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( Jan.10.2005 )
This is the faithful record of Bella, the romantic writer, in sina.com
(Abstracts)
Emcee: Hi, fellow net friends and readers! We are honored to have Bella today, to chat with you and answer your questions. Now Bella will say greetings to us all.
Bella: Hi, how are you? Dear readers and net friends. I am happy to come to sina.com in Beijing and I am happier to meet you at the beginning of the New Year.
Emcee: Bella, I know that your coming back to China was concerned with the promotion of your new book. After the publication of “Heart of Broken Season”, there were strong responses from the readers. The book was among the best sellers. Though it is a bit chilly in Beijing, we do believe you feel warm in heart.
Bella: Yes. It is especially at the Christmas time, though it was cold and snowed heavily, I saw so many readers, fans and net friends lining up for the meeting of my signing and selling the books at the first bookstore in Beijing (WangFuJing).I was deeply moved by this.
Emcee: It is strongly in responses at sina.com and many readers followed with comments after the publication of “Heart of Broken Season”. The book won the best popular too. Many readers admitted that this book inherited your romantic style.
Reader: Is there a business promotion involved after the publication of the book with so strong responses from the readers?
Reader: What is the meaning of the book title “Heart of Broken Season”?
Bella: Its publication has no connection with business promotion. We are only doing basic book promotion. The book title “Heart of Broken Season” indicates a beautiful girl's youth degradation and questions closely where is the true love through a fiction story betraying soul and flesh.
Reader: your works characterized with the style of romanticism. Are you for business market?
Bella: As a writer for soul, I think, I never pay attention to or care of the market. I am not a writer of romance; I am a serious, humanistic novelist. Yes, I write for love, desire and ardor as well, but they are full of cultural meanings.
Reader: We know that “The Soul of Shanghai” is about off the print. What is the meaning of it?
Bella: I finished the writing of the book last September. It is the first book of “family love trilogy”. The main theme of the book is to show” material wealth brings quite limited luck; people should seek for spiritual wealth”.
Reader: Are you a strength or idol writer, or both of them?
Bella: I don't want to be the idol of others, nor have much strength. But I shall cultivate insistently in the sacred garden of literature.
Emcee: You are modest, Ms.bella.
Reader: You show us the combination of the multi-cultures. What do you think of the basis of culture? How do you combine cultures together?
Bella: I deeply love the Chinese culture and insist to write in Chinese. I am proud of being a Chinese writer. I lived in Japan for several years while I was young. And I was influenced by the Japanese culture. Then I came to Europe and North America and was influenced by them too. But I am improving myself constantly on the basis of the Chinese culture. I absorb comparatively good cultures of other countries and peoples into my writings such as the educated Japanese women. They are refined and elegant. Unconsciously I got something essential from this kind of value.
Emcee: You combine the splendid points of other countries in culture on the basis of the Chinese culture?
Bella: Yes, the women of the western countries are relatively independent. They have a cold look while walking on the street. I have such a character too.
Reader: What do you think of a beautiful writer? Do you think that you are a beautiful writer?
Bella: A beautiful lady and a writer are quite different conceptions. It is proud to be a beautiful lady or a writer. If both combine to one person, then it is a good luck from the God. But someone think that a beautiful lady couldn’t become a great writer. Such a preconceived idea is unjust. It is not important whether I am called a beautiful writer or not, I write about my soul, dreams and my love, or whatever I love to write.
Reader: I read your “Fair Maiden Faraway” and had a deep impression. Is the sexual love a part of love?
Bella: Yes, I think so, but it is a sexual love strongly shaken by a spirit. The sexual love, I think, is always a wonder inseparable with real love. It comes after the soul or it follows the soul, never apart.
Reader: Is it good help for your literature, by your talent both in playing piano and Painting? I like your piano music.
