When People Cross Borders
October 2003
Banner photo: ©SEKAI BUNKA PHOTO
Chang Shuhong--Custodian of the Treasures of Dunhuang
Chang Shuhong [©Seikyo Shimbun] Chang Shuhong said the heavenly maidens spoke to him in a dream. Flying down from the wall paintings of the caves of Dunhuang, these celestial beauties, or apsaras, forms glowing and robes fluttering, beseeched him: "Your wife has left you and gone. But you must not leave us."
It was the middle of the night. Frozen stars twinkled like mother-of-pearl in the deep blue-black sky. The Cave of the Thousand Buddhas was asleep. The only sound was the ringing of the wind bells hanging from the eaves of the nine-story pagoda.
Chang heard this somber clamor day and night. It was a monotonous, unvaried sound, like that of camel's bells. Now, like weeping, like pleading, it struck deep into his heart.
The year was 1945, and the war between China and Japan ground on. Chang Shuhong had just passed the age of 40. It was two years since he had arrived in Dunhuang, in the desert, an isolated and uninhabited spot far from the hearth fires of human dwellings.
"They were very hard times. At the beginning, we didn't have any water. We didn't have any food. Everyone was against us going there. They all said, 'What are you going to do there? You'll die!' Some people compared it to serving a life sentence. But I wasn't going for my own sake. I was doing it for my country, for the cultural heritage of all humanity. I wanted to do whatever possible to protect the magnificent art of Dunhuang."
Chang Shuhong had studied Western painting in Paris. The many prizes and accolades bestowed upon him assured a promising future ahead as an artist. But his life was changed forever by his chance encounter with a book at a used-book stall on the banks of the Seine. It was a collection of illustrative plates by Paul Pelliot titled Les Grottos de Touen-houang (The Grottos of Dunhuang). Suddenly, 10 centuries of glorious Chinese art from the fourth century onward danced before his excited gaze.
"These are incredible! Miraculous!" thought the young Chang Shuhong. At the same time, he was angered and distressed to realize that his country's greatest treasures had been plundered by those who had ventured to Dunhuang.
"I will go home to China. I will protect these treasures, with my own hands." He returned to China, but it was only after seven years that the road to Dunhuang was at last opened to him.
Chang Shuhong and Li Chengxian, (2nd and 3rd from left, seated), meeting with Mr. and Mrs. Ikeda in Tokyo (November 1990) [©Seikyo Shimbun] He turned his back on fame and honors as an artist. And, finally, after an arduous monthlong journey, he and a small group of comrades arrived at the great open-air "art museum in the desert" that was their destination. But everywhere they looked, they encountered destruction and desolation: walls had crumbled and fallen, pagodas stood roofless, caves had been plundered and were buried in sand and rubble. Where should they begin?
Dunhuang is 2,000 kilometers from Beijing. It is a lonely island in a sea of desert where the highest temperature on record is 44.1 degrees Celsius and the lowest, minus 22.6 degrees. It is also regularly battered by the desert storms called "black winds." But the oasis city holds a rich history. Located on the silk trade routes, for centuries Dunhuang was a center of trade and cultural and artistic flourishing. With the eastern spread of Buddhism from China, from the fourth century C.E. onward, Dunhuang became renowned for its exquisite religious art.
Chang's wife had at first refused to go with him to Dunhuang, but he finally managed to persuade her, and, some time later, she joined him there with their two children. But one day not long after his wife's arrival, Chang returned home from work to find that she had gone, leaving behind their 13-year-old daughter and three-year-old son.
On top of that, the ruling Kuomintang government had just declared that the newly established Dunhuang Relics Research Institute was to be shut down. Even before this announcement, Chang and his comrades had been effectively left to fend for themselves.
All of these worries kept Chang awake at night. Then one day when he returned from work, this time his children were missing. He rushed about in search of them. At last he found them. They had left home in search of their mother, carrying a cloth sack with a few corn dumplings and pieces of candy. Chang embraced both children and wept heartily.
There is a famous painting from the Northern Wei dynasty (founded around 386 C.E.) in the Mogao Caves at Dunhuang that depicts the scene where, as a bodhisattva in a previous existence, Shakyamuni Buddha offers his life to save a starving mother tiger and her cubs. Chang determined to devote himself with the same selflessness to the preservation of this great treasure trove of art.
Behind every brilliant achievement, there are always dedicated individuals. Dunhuang, one of the miracles of human civilization, was created by nameless artists who worked away in that harsh environment with no thought of fame or recognition.
A wall painting of an apsara from the Mogao Caves
[From the exhibition catalogue, "Treasures of Dunhuang, China"]
Today once more Dunhuang lives up to its name, which means "to shine far and wide." It has been designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. It has become a tourist destination, and people from all parts of the globe line up to view exhibitions of the art of Dunhuang. Behind the recognition that Dunhuang enjoys today lie the indescribable efforts of Chang Shuhong and his family, and the others who have worked so hard to preserve this precious treasure of all humankind.
Some time later, after his first wife left him, Chang Shuhong married Li Chengxian, who came to Dunhuang as a fellow researcher. When Chang first interviewed Li in Sichuan for the position of a researcher at Dunhuang, he said: "Dunhuang is a very isolated place. In ancient times, the only people who lived there were soldiers or exiles. Life there is very hard. Do you think you can stand it?"
She replied, "I am prepared to give my life for art. I would never refuse to go simply because it's hard." True to her word, she went to Dunhuang. They later married and spent almost 50 years together until his death in 1994.
I had an opportunity to meet Mr. Chang and his wife in 1980 and again at the state guesthouse in Beijing in June 1990. In those 10 years, Chang Shuhong and I forged a deep friendship, working together on an exhibition called "Treasures of Dunhuang, China," shown at the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum in 1985, and a dialogue, published as Tonko no kosai (The Brilliance of Dunhuang).
"My artist's name," confided Chang Shuhong, "is Damo Chiren (Desert Freak)--in other words, 'Crazy for Dunhuang.' Life in Dunhuang was very, very hard. We had to battle our way through many painful struggles. And my wife here was at my side the whole time."
During the Cultural Revolution (1966--76), the Dunhuang Relics Research Institute was denounced as "spreading poison" among the people, with Mr. Chang condemned as the chief perpetrator of the evil. His persecutors drew a big black "X" through a certificate of commendation he had received from the government--a precious award that Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, who had always encouraged and supported him in his endeavors, had personally directed and suggested the text for. His family was driven from their home and forced to live in a pigsty. Such is the madness of power run amok.
A 3,000-year-old spring at Dunhuang
Mr. Chang once said that the last half-century had passed by all too quickly. He still had far to go to realize his dreams, and much remained to be accomplished. I asked him what profession he would like to devote himself to if he were born again. And his response was symbolic of the victorious life he had led. "If I really could be reborn as a human being," he replied, "I would once more choose Chang Shuhong and finish the work that I have started."
Fifty years of devotion, 18,000 days and nights. I feel as if I can hear the sound of the wind bells that filled his life, ringing across the distance from Dunhuang.
