With a free mind, the pioneer of modernist Chinese literature in the region continues to reinvent himself in in nite ways – even at the grand age of 74. Written by Koh Yuen Lin
He is renowned for his large-scale pieces – including Portrait of Bada Shanren that fetched S$4.4m in 2014, the record auction price for works by a living Southeast Asian artist. The multidisciplinary artist also expresses himself through myriad mediums, and his pieces – spanning Chinese ink to sculpture – can be found in numerous public spaces around Singapore. For his contributions to the visual arts scene, he was awarded the Cultural Medallion in 19871, and conferred the Meritorious Service Medal by the President of Singapore in 2003.
In her doctorate thesis on the modernist literary movement in
Yet before Tan Swie Hian was a painter, he was a writer. An author of more than 50 published titles in poetry, ction, assays and criticisms, he is also a proli c translator who has interpreted numerous literary works by the likes of French poets Henri Michaux, Romanian literary gure Marin Sorescu, and English writer Aldous Huxley into Chinese. In 1978, he was conferred the Chavalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and presented the Marin Sorescu International Poetry Prize in 1998.
Malaysia-born, Taiwan-based scholar Tee Kim Tong (张锦忠)
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Born in Indonesia in 1943, Tan came to Singapore in 1946 to study at The Chinese High School. There, his English teacher Chen Shaoyi and Chinese teacher Wang Zhen Nan recognised his talent for writing and instilled in him the love of language. He went on to study English literature at Nanyang University. And though the writings of Romantics such as Keats, Shelly and Byron were the subject of his study, the holder of a Bachelor of Arts in Modern Languages and Literature writes in a style distinctly di erent from that of the classical authors.
His rst published book – a collection of 38 modernist Chinese poems titled The Giant, released in 1968 – marked a rst in the Singapore and Malaysia’s Chinese literary scene. To this day, this ground-breaking volume is widely regarded as the culmination of the Chinese modernist literary movement in Singapore and Malaysia. Yet Tan has been quietly beating a path for modernist writers even before then.
Singapore (《新加坡华⽂现代主义⽂学运动研究》), Dr. Phoon Kwee Hian named Tan as the most important writer of the movement, citing his proli c contribution of poems, short stories and translated works published in various newspapers and publications within the region prior to the release of The Giant. Multiple Malaysian and Singaporean contemporary writers – including Singaporean poet and writer Yang Xuan (杨 萱，aka莫邪), Singaporean poet Pan Cheng Lui (潘正镭), and prominent Malaysian poet Mei Shuzhen (梅淑贞) – testify to Tan’s in uence on their personal writing style and to the literary scene.
Phoon – who gained comprehensive appreciation of Tan’s writing style through editing and publishing a nine-volume compilation of his selected works (《陈瑞献选集》) in 2006 – shares her observation of Tan’s evolution as a writer. “The works from his youth – be it poetry or ction, are expressionist, experimental and avant garde – are a departure from realism, which was de riguer during the time. Yet if you assess his work through modern day lenses, the literary pieces of his youth are high quality creations that stand the test of time, both in terms of writing technique and content,” analyses Phoon. “This shows his true capacity as a literary genius who, even in his youth, is able to pen pieces of timelessness and universal value.”
A Universal Appeal This universal value means that Tan’s work touches far beyond the Chinese-reading audience. Roland Drivon, who was director of the Alliance Française when Tan was Press Attaché at the French Embassy, is a long time collaborator with Tan. “I particular enjoy his fables, translated by Elisabeth Prasetyo. I nd them reminiscent of Japanese haikus and the works of French fabulist Jean de La Fontaine,” shares Drivon of Tan, who was presented the 2003 World Economic Forum Crystal Award for his artistic achievements and contributions to cross-cultural understanding. “There in lies Swie Hian’s genius: he is able to
A Pioneer in Modernist Chinese Literature
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Dr Tan Swie Hian: In nity In Between Lines
make the link between East and West. His thinking and his teachings are universal. Even those who have very little knowledge of Buddhist culture can understand and appreciate his works. It might very well be that they misunderstand the original message, but it doesn’t matter: once published, the masterpiece belongs to the reader or the viewer. This is why Swie Hian is one of the great thinkers of our time: like Molière or Shakespeare, his works are at once unique, speci c, engraved in a precise culture and way of thinking, yet universal.”