Bella: Yes, I think that they would be a great help to me. Nurtured by relatively good education of arts given by my parents since my childhood and when I was gradually grown up, especially I had devoted my last three years in full time writings. Sometimes I feel intensely my sentences can find a connection emotionally with playing piano and a painting. Arts connect with each other. It helps a lot in my writing. Sometimes, I feel my sentences flowing like a piece of music which can lead people to some picturesque lands.
Emcee: I have such a feeling in reading your works which are not only the expression of words, sometimes but also are their connections with the themes of music and the feelings of paintings. Therefore, these are very important things.
Reader: You are absolutely the "ambassador of love".
Reader: Do you think that the material conditions are absolutely necessary conditions of love?
Bella: Yes, I think so. If you are unceasingly striving for survival, then it would be difficult for spirit life to get rich because we are now in a business society and many things are based on fundamental material conditions. The problem is that many people have acquired certain material conditions, but they are still striving for more materials. In my understanding, it is meaningless because life is but a span. Especially, I experienced Sept. 11, 2001, killing many outstanding people in the disaster. I feel that life is so weak after my experiencing some natural or man-made calamities. We should cherish the happiness of our lives. I enjoy everyday.
Reader: I would like to ask "Goddess of love" a question:” Is there in the world an unchanged love in life and death?"
Bella: Yes, certainly there is. But it shows broadly in literature. In my private feeling, it may indicate that I love GPO.
Reader: Which your book do you prefer?
Bella: In” 9,11 Trilogy”, I am relatively satisfied with “Sentimental Casablanca”. In the book of “The Soul of Shanghai”, I wrote it with my experience in my whole life and the accumulation of my life for several years because it was the writing of my family and with the review for memory literature. I think that one is the best of all my books.
Reader: You are familiar with Japanese culture. What are geishas?
Bella: The geishas in Japanese culture are something like the mass love. They are entertainers, but not the artists. Although they are not prostitutes, yet they have the background of authoritative men. Therefore, I think, you can't look them as noble ladies, but not look them as low and degrading as the prostitutes. They were born in relatively poor families and uneducated, not studied much. But they learn to sing and dance from their childhood. What is more, they are the Goddess of love among the Japanese men. They preserve the Japanese popular tradition of image.
Emcee: There are much left over words by the net friends on line about love affairs. You, Goddess of love, should answer them one by one.
Reader: If the love and human body can't combine as one, which one is more important?
Bella: I think that love is more important.
Reader: Ambassadress of love taught us to be a little bit of romantic. If love is a phoenix, what is the love like in your mind? A reality can combine with an ideal?
Bella: I think that I am living in the dream of love. To me, love is a phoenix and it will go forever with my soul. Many readers were moved by my article “The Diary to my Spiritual Love GPO”. It was certainly my heart-aspiration. I am pursuing love for all my life.
Reader: What do you think that Taiwan media calls you as a "love" writer?
Bella: I don't mind that I am flattered or criticized by the media. But one thing I should point out that I live for love and the man called GPO. He is the man I cultivated for great love in literature and is a practical earthshaking in my life as well.
Reader: There are a great number of people visiting your website every day. How can you condense so many visitors every day?
Bella: I am the lady who rarely visits the websites. There are so many visitors to my website. I think that they love literature. My personal influence is not so much actually.
Emcee: There are many top Chinese scholars in Worldwide who praises you so much. What do you think?
Bella: I have devoted my whole time in writing for last several years. I am satisfied with their appreciation. I think that they give me a great ideal, a dream of literature. I should follow the road they instruct ahead of me. I was grateful to first-class Professor Wangning who mentioned me in his theses in Chinese and English. I would not disappoint their expectation.
Reader: Do you agree with that sex is a special expression of love? Do you think the existence of love totally separating from sex?
Bella: Sex is an important part of love. In my understanding, sometimes love is totally separated from sex. Many readers read the article interviewed by the media about my story of the hidden love. I bitterly loved him in spirit with no sexual intercourse and even no embracing. I twice met him in a hurry, of which once was in a solemn court. I thought that it was a shock of instantaneity, but I have been continually thinking of him for more than 5 years. I am thinking of him more and deeper in my soul. I tried to stop thinking of him, but I could not. Therefore, I think that love exists spiritually, though it is not the perfect love we expect.
