Mining Life's Minutiae--Cheng Hwa-jiuan Digsinto Life Abroad

As part of its effort to promote Cheng Hwa-jiuan's Love's Little Movements, Cheng's publisher printed 10 prefaces selected from reader submissions to Cheng's blog.

The writer of the first is a university sophomore who uses the handle ansteytuch and has been reading Cheng's books since the sixth grade. Ansteytuch doesn't regard Cheng as a famous songwriter, but as an author who "sees the world as an uproarious comedy." The writer of the tenth, who goes by the name of mimi, recalls becoming addicted to Cheng's work because it contained "no overarching message, only moving stories."

Using the Internet

Cheng possesses her own unique charm as both a songwriter and a bestselling author.

"In my decade-plus in the publishing world, I've never run across another author who was less pretentious or who took greater pleasure in communicating with her readers," says Shen Huiting, editor-in-chief of Eurasian Publishing. Shen says that, setting aside her books themselves, the most unique thing about Cheng relative to other authors is that she interacts directly with fans in Taiwan and mainland China via several blogs.

Though Cheng resides in Germany, this self-professed "full-time housewife" often "takes holidays" from her husband's family to host meetups for her fans in Taiwan and mainland China. Sometimes, demand runs so high she has to add "extra shows" on the spot.

Not surprisingly, Cheng is a little flat when the transoceanic dawn interview turns to the subject of her new book. She describes herself as spontaneous and easygoing, and says that she doesn't have a lot of thoughts to offer about her 20th book. She adds, "My publisher was very parental about it. It was like they sat me down to do my homework, and I wrote it."

But when the topic turns to meetups with her online fan community, she waxes enthusiastic and rattles on about what makes them great. She recalls that when she lamented on her blog that she hadn't had a chance to visit Taipei 101, her readers designated 101 the site of their meetup. Forty-some people at the food court for a group meal made for a boisterous gathering. There's an even bigger gathering planned for this fall, when Cheng will travel to Beijing to take part in an meetup involving more than 1,000 people.

Cheng runs online communities focused on both her musical and literary work. Even so, the meetups aren't simply gatherings of fans of her books and music; they are also an opportunity to offer participants a different perspective on life.

Cheng runs websites in mainland China and Taiwan for fans of both her music and her books. Her affinity for her fans is plain when she participates in meetups, where she is given to playing music, singing, and taking pictures as the mood strikes her.

Spreading love

Take a recent meetup in Nanjing, for example. The city is home to 41 colleges and universities, and some 500,000 students. "There are plenty of university professors in our online community, but even among readers in this university town the general feeling was that life is too dull." Cheng therefore posted messages online aimed at helping these readers clarify their problems and find ways to make their lives more interesting.

Seeking to emulate a Taipei meetup, her Nanjing readers invited both Cheng and her good friend, singer Wan Fang, to attend, but lacked the money to arrange it. In an effort to help organizers out, Cheng self-produced a new EP entitled Thirty-Something, and let her Nanjing readers distribute it. She hoped that by getting her readers directly involved in selling the EP, they would be able to generate some of the funding they needed while also coming to understand the importance of intellectual property rights, something too often lacking in piracy-ridden mainland China.

In an unexpected turn of events, the Nanjing community ended up donating the excess funds it raised through sales of the EP to a Nanjing-area foundation that supports the education of children in rural villages. Organizers also made a DVD about the meetup itself aimed at sharing the fun with those who couldn't make it there in person. Thus, a simple meetup sparked an outbreak of people caring for one another, and in so doing perfectly mirrored Cheng's own warm and generous personality.

 

In the backpacking vanguard

Cheng made her debut on the pop music scene in 1983, taking part in the folk-song category of the Golden Melody Awards while still a student in the music department at Taipei's Hwa Kang Arts School. She released several albums over the course of her musical career, including Cheng Hwa-jiuan I, Flying Solo to the Ends of the Earth, and Mementos of the Journey and the Years. In 1986, Cheng worked on the Happy Paradise memorial album project, which commemorated the Taipei Zoo's move from Yuanshan to Muzha, becoming the first Taiwanese artist to "depict the city's memories in pop music." It was an important work, one that people still talk about today.

Songs penned by Cheng have also been a great favorite of musicians changing styles. Her "California Sunlight" enabled Stella Chang to move into songs that offer consolation to the heartsick; Michelle Pan used "Love's Path" to introduce Taiwanese-language songs to the Mandarin pop scene; Lin Huiping used "Something's Going On" and "New Love" to transform her image from that of a child star to that of a mature woman; Matilda Tao used "So Misused" to transition to the "woman hungry for affection" genre of pop; and Terry Lin borrowed "Mona Lisa" to start a solo career after making his name with the duo Ukulele.

Cheng's tunes are representative of the 1980s and 1990s heyday of Taiwan's pop-music scene. But while she was busy recording hits, Cheng came to the conclusion that she wanted to make travel the focus of her life and work.

Self-directed tours first became popular with Taiwanese travelers in the early 1980s. Though the world didn't seem quite so far away as it had when San Mao was writing about the Sahara Desert in the 1970s, information was hard to come by in this pre-Internet era. It was still a courageous thing for a young woman to teach herself English and German, pick up a backpack, and set out to see the world on her own.

Cheng embarked on a six-month trip to Europe in 1987, posting dispatches about it for the Minsheng Daily that were later collected into a book entitled Flying Solo to the Ends of the Earth. The trip also featured an afternoon tea with her future mother-in-law, a meeting that led to Cheng, much to her own surprise, becoming the wife of a German man several years later.

Following Cheng's 1993 nuptials, her creative endeavors become less focused on music and more on writing. Five years into her marriage, she published her first book, Heidelberg Kiss, a chronicle of the minutiae of her married life in a foreign land that surprised readers with its crisp prose. The book went on to sell in excess of 70,000 copies, and, in 2003, won the Mark Twain Travel Journalism Award. Unfortunately, Taiwan's literary community chose to regard the book as just another vanity project, and lumped Cheng in with other performers-turned-writers like Annie Yi and Rene Liu.

 

A Taiwanese Banana Yoshimoto

Certainly, with her gentle, ditzy, funny, and kawaii prose, Cheng shows no sign of pretensions to produce refined literature. But she is prolific in a way that most stars-typically "one-book wonders"-can never hope to be.

Cheng's work draws obvious comparisons. Some in the pop music world have referred to her as "the Cheer Chen of an earlier generation" because both have sweet voices and both came to understand love through travel.

Those in the literary world are more prone to see her as a latter-day San Mao. Both opened the eyes of Taiwanese readers to travel, lived for years in Europe, and married Europeans. Both also produced addictive works heavily flavored with their own personalities. But Cheng and San Mao differ in significant ways. Where San Mao was a sensitive, melancholic figure, Cheng has a sunny personality that constantly shines through in her comic take on life and her refusal to fret unnecessarily.

Cheng's approach to writing makes her something of a Taiwanese Banana Yoshimoto. In spite of winning awards and accolades for their early work, both have sought to simplify and streamline their prose. Because they believe that their words have the capacity to heal readers, both feel that it is more important to make their work accessible than to see how "literary" they can be.

The fact that such comparisons can be made is suggestive of Cheng's multifaceted character and of the richness of her work. Interestingly, Cheng had no background in literature; it's her musical training that most strongly influences her writing.

A cello player since childhood, Cheng studied the instrument with Ma Xiaojun (Yo-Yo Ma's father) at Hwa Kang and has been heavily influenced by German classical music, especially that of Schubert. Cheng says that she "writes songs that resemble classical pieces, with a heavy emphasis on meter; and writes books like operas, with a focus on scenes."

Every time she finishes writing a song, she immediately records it and gives it a listen. If she finds the lyrics awkward or difficult to understand, she revises them. Pop songs rely on simple language to remain accessible, but still need to be catchy.

"Men's Talk," which she wrote for Stella Chang, is a case in point. In it, a woman wonders why her lover doesn't confide in her. "You and I are like the earth and sky; you're the clouds flying on the wind, while my tears flow like a river." There's a poignancy to this woman's unbridled desire for a man with whom she wants to share everything.

The Secret of Red 12 is Cheng's only novel to date.

Thorough planning

Cheng argues that her lyrics and her books are completely different. The former are tailored to the singer, while the latter consist of stories drawn from her own experience.

Cheng has put out a book or two per year since publishing Heidelberg Kiss. Her early work chronicled her life in Germany, but over the years her subjects have grown to include themed travel, educational travel, and online learning.

Professional planners working for her publisher play an important role in the production of Cheng's books. Each seemingly loose collection of essays was thoroughly hashed out between author and editor, and has a very clear topic.

Close reading of Cheng's 20 books reveals just a few recurring characters, including the author herself, her German husband, her in-laws, her relatives and her neighbors. Limited in their scope, her 20 books read a bit like a serialized comic, yet are always fresh and interesting.

Heidelberg Kiss and Love Is on the Road deal with the period shortly after her arrival in Germany, when she was still integrating into German culture and working out how to get along with her in-laws. She portrays herself as a comical figure who "is at home while traveling, and still traveling when at home," cuts her thumb on a bread slicer, smashes her toe against the bed, falls flat on her back at a crowded train station, scares the life out of the citizenry when she hurtles down a hill on cycling day, and even floods the kitchen while hanging a message board (by drilling into a water pipe). Her depictions of her husband as a warm person and conscientious planner, and her parents-in-law as tolerant, humorous, and wise elders stand in sharp contrast to her portrait of herself.

In An Agreement under the Southern Cross, Cheng documents her trip to South America with her husband. As a consequence of her husband's suggestion that they write postcards to one another while traveling but refrain from showing them to each other until the trip was done, the entire story revolves around their love for one another.

Milan with a Basket tells of the period Cheng spent in Milan studying in a design school. Soap College depicts a homemaker's efforts to take business classes from an American online university. Mayflower Monastery documents her impetuous purchase of an old monastery, including the entire renovation and move-in process. Throughout all of her books, her vivid descriptions of Germany's bureaucracy bring a smile to readers' faces.

Befriending readers

Cheng's life is filled with innumerable moments of joy. Though she's also written a novel-The Secret of Red 12-essays remain her forte. Her work has maintained the tradition of the "boudoir essay," a form popular among Taiwan's women writers since World War II. Such essays focus on the writer's personal life and everyday events, sticking to a very literal perspective and eschewing deep reflection, strong criticism, and broad-ranging philosophies.

Like a long-winded neighbor sharing the details of her life, Cheng is keenly aware of her role as a storyteller and lets readers know early on in each of her books that they are her audience. At the outset of Heidelberg Kiss, for example, she writes, "Have you been to Germany? Most tour groups make Heidelberg their first stop."

Cheng's use of her life abroad as her subject matter makes it hard to avoid comparisons to San Mao. Critics often used to accuse San Mao of "trafficking in exoticism," and San Mao herself said she wasn't the kind of person who was seeking the profound. Consequently, both author and reader found it easy to sidestep the exacting demands of "high literature." Back when Taiwanese rarely traveled abroad, San Mao's narcissistic writing offered readers the air of personal mystery for which they yearned.

In contrast, by the time Cheng's work hit its stride, Taiwanese had become inveterate travelers and the Internet had brought the whole world within reach. Why then do readers buy her books? Wherein lies the unique charm of her work?

Simply put, it has courage and humor.

Cheng calls herself a "goofy wife" without the least bit of self-mockery. She revels in her identity, treats both time and space as boundless personal amusement parks, and shares each of her discoveries with her readers. Whether discussing a homemaker's perspective on major global issues or how to make jam, Cheng's prose is always enthusiastic, lively and vivid.

 

The laws of attraction

"Life is a journey," says Cheng, "and I love to chat when I'm traveling. If I hear an interesting story, I can't help but share it." Cheng argues that travel involves a process of traversing your own inner terrain. She notes that travelers on the road have to directly confront their own weakness, laziness, and discouragement, but in the process discover what the Bible calls "God's wisdom." Each of us can, while on our own unique journeys, uncover our potential, our willpower, and our courage.

Some may wonder why Cheng's take on the world is always so positive, why she herself is invariably happy and easygoing, never forgetting to be grateful to others or to recognize her own good fortune.

"From the moment I began traveling as a kid, I was aware that other people suffered a lot and that there was nothing we could do about it," she says. "What's the solution? Be positive!"

Perhaps, as Shen Huiting has said, Cheng understands the "laws of attraction." By being upbeat and using positive energy to change her surroundings, she makes positive things happen around her. But it is likely Cheng's good intentions and her straightforward approach to getting along with people that most stir us.

 

 

 

Cheng runs websites in mainland China and Taiwan for fans of both her music and her books. Her affinity for her fans is plain when she participates in meetups, where she is given to playing music, singing, and taking pictures as the mood strikes her.

Cheng Hwa-jiuan successfully transitioned from being a pop star and songwriter to writing light literature. Her work's charm stems in large part from the upbeat way in which she juggles her life and work, and through that both motivates her readers and sparks their imaginations.

Cheng believes that creative work follows the same kind of seasonal cycle as life itself-there's life, work, study, and travel. When you can take to the road, life never gets old!

Cheng is a prolific writer who has lived in Germany with her husband for the past 16 years. Her most recent book, Love's Little Movements, is her 20th.