I was disillusioned with the communists after they shot the students at the square. But now I'm disgusted with this country [US], as well. I thought … - Geling Yan

I don’t consider myself a successful screenwriter. I write screenplays because I have no choice. Often I’m simply the director’s last resort. I think that good novel-writing emphasizes characterization. It’s the personality that makes a good movie or novel character unforgettable.

I think the Chinese are a people of survival. We are all wonderful survivors. We have risen in population during the last century, a century in which wars and famines have happened all the time. We have survived natural and political disasters almost every other year during the last sixty years. Without optimism I don’t think my people could live until today. I have gone to poor rural areas in China and seen destitute people joke and jest and laugh. I can imagine Chinese at the bottom of society, surviving like them over thousands of years. They must have a good sense of humor to go through hardship, and they must have learned how to steal whatever small pleasure they can to hold on to their dear life. I can’t imagine that any people could survive so many centuries of sorrow if to live only means to suffer. They have learned to steal joy, however little, out of the overall suffering.

As I mentioned previously, on the internet everyone enjoys being nameless, having the privilege and protection of anonymity. It is like a person hiding in a crowd; if the crowd curses, he curses along with it, and only by cursing along with it does he feel safe. But if he doesn’t curse along with it, he loses the crowd’s protection and is not safe. On the internet many people tell the truth, or attack others, or curse others, anonymously, thinking that if they can disappear into the vast ocean of the anonymous crowd they can feel safe.