Why should I spend my life churning out words that do not express the profundity of the human existence, he asked himself. He turned to serious writing, which often pays 100 yuan ($15) or less for every 1,000 Chinese characters. But he has no regrets. Unless you're a best-selling writer, he says, the money from creating literature does not make a difference to the quality of your material life.
However, people like Xie do care about fame and feel their writing can bring about change and gain them more respect. "What we want most is the recognition and applause from peers," said Zhe Gui, the 35-year-old from Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, a place with a pervasive business culture.
The ultimate goal, said Zhang Chu, a 34-year-old from Tangshan, Hebei province, who works at the local tax bureau in the daytime, is to "satisfy ourselves". Zhang's work probes the inner corners of the human mind, especially the dark recesses. In a sense, all writers focus on themselves, but "when we portray life in the countryside, our readers - our contemporaries - do not have the time and financial resources to buy our books," said Xie Zongyu. "But when the 80-hou took up writing there was already a sizeable demographic of urban consumers who could afford reading as a habit. Theirs is the first generation to benefit from the country's urbanization."
Yang Qingxiang, a 20-something literary critic, blames the "70-hou" for their failure to catch the public imagination: "Your personal growth coincides with the most dramatic changes of our country. Yet you do not attempt to reflect it in your writing. No wonder you cannot find a mass audience." Zhang Yueran, an 80-hou writer known for her talent as well as her beauty, sees it another way. In a recent article she expresses her "jealousy" for the 70-hou for their multilayered experiences. However, at the forum, she hanged out with members of her own generation.
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