Picture Book Creation Interview: Listen to Teacher Cai Gao Talk About “Meng Jiangnu Crying at the Great Wall”

   
On May 13, 2015, I vis­it­ed Pro­fes­sor Cai Gao in Chang­sha. We chat­ted for a full day and then again for half the after­noon. Dur­ing the con­ver­sa­tion, we dis­cussed Cai Gao’s book, “Meng Jiangnu Weeps at the Great Wall,” which was then only avail­able in Japan­ese but is now avail­able in Chi­nese. We first dis­cussed the dra­mat­ic ele­ments in pic­ture book cre­ation, and then, using this book as an exam­ple, since I can’t read Japan­ese, Pro­fes­sor Cai Gao explained it to me in detail, from begin­ning to end. It was tru­ly enjoy­able. I’d like to share it with you.

…

A: I feel that “Mulan” has a bit of a dra­mat­ic fla­vor, both at the begin­ning and when Mulan comes back. The mid­dle part is more lyri­cal and artis­tic con­cep­tion is devel­oped.

Cai: Yes. Per­haps “Meng Jiangnu” has a bit of that, too. The dra­mat­ic qual­i­ty of “Meng Jiangnu” is pri­mar­i­ly a neces­si­ty for the sto­ry’s entry. It has two main plot­lines, and that’s how it needs to begin.

A: That is to say, the back­ground and char­ac­ters need to be intro­duced in this way.

Cai: From the begin­ning, it need­ed to cre­ate a sense of neigh­bor­hood. There’s a say­ing in the sto­ry that the child is from the gourd, so how could it be a child shared by two fam­i­lies? We need­ed to offer this pos­si­bil­i­ty: the wall between our two homes is like this, so the gourds you plant­ed have crawled into our house. We had to offer this pos­si­bil­i­ty for the read­er’s imag­i­na­tion. We also need­ed water, fields, and the sur­round­ing ter­rain. We need­ed to hide here and rest for a while, so the sto­ry could unfold. We also need­ed time for a love sto­ry to unfold. And then there were the traps every­where; with­out the moun­tains, there was no place to hide. So, set­ting up this kind of set­ting made the sto­ry pos­si­ble.

A: The open­ing scene on the title page is the main scene that takes place in the first half of the sto­ry.

Cai: Then on the next page, the pic­ture is enlarged and the wall is com­plete­ly removed. Both com­pa­nies use this kind of stage effect to per­form and don’t wor­ry about the spe­cif­ic actu­al sit­u­a­tion.

A: Yes, it is very trou­ble­some to paint the wall.

Cai: It’s both cum­ber­some and ugly; read­ers will imme­di­ate­ly know they’re two sep­a­rate fam­i­lies. This is the­atri­cal expres­sion, sep­a­rat­ing two scenes. Take, for exam­ple, the play “Lychees for Red Peach­es” that I watched as a child. The dra­ma between the two fam­i­lies takes place on two dif­fer­ent floors: the boy’s home on one side, the girl’s on the oth­er. Anoth­er exam­ple is “Wall Horse,” which also tells a sto­ry sep­a­rat­ed by a wall, but requires the audi­ence to see both sto­ries unfold simul­ta­ne­ous­ly.

A: On the stage, with one set­ting, two sto­ries hap­pen at the same time.

Cai: In the plays I watched as a child, the boys and girls from the two fam­i­lies could see each oth­er, but the plane had to be open to the audi­ence. In this page, I also have a plane fac­ing the audi­ence. This arrange­ment can only be done on stage; it’s impos­si­ble in real life. How could two hous­es be like this?

A: The pic­ture can be cut across the page to cre­ate a stage effect.

Cai: After cut­ting it open, a white line remains in the mid­dle, cre­at­ing a con­nec­tion and rep­re­sent­ing the two scenes. This is the flat treat­ment, com­plete­ly fol­low­ing the flat effect, unfold­ing like a stage. (Turns to the next page) The sto­ry can be seen by you, by chil­dren, and the wall becomes this effect.

