Chen Hongguo might be China’s most famous ex-professor. Five years ago, he quit his job at the Northwest University of Politics and Law in Xi’an, publishing his resignation letter online after administrators prohibited him from inviting free-thinking lecturers to speak to his students. After resigning, he decided to keep bringing edgy speakers to this inland metropolis by launching Zhiwuzhi in 2015, a reading room whose name is the Chinese translation of the Socratic paradox “I know that I know nothing.”
Zhiwuzhi is easily the most dynamic public space in China, hosting a dozen book clubs and two to three events a day, including regular appearances by some of China’s best-known public intellectuals, including Guo Yuhua, Hu Jie, He Weifang, and dozens more. While similar bookstores or arts spaces have closed or self-censored themselves into irrelevancy, Zhiwuzhi has remained open, a tribute to Chen’s desire not to preach but to educate the public in critical, democratic thinking—not as an opposition figure but as someone with one foot in the mainstream.
Late last year I went to Xi’an to explore how critical thinkers in China’s provinces are surviving the current period of repression in Chinese politics. I found a thriving, if cautious, ecosystem of videographers, writers, and journalists, all of whom consider Zhiwuzhi their spiritual home. Some of these interviews I have previously published, such as with the citizen journalist Tiger Temple, or the Buddhist writer Jiang Xue. I also wrote a broader look at Zhiwuzhi and Xi’an’s intellectual scene for the magazine here.