Consider This from NPR - Ai Weiwei On His Father's Exile — And Hopes For His Own Son

Episode Date: December 30, 2021

In 2011, influential Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei was secretly detained by Chinese authorities. While in detention, he thought often about his father – who had also been punished by the Chinese government – and how incomplete his understanding of his father was.Ai spoke to Ailsa Chang about his new book, which explores his time in detention, his relationship with his father, and his attempt to avoid a similar disconnect with his own son. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Ai Weiwei still remembers when he was just a young boy living with his father underground. You live in a very, very simple and primitive way. Of course, there's no electricity. You have to carry the water from far away. The water wells, only one in this whole village. It was a village that they didn't live in by choice, part of a labor camp in northwest China where Ai's family and others lived underground. It was a village that they didn't live in by choice, part of a labor camp in northwest China where Ai's family and others lived underground due to the extreme high and low temperatures in that region's Gobi Desert.

They had been exiled there as punishment for Ai Weiwei's father, Ai Qing. He was a famous poet, branded as a so-called rightist during the Cultural Revolution under Mao Zedong, their exile began in 1958. Ai Weiwei was just a year old. My father said Ai Qing never changed a bit because he's a very innocent man. He always makes mistakes, big mistakes. That means he never really let the government touch or twist his way of behaving. He says his father didn't let the government change who he was. Then, after Mao's death in 1976, Ai Qing and his family were allowed to return from exile. At 19 years old, Ai Weiwei enrolled in the Beijing Film Academy. But a career as an artist wasn't something he

could imagine, because for decades in China, the purpose of art had been about serving the state. I would never imagine I would become an artist. In that time, there's only four professions in China. You're either a farmer, factory worker, and a soldier, and a student and teacher. But Ai, of course, didn't become any of those things. He did become an artist. And that wasn't the only way he followed in his father's footsteps. I'm just like him. In 2011, Chinese authorities secretly detained Ai Weiwei in Beijing. He spent 81 days in

detention. And during that time, he found his thoughts drifting to his father over and over again. On the surface, these two men were so similar. But deep down, Ai Weiwei felt like he never really knew his father. Because I never really directly asked him a single question about his past, you know, going through all those difficulties and the struggles. Suddenly, Ai realized how close his own son came to having that same experience, that same disconnect. At that time, he was just over two years old. And the authority told me, after 10 or 12 years, you finish your sentence. And your son certainly will not even know you are his father. So Ai Weiwei made sure his son would know both generations of men that came

before him. He set down his thoughts and memories in a new book called 1,000 Years of Joys and Sorrows. I got the chance to speak with Ai Weiwei about the book and about the power of art in times of tumultuous change. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Elsa Chang. It's Thursday, December 30th. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. It's Consider This from NPR. It all started with an earthquake. The force of the earthquake was so powerful that many homes didn't simply collapse. They were destroyed, smashed into pieces. In 2008,

the magnitude 8 earthquake in China's Sichuan province killed more than 80,000 people. More than 5,000 of those victims were children trapped underneath collapsed school buildings. The focus, say officials, is not on finding the dead, but rather on trying to save the living. In the afternoon, Ai Weiwei spoke out and blamed their deaths on shoddy construction practices and corruption. His activism angered Chinese authorities, who eventually arrested him for alleged tax evasion and held him in solitary detention. In 2013, Ai Weiwei created an art installation depicting in excruciating detail the trauma of those 81 days in solitary. Now his new book is an attempt to grapple with what that experience meant to him, both as a father and the son of an artist who was also punished by the Chinese government. Here's our conversation. Did you have a deep

sense as a child that the Chinese government was basically punishing your father for his ideas? No way to understand. Nobody even understand. At that time, we are totally like dropped into water. You got totally wet. And there's no way to have another choice or another possibility. The whole nation was under this very heavy political class struggle. Not only my father being punished, but over half a million of intellectuals being punished, their writers, translators, or educators, you know. Between you and your father growing up,

how would you characterize your relationship with him? Would you have described the two of you as close back then? No, I never even think we are close. Also, I never see any family have a close relationship during that period. Love is never a word to be mentioned in any family. The love only belongs to the party and the chairman of the party's leader. Everybody is so scared. Even all those parents give their children, newly born children, the name is Love the Country or Love the Party. Names that would make the Chinese Communist Party happy.

Whole generation, maybe half of the population would have the same kind of name. You know, there is so much in this book that reflects how your life later as an artist inside the Chinese communist system, how that life echoed so much of your own father's life, not just your time in detention, but the constant monitoring you faced every day when you lived in China. And I want to ask you, how do you think that constant surveillance by the Chinese government, that constant observation, helped you relate to your father better? Well, modern surveillance is because of technology, of course. I have been under surveillance, 25 cameras around my studio, people following me, hiding behind bushes,

take photos to see who I meet, and all those kind of ridiculous. Right. I start to understand that generation, how difficult for them. Today, I have internet. I can easily have my voice being heard. But in that time, they cannot even whisper to their loved ones about what's in their mind. Well, as I listen to you talk about how much of an adversary the Chinese government has played in your life, in your father's life, you know, it made me wonder.

Because, yes, the Chinese government has played a destructive role in your life, in your father's life, you know, it made me wonder. Because yes, the Chinese government has played a destructive role in your life, but also in a way the Chinese government has played a strangely creative role too. Like, I'm curious, where do you think Ai Weiwei, the artist, would be without the Chinese government being such an oppositional force in your life, driving you to understand what is important to you, what to fight for, what to stand up against? Do you think you could be the same artist without the Chinese government? No way. No way. It's not possible. Once this interrogator, he already interrogated me for over a year,

he asked me very sincerely, without us, you can never be so famous. I said, yes, I take a real enemy to make a soldier. And also, I'm grateful I can really exercise my individual struggle and freedom of speech. So I have something to say about it. Without that struggle, you wouldn't have the same things to say. Without struggle, we don't have a life.

Life is about the struggle. Well, as we mentioned, this book, it is in large part a written record for your son, Ai Lao, so that Ai Lao can better understand who his father is. And, you know, you write at one point of your own father, you say, quote, although he never tried to influence my decisions and never asked anything of me, like a star in the sky or a tree in the field, he was always there as a compass point. And in a quiet and mysterious way, he helped me to navigate in a direction on my own. Let me ask you, how much do you want a similar relationship with Ai Lao? I want him to recognize he does have a father and that person has its own principle. But I want to be there so he can see me is there. And when you think about your own struggles,

what do you want most for Ai Lao's life. I want him to have independent thinking and to a healthy life. I would say that's a healthy life. That's exactly what my parents say they want from me. Ai Weiwei, thank you so much for sharing this time with us. Xie xie ni. Xie xie. You speak Chinese very well. I'm very happy. Duo xie, duo xie. for sharing this time with us. 谢谢你。 谢谢。 你中文说得很好。

I'm very happy. 多谢,多谢。 Ai Weiwei said thank you, and he complimented me on my Mandarin. His new book is called 1,000 Years of Joys and Sorrows. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Elsa Chang.