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Red fades to grayChina's new-wave authors mirror country's changing prioritiesBy Kevin Drew  Ma Jian on new Chinese writers: "There's no spiritual or intellectual weight to them." RELATEDSPECIAL REPORTYOUR E-MAIL ALERTSHONG KONG, China (CNN) -- Reaction to government oppression can take different forms, depending on the circumstances and era. Author Ma Jian was being watched in the 1980s, both by Chinese government authorities and by his Beijing neighbors, for his dissident friends and views. In 1983, he left his one-room Beijing house to travel to the hinterlands of China, eventually ending up in another continent. Writer Mian Mian's response to her book of titillating tales of sex and drugs being banned across mainland China was simpler: Remain in Shanghai and continue the lifestyle that earned her the reputation as China's literary wild child, writing on once-taboo topics and promoting Shanghai's local music scene. The 53-year-old Ma -- who was at Tiananmen Square and witnessed the events of June 1989 -- remains fixated on the politics of oppression. The 36-year-old Mian, however, delves into personal relationships. Both mirror the changing literary landscape in China. Authors in the country today are tackling an expanding set of topics, with writers more likely to produce pulp fiction, children's stories or tales on sex and drugs than on political oppression. And as the country opens itself to the world, interest has intensified in Chinese writers. Some Western publishing houses are even leading tours into China, searching for new Chinese writers. Spiritual forceWhen Ma decided at the end of 1983 to pack his few belongings, leave his one-room Beijing house and journey to the outer reaches of China, he had little idea of where he was heading. Under surveillance by police for being labeled a dissident with "bourgeois" activities, he spent the next three years traveling across China with little money and under different names to avoid detection by the government. Ma eventually moved to Hong Kong, but moved again in 1997 during the British handover of the city to China. Today he lives in London. The memoirs of his first travels through China, "Red Dust," were labeled by critical reviews as China's answer to Jack Kerouac's "On the Road." Its pages are filled with frequently sentimental moments of homecoming and discovery about oneself. Ma's last book, 2004's "The Noodle Maker," strikes a darker tone. Cynical to the point of almost being bitter, it is filled with tales of alienation and lost hope for the Tiananmen generation, with a jabbing finger of dark humor at authorities. If "Red Dust" is China's answer to Kerouac, "The Noodle Maker" is more in line with Kafka. Ma makes no apologies for his continued focus on politics. "Ordinary people don't know or don't have the opportunity to talk about what's going on, so it's the author's responsibility to take a stand and supply some kind of spiritual, intellectual force," he says, speaking through his translator and partner, Flora Drew. And he's skeptical of many of the new trends in Chinese literature. Ma questions the foundation of many of today's mainland writers. "Most writers on the mainland ... they write stories," he says. "But there are two sides to a writer; writing a story, and taking an intellectual stand. "Chinese writers lack that second strand, so that although the publishing industry seems very active and flourishing, these books are just entertainment. There's no spiritual or intellectual weight to them." Cuts like a knifeEnter Mian Mian. Well, more like march. Dressed in black clothes and ruby-red lipstick, Mian strides into the café at the Excelsior Hotel in Hong Kong for her interview, inspecting the hotel lobby from a balcony as if to ensure the scene meets her approval. Mian's first novel, "Candy," was banned by China's censors in 2000. The novel is loosely based on her life as a rebellious teen drug user in Shanghai and on the streets of Shenzhen, a gritty, bustling metropolis in southern China resting on the other side of the border from Hong Kong. "Candy" portrayed the decadent youth of 1990s, post-Tiananmen China. China's government censors labeled Mian the "poster child for spiritual pollution" in the country. As the foreword to "Candy" notes, Mian's work can be a reflection of what author Orville Schell called China's "gray" culture, a world less interested in politics and more focused on personal conflict and crime. "'Candy' is a teenaged story," Mian says matter of factly. "The writing is not bad, but it's not good, either." A friend of Ma's, Mian likens writing to a knife; the writer needs to cut through what she calls "the bullshit" to accurately capture everyday life. Mian's latest book, "Panda Sex," examines more mature themes of male-female relationships, set in China's modern window to the world, Shanghai. The setting is appropriate for such a book, she says. "Shanghai is quite female. It is different thinking than in Beijing. Shanghai is the only world city in China." Today Ma is working on his next novel. The book uses, predictably, the events of 1989, as a launching point. The main character awakes from a coma years after 1989, only to find people in China to be in their own type of coma. He remains in London but talks of returning to China. "England feels like a hotel," he says. Meanwhile, Mian says she isn't interested in writing any more novels. After a half-hour conversation she reveals her true hope: to venture into film-making. She says she's trying to secure a deal that would allow production of a movie based on "Candy." Efforts to secure financial backing are ongoing, she says, reiterating her wild party-girl days are over. "I'm older and more grown up," she says. 
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