Reader: As an overseas writer, what can this feeling bring you from the intercontinental cultures?
Bella: I think that the intercontinental cultures and the experience of feeling have brought more perfect and more consummate Chinese culture. The Chinese culture dashes in the multi-culture change into a more perfect and gorgeous lustier with a special and long cultural history between the oriental and western cultures. I recalled the national culture far away from the motherland and had a dear feeling in my mind that my wandering in the world was not rootless.
Reader: I have read all your works and also “Heart of Broken Season” as well. After reading your” 9.11 trilogy ” , they showed the classic romantic color. But after reading “Heart of Broken Season” and “The Soul of Shanghai”, I found that you changed a lot in your writing style.
Reader: Are you the representative of neo-romanticism in literature?
Bella: I don't know whether I am the representative or not. I don’t care the nominations by the critics. I have been seeking a way to express myself since the beginning of my writing. After grasping the skill and structure the writer should be facing a kind of boundary, thought and the beautiful experience of art. As a profound writer, it is more important to show his or her own thought and soul. I think that I would have a break through and expect that the next new fiction book would be off the print soon which I hope to satisfy the readers.
Reader: I have read your works and watched the interview with you on TV as well. I was deeply moved by the stories of your works and attracted by your beauty. I think that you are the beautiful leading actress of “9, 11 Celestial Wedding” and "Goddess of love" of the times.
Bella: There are some shadows of mine in my “9.11 trilogy”, but I think that a writer is a writer and writes for her soul. There is no connection with the beauty of a writer. A writer must return to her own heart. Appearance is not the eternal, but the spirit is more important. If I maintain this noble quality in spirit in my writings, I would be more satisfied.
Emcee: Bella, you are lucky enough that your readers can understand you well.
Bella: Yes, they are my big wealth. I can receive at least one to two hundred emails per day from them. I am deeply touched.
Reader: There are a lot of extramarital affairs in a modern society. What do you think of them?
Bella: I think that it is unavoidable in a modern society, but no doubt the strength of love is boundless. Many readers say that my novel “9,11 Wedding ” includes an extramarital affair. Graham had a family at the initial stage. In my understanding, when true love comes, no force can block on the ways, not to mention an extramarital affair. What else can block on the ways between soul and soul dashes? I think that the result of “Bridges of Madison County” is good. We should think of our responsibility in the family except love. I don't think that it is wrong actually when the two love each other and, in a word, they must get together. Love from the beginning to the end is the most noble and live in love is the most moral.
Emcee: I feel that many readers not only look your works as literature works, but also look them as the "Love Bible".
Bella: Yes, certainly they are. I came to Beijing this time when many reporters for Female and fashion magazines were focusing on this theme. Then I found that the theme was good. My fictions wanted to express the view of love. I would find a balance point between human faiths and love because I felt that no matter what times and peoples they might be, only love could make them wild with joy and no change in life and death. Love is certainly my theme of life and the theme of my fictions as well.
Reader: I’ m fond of your works. My girl friend and I look your love books as the Bible. It is too sad in psychology description of the “Sentimental Casablanca” and could not come out of it for a time.
Reader: Bella, I was deeply touched by your words. You are a worthy "Goddess of love".
Reader: Why your fiction books always result in tragedy?
Bella: It is a subconscious thing, not intentionally designed. Tragedy romanticism is very important in my feeling besides the natural instinct. Thus, in a sense, I’ m a tragic romanticist.
Emcee: I have a different feeling in reading other domestic writers' works. It is hard for other domestic writers to possess your romantic character and the artistic quality in your literature. In the combination of multi-cultures, you have taken shape of your outlooks on life and love which have specialty and can't be substituted by others. I hope that you would write more classic works in literature which would be better one after another.
Bella: Thank you.