A: The wall on this page (Meng’s old man hoe­ing the land and sow­ing seeds) looks short.

Cai: Over here, peo­ple are farm­ing, and there’s a bird on the wall. A child could eas­i­ly under­stand it. Then the gourd vine crawls along the wall (turn to the next page, two fam­i­lies are chat­ting in the shed). I did­n’t draw the wall at this point; it would­n’t look pret­ty. The wall actu­al­ly drops down here, allow­ing every­one to see the shed.

A: It feels like look­ing down from the top of a wall, a bird’s-eye view.

Cai: Look­ing from above, you can’t see this. This is also a kind of divi­sion. It looks like a bird’s-eye view, but it’s actu­al­ly a flat sur­face. This visu­al effect does­n’t make sense, but it works in a pic­ture book. You can see the trel­lis divid­ing the scene, which is also very beau­ti­ful. This divi­sion does­n’t look dull, and the char­ac­ters become inter­est­ing. You can see the gourd here.

A: This is also the spe­cial pre­sen­ta­tion method of pic­ture books, show­ing the audi­ence a flat sur­face, much like a stage.

Cai: On this page (and then two pages), it’s more of a stage effect. The text says, “Meng Jiangnu grew up day by day, becom­ing a beau­ti­ful woman.” So, I used a door as a par­ti­tion in the paint­ing. Time pass­es like a fleet­ing moment. It feels like a thou­sand years have passed through the crack of the door, right? So, just walk­ing from here to there is already a growth process. It’s com­plete­ly dra­mat­ic and two-dimen­sion­al.



A: Although I don’t under­stand the Japan­ese on this page, I com­plete­ly get its mean­ing. It means to walk slow­ly and grow up as you walk.

Cai: Yes, par­ti­tions are often used in dra­ma. For exam­ple, in Romance of the West­ern Cham­ber, there are sev­er­al side rooms sep­a­rat­ed by doors. This approach is easy to under­stand, as if there is a fixed mean­ing behind it.

A: At least Chi­nese peo­ple under­stand it. For­eign­ers may not under­stand it, but Japan­ese peo­ple should under­stand it.

Cai: Yes, Japan­ese read­ers can under­stand it, and Mr. Nao Mat­sui par­tic­u­lar­ly likes this paint­ing. I didn’t say any­thing to him about “time flies”, but he liked it right away.

A: One day we can also find a West­ern­er to try and see if he can under­stand this page, haha.

Cai: Haha, it’s real­ly inter­est­ing. You see, Meng Jiangnu’s move­ments remain the same; she’s still a hard­work­ing girl, but her clothes have changed, and so have the things she car­ries. Her father has aged, and she’s grown up. Some things change, and some things don’t. The house remains the same, but time has changed. I often use this method to depict time, and I also see it in “Mulan.” Going upstairs is a moment, and chang­ing clothes and putting on make­up are also moments. You can see her trans­for­ma­tion simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, and the fun lies in these process­es. I find it quite engag­ing.
(Turn to the next page, Meng Jiangnu sees some­one in the back­yard.) This page also has a stage effect. This per­son hides here, that per­son hides there, both vis­i­ble to the audi­ence. Then the wall is placed there, and beyond the wall are dis­tant moun­tains, a lay­er of bar­ri­ers, com­ing from that side, as if to empha­size that in this sit­u­a­tion, some kind of emo­tion could arise. This is why they have time to fall in love. If they did­n’t have feel­ings for each oth­er, if they did­n’t fall in love, how could they have gone to cry at the Great Wall lat­er?

A: Yes, this is the nec­es­sary fore­shad­ow­ing for this sto­ry.

Cai: But this isn’t in the text. It has to be shown in the illus­trat­ed sto­ry, to estab­lish a sol­id emo­tion­al foun­da­tion for them. There has to be emo­tion­al fore­shad­ow­ing. Spaces should be insert­ed here and there to build fore­shad­ow­ing, and lat­er on this page (turn two pages back) they should com­plete their love jour­ney in one sin­gle image.

A: In this page, the two peo­ple always work togeth­er.

