For my readers from Norway

Dr. Stockmann's speech to the people:

“The masses are nothing but the raw material that must be fashioned into the people. Is it not so with all other living creatures on earth? How great the difference between a cultivated and an uncultivated breed of animals!... Don't you believe that the brain of a poodle has developed quite differently from that of a mongrel? Yes, you may depend upon that! It is educated poodles like this that jugglers train to perform the most extraordinary tricks. A common peasant-cur could never learn anything of the sort—not if he tried till Doomsday... we are animals... there is a terrible difference between men-poodles and men-mongrels.”

— Dr. Stockmann, quoted in Bigsby (141)

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Dear readers,

You probably know that Henrik Ibsen, the Norwegian playwright who used to be the source of aspiration for Chinese intellectuals, has hit the bottom line of Chinese government. His play was censored in China. See below for details. HK is losing its freedom and we need your support. Thanks in advance.

Auntie

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Further Readings:

Henrik Ibsen

https://www.thefamouspeople.com/norwegian-poets.php

Henrik Ibsen

Famous As: Playwright, Poet.

Birthdate: March 20, 1828

Sun Sign: Pisces

Birthplace: Skien

Died: May 23, 1906

Henrik Ibsen was a Norwegian theatre director and playwright. One of the most influential and popular playwrights of his generation, Ibsen is credited with co-founding modernism in theatre, for which he is often called the father of realism. After William Shakespeare, Henrik Ibsen is the world's most often performed dramatist. His works have influenced other playwrights like George Bernard Shaw.

Wikipedia – An Enemy of the People

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Enemy_of_the_People

Dr. Stockmann Quotes

http://www.morefamousquotes.com/topics/dr-stockmann-quotes/

A root of modernism in China: Ibsen - Asia - Pacific - International Herald Tribune

By Sheila Melvin

The New York Times (Sept 15, 2006)

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/15/world/asia/15iht-ibsen.2822242.html

Extract: When the Communist Party newspaper People's Daily recently released a list of 50 foreigners who were instrumental in shaping modern China's development, it included one dramatist: Henrik Ibsen（易卜生）. That the Norwegian playwright should rank alongside Marx, Lenin and Einstein is of little surprise. Indeed, Ibsen was a household name in China during the tumultuous first decades of the 20th century when intellectuals were striving to create a new Chinese culture.

Ibsen was first introduced to China in 1907 by the prominent Chinese writer Lu Xun（魯迅）. A decade later, the influential revolutionary magazine New Youth（新青年）devoted an entire issue to a translation of Ibsen's play "A Doll's House"（玩偶之家）and an article on "Ibsenism" penned by the renowned intellectual Hu Shi（胡適）. Both article and play struck a powerful chord with young social reformers.

Ibsen's realism and concern with social issues strongly influenced the first Chinese dramatists to write spoken dramas. Successive playwrights continued to be inspired by his works, including two of China's greatest dramatists, Tian Han（田漢）and Cao Yu（曹禺）. Cao Yu, who had read all of Ibsen's work by the age of 19, directed and performed in several Ibsen productions in his effort to popularize his idol's work. Critics cite Ibsen's influence on Cao Yu's dark trilogy "Thunderstorm,"（雷雨） "Sunrise," （日出）and "Wilderness," （原野）which were written in the 1930s and remain a standard part of China's theatrical repertoire.

"A Doll's House," Ibsen's portrayal of an unhappily married woman named Nora（娜拉）who leaves her husband and children for a life of uncertain independence, was an instant sensation in China. It spawned a whole class of early feminists known as "Chinese Noras." Mao Zedong's wife, Jiang Qing（江青）, played the role of Nora in her premarital days as a Shanghai actress. Jiang Qing's affinity for Nora perhaps helps explain why the "bourgeois" Ibsen was never wholly condemned or banned during the extreme days of Communism and why segments of "A Doll's House" remained in Chinese textbooks through the 1970s. When China reopened to the West in the 1980s, other playwrights began to compete with Ibsen for popularity.

Ibsen Play Is Canceled in China After Audience Criticizes Government

By Alex Marshall and Zoe Mou

The New York Times (Sept 13, 2018)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/13/world/asia/china-ibsen-play.html

Extract: A German theater production that invited audiences in China to voice their complaints about society has been canceled over fears of what they might say.

The Schaubühne Berlin company was due to perform “An Enemy of the People,”（人民公敵）a 19th-century play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, in Nanjing on Thursday and Friday. But the shows were abruptly canceled after members of the audience in Beijing last week shouted criticisms of their authoritarian government.

The theater in Nanjing that was to host the play cited “technical problems,” including a hole in the stage, Tobias Veit, the Schaubühne’s executive director, said in a telephone interview. But Mr. Veit said the real reason for the cancellation appeared to be that the theater managers deemed the play, first performed in 1883, too risky given the audience comments in Beijing.

“People were saying things like, ‘The biggest problem in China is the question of free speech,’ and things about economic scandals, corruption and how the press is not revealing the truth,” Mr. Veit said. “We thought they might not speak openly, but they did and actually talked about the political and social issues in China.” After that first show on Sept. 6 at the National Center for the Performing Arts, an egg-shaped landmark in central Beijing, the venue’s management called a meeting with Mr. Veit and his colleagues, and asked them to cut the part where the audience is given a chance to voice grievances.

01/10/2021

For kaygoh: 原來如此。這個博客有來自馬來西亞的讀者，你是第五百個留言，歡迎光臨。香港在危難中，被查禁的東西越來越多，很需要支持，謝謝。

For second and third comments: 我沒有出版過散文集，寫過一本商科入門書，內容見 2020 年 5 月的 Folder。如果讀者不介意，請留個電郵或其他通訊 ID，Auntie 會做紀錄但是不會在這裡公開發表。我會在這裡寫「收到」，讓你知道，OK 嗎 ?