Bruce Wang Interview Oct 2022
Bruce Wang Citizen Wang Studio
Article By Bruce Wang @ citizenwangstudio.com
Bruce Wang interview, 7 October 2022
Kathryn Johnston:
Right, Bruce. It's 9:30 on Friday 7th October, and it's been a while since we've spoken. So, what have you been doing for the last three weeks?
Bruce Wang:
I wrote a book and I've worked on my second book - on my sixth book, my first book after the Kings of Drag series. It’s available on Amazon, called Ways of Showing, and it is currently being printed. And I've started a sixth book, which is more a journal of world events as reported on the radio. I haven't watched TV for several months now because the programming is so poor, and the images and nuances on radio are far superior.
Kathryn Johnston:
And those images and nuances on the radio that you are hearing, in this new book, would it be fair to say you're commenting on them with a commentary of your own photographs?
Bruce Wang:
It's