Guo Yun at his Tokyo
apartment.
In 1914, the poet Guo Moruo (1892-1978) arrived in Japan a
refugee of sorts. Five days after being forced by his parents to
wed a woman whose looks left much to be desired, Guo Moruo, then
just 20 years old, fled his native Sichuan Province.
He eventually made his way to Kyushu University where while
studying medicine and later Spinoza, Goethe and Walt Whitman he
fell in love with a Japanese woman. Together, they would raise five
children, and Guo Moruo would not see his hometown or his parents
for 26 years.
In 1981, nearly 70 years later, Guo Yun, Guo Moruo's
Shanghai-born grandson, would repeat the journey, study at a
Japanese university, and fall in love.
Although in the interview at his Tokyo apartment, Guo Yun
insisted that he did not "come back to Japan" rather he "went to
Japan", the voyage was in many ways as much a homecoming as it was
an arrival in an alien land.
A stranger in mother's land
Guo Yun's longing for home
is most evident in his photography as in the picture taken during
his 1,300-mile journey across northern China.
Guo Yun came to Japan almost by accident. One day, a Japanese
friend of his father's offered Guo Yun an opportunity to attend
university without taking an entrance exam. Not the most stellar
student, Guo Yun jumped at the chance. And besides, Shanghai in the
late 1970s and early 1980s was hardly an ideal place for a young
man with a Japanese background to find his place in the world.
Japan could have been considered home. Guo Yun's mother is,
after all, Japanese and his half Japanese, half Chinese father grew
up in Japan. But Guo Yun was born in Shanghai in 1956, just two
years before the Great Leap Forward, and came of age during the
"cultural revolution" (1966-76) history that has profoundly shaped
modern China. Despite his ancestry and fluent Japanese, he has
never felt completely welcome in Japan.
After spending 25 years working in Tokyo as a photographer for
the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, Guo Yun longs for what he
considers his real home.
"Once you are a part of this culture, although people have
absolutely no ill intentions, you still sense very strongly and
unexpectedly a certain loneliness."
"My parents, even now, still don't speak very good Chinese. In
Shanghai, when I go out with my father, many people won't be able
to understand him. But they won't think he's a foreigner. They'll
think he's from some faraway province," Guo Yun said.
"Japan isn't the same. All you need is a slightly different
accent and they'll say 'A foreigner? You're a foreigner.'"
Feeling different has made Guo's years in Japan lonely ones. Guo
Yun explained that in Japan, to use a Chinese expression, "Talk
between gentleman is as light as water."
"Friendship isn't just about talking to waste time. I challenge
you, you challenge me," he said. "On the whole, Japanese people do
not like to debate with you until everyone's red in the face. That
would be considered almost shameful."
"I have a friend of mine who, like me, is interested in
philosophy. I once discussed the works of Miki Kiyoshi and Hegel.
He is Japanese, I am Chinese. Our countries have a similar history,
but they also have a history rife with conflict. Because of
differences in our points of view, it becomes impossible to
continue the discussion."
So, then, it's easier with Chinese people?
"Of course, it's easier with Chinese people. Japanese people are
always" Guo Yun suddenly stood up from his chair and kotowed
profusely six times in apologetic Japanese "but in Beijing it's
always.." Guo Yun sits down, leans back in chair, brings one hand
to his mouth, as though drinking a beer, uses the other to give a
friendly pat on the back to an imaginary buddy. "So in this
respect, then yes, eating dinner in Shanghai with Chinese friends
is much more relaxed."
What Guo Yun misses most a sense of community he's known only in
Shanghai. He frequently returns to visit his aging parents who live
in an apartment as old as they are and in constant need of
repair.
"Today the water stops running, tomorrow the power goes out, the
day after that it's something else. What do I do if the water isn't
working? I call some friends and they're over in an instant. In
China, everyone needs to care for each other and help each other
out."
Chinese people are also just be more fun. "The Japanese are a
melancholy people. The weather outside can be beautiful, but they
are still in a bad state of mind."
"Aren't you talking about yourself?" said Nana Endo, his wife,
laughing.
"Maybe a little bit!"
Guo's wife is an advertising executive from a similarly
cosmopolitan family. Half Taiwanese, half Japanese, Nana grew up in
Beijing. Her parents met while her father was studying abroad in
Japan.
Nana is a tempering influence on her husband's headstrong
personality, challenging him, coaxing him, and reminding him not to
take himself so seriously.
Nationalisms
At a certain point in our conversation, we got to talking about
history. Like his grandfather, Guo Yun is suspicious of convention
and harbors a feeling of never fully belonging to the world into
which he was born.
I wondered if his background gave him a unique perspective on
China and Japan's sometimes challenging relationship.
A lot of Chinese people, he explained, have negative or
prejudiced opinions of Japan that are based on ignorance, "but I
have been here for 25 years. I understand Japan. But in my 25 years
of living here, my view has not changed. If there is a conflict
between China and Japan, Japan is 100 percent in the wrong."
But of course, it's not really so black and white. Guo Yun, for
all his criticisms of Japan, is never bitter. His words are heavy
with regret and disappointment.
"Maybe my mind is not open enough. When I first came to Japan, I
had absolutely no preconceptions or prejudices. My mother is
Japanese. When I was young, I would look at my mother and think of
my own roots. Sometimes I would even cry by myself, thinking of
it."
"I came to Japan in a very positive state of mind. Now I have
become a little cynical. Everyone needs to have something to
believe in a philosophy."
Photographs that dream of home
Guo Yun's longing for home is nowhere more evident than in his
photography. He finds little to inspire him in Japan, which for him
offers only drab shades of gray. But China? China he sees in
brilliant, living color.
Taken during a 1,300-mile walk across northern China, his
photographs rural landscapes of farmers spread against sprawling
canvases of green rice paddies and amber wheat fields are lyrical
in their simplicity. Arrestingly beautiful, they suggest nostalgia
for a life that for Guo Yun is quickly receding into memory.
The artist had a somewhat different take on his work.
"There was an article in a science magazine about an Orangutan.
This Orangutan was holding a camera and was clicking the shutter. I
thought, Oh wow! Even an Orangutan can take pictures."
I insist his photos are quite amazing.
"Really?" he said coyly, his eyes betraying the fatherly pride
artists feel only toward their favorite work.
Whatever their similarities, Guo Yun has inherited none of Guo
Moruo's wild ambition.
I asked Guo Yun what it was like growing up with a grandfather
who was the first president of the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences, a celebrated poet, an author, a historian and a
playwright
"Back in Shanghai, some people were overly nice to me because of
my grandfather. Others were mean. Perhaps they were jealous. But I
knew that their treatment had nothing to do with me, but with my
grandfather."
"I think if I had stayed in China, I probably would have grown
up arrogant. In Japan, I am just another Chinese man."
Guo will always be, first and foremost, a Chinese man.
"Maybe if I were to relax a little bit, I could also consider
Japan my country. But I am still a Chinese citizen. When it comes
down to it, this still isn't really my country."
At dinner, Guo admonished me not to take anything he said during
the interview too seriously.
"I'm also a little bit, how shall I say it? A little bit..."
"To put it a nice way, you're 'principled'," Nana offered,
laughing. In plain speak?"You're stubborn."
I ask Guo and Nana what language they use to speak to each
other.
"Half the time we speak in Japanese," Yun replied. "The other
half"
Nana interrupted: "We fight in Chinese. We make up in
Japanese."
(China Daily March 1, 2007)
