Honoris Causa

In Du bon usage de la Francophonie, Beninese scholar Guy Ossito Midiohouan tells us he habitually corrects people when they refer him as a Professor of French. Professor of literature, he insists. I understand his plight, as in my case, I was often asked, if not challenged, by people in Hong Kong why I would go to the United States, but not France, for my doctoral studies in French. I did try very hard to explain at first, but after a while I simple gave up. I smiled, and replied curtly, “I don’t know either.” Otherwise, I would have let out my frustration in a far from polite response, “my good lord! How stupid are you? I am working toward a Ph.D., studying Freud, Lacan, Derrida, Bersani, Debord, Said, Deleuze, and Jameson, in a community of scholars and some kick-ass libraries. Do you think I am going to spend most of my time everyday conjugating verbs and learn to say comment allez-vous?” I am glad that I usually do not take myself too seriously: a healthy academic career is peppered with moments of humility and self-doubt.

It all started in front of a television set. Students, civilians, tanks, rifles. It would be obscene if I attempt to describe the personal and collective feelings at that time in the Crown colony. Little did I know that it was this particular–or, if I may add, rather benevolent and successful–brand of colonialism, which I later was taught to generalize, criticize, and detest, insulated my family from the very real or imagined violence taking place across the border. Rey Chow, a cultural critic whom I much admire, says it best, “coloniality in Hong Kong is therefore not simply the condition of deprived enlightenment that critics of colonialism usually make it; rather it is something that the colonized actively use as a way of life–it is a form of violence, yes, but a form of violence that is lived as an alternative to greater violence elsewhere.” A general strike following the Massacre on Tiananmen Square was mysteriously and inexplicably called off by Szeto Wah, the sneaky leader of the Hong Kong resistance movement. Even mourning in public is such a threat to a totalitarian regime that the powerbrokers used all the backchannels to scare the peaceful Hong Kong citizens off the streets.

My buddy Jeff’s very wise parents had long planned immigrating to Canada, and made Jeff take beginning French classes at Alliance française about a year before Tiananmen. He told me French was “fun” with a “ç” and his instructor was a foxy young lady who spoke horrible English. For whatever reason, I agreed with him that the curious cedille was fun and me too I would like a foxy lady to teach me French. It was true because a “ç” is supposed to be pronounced as an “s,” but my class was not taught by a foxy lady. The massacre in Peking precipitated his family’s immigration, and I think he left Hong Kong for Toronto a year later. I kept on taking French classes for a good part of my adult life, culminating in a Ph.D. in French. The week of June 4th, 1989, I learned this word: la grève générale. General strike; class canceled.

Fast forward about a month to July 14th, 1989, Paris Time. Across time and space I was watching the Bicentennial Celebration Parade with awe. I was not inspired by the complex meaning of the taking of the Bastille, or the two hundred years of tumultuous history that followed. Rather, the high style and the clever, tasteful play of symbolism moved and captivated me. (I did not, obviously, know Roland Barthes then.) China would never be anywhere close to this, esthetically. It was simply beautiful, even if a bit pompous as well. Now, in retrospect, I think I was quite succinct in my observation despite my young age, as China and Chinese enrich themselves in materials terms over the years, they lack beauty in their lives. There is no beauty in a life characterized by fear, and no beauty when common good and justice can only exist an some vague promises. The parade’s theme was a simple one: the ideals of French Revolution were so popular that you could find resonance in every corner of the Earth. The unofficial Chinese delegation (as I was not able to conceive of an official one sent immediately after the repression) centered on a gigantic drum, on which Liberté, Egalité, and Fraternité (as 自由，平等，博愛 in Chinese calligraphy) were written. It was flanked by hundreds of Chinese students (some wearing head bands displaying various slogans such as “People will prevail,” “Long live the People,” or “Freedom”) walking their bicycles. Besides the percussion in the background and the bicycle bells rung by the students, the procession was largely silent. The image of Chinese students marching down Avenue des Champs Elysées, one month after many of them perished in Peking, made me realized that there will be little hope that freedom and good governance will ever take root in China, at least for a long time to come.

Jessye Norman, draped in blue, white, and red, appeared at la Place de la Concorde, began her rendition of the sixth verse of La Marseillaise. Liberté, liberté, chérie! She sang, before going back to the more familiar, yet less profound, first verse and chorus. She floated slowly toward the crowd, and at that time, I not only thought that she was French, I also thought that she was FRANCE. Her voice, her aura, and after all, the beauty of the moment, exemplified, or even embodied, this idea of France.

Many years later, on June 17th, 2011 in Evanston, Illinois, Jessye Norman received her honorary doctor of arts degree from Northwestern University. As she was walking down the aisle, and I was sitting a few feet from her, I called out to her, and said “we love you.” She turned back and said “Thank you” to me. The news media have of course focused on Northwestern alumnus Stephen Colbert, who, at the peak of his career (so far), delivered a funny, acute, thoughtful, and well-researched speech for this year’s graduates. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it was a high point of my days at Northwestern, if not my life. Yet, it was Jessye Norman who allowed me to reflect on all these years I spent chasing an idea. An idea that I will somehow approach that beauty I saw earlier, or at least, it will prevent me from being trapped a life in which beauty is impossible or hard to find. It turns out that I did approach beauty! It was not some lofty ideals, great thoughts, or epiphanies. Quite unexpectedly, beauty demetaphorized into a literal, concrete instance: it was right there, when I decided to give her a shout. All those pointless and clueless days at Northwestern, where I did not have the slightest idea on how to write a dissertation, led me to this morning. Everything appeared to make sense from that moment on. It echoes, of course, Sartre’s existentialist philosophy, as in his view the meaning of life is supposed to be found retroactively, by connecting the dots, or in his words, privileged moments, to form a meaningful narrative. Jeff, along with his wife Alice, came from Toronto to visit me in March to congratulate me on my degree. Honestly, I was still unsure at that point with regard to that degree’s meaning in the span of my life. It is a good thing to have, and should I quit, I should have quit three or four years ago, so I should just finish the work and earn one eventually. That’s the best justification I could give myself and it hardly deserves any congratulations. Now, I understood. I had done all this to seek that beauty, so as to experience it first hand. I have craved for something beautiful since that evening in 1989 when I needed it most.