Mian Mian's Candy

Mian Mian’s autobiographical novel “Candy” talks about “ Freedom and choice” of young people. This is an old topic but written in a new style. It’s about a problematic girl Hong and her problematic boyfriends and problematic friends she meets in her life.

Hong is a girl who is unwilling to enter the community and not knowing how to enter into her society. The novel narrated the history in a puzzle form that they scattered all over this novel. We as readers need to think of a way to put them together in a completed picture. After culture revolution, Hong’s father was very proud of their identities as “educated people” Mona Lisa’s mysterious smile and Beethoven’s symphony became the biggest fear of her childhood. “Our neighbors don’t have recore player, TV, plenty of meat, nice clothes, and cooking oil as we do, we are surrounded by families that they live on picking up vegetable leaves on the floor in farmers market. My father thought I should feel lucky.” Hong’s and Sai Ning’s father are both “educated people”. They both experienced a “no choice” culture revolution.

Many years later, her boyfriend Sai Ning told her, Beijing is exaggerated with rock bands and performance art. They are all about heavy metal music. A year later, she walks out the drug rehabilitation centers and her friend shows her around shanghai. She said, “Shanghai’s Huaihai Road has changed dramatically, many beautiful stores, many new things…Shanghai is not what it used to be, it changes every week.” Hong’s problem is not Du Liniang’s problem in Tang Xianzu’s novel nor Zhang Ailing’s Liusu, but it is the problem of 20 century young girl. She wants or has freedom in some senses, but she does not know how to use them properly. She is a confused, passionate, and muddled girl.

Wang Shuo said, “Mian Mian uses her body to write her novel.” “Problematic girl” Hong loves “ using her body to read men, using her skin to think.” I think the reason her book Candy was forbidden not because its political view, but its explicated description of sex. If Chinese government bans words like penis, hooker, intercourse, obviously any stories about those elements would be banned. Not to mention that Chinese government decides to ban government leaders’ full name for the public, which means, you can only use “Chairman Mao” not “Mao Zedong.” A famous old time folk song’s lyrics are “I love Beijing Tiananmen, sun rising from Tiananmen, our great leader Mao Zedong, leading our way towards future.” Since June 4th Tiananmen square protest in 1989 has become an extremely sensitive topic for Chinese government, if you ever want to write the lyrics on your personal blogs or forums, it would appear like this, “I love Beijing sensitive words, sun rising from sensitive words, great leader sensitive words, leading our way towards future.” Mian Mian’s Candy was forbidden officially when it was published, but illegal publishers made it very popular in black markets, or three wheel bicycle book vendors on sidewalks or in famers markets. This book brought huge excitements to young readers in China like American teen boys first reading porno magazines.

Mian Mian’s writing style truly inspired many young writers such as An Ni Bao Bei and Mu Zimei whose writing styles are also futilitarian, lots of sexual contents, confused and suicidal young girls and boys. I used to be a writer for a newspaper in Shanghai, all my friends write like the way Mian Mian does. Here is an example I wrote yesterday.

"我從這家隱藏在街角的小店走出來的時候，陽光灼熱的脫離了秋季軌道。站在雕花的路燈下發了呆很久。夜晚再柔和的燈，再如何安靜地傾聽情人們得愫語，白天的時候只有鏽蹟斑駁的孤獨。

開車去公園的路上經過San Gabriel Mission，許多年前西班牙的傳道飄揚過海來到荒蕪的美洲大地，在這裡建立了第一個教堂。這裡是人們熱愛的婚紗攝影景點之一。經常看到幾對新人各自霸 佔不同的角落拍攝婚紗照。白色婚紗，黑色禮服，茵茵的草地，古老殘破的磚牆，百年時光的流淌，甜蜜的戀人。愛情璀璨的煙花表演。我撥了你的號碼，在沒有接通之前，在沒有忘記你之前，我掛了電話。

我在公園樹蔭下的草地上躺下，找到一個條色花紋的小方枕，我把身體釋放在輕佻漫步的柔風裡面。 閉上眼睛。依舊能看到陽光穿過層層疊疊的樹蔭在地上留下斑駁的花紋。"

What really happened was-

"今天真是熱阿。找個地方睡個好覺。"

Candy: China Uncensored.

“So many young people are getting lost…I want to show them how freedom is exciting but also dangerous” –Mian Mian

Mian Mian, the bold author of the novel, Candy achieves this as she pulls us into the main character, Hong’s whirlwind of a life. Hong’s story brings the reader into her crazy world of drugs, sex, prostitution, gambling and various other vices. Candy is the perfect novel to introduce the reality of the rapid changes occurring in cities in China due to the open market reform. The novel is set mostly in two places: Shanghai and Shenzhen, a village that transforms into a thriving economic city. The proclamation of Shenzhen as a Special Economic Zone by Deng XiaoPing allowed for modern developments and a detachment from political control. Candy reflects the excitement of new possibilities, both good and bad, that are introduced to China’s youth as a result of the open market reform.

The most striking way in which Mian Mian presents the scene of the rapid transformation of China is through the explicit descriptions of sexual encounters that Hong experiences and the detailed descriptions of Hong’s heroin addiction. Her first experiences sex when she engages in a self-destructive relationship with a young man named Saining. Although Saining is emotionally abusive toward Hong, she cannot escape because she believes that she loves him. She then follows Saining’s lead and becomes addicted to heroin. Both of these portrayals show Hong’s movement away from conservative Chinese values. Instead, Hong breaks free from the traditional constraints of society and what society defines as moral and experiments within the world of sex and drugs. Hong’s actions paint a realistic picture of the temptations available for the youth at the time. Her gradual deterioration, however, as she goes in and out of rehab and her numerous suicide attempts shows the consequences that come along with the freedom that has reached Shenzhen.

