Cecilia Lindqvist, "ambassador" of Chinese culture

November 08, 2007

Professor Cecilia Lindqvist is not only the one who introduces Chinese characters in a very vivid way to the Swedish people and people in many other western countries, but also the one who introduces Chinese ancient instrument Guqin to Sweden. What makes her so devoted to this and what's the story behind? People's Daily Online correspondent in Stockholm Xuefei Chen has an exclusive interview with Professor Cecilia Lindqvist.

From Stockholm to Beijing

Born in Lund in Sweden in 1932, Cecilia Lindqvist went to China at age 28. Her Chinese name is Lin Xili.

"I knew that China had the longest history in the world and I knew the porcelain and all kinds of calligraphy and the paintings and I wanted to see this and study Chinese. If possible to study a Chinese instrument." Professor Lindqvist began with telling me why she went to China.

At the age of five, she started to play piano. "I found the sound was very strong and I was longing for something that is very quiet. Then I found Guqin."

In 1961, she and her husband went to China via Moscow. In Moscow, She stayed for a few days to meet a professor who had specialized in Chinese instruments. "I thought I would play Pipa, but he said I should learn Guqin. And I got a reference letter from him to the Chinese Guqin Research Institute." To facilitate her trip to China, she even got a reference letter from the Swedish King.

"I was the only student the institute ever had. So they took very good care of me. I was some kind of small Mascot—meaning a small treasure, that everybody wants to take care of. " said Lindqvist.

Whenever she asked questions, she got a satisfied answer because they were all highly educated and experienced people. "So I was diving very deep into Chinese culture through these people. That was my introduction of Chinese culture through these two years." Said Lindqvist proudly.

Life in Beijing was not easy at that time. "They gave us the best they had but a few months later, my hair fell off. And I had to go to hospital". Compared with meat and cheese, the Chinese food was mainly vegetables at that time. Her body couldn't cope with it.

But she kept herself busy---going to classes in Peking University, going to the Central Conservatory Institute and the Guqin Research Institute.

After two years of studying Guqin with her teacher Wang Di, and other Guqin experts such as Guqin master Guan Pinghu, she played Pingshaluoyan, a famous piece of music with Guqin.

"It was a thrilling experience for me. I made my examination," said Lindqvist.

From teaching Chinese to the book of the Kingdom of Characters

After coming back from China, Cecilia Lindqvist and her husband and their son went to Latin America. They worked there as journalists. They came back to Sweden in 1970, then she worked as a teacher again. One day, some students said they wanted to study Chinese. But other teachers were laughing and wondering who could teach them.

"Let me take care of them. I will teach them two hours every week and see if it is possible." Said Lindqvist. Having 18 students, she taught them for a year.

After that she wrote to the Minister of Culture, Invar Carlsson who later became Prime Minister and asked him if she could begin teaching Chinese course. After two weeks, Lindqvist got the answer that she could start it next autumn.

"So just with a couple of months, I prepared teaching materials and make some small books to teach Chinese. Then we got 21 students. And I began formally teaching Chinese. They learnt about 1000 Chinese characters during three years. And after two years, I took them to Beijing. We took the trans-Siberian railway to Beijing during the summer holiday. The students stayed in the then Beijing Foreign Language Institute, now Beijing Foreign Studies University. Three teachers in the institute took care of the students every morning from 8 to 12. and then they were free to do whatever they wanted. They all rushed out with the bicycles and experienced Beijing. Actually all these students, now about 20 of them work in China. Two work at the embassy, two at IKEA, whenever I went, I always have students to meet. And two of my old students are teaching Chinese now in Uppsala. They just received the new jobs there. This group paid off my efforts."

Lindqvist said during her teaching, she would teach every word very carefully.

"Every time I write a new character, I will explain why it is written this way and what is the stories behind it. Can't you see this is a roof, this is a hand, and so more and more questions were asked and then I started to make more papers for my teaching and explanation. So if they are absent one day, they can still understand from the papers. I had to learn a lot in order to answer the questions. As I studied the history of art and a lot of people understand it as archeology. When I went to China, I bought all the archeological books that I could find. At that time, ten years after the revolution and all the reports from the excavations and so on have begun to be published. I had a series of those books. A lot of Chinese friends feel surprised to see that I had so many books. It seemed nobody was interested in such books. And they were very cheap. So I bought all the reports and all the books on excavations. In those reports and books I found a lot of interesting pictures of different kinds. And I show these pictures to students to show how these characters look like. It helps them to remember the characters. There are pictures for the road, the boat and so on, next time when they see it, it is like meeting an old friend. Taking the character jing or well as an example, I found this ‘well', at the bottom there is such a thing to keep the water clean. That's why how the character came. It makes the water clean and doesn't hurt the bottom. Having done this for many years, I suddenly realize that oh, this might be an interesting book."

From 1974 to 1989, Cecilia Lindqvist took 15 years to write the book Hanzi Wangguo or the Kingdom of Characters. She won the August awards. The book is still selling well. It has been translated into Chinese while the original version is Swedish. It is also translated into English and published in many other countries.

From Qin to farewell to dear teacher

In 1994, three years before she could formally retire from teaching, professor Lindqvist left her teaching job to focus on writing the book Qin. She already started in the 1960s, but the teaching work made her unable to concentrate on it. She once made some radio programs about Guqin, and her publishing house Bonniers personnel telephoned her and said she might write a book about the instrument.

Then she immediately began to concentrate on writing the Qin book, it took her 13 years to complete. During these 13 years, she almost went to China every year and met her teacher Wang Di.

