Zhang: You have a saying that affected me very deeply. You say that intellectuals that don't like China don't know what they want. I've considered this for a very long time, it seems to be intentionally equivocative. I'm curious, what does it mean?

Yu: I certainly love workers and peasants, the positive characters in my novels are all workers and peasants, and occasionally one or two intellectuals will appear for satirical purposes.

Zhang: Like the author Liu and the poet Zhao in "Brothers",

Yu: China's intellectuals are especially bad in one place, that is, they have excessive dissatisfaction in material things, but very little in the mind. The will never know what they want. Workers and peasants are very simple, when they don't make much money they only blame themselves for not being clever enough. The peasants only look forward to next years crop being a little better.

Zhang: Today, "intellectual" oftentimes is just an identity, an occupation and not an undertaking. Do you think of yourself as an intellectual?

Yu: No.

Zhang: Then do you think you are intellectual?

Yu: I was once. From the 80's to the 90's.

Zhang: Then what could you have been classified as?

Yu: The most difficult thing is giving oneself a place, mine is constantly changing.

Zhang: Isn't an outstanding author an intellectual in the truest sense?

Yu: That depends on how you define an intellectual. It might be like this, that I've lived in this group of intellectuals too long, know too much, and from the 90's until today, with the many ugly performances of China's intellectuals, you could say this is a break out period.

Zhang: Because of this you don't want to associate with them?

Yu: It's because "intellectual" is still merely a beautiful word.

Zhang: According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, intellectuals don't just possess and use knowledge, but throughout are critics of society. An outstanding author is surely a critic of society, right?

Yu: Of course.

Zhang: Then you don't feel that you are an intellectual?

Yu: Now you're just playing with words here. I can call you an intellectual too.