Cai: Look, here is the love that was born while we were pound­ing rice and sift­ing mil­let togeth­er.

A: These two details have a bit of the mean­ing of “The Exploita­tion of the Works of Nature”.

Cai: I first tried draw­ing water from the well, but I felt the cur­rent scene did­n’t cap­ture the cou­ple’s affec­tion as well. I moved that to a lat­er page because it did­n’t have much to do with the girl wash­ing and dry­ing her clothes. In this lat­er scene (the next page), the girl is a bit shy, steal­ing glances at him, a bit embar­rassed. That’s when I enlarged the flow­ers.


A: These flow­ers should have a sym­bol­ic mean­ing.

Cai: Yes, the flow­ers are bloom­ing, it’s per­fect, my heart is bloom­ing too, and I’m in a good mood.

A: Is this flower a peony?

Cai: I have this flower plant­ed upstairs. It’s a red­bud. Mine aren’t this red, more rose-red. I like this kind of flower. It’s a bit like a peony, but not quite. Peonies are too rich, while red­buds are more hum­ble, but they have great vital­i­ty and a long bloom­ing peri­od. Wan Xil­iang also gave her some flow­ers while car­ry­ing water.

A: What kind of flower is this (the flower on the buck­et)?

Cai: It does­n’t mat­ter what kind of flower it is, the point is that while car­ry­ing water, he did­n’t for­get to pick flow­ers for her. Also, in this pic­ture, you can see his par­ents’ recog­ni­tion of him.

A: You can see that both elders are very hap­py and want to arrange some­thing.

Cai: This is a scene from every­day life, with the par­ents secret­ly arrang­ing their mar­riage. On the next page (the wed­ding), a stage is sep­a­rat­ed, and the peo­ple in the back­ground are trans­formed into tiny fig­ures. This allows for more sto­ry­telling, elim­i­nat­ing the need for close-ups. Close-ups are usu­al­ly used to depict psy­cho­log­i­cal events, but that’s not how I direct­ed here. I relied entire­ly on the sto­ry itself, using action to con­vey the sto­ry, much like a play, with­out rely­ing on close-ups.

A: Chi­nese peo­ple express sto­ries and emo­tions main­ly through the way they do things.

Cai: Exact­ly. It’s hard to express it if you bring it too close. And this kind of sto­ry­telling has to take into account the entire sto­ry, espe­cial­ly the lat­er stages. You see, these char­ac­ters are all “ants,” small-time vil­lains. This book has two main themes: the Great Wall and the sto­ry­line. I had to main­tain both, devel­op­ing them in par­al­lel. Why did Nao­ki Mat­sui par­tic­u­lar­ly like this book? He said it was excel­lent, even bet­ter than “The Sto­ry of Peach Blos­som Spring.” I under­stand why he said I “sur­passed” it because, beyond the sto­ry­line, there’s also the Great Wall thread run­ning through it, mak­ing it even more chal­leng­ing and, there­fore, sur­pass­ing my oth­er works.

A: How was the Great Wall line in this book real­ized?

Cai: My Great Wall came about this way. Look at these lines, appear­ing here (refer­ring to the paint­ing of the water bear­er), they all evoke bricks, the struc­ture of a brick wall. This has­n’t appeared before, and there’s no sense of a city. Here, the Great Wall is hint­ed at, and it begins to become part of life, and this con­tin­ues lat­er. There’s a con­tin­u­ous asso­ci­a­tion here, a con­tin­u­ous thread. For­mal­ly, the two lines are con­nect­ed. The beau­ty of ordi­nary life at the begin­ning con­trasts sharply with the des­o­la­tion that fol­lows. With this lev­el of emo­tion­al fore­shad­ow­ing, it would be sur­pris­ing if she did­n’t go look­ing for her hus­band. This was nec­es­sary, to cre­ate the con­trast between mar­riage and the forced labor to build the Great Wall.

A: This house is on both sides of the dou­ble-page spread of the wed­ding and the birth of a son.

