China and the West

Rosendorfer, Herbert. Briefe in die chinesische Vergangenheit [ID D13436].
Qixuan Heuser : Das Buch ist eine fiktive Geschichte aus dem Blickwinkel eines Chinesen aus dem 10. Jahrhundert, der mit einer Zeitmaschine in das gegenwärtige Deutschland gegen Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts reist und die fremde Welt mit chinesischen Augen sieht. Es geht aber nicht nur um eine verfremdete Darstellung Deutschlands, auch das alte China spiegelt sich im Briefwechsel wider. Allein die imitierte chinesische Sichtweise zeugt vom Einfühlungsvermögen und gewissen Kenntnissen der Verhältnisse im alten China des Autors.
Monika Schmitz-Emans : Rosendorfer's protagonist is a Chinese mandarin from the 10th century who comes to 20th century Germany with a time machine. From contemporary Germany he writes letters back to his time and his own country : letters to the Chinese past. He is not volutarily abroad, though he had severe political reasons to escape from his home, but the effects of his time voyage, undertaken with the help of a mysterious machine, could not be foreseen. Arriving in Europe, the surprise is perfect. Naturally for the medieval Chinese, contemporary Germany is a very strange country with very odd customs. The oddity of the place is even deeper, as it is not any city where Kao-tai arrives, but Munich. The Bavarians have strange customs, strange attitudes and opinions, and a very strange way of speaking and expressing themselves. And so Rosendorfer combines the elements of two drawers filled with clichés : the clichés about the Bavarians, which the self-confident Bavarians have adapted in the course of time for their self-descriptions, and the clichés about Chinese people, viewed from the Western perspective. While the intra-German differences between Bavarians and non-Bavarians is of notable importance for the novel, there are no analogously differentiated views on the Chinese ; a Chinese is a Chinese, whether he is medieval or contemporary. It doesn't seem necessary to stress that Rosendorfer is not at all interested in presenting anything authentically Chinese. His subject is Germany, especially, but not exclusively, its southern parts, and, on a more general and abstract level, he reflects upon the Western way of life. His insights are not very profound, but represent a rather wide-spread attitude, a politically correct and even sympathetic way of thinking. Regarded from the point of view of a Chinese stranger, the absurdities of a noisy and hectic modern city seem to be extremely deep. The Chinese's perspective, regarding the contemporary Western city, the Western world, regarding and reflecting itself, the Germans, regarding the Bavarians, and the Bavarians, regarding themselves.
To use a novel as as means to reflect critically on customs and habits, on the conditions of social and political life, on morality and moral values, as well as on the superficial stupidities of everyday world. The threatening of a nuclear war is treated as well as the regional characteristics of Bavarian life which to a great part seems to consist of drinking beer and commenting on the lousy weather.