Women’s Suffering and Transcendence in White Tiger Pass: Exploring the Spiritual Core of Chinese Civilization | “Xuemo in Dialogue with International Scholars” (Episode 5)

Women’s Suffering and Transcendence in White Tiger Pass: Exploring the Spiritual Core of Chinese Civilization | “Xuemo in Dialogue with International Scholars” (Episode 5)

At 8:00 p.m. Beijing time on April 19, an online literary dialogue spanning the Pacific was convened by the World Literature Union and the Xuemo Foundation. The fifth session of “Xuemo in Dialogue with International Scholars” centered on White Tiger Pass, a novel by the renowned contemporary Chinese writer Xuemo, and featured an in-depth discussion of suffering and transcendence.

Distinguished scholars, sinologists, and emerging researchers from the Chinese mainland, Taiwan, the United States, Canada, Norway, and elsewhere gathered online for several hours of intellectual exchange with Xuemo and his readers around the world.

White Tiger Pass: A Masterpiece Acclaimed as “One of the Best Novels of 2008”

Opening the event, moderator Yanjin Chen reviewed the important place White Tiger Pass occupies in contemporary Chinese literature. She cited the late literary critic Lei Da, who described it as “one of the best novels of 2008,” and Professor Wang Guangdong of Shanghai University, who observed that the novel “truly portrays the heart of the Chinese peasantry.”

Xuemo remarked that White Tiger Pass was his personal favorite among the three novels in his “Desert Trilogy.” With its subtle and penetrating psychological insight and its vivid, fully realized characters, the novel has become an essential work in the literature of western China and in contemporary Chinese rural literature.

Keynote Speech: Three Women Confront “Meeting Those One Hates, Separation from Those One Loves, and Not Attaining What One Desires”

Songjian Xu, a doctoral candidate at Shanghai International Studies University, delivered a keynote address titled “Suffering and Transcendence: Character Portrayal in White Tiger Pass.” Drawing on three of Buddhism’s “Eight Sufferings”—meeting those one hates, separation from those one loves, and not attaining what one desires—Xu examined the destinies of the novel’s three principal female characters: Lanlan, Ying’er, and Yue’er.

Lanlan: Forced through an exchange marriage to wed a violent husband, Lanlan endures domestic abuse. She flees to the Vajravarahi Cave to undertake spiritual practice, yet remains caught in the entanglements of human nature. Her suffering resembles “inescapable shackles.”

Ying’er: Her love for the young Lingguan transgresses conventional moral boundaries. After Lingguan leaves, she waits endlessly for his return before being forced to remarry. In despair, she takes her own life for love, seeking to preserve the purity of her inner self against “defilement.” Her tragedy embodies “the return that never comes.”

Yue’er: Dreaming of a better life, Yue’er moves to the city, only to fall ill and descend into destitution. After returning to the countryside, she is met with contempt and rejection. She ultimately sets herself on fire in the desert. With the resolve of a phoenix rising from the ashes, she seeks to purify her soul—a tragic response to “the innocence to which one can never return.”

In his response, Xuemo not only revealed how the characters’ destinies extend beyond the narrative of the novel, but also elevated the discussion to the level of philosophy and civilization. He explained that the three women represent, respectively, the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty. Their tragedies arise from the immense gulf between individual awakening and harsh reality.

Xuemo devoted particular attention to the symbolic significance of the Vajravarahi Cave. Rather than representing an unblemished pure land, the cave is a place of spiritual practice filled with trials of human nature. It symbolizes the possibility of cultivating the lotus of the soul amid the mire of worldly desire.

International Scholarly Dialogue: From Literary Narrative to Civilizational Concerns

During the discussion, international scholars approached the novel from a range of perspectives, while Xuemo’s responses demonstrated the breadth of his intellectual concerns.

Riccardo Moratto, Distinguished Professor at Tongji University, asked whether the three women’s extreme means of seeking deliverance might be misinterpreted as attempts to escape suffering. Xuemo responded that the true agents of transcendence are not the characters themselves, but the writer and readers who are able to contemplate their destinies.

He further emphasized that in an age when technology offers an unprecedented range of choices, people confronting adversity should not rely solely on individual spiritual practice. They must also learn to build or join communities of like-minded people, finding spiritual warmth and practical mutual support.

Wenjing Wu, a doctoral candidate at the University of Connecticut, raised a question about Xuemo’s short story “The Rat God,” asking whether fear-based worship in folk religion and violence might share a common origin. Xuemo suggested that the story reveals the complex entanglement of superstition, reverence, and human nature in the culture of western China.

He made the provocative observation that “superstition accompanied by reverence” may impose firmer restraints on human conduct than “science without reverence.” The remark prompted further reflection on the moral decline associated with modernity.

Pingyan Li, a lecturer at Lanzhou University of Technology, and Dr. Huan Xia, Assistant Professor at the Macau University of Science and Technology, asked, respectively, how monumental epics should be read and how women can transform inner spiritual cultivation into the strength needed to confront reality.

Xuemo recommended an “immersive” approach to reading and argued that “choice itself is power,” offering a source of practical wisdom for individuals seeking a path through the difficulties of their time.

The “White Tiger Pass” of Our Time: A Critique of Materialist Values and a Call for a Civilization Centered on the Inner Life

Throughout the dialogue, Xuemo repeatedly addressed the deeper metaphorical meaning of White Tiger Pass. He interpreted the “white tiger” as representing the waves of materialism, capital, and consumerism arriving from the West.

In his view, these forces have eroded the traditional Chinese system of values centered on morality. A person’s worth is now increasingly measured by wealth and social status rather than moral character, creating a profound crisis in the nation’s spiritual life.

To pass through the “White Tiger Pass” of the present age, Xuemo argued, individuals must awaken inwardly and transcend their limitations. He summarized this process in four steps: understand that the world is a reflection of the mind; allow the mind to belong to itself; use the world as an instrument for training the mind; and ultimately create a world of one’s own.

Xuemo regards all his literary and cultural work as an attempt to guide both individuals and the nation through this process of spiritual transcendence. At its heart is an effort to carry forward and revitalize China’s traditional civilization centered on the cultivation of the inner life.

Building an International Platform to Preserve Literary and Intellectual History

“Xuemo in Dialogue with International Scholars” has now held five sessions. In his opening address, Xuemo explained that the initiative was established as an enduring platform for international scholarly dialogue.

Through publication in World Literature magazine and related books, each intellectual exchange can be documented and preserved as part of the historical record and as a shared cultural asset. Xuemo expressed the hope that the platform would become a space in which “a hundred flowers bloom,” fostering empathy and meaningful connections between literary aspirations and the wider world.

The event concluded with scholars and readers still eager to continue the conversation. As Xuemo observed in his closing remarks, “Our greatest happiness lies in gathering with a group of friends and talking about the subjects we love.”

This literary dialogue across national and cultural boundaries not only deepened the participants’ understanding of White Tiger Pass, but also opened a window onto the spiritual core of Chinese civilization and the shared challenges confronting humanity. In doing so, it embodied the ideal of literature as a means of connecting the world.