杂志汇人民画报（英文版）

The 2015 Huilin Culture Award, co-sponsored by the Huilin Culture Foundation of Beijing Normal University and the Academy for International Communication of Chinese Culture, was granted to Torbjorn Loden, a Swedish sinologist from Stockholm University, and Chinese artist Han Meilin. Although Loden addressed the awards ceremony in Chinese, he worried whether the audience could understand his strange accent.

Loden’s Chinese is actually excellent. A Beijing taxi driver once thought he was an odd-looking Chinese native.

Loden is representative of third-generation sinologists from Sweden. In 1968, he began to learn Chinese in Stockholm. During that era, he watched a television interview of eminent Swedish sinologist Klas Bernhard Johannes Karlgren (1889-1978), which kindled his interest in China. In the early 20th Century, when Karlgren began to study sinology, China and Sweden didn’t interact much. Today, however, hundreds of people travel between the two countries daily. “To learn about China, the most urgent and important thing is to understand contemporary China,” stresses Loden.

Loden served as a cultural attaché in the Swedish Embassy in China from 1973 to 1976, but it wasn’t his first visit to the Chinese mainland. In 1971, he took a train from Guangzhou to Beijing and read Quotations from Mao Zedong alongside other passengers on the train. When he walked around Beijing, a passerby pointed at him with curious eyes and exclaimed, “Look at that Albanian!” People assumed anyone of European descent in China was Albanian because Albania was the only European country to maintain a good relationship with China at that time.

In 1982, Loden came to China again. He noticed that a television news program broadcast an awards ceremony for wanyuanhu (households with annual income of 10,000 yuan), from which he sensed the wishes of the country and its people for change and reform – the Chinese government was making a wide variety of efforts to boost economic development, and human individuality started getting much more attention.

“We try to understand Chinese culture but never obtain a full, complete understanding of it,” opines Loden. “Nevertheless, we should understand it as much as we can. We can get closer and closer to the goal, but at the same time, we should never forget that it is impossible for us to reach the ultimate, absolute truth. If we think we can present an accurate definition to Chinese culture, it will easily become rigid. We shouldn’t consider Chinese culture something from the past, but as a constantly evolving entity.”

The revival of traditional Chinese culture has been a popular trend as of late. As a sinologist, Loden worries that overemphasizing the singularity of Chinese culture will cause antagonism between Chinese and Western cultures. He prefers to pay attention to commonalities shared by traditional Chinese and Western cultures. He believes that the diversity within a single traditional culture might be greater than the difference between any two different cultures.

Has the number of people studying Chinese or sinology at Stockholm University in　creased lately?

Loden: I have to say I’m disappointed in this regard. Despite the fact that the number of Swedish learners of the Chinese language has seen explosive growth, the study of sinology hasn’t developed well. We could attribute this to many things, including the fact that understanding basic concepts of sinology can be difficult.

What are the difficulties?

Loden: Initially, China was worlds away from the lives of Westerners. All studies of China were included in sinology. If one expressed interest in Chinese literature, he was sent to the sinology department, as were those interested in Chinese art and aesthetics. The problem is that the sinology department has limited capacity. A Chinese literature lover should study in the literature department, and learners of Chinese history should belong to the history department. In today’s Swedish universities, however, those departments provide no courses on China studies.

You’re particularly interested in Confucianism.

Loden: When I first began studying China, I was impressed by the May 4th Movement of 1919 and admired those who advocated China’s New Culture Movement such as Hu Shi and Chen Duxiu. But now, I realize that their complete repudiation of Confucianism seems outrageous. What should be criticized is Confucianism as interpreted by feudal rulers. Confucianism has rich tradition, which should not be totally denied.

In my opinion, it is good for China to revive its cultural traditions, but I’m afraid that this would reach the other extreme because some Chinese scholars are overemphasizing the singularity of China.

What role should intellectuals play? Should they be critics?

Loden: Looking back upon the history of world literature, you will see that most influential literary works are intimately linked to reality and sated with criticism. A Chinese writer once told me that he didn’t endeavor to write anything meaningful. What I believe the writer meant is that he didn’t want to push political views through literature. In my opinion, the main function of literature isn’t publicity, and art and publicity should be kept separate, but it’s not wrong for literature to depict various political perspectives.

You authored a book titled From Mao to the God of Wealth, which was only published in Swedish. What is it about?

Loden: The book primarily shows how in the era of Mao Zedong, China was an ideologically united country. Significant changes happened in the era of Deng Xiaoping, who believed that if a country’s government controlled everything, its economy wouldn’t thrive. Thus, the fields under government control are becoming fewer and fewer in China. I believe that market economics and the policy of reform and opening-up have brought many positive changes to today’s China although they have also generated some problems, notably income inequality.