you know, that way of translating more precisely, you know, Chinese into Russian or Chinese English or Arabic or Indonesia. And what has,
Speaker 5 00:49:55 You've been listening to my chat with Jean soon, talking about her book, kingdom of characters, the language revolution that made China modern. It's a wonderful read. It's delightful, informative, but also ginger and critical storyteller. Thanks so much for being here with
Speaker 6 00:50:07 Us.
Speaker 5 00:50:10 And now this
Speaker 2 00:50:20 And thank you to our special guests tonight, Farhad, daddy, Bazaar, and jinx SU plus our listeners without your support and donations cafe would not be possible. You can find more news and info about right on radio at dot org slash right on radio. Plus check out our podcast. You can find it on Spotify, iTunes, Google podcasts, wherever you find podcasts. Now stay tuned to bone germ, Minnesota.
