The following article appeared in the Chinook Observer on March 18, 2009

Coast Chronicles: Espy Foundation Welcomes Chinese Writers

By Cate Gable
Observer columnist

We may be on the way to nowhere, but that appears to be just what two well-known Chinese writers were looking for. Or were they?

Xiao Yinong, from a town of 1.5 million called Ordos in the region of Inner Mongolia; and Liu Qingbang, from Beijing, with over 17 million people, arrived in Oysterville for a welcoming reception on an overcast Sunday evening two weekends ago.

After their 10-hour flight from Beijing and four-hour drive from Seattle to the north end of the Long Beach Peninsula, they must have thought they had traveled to the end of the world. But it was difficult to tell since neither of them speaks English.

But let’s start at the beginning.

In the fall of 2007, a group of U.S. writers and literary professionals was invited for a cultural exchange trip to China. Our own Polly Friedlander, founder and executive director of the Espy Foundation was a member of this entourage.

The leader of this merry band of travelers was Shawn Wong, award-winning novelist (”Home Base and American Knees”), English professor at the University of Washington, and vice president of the Espy Foundation.

During visits to Beijing, Hangzhou and Shanghai, Shawn, Polly, and five other Americans sat across the table from selected Chinese scholars and administrators, representing writing associations (quite popular in China), universities, museums and libraries.

Invariably Shawn would introduce Polly by saying, “… director of the Espy Foundation and resident of Oysterville, Washington, population 30.” In densely populated China, this was always a sensation.

Near the end of their 10-day visit, Shawn remembers offering, “Let’s make this a real exchange. Let’s invite two writers to Oysterville.” So a deal was stuck.

The stipulation was that two Chinese artists who spoke English - to be selected by the Chinese Writer’s Association - would visit as part of the Espy Foundation artists-in-residence program.

Mr. Liu and Mr. Xiao, were subsequently selected to be the first exchange contingent. They were warmly welcomed in frosty Oysterville, just in time for another round of hail. But the surprise was that they were unable to talk to us.

Rational minds prevailed and soon it was discovered that Dongmei “May” Wu Miller of Long Beach - wife of Ken Miller, PUD crew supervisor - whose native language is Mandarin, also spoke Cantonese.

With May’s help, and assistance from a small language computer, we have since discovered that our two visitors are extremely famous in China. As one of our translators shared in a whispered aside, “They are writers of the ‘first class.’”

Mr. Liu (Lee-oo) was born in Henan province in 1951 and has “worked as a peasant, miner and journalist.” He is now vice president of the Beijing Writer’s Association and has published six novels, including “The Faraway Poetry,” “The Folk Song of the Plains,” “Red Coal” and Laoshe Literature Prize winner of 2002, “Shen mu” (Sacred Wood, about which, more later).

Mr. Liu does his writing in longhand, with a quill and ink in a bottle (the first thing I have not been able to find at Jack’s Country Store).

Liu’s colleague and also a vice president of the Inner Mongolian Writer’s Association, Mr. Xiao Yinong, writes primarily about the nomadic tribes around the Yellow River and Mongolia grasslands of China and Russia. This tribal lifestyle and culture, like those of other peoples who depend on the resources of the land, is threatened. Mr. Xiao (Shee-a-oo) is called the “Son of Yellow River” by the Chinese media.

Mr. Xiao, being the younger of the two going on 20-year friends, uses a computer for his writing.

As far as we can gather, Mr. Liu and Mr. Xiao are both in government ministry posts in China, and as such, are dignitaries who have their own drivers that taxi them to conferences and meetings as well as assistants who cook and clean for them. Their spacious and gracious accommodations in Oysterville (generously donated for their use by the Mendenhalls of Portland), nonetheless, do not come with such amenities.

Last night I picked up Liu and Xiao to drive them to dinner and discovered a Costco-sized box of cheerios on the counter. Make-shift “bachelor” cuisine. (Though in some ways appropriately American, I am insisting that they dine at Jimella’s Seafood Market and Café or Pelicano before they return, to get a taste of fine Northwest fare.)

Gratefully they accepted the dinner invitations of both Gail Accuardi, an Oysterville resident who lives in the small cottage across from the Espy bench and meadow, and May Miller.

Gail prepared what has been described as an exquisitely roasted chicken; May and Ken - I can attest - pulled out all the stops with garlic bok choy, spicy chicken with mushrooms and baked halibut. The two visitors even got a tour of Ken’s Harley repair shop.

May is a shining light - or, perhaps more appropriately, winter plum blossom - in Liu and Xiao’s Peninsula story, as she has been functioning as their on-call ad hoc translator.

As a simple illustration of ensuing cross-cultural challenges, May received an emergency call and drove to Oysterville to assist Liu and Xiao in the operation of the washer and dryer in their home away from home. According to May, the appliances were mysterious, “We don’t have dryers in China.”

After a sprinkler mishap, we connected May with a plumber and attempted to describe what a pump-house was - “it looks like a doghouse” - something unmistakably lost in translation.

A tour of Leadbetter Point and walk on the Willapa Bay beach elicited an animated discussion about black bears. But despite fears about errant wildlife, both Mr. Liu and Mr. Xiao let it be known that they have found a “perfect place to write, so beautiful and quiet.”

Mr. Xiao, as we mentioned, was at one time a miner, and his prize-winning novel relates the horrors and hardships of the mining life. This story was adapted into a screenplay and produced by a young, prominent movie maker, Li Yang, into a film called “Blind Shaft” (Mang jing). German financed and made in Taiwan, the film has been banned in China

The movie documents the raw extortion tactics of two unscrupulous miners. Both the concept and backdrop for the movie are the real-deal. It is shot with a hand-held camera, on site, underground in private mines in China - the only places Liu could talk his way into.

Liu shares, “Two shafts collapsed during the film’s production. The first time, we were outside, preparing for the day’s shoot. On the second, I was shooting below ground, and two workers were killed. In the panic, the foreman showed up brandishing a gun and threatening to shoot the entire crew. That was the most frightening moment of all, because I was worried that we might not get out alive.”

“Blind Shaft” won a silver prize in the Hong Kong International Film Festival’s main competition; the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival; and Best Narrative Feature at the Tribeca Film Festival.

The film will be shown at Adelaide’s in Ocean Park Thursday, March 19, at 7:15 p.m. (donations accepted). Both Mr. Liu and Mr. Xiao will be present to answer questions about the film, China, and their experiences in America. (For more information about the movie, and links to interviews with the director, see (http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/denton2/courses/c505/temp/blindshaft.html)

When I asked Shawn Wong whether there would be more peninsula visitors from China, he said, “We’re doing this for now. We’ll learn and improve and see what happens next.”

Join our visitors from China on Thursday and see what the new world is all about.