Cai: Yes, it also feels like a stage set­ting, com­plete­ly ori­ent­ed towards the read­er, guid­ing the child’s per­spec­tive. The child sees the bride and won­ders what the peo­ple out­side are like. This is the kind of joy that only a small vil­lage can have.

A: The wed­ding page brings every­one togeth­er to cel­e­brate, which forms the strongest con­trast with the next page.

Cai: The atmos­phere changes imme­di­ate­ly. Then, on the next page, Meng Jiangnu sets out, mov­ing from left to right. The fig­ures below can’t be any big­ger. On this page, she’s sewing win­ter clothes, and the fig­ures are already large enough to show her mood, the change in weath­er, the ris­ing wind, and her par­ents’ aging, but she must leave.
   
The next page is a trip­tych, show­ing the long jour­ney. If it were con­nect­ed com­plete­ly, it would be like walk­ing in a paint­ing. The three par­ti­tions would tell you about spring, sum­mer, and autumn, walk­ing and walk­ing…

A: This triple par­ti­tion looks like a screen, but is slight­ly wider than a screen.

Cai: Yes, it feels like a fold­ing screen. “The Sto­ry of Peach Blos­som Spring” also has a sim­i­lar three-pan­el struc­ture, depict­ing the vast­ness of a riv­er. It’s a nec­es­sary expres­sion. As you go fur­ther down, you seem even small­er, even small­er.
   
Then comes the cross­ing of the riv­er on the next page, which reminds me of the sto­ry of “Liu Yi’s Let­ter”.


A: Yes, the sto­ry of “Liu Yi’s Let­ter” is also about the water part­ing.

Cai: This is my design; it’s impos­si­ble to tell it this way in the text. The orig­i­nal sto­ry is that Meng Jiangnu cried and cried, and the water lev­el dropped. How could she move when the water lev­el dropped? How could she express this? Should she float? I did­n’t think that would work. I want­ed her sin­cer­i­ty to be like Liu Yi’s. The water had to part for her, and once it part­ed, she could move through. This form feels very good; the water stands up like a wall.

A: You can see fish on the water wall and tur­tles below.

Cai: Then, with a mix­ture of fear and deter­mi­na­tion, she took these steps, with an exag­ger­at­ed air, walk­ing so fast that her hair flew up. She had to hur­ry across this vast area, with high water lev­els. Imag­ine walk­ing across the riverbed, just imag­ine what it would feel like if the water stood up. It remind­ed me of when we went to the under­wa­ter world and my grand­son said, “Grand­ma, Grand­ma, look, the fish are swim­ming in the sky!” That was very inspir­ing to me, too.

A: She had to hur­ry over, and when she got here, the water behind her was almost con­nect­ed.

Cai: She looks back and sees the water already push­ing her. The scene is tense, cre­at­ing an atmos­phere of fear­less­ness. She’s very brave. What makes a girl brave? Do you think she’s nat­u­ral­ly fear­less? Her eyes are filled with fear, yet she’s deter­mined to search. The next page also empha­sizes her deter­mi­na­tion. “The Sto­ry of Peach Blos­som Spring” is also about search­ing, that is, search­ing for an ide­al place. This is also about seek­ing an ide­al, but it’s very trag­ic: she’s search­ing for her hus­band. This is even more dis­tant, more uncer­tain, and more des­o­late. You have to keep talk­ing about it, using the same method as the Great Wall, with the same dis­tance as the Great Wall. The Great Wall is sev­ered, yet it con­tin­ues. (Turns to the three-pan­el Great Wall image) Scenes from dif­fer­ent places, just like this, con­stant­ly walk­ing, and then rest­ing like this by the Great Wall (under tent and mat on the ground), on a patch of bro­ken grass. I’ve read many ancient musi­cal descrip­tions of Meng Jiangnu’s per­son­al­i­ty, includ­ing ancient bal­lads from Hunan Province, and bal­lads about Meng Jiangnu from every dynasty. Meng Jiangnu is not an iso­lat­ed case. Every dynasty and gen­er­a­tion has had such resent­ful women, and there have been such peo­ple who built the Great Wall. The Great Wall exist­ed in ancient times, and it was com­plet­ed dur­ing the Qin Dynasty, and the gaps were con­nect­ed in the hands of the Qin Dynasty.


