重音五问 | Five Questions with Chang Wen

“Five Questions with Friends”是重音社开设的灵魂拷问系列。在这里，我们将邀请我们认识和喜爱的海外亚裔写作者们来分（吐）享（槽）跨语言写作这件事。这个名单越来越长了，滑至文末有往期访谈，也欢迎漏网之鱼在后台与我们取得联系！

——重音社

Interviewee Bio

Chang Wen is a Chinese poet, writer, and filmmaker based in New York, NY. Her work has appeared in With Painted Words, Armarolla, Unprecedented Media, Inwood Art Works among others. You can find her at: changwen.org, vimeo.com/changwen, instagram.com/dionysusisnotdrunk.

Why do you write in English? 

Out of fate: English is the lingua franca now, there’s no way to avoid it starting from an early age in classrooms across the globe.

Out of necessity: America still has the best higher education in the world. If I wanted to study there (no matter which subject), I had to speak the language and speak well.

Out of chance: After I transferred to NYU and started secretly taking courses in literature and philosophy (in addition to my major at the time, Economics), I was lucky enough to be encouraged by professors who thought I could write. 

I didn’t make the decision to be a writer right away. All things impractical for me were forms of escape, searches for meaning, and vain attempts to fight against time. The path less taken was a path for people who haven’t grown up to be responsible adults yet. Or so I thought. 

Fortunately my readings continued to shatter my world views, and I finally realized how meaningless everything was that I once held important. We’re all groundless existence. The only certain thing in life is that we’re all going to die. The sooner I accept that fact the better. 

What did you get from your MFA, anything good, awful, or meaningful? 

Good: I learned how to steal from great writers and artists, and how to dig deeper into myself.

Awful: I enjoyed writing more before than after getting into the MFA program. Maybe because I didn’t manage my time well. Maybe New York City had too many distractions. Maybe MFA is more about networking than I thought. Maybe I catered too much to the expectations of my audience—my classmates and professors—who were predominantly Americans. They are some of the most open-minded people in this country, yet still they have a narrow conception about what you should write as a Chinese writer. That was disheartening. But mostly I blame myself for not being good enough a writer to make substantial changes to that reality. 

Meaningful: Having a supportive and inspirational community of talented artists and writers.

What creative medium do you work in to take a break from your writing? 

I take photos and make short films. There’s something that visual and time-based media can do that writing cannot; I can’t specify what that is, but I find consolation and escape in one form when I’m focusing too much on the other. 

Poets are always failed musicians, so there’s also that. 

Tell us a book/movie/play/artwork… that you recently enjoyed. 

Lately I watched Ali Wong’s Baby Cobra Show for the 10th time (not exaggerating). If I had watched her standup specials sooner, I might have become a comic instead of a poet. She is the most hilarious, brutal, and visceral Asian American feminist on stage, with impeccable delivery on top of her solid writing.

Li Yiyun’s memoir Dear Friend, From My Life I Write To You in Your Life made me feel less alone, although it’s by no means a soothing book. Underneath her beautiful poetic prose and fatalistic stoicism lies a calm yet sharp observation of human psyche. 

Those two made me cry and laugh a lot throughout the day like a schizophrenic person. 

Tell us some gossip about your writing community. 

“Hybrid” is a muddy and overused word. 

“Experimental” means either boring or abstract. 

If you don’t know how to comment on a piece, you can use either “poignant,” “visceral,” or “moving.” 

(Chang Wen's film portfolio)

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