Two Old Men: Ba Jin and Xiao Qian

Author: Wen Jieruo
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-10-01
Features: Ba Jin was not just a literary figure; he was first and foremost a great moral thinker and social reformer. In 20th-century China, he was like Rousseau in 18th-century France or Leo Tolstoy in 19th-century Russia. Xiao Qian was a symbol of the maturation of contemporary Chinese literature. His late works and thoughts were "extremely mature and intelligent, sharp but not harsh, profound but not obscure, always reasonable, always forceful and restrained." If Ba Jin had not known Xiao Qian, Ba Jin would still have been Ba Jin, but if Xiao Qian had not known Ba Jin, things would have been different. Xiao Qian once said, "One of the greatest blessings in my life was meeting Ba Jin in Beijing in the early 1930s and maintaining our friendship ever since. If it hadn't been like this, I would have taken more detours in my life. Shen Congwen taught me how to write, and Ba Jin taught me how to be a person."