A: It was repaired until the Ming Dynasty.

Cai: The Qin Dynasty built the Great Wall all the way to the sea. Why did I design the Great Wall in the sto­ry to the sea? Actu­al­ly, we have the remains of the Great Wall in Hunan, and it is quite remote.

A: Do you also have Meng Jiangnu and the Great Wall here?

Cai: Yes. There’s the Jiangnu Tem­ple and the Great Wall. I’ve been there, but the Jiangnu Tem­ple was rebuilt lat­er. This is because every dynasty and every coun­try once had a Jiangnu. “Meng” isn’t just a sur­name; it’s a broad­er con­cept. The “Meng” in Meng Jiangnu may be the name of a place. In this sto­ry, “Meng” and “Jiang” are two fam­i­lies, but in ancient times, they weren’t. There are so many sto­ries, it’s hard to explain them all at once. I set the sto­ry of Meng Jiangnu near the sea, pri­mar­i­ly to cre­ate a grand scale that would com­ple­ment the Great Wall. So I had to depict the sea. Once we reach the beach, I don’t need to draw the char­ac­ters; I’ll leave it to the read­er’s imag­i­na­tion.

A: In this pic­ture of her rest­ing by the Great Wall, the fig­ures are very blur­ry, and there is a cres­cent moon on the Great Wall.

Cai: There’s a cap­tion here. Based on the scene and the text, you can imag­ine how she slept in this sit­u­a­tion. That’s actu­al­ly a good thing. Then you see the des­o­la­tion of the ancient Great Wall (flip to the next page), its bro­ken, dam­aged appear­ance before repairs. The col­lapse is beau­ti­ful, a sense of vicis­si­tudes.


A: Many parts of the Great Wall look like this now.

Cai: Yes, it’s still incom­plete. I drew it this way based on pho­tos I found. I can’t trav­el around much any­more.

A: I’ve vis­it­ed many ruined sec­tions of the wild Great Wall. Many places are still quite dan­ger­ous. They’re very high and steep, mak­ing it easy to fall, and even get struck dur­ing thun­der­storms. This image of the ruined Great Wall gave me a sim­i­lar feel­ing.

Cai: I like this sense of vicis­si­tudes. It also lets read­ers know that the Great Wall need­ed repairs at the time, con­nect­ing it to the sub­se­quent sto­ry. We need to under­stand that the Great Wall was built and repaired in this way, so this paint­ing of the con­struc­tion of the Great Wall was also nec­es­sary. I also con­sult­ed a lot of mate­ri­als to com­plete this paint­ing of the con­struc­tion scenes and the con­struc­tion of the Great Wall. Then I placed Jiang Nu in this place (on the left side of the pic­ture).

A: She walked slow­ly from the left and then walked out from the oth­er side.

Cai: She searched all the way, it was such a ardu­ous search. Then she came to this place (turn to the next page). I had to paint this place: the roots of the Great Wall, because her hus­band was buried there after his death. This place was also a slum, filled with peo­ple in need, all look­ing for their hus­bands and rel­a­tives. She fol­lowed these peo­ple, the peo­ple who built the Great Wall.


A: She first appeared at the low­er left, then at the upper right, and walked along the foot of the Great Wall.

Cai: She kept walk­ing, see­ing all these peo­ple, and none of them were her hus­band. Then she moved on to the next page, to a more grand scene, which she had to see as well. As she con­tin­ued to look along, she final­ly under­stood how the Great Wall was built; it was a mas­sive con­struc­tion site.


A: These paint­ings are very good. They are schemat­ic dia­grams of the con­struc­tion and repair of the Great Wall.

