Wang's killer comments that rocked a nation

On A Dream of the Red Mansions the Chinese classic that Wang says all current fiction should be measured against the 1987 TV version and various TV interpretations of the novel

A scene from the TV series A Dream of the Red Mansions.

The 1987 series is way off. The characters are supposed to speak Beijing dialect, but many of the actors are from Sichuan. What's worse, the so-called scholars include their research in it. This is a TV version of the novel, not of the author's biography. All the television series adapted from the four Chinese classic novels are stupid. The scholars are not normal literary critics. They are hair-splitters. There are two groups in China who make nonsense out of literary giants: One comprises those who study this novel, and the other depends on Lu Xun for a living. There are hundreds of thousands of them. And they have factions among themselves.

On the CCTV Spring Festival Eve Gala

It makes me feel nauseated. I'd rather watch a farmer from the Northeast celebrating his New Year. The show is choked with bright colors. They think sparkling red and green represents the Chinese, not knowing that this started only in the Qing Dynasty. During the previous eras, we Chinese preferred subdued colors. This is one glittering, tawdry show, and the girls on the show remind me of concubines.

On the post-80s writers and their symbol Guo Jingming, who was found guilty of plagiarizing but showed defiance of a court order to apologize

Guo Jingming is an out-and-out thief. He has no sense of decency. And the fans who support him online are basically collaborators in a gang of burglary. I'm not afraid of them. When you're anonymous, you're not human beings. I've been through a few mass campaigns. They're all mobs. It's nothing special to be on the opposite side of these mobsters.

The post-'80s generation has been brainwashed by Hong Kong-Taiwan pop culture. They think China was born powerful. These people do not constitute real power. They're just bubbles, with no might to fight. You can't talk to them. They know nothing but Hong Kong superstars. When the generations born in the 1950s, '60s and '70s come out, we can crush them.

Every generation is deprived of some knowledge, like ours of what happened before 1949. I believe that not everyone of the post-'80s care only about entertainment, but the world is not created by young people. They're still at the bottom of the society. Do you see any of them controlling government resources? They only know how to brag online.

On martial arts and revival of Confucianism

Empress Dowager Cixi of the Qing Dynasty.

The Empress Dowager believed in the potency of martial arts, so she declared war on the whole world. And China ended up paying 450 million taels of silver, amounting to 10,000 yuan ($1,300) for each person in current value.

Why should we not bring back Confucianism? Because his theory emphasizes class and power structure punishments do not apply to officials and so on. That will throw our country into chaos every 300 years because those downtrodden will rise up when they cannot take it any more. That's why Chairman Mao's value system is deep-rooted: All men are equal. The State should regulate to prevent the strong from being too strong, and the weak from being too weak. Now, I sound like a neo-leftist.

(China Daily 02/01/2007 page18)