benlehman

Just got finished watching a very cool movie called "Iron and Silk" about a man who went to China in 1984 to learn martial arts. Want to go... Want to go now...

Apparently other people want me to as well. I found out yesterday that I will most likely be given a very large scholarship (essentially full ride for the semester) to go to China next year, apparently largely on the basis of my class performance. This makes me very very happy, and not just because of the money. It also makes me want to work harder, because I want to live up to my teachers' evaluation.

[damn, my writing sucks tonight. I have no verve... well, it's a long week]

I have been thinking recently, somewhat with regard to this article but also in general, about the nature in which Science Fiction and Fantasy are regarded by our culture. As the author of a allegorical future fantasy (yes, I'm writing it, it's just that my USB keychain disk hasn't arrived so I can't transfer files), it concerns me that the are essentially seen a futurism and retreat, respectively, rather than introspection and literature.

I was talking with one of my teachers today (who apparently writes martial arts novels in her spare time!) about this today. She told me something fascinating: During the cultural revolution, pretty much all fiction was banned in China. However, there were still books that were circulated by hand-copying -- usually under cover of darkness in crowded dormitories. The copyists and readers were facing death in order to read and share these texts, and many of them did die for them.
What were they copying?
Not religious texts. Not literary works. Not philosophy.
Science fiction and romance novels.

The hunger for good narrative is so strong that people will die for it (and kill over it.) And that is what it centered on.

No more really to be said.