Cai: I paint­ed these paint­ings with great care and detail, and I did them at least twice. Doing them twice or more isn’t easy. I’ll show you my first draft lat­er. The paint­ing is much bet­ter now, with a stronger over­all feel and excel­lent tech­ni­cal­ly. These lit­tle fig­ures look amaz­ing after the sec­ond pass! Although small, every detail is clear. The char­coal sell­er is here (to the right of the paint­ing at the foot of the Great Wall). It’s meant to evoke a con­nec­tion. Although this isn’t the char­coal sell­er, it’s the same con­cept. Look, over here are orphans and wid­ows, while over there are the able-bod­ied men. Over here are the home­less, search­ing for their loved ones.

A: The next page shows scenes of con­struc­tion on a con­struc­tion site, show­ing var­i­ous con­struc­tion activ­i­ties. In con­trast, the pre­vi­ous pages are scenes of dai­ly life.

Cai: Yes, both every­day and archi­tec­tur­al scenes are nec­es­sary. I looked up infor­ma­tion on how ancient peo­ple pushed carts. I vis­it­ed con­struc­tion sites, and every­thing else is based on assump­tions. The archi­tec­tur­al aspects are sim­i­lar, and the tech­niques are sim­i­lar.

A: Then the scene of car­ry­ing bricks on the next page seems to have a strong sym­bol­ic col­or.


Cai: It’s sym­bol­ic. The life of an ant, like an ant, car­ries a heavy bur­den. They approach Jiang Nu, and even though they’re face to face, it’s hard to tell who’s who, to iden­ti­fy their hus­band. It’s like Leo’s search for the prince in Swan Lake. The iden­ti­fi­ca­tion in that bal­let is beau­ti­ful, while here it’s tru­ly trag­ic. All of these men could be her hus­band, or none of them. It’s like, “A thou­sand sails have passed, but none of them is the right one.” That’s the feel­ing. I want­ed to paint this: a girl stand­ing here, dressed in rags, rep­re­sent­ing the many Meng Jiang Nus search­ing for their hus­bands, each of these strong men who may or may not be their hus­bands.

A: The black here is very thick and large, almost too large, and has a strong sense of sym­bol­ism.

Cai: The sense of oppres­sion is par­tic­u­lar­ly strong, indeed, quite exces­sive. It’s approach­ing its most trag­ic moment, on the verge of explod­ing. Just look at how heavy it is. I want­ed to empha­size the weight of black here, to empha­size the grow­ing pres­sure on her heart. She feels so hope­less, so hope­less, so near the end, so lost. Then some­one tells her, “Your hus­band is over there, buried some­where.” Only then does she receive the true news.

A: At this time, she has to turn her back to us.

Cai: Yes, we can’t see her face. With­out it, it’s dif­fi­cult to express, so I can only use my body lan­guage. She’s about to fall. She can’t stand up, her legs give out. And so, she kneels down. She has­n’t weak­ened at all along the way, but here, she’s about to fall. Here (turn to the next page), at the foot of the Great Wall, she must fall. She cries, and I can only depict this ges­ture here: the ges­ture of weep­ing. And speak­ing of her cry­ing, I won­der where the pow­er of the Great Wall lies. It’s a com­plete­ly super­nat­ur­al force, a spir­i­tu­al force, I under­stand. Its soul has emerged. Her cry, every brick is moved. A British writer said that beneath every rail­road tie lies the soul of an Irish work­er. In our old spin­ning mill, every spin­dle held the soul of a wronged Chi­nese girl. I paint­ed souls, each brick a ghost of a strong man. This is the Great Wall of flesh and blood. So, her earth-shak­ing cry, like a storm, surges and clouds, arrives just like that.

 
(Turns to the next page) The Great Wall at this point is an image, not a real­is­tic one; it’s a feel­ing. This paint­ing was­n’t easy; I worked on it sev­er­al times. The pre­vi­ous one was also dif­fi­cult; I paint­ed sev­er­al dif­fer­ent cry­ing pos­es. There was only one way, cry­ing with hands raised, the kind of cry­ing that can’t be helped, the tear­ing cry, the cry­ing of kneel­ing, cling­ing to her hus­band’s clothes. And then on the next page, she’s gone. The Great Wall has col­lapsed, a gap has appeared. Need­less to say, this one turned out incred­i­bly well; I could­n’t have imag­ined it would be so. I tried sev­er­al times, and when the mood struck, I felt con­fi­dent. I said, “It’s com­ing, it’s com­ing,” and it just hap­pened. The atmos­phere was won­der­ful, like a land­slide.