Another way in which Mian Mian depicts the chaos and confusion of the time is through Hong’s constant search for the meaning of love, truth and stability. Throughout the entire novel, Hong questions each of her relationships with the opposite sex and she wonders whether or not love exists. The female friends Hong encounters, like Qi and Kitten are untrustworthy and deceitful. She tries to find pleasure in sex and later in heroin. She tries to stop her heroin addiction several times and eventually finds joy in writing. The lifestyle of Hong in and of itself is spontaneous and chaotic, but Mian Mian’s writing style supports the confusion Hong suffers and Hong’s search for stability. Despite the orderly way in which Mian Mian attempts to organize the book with the alphapet and numbers, the actual content of the novel is jumbled and incoherent. Rather than writing about Hong’s life in a linear way, Mian Mian writes it in a more jagged fashion. Hong’s story does not flow smoothly, but rather jumps from story to story. This “structure” mirrors the chaos of life in modern China. Hong’s story is made up of random pieces and towards the end of the novel Mian Mian even changes perspectives, and begins writing from the perspective of other characters, such as Saining. Chaos and uncertainty seem to be a result of the freedom presented to the younger generation because there is no longer a structured path that they must follow. For example, with this freedom Hong chooses to drop out of school, but as a result she does not know what to do with her life and ends up feeling lost with an uncertain future. Both the structure and the plot of the work reflect the confusion that came with the freedom presented by the open door policy.

Mian Mian’s work did an amazing job of showing the influences of westernization and the transformation of society in China. She presents the new lifestyles in a realistic and engaging manner, which is probably what attracted so many readers. Candy proves to be an excellent marker for Chinese pop culture because it paints such an accurate picture of the transformations in China.

Candy Review

Ultimately, Candy is a story about freedom. Mian Mian’s protagonist, Hong, is the main character and narrator of the novel. At a basic level, it is Hong’s search for personal freedom that is central to this story, but as it unravels, it becomes apparent that her freedom forms a ‘prison’ – where she is trapped by love, sex, rock and roll, and drugs.

Hong lives however she may please. She drops out of school, spends her father’s and Saining’s money wastefully, moves back and forth between Shanghai and Shenzhen, parties, drinks, sleeps with strangers, does drugs, and even tries to kill herself a number of times – she is free to make all of these choices.

Yet, the consequences of all these choices actually tear her freedom away from her – by dropping out of school she is has few job opportunities and is forced to sing at a bar and live among prostitutes, gamblers, junkies, and musicians. By falling in love with Saining, her life is forever changed. She is consumed by her love for him, and as a consequence, she succumbs to the allure of drugs and alcoholism. Even when Saining cheats on her multiple times, Hong takes him back over and over again, unable to let herself escape this kind of lifestyle. She becomes addicted to him.

Addiction soon controls her life, and she willingly allows this. This is largely because she cannot take control over her own life, so she needs someone or something to do it for her. Everything around her keeps her tightly bound. The constant swarm of prostitutes and johns, rock & roll and drugs, and crime becomes her world – she knows little else. Her pain and prison are reflected in the lives and stories of those around her.

The ‘prison’ she lives in throughout this novel reflects an even larger one in the real world. Mian Mian writes this story as a semi-mirror of her own life. Through writing it, she is able to free herself from her own prison of a heroin addiction. Mian Mian tells it how it is – what she writes about in Candy is what she sees in the real world of Shanghai and Shenzhen. There is something to be said about Chinese society from all of this – perhaps the economic reform of Deng Xiaoping left the Chinese vulnerable to this lifestyle that Hong and Mian Mian are a part of. Whatever it may be, it seems to be that Mian Mian and Hong were able to overcome their ‘prisons’ by understanding the world they live in – a world that is responsible for these ‘prisons’.

Mian Mian is able to achieve personal freedom through her writing – and not only writing itself, but being able to share it with others. In response to the looming threat of her future works being censored or banned, she says “If they change what I want to say, I’ll just put everything on the Net.” For her, this freedom is worth fighting for – a message clearly reflected in Candy.

Primary Texts Covered in this Course

Farewell My Concubine (bawang bieji 霸王别姬), a 1993 film directed by Chen Kaige 陈凯歌
To Live (huozhe 活着), a 1994 film directed by Zhang Yimou 张艺谋
Yellow Earth (huang ditu 黃土地), a 1984 film directed by Chen Kaige陈凯歌
Platform (zhantai 站台), a 2000 film directed by Jia Zhangke 贾樟柯
Music from Cui Jian 崔健
Post-Tian’anmen T-shirt Culture
Music from Teresa Teng 邓丽君
Music from Ai Jing 艾敬
Music from Jay Chou 周杰伦
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Wu hu cang long 臥虎藏龍), a 2000 film directed by Ang Lee 李安
Beijing Bicycle (shiqisui de danche 十七岁的单车), a 2001 film directed by Wang Xiaoshuai 王小帅
Selections from Playing for Thrills (Wanr de jiushi xintiao 玩儿的就是心跳), a 1989 novel written by Wang Shuo 王朔
Candy (tang 糖), a 2000 novel written by Mian Mian 棉棉
Hero (yingxiong 英雄), a 2002 film directed by Zhang Yimou 张艺谋
Kung Fu Hustle (gongfu 功夫), a 2004 film directed by Stephen Chow 周星馳