" We were almost at the same age. She was some years older. I had a long experience in music in the west, and she had the excellent knowledge of the Chinese music. So we had very much to talk about and I became very close friends with her and her family. Except five years when Wang Di and her family were growing vegetables in Tianjin, I didn't meet her. But we met again in 1979. She has been very kind to me. When I began to write this book about Guqin, there were so many questions because so much of the materials were written in classic Chinese. There were so many difficult passages there. I didn't really understand it. But she could help me and explain it. And she was doing the research all the time and publishing articles concerning Guqin. She sent them to me or when I came to China, I got them. So I got answers from her."

Talking about her dear teacher Wang Di, Lindqvist has a moving story.

"It was a very strange thing. It was autumn of 2003. I have been writing to her and she didn't answer and I felt she maybe have a tour in Taiwan, US or Japan because she was often invited to play abroad. When I came to Beijing, I immediately called her, her husband answered. Then he began to cry and he said he couldn't talk any more. He hanged up the phone. Five minutes later, Wang Di's elder daughter Deng Ying phoned me and said her mother had been in hospital for four months, she didn't drink or eat or anything. She was dying. I was afraid if I could ask to meet her. I asked, but Deng Ying said no, she doesn't want to see anybody. Nobody knows that she is here in hospital.

So I sat down and cried. But five minutes later, the telephone rang. It was Deng Ying again. She said, please you can come tomorrow.

So the next day I was sitting there together with her for two hours and she had all the equipment around her body. She asked me if I have any questions and I asked some questions. Then we cried and talked about our youth, it was terribly upsetting. We were quite ready in our faces with tears. And after two hours, she was so tired, so I had to go. And her last question was, have you had everything you need now for your book? And I said yes. And five days later, she died. I remember I said at last that I can't come back until August and she said let's see each other again. But we both knew that was impossible. "

The Qin book was published in 2006 and sold about 30 thousand copies. At first 7000 copies were printed and they were sold out within a week. So they printed again and it is still selling well. It was rewarded with August Prize last year.

At the same time the Kingdom of Characters also sold very well not only in Chinese mainland, but also in Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Holland, Russia, USA, England and Germany. It was rewarded with August Prize for the best book of the year in 1989. Lindqvist won two August Prizes for her two books. This is rare in the Swedish history.

From Chinese culture and science to sustainable development

Professor Lindqvist said that what has been studied and collected about China are mostly porcelains, ivory and paintings.

"When it comes to natural science, China has been in so many years, so far ahead of our west. Think of the boat, more than 2000 years ahead of Sweden the Chinese knew how to make this compartment. And when they travel to Africa with the boat, they were excellent boats. We must learn from that such as house building, how to grow different kinds of vegetables and crops and so on. Chinese agriculture is much more advanced than in the west. I am absolutely sure that China will come back to its own history because there were so many things such as textile production and the building of old houses, so many things that we don't know but we could learn from. It is still vital and ought to be because the books are there and the knowledge are there. And we should study it more thoroughly.

Now China try to catch up with the west, but China should not forget the great achievements this country has achieved during thousands of years. So far ahead of us. Sometimes I feel very sorry China now is so much concentrated on what's going on in the west. And I sincerely hope the conscience of your greatness will come."

Lindqvist said that Chinese history will contribute to both the present and the future.

"Many solutions can be found in natural science. For example, many people live in Zhongyuan or central China all these years, and they have been able to get enough food because they used the manure of the animals and the people as fertilizers. They have always taken care of the earth. Nowadays people just throw out chemicals and that hurts the earth, they grow very much but there is no taste in vegetables and the earth gets worn out."

From Guqin music to folk art paper cutting

Lindqvist: I planned to organize more Guqin concerts in Sweden. During the summer, the concerts performed by Deng Hong and Chen Shasha were a success and more people want to attend it. Then we can even open concerts in Beijing so that people in Beijing can have a good experience of appreciating the performance of Guqin. Otherwise, I feel it might be a waste of the music if no one does that.

Nowadays a lot of Chinese students want to study western music, they want to have huge instruments and hundreds of them play together. But few people play Guqin. That's a dangerous thing. It's understandable that China opened so much that they want to show that they can play everything as good as the west, but they almost forget their own heritage. I think that trend might change, like Peking opera.
As long as the old teachers and artists are alive, it is possible to revive it. We have to be very careful to rescue this.

Then I have another project about China too, that's about paper cutting. I like to make a book out of this subject. I have been to Ansai which is near Yan'an in northwest China several times to meet women experts in paper cutting. I have collected a box of 4000 paper cutting. These women made their home very beautiful. I will try to make exhibitions about it too. But now I must work faster not for another 15 years.
I am a Swedish but my heart is Chinese.

"The experiences in China absolutely changed me". said professor Lindqvist,

"Sometimes I was angry about myself that I was not very concentrated on one thing. I have done a lot of things, but now I realized that I can put all these experiences into my book. So I am very happy now and it is my harvest period. Sometimes I am tired, but I am not disappointing. I have been highly rewarded by the public by reading my books. There have been very good reviews they have ever done. They have been very kind to me. So I feel very happy. I only feel time maybe is a bit shorter because I am 75 now and I must keep fit. I swim here every morning to keep myself fit."

About her teaching experience, Professor Lindqvist said,

"I always try to get them interested in things which is important in life. During the concert, a man with beard came over to me and said ‘you may not remember, but you were my teacher and I remember that the first story you told us was Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. And then I thought I would become a teacher in the future. And I became a teacher."

I feel it is important to get them interested and concern about what is important in life. When it comes to history, music or art, whatever it is, embark their enthusiasm about it and they will find out their own way."