A: This should be the cli­max.

Cai: Yes, there are no peo­ple here, only an image, a whole. Meng Jiangnu has also col­lapsed, hav­ing reunit­ed with her hus­band, their two spir­its have merged. But there is also a tail, and it can­not be left out because the sto­ry must con­tin­ue.
   
(Turn to the next page) The Great Wall con­tin­ues to appear, with a solemn sac­ri­fi­cial scene. Meng Jiangnu request­ed a state funer­al for her hus­band, and I thought of a nation­al mourn­ing, with all the world in mourn­ing. The literati, also feel­ing uneasy, want­ed to join the sac­ri­fi­cial cer­e­mo­ny to appease the pub­lic anger. I also felt it was a good idea to add a stroke here. The pow­er had to be low­ered here; Qin Shi­huang and the literati were required to attend, so I drew a cer­e­mo­ni­al pro­ces­sion. I drew Meng Jiangnu in the fore­ground, far ahead, her reck­less defi­ance remind­ing us of her majesty. This flow of thought leads to the final stroke. (Turn to the next page) As she weeps, the real Great Wall, the flesh-and-blood Great Wall, appears, so I drew this stroke. This stroke is essen­tial; it fur­ther clar­i­fies the con­cept of the flesh-and-blood Great Wall.

A: The one below where peo­ple are stand­ing is the real­is­tic Great Wall, and the one above is the Great Wall of the soul.

Cai: The Great Wall of the Chi­nese Spir­it. Sev­er­al fac­tors come into play, and then there’s the wind and clouds, which can be inter­pret­ed as any sud­den, unpre­dictable, and unfore­seen event. So, amidst all this, there’s the final act of utter dis­grace. The com­mon peo­ple saw Meng Jiangnu throw her­self into the riv­er, but I paint­ed it as Meng Jiangnu throw­ing her­self into the sea. My son was­n’t sat­is­fied with this final paint­ing, and I was­n’t sat­is­fied either. So he extend­ed the image to one side, open­ing up the sea and plac­ing the fig­ure in the cen­ter. Then, like before, he placed the fig­ure in the riv­er, open­ing and clos­ing it again, as if giv­ing the sea emo­tion.


A: Maybe the sea also pro­tect­ed her.

Cai: It’s like Jing­wei fill­ing the sea, with that spir­it, and Meng Jiangnu’s hero­ic spir­it, with that sense of dying in glo­ry. So I paint­ed the sea to resem­ble jade, with a sense of beau­ty, not fear. It’s not a black sea.

A: Here, the col­ors become bright again.

Cai: Let’s go back to the paint­ing of cross­ing the riv­er. It’s also green, and it has a jade-like feel. This is my inter­pre­ta­tion of water through­out the entire paint­ing. There’s a con­nec­tion between the two pages. You see, rivers, lakes, and seas, I see them as one thing. Jade, I see it as a kind of mete­orite, and I want to paint it pre­cious­ly and beau­ti­ful­ly. You see, Meng Jiangnu, who jumped into the sea, did­n’t look very trag­ic. I paint­ed her as if she were about to fall asleep, hold­ing her hus­band’s hand.bone chi­na, just jump like that.
   
So, as you said, this book is more like a dra­ma in struc­ture. Unlike “Bao Er,” which is more psy­cho­log­i­cal, with that strong folk, strange, and spooky atmos­phere, that book had to be writ­ten in black through­out, to have a spooky vibe. “Meng Jiang Nu” is dif­fer­ent. It does­n’t have a spooky vibe. It must devel­op nat­u­ral­ly to its cli­max like a nor­mal sto­ry, with the integri­ty of a dra­ma from begin­ning to end.

A: I’d like to ask you a ques­tion. In the penul­ti­mate paint­ing, the one that sum­mons the spir­it, Meng Jiangnu is fac­ing left, toward the “back,” while the pre­ced­ing sto­ry unfolds toward the right. Is there any spe­cial sig­nif­i­cance here?

Cai: This is main­ly about pow­er. The front is always fac­ing right, but here we need to face left, so the pow­er is gath­ered and pre­vent­ed from escap­ing. These souls are gath­ered here, and this curve res­onates with her, con­nect­ing her. From anoth­er angle, she can be seen like this. Because the Great Wall ends here, it ends here.

A: So here we are look­ing back, those souls came from the Great Wall.

Cai: Look at the Great Wall I drew. It swirls around like this, break­ing off like this. If it came from this side, it would­n’t be fin­ished on the oth­er side. But now it feels like it’s advanc­ing, push­ing from left to right.

A: So Qin Shi Huang became very fright­ened and lost his com­po­sure here.

Cai: At this point, he also felt the might of Heav­en and showed his weak­ness before the heav­ens and the earth. The Son of Heav­en, the Son of Heav­en, was also sub­ject to Heav­en’s con­trol. He could not, no mat­ter what, anger Heav­en and Earth. There­fore, in the orig­i­nal sto­ry, his deci­sion to mar­ry Meng Jiangnu was also a sooth­ing act. He mar­ried her, and she found a good home. The orig­i­nal sto­ry goes like this. He said, “How can I blame you? This is my fault.” Meng Jiangnu replied, “How can I blame the Son of Heav­en? Just as war is inevitable, so is build­ing the Great Wall.” She said, “I only regret one thing.” Qin Shi Huang asked her what it was. She replied, “If only I had been born a decade ear­li­er or lat­er. I only blame myself for being born at the wrong time.” So piti­ful! I was deeply moved when I saw this. Many peo­ple tru­ly don’t blame Heav­en or oth­ers. The Chi­nese are known for their loy­al­ty and hon­esty. They sim­ply feel they were born at the wrong time. I don’t blame your pow­er; he did­n’t have that kind of pow­er. He also knew that the Emper­or’s fate was irre­versible. I can only blame myself for not being born a decade ear­li­er or lat­er. See­ing this, I can’t describe the feel­ing in my heart. It’s so heavy! So piti­ful! This is how it was in the surg­ing riv­er of his­to­ry, and it seems to remain so even now. Many intel­lec­tu­als, like Wang Bo, who said, “How could a child know, wit­ness­ing a tri­umphant feast?” They have a kind of awe with­in them, and this also applies to the unknow­able, includ­ing pow­er.
   
This can also be con­sid­ered a kind of insight, a wom­an’s insight. Like Hua Mulan’s, it all clicks here. Why did Hua Mulan join the army? It was because she knew war was inevitable. It was a nat­ur­al and man-made dis­as­ter, and there was no point blam­ing any­one else. Ulti­mate­ly, it was bet­ter to face it her­self. Meng Jiangnu’s response was to search for her hus­band, but when she could­n’t find him, she longed to see him one last time, even to see his remains. This kind of emo­tion requires a final encounter, only then can it be ful­filled. Even this final out­come is a kind of ful­fill­ment, to be with him. This is some­thing that has been passed down since ancient times. I say that the Chi­nese are tru­ly loy­al and hon­est.

A: So from your under­stand­ing, this search for a hus­band is more like a sym­bol.

Cai: Yes, it’s more like a sym­bol. The weight of the sto­ry is too great, and my pen can’t car­ry it. When I’m forced to read these his­tor­i­cal sto­ries, I don’t real­ly judge these two plot lines in any way. The Great Wall was inevitable, Meng Jiangnu was inevitable, its col­lapse was inevitable, its restora­tion was inevitable, and peo­ple’s love for it is inevitable. This sub­ject mat­ter daunts me, and I know that main­tain­ing these two plot lines is a real chal­lenge in terms of form.

…

Argen­tine Primera División (Accord­ing to the record­ing) on May 20, 2016