In his paper《⽆碍之蜂雀⾃由地竞⻜—论陈瑞献⽂学世界中的三 种空间》 , Chinese scholar and lecturer Zhang Zhi Qiang (张志 强) dissects Tan’s literary work to identify three literary spaces: a dark, corrupted world; an invigorating intellectual world, and a paradise of freedom. He cites Tan’s 1966 work of ction Christmas Eve (《平安夜》), which depicts the brutality of life in society’s underbelly as an example of the chaotic real world situation depicted in Tan’s writing. Citing poems such as Kua Fu (《夸⽗》), Ode to Gandhi（《⽢地颂》）, Kublai Khan (《忽必烈 汗》) and the iconic series of The Giant (《巨⼈》) poems, Zhang also highlights Tan’s frequent use of the hero gure – one who rises above the dark lures of the world. Zhang then points out that the freedom of an enlightened mind comes through in Tan’s work after the mid 1970s. Zhang’s observations coincides with Tan’s personal life events: a turbulent childhood away from his family; a youth who learned to survive the gang-mired backstreets of Geylang where he lives; a devout Buddhist who – by his own account – experienced spiritual enlightenment at the age of 30.
Tan dissects the themes of his work more simply: “What I write comes from an inner and outer realism – the outside world, and my internal world which is joyous and free from any limitations. Literature should address the big picture: Life. Death. Humanity. Only then will it have value. It is not about the use of clever words, or depicting beautiful imagery. It is about depth”
Tan’s spiritual growth inspired him to expand his means of expression beyond the written word. In an interview for Singapore Magazine published by Singapore International Foundation, Tan says: “My literary works were deeply rooted in reality. Negative reality in terms of human su erings. After my watershed year in 1973, my art became the art of happiness”. In a 2015 interview with The Peak magazine, he shares: “Literature is my craft, but religion is my life.”
Though Tan maintains that he ceased to write deliberately as an “author” after 1973, the polyglot – who is uent in Malay, Chinese, French and English – continues to express with words. These range from his personal diaries, aphorisms that reveal themselves to him, and the numerous original calligraphy works that he pens on invitation. Examples of the latter include the 1996 prologue he composed at the invitation of Fine Art Museum of Research Institute of Traditional Chinese Painting, Guangdong Institute of Art and Hubei Provincial Academy of Fine Arts (中国 画研究院、⼴东画院、湖北省美术院), now etched in stone at the
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Three Gorges along the Yangtze River; and a calligraphy piece celebrating the birthday of the legendary Yellow Emperor, written in 2000 and inscribed on a boulder at the Imperial Mausoleum at Shanxi. His calligraphy work can also be seen as an amalgamation of his visual and literary expressions.
Wisdom in Brevity “Spirituality is the core of my work, and the more I write, the simpler it becomes,” says Tan, who shares that he is now studying Sanskrit and has developed a preference for writing in classical Chinese (⽂⾔) for its succinct quality. Phoon comments: “His writings are an expression of his life stages, and the aphorisms he has written in recent years express even deeper wisdom. Calling him a modernist writer is simply a means of categorisation. His earliest motivation was only to seek reinvention, creativity that wasn’t constrained by framework or conventions. This ability to reinvent has since been internalised, and is augmented by his spiritual enlightenment and sparks of wisdom. His work is one of a kind, and does not follow any stylistic conventions, yet it embodies the essence of each di erent style harmoniously and naturally. His work exudes an e ortless quality. ”
Yet even the shortest lines by Tan are the result of multiple revisions. Tan is his strictest editor. “You have to pass your own benchmark. You have to rst move yourself. Whatever I publish is the best of whichever stage I am in. And I am blessed to continue improving on my craft.”
1《⽆碍之蜂雀⾃由地竞⻜—论陈瑞献⽂学世界中的三种空间》
Retrieved
from https://wenku.baidu.com/view/acc1ede18762caaedd33d4b4? fr=prin
2 “More
Than a Stroke of Genius” by Donna Cheng. Retrieved from http://singaporemagazine.sif.org.sg/more-than-a-stroke-of-genius
“A Multifaceted Man” by Koh Yuen Lin. Retrieved from http:// thepeakmagazine.com.sg/interviews/tan-swie-hian-a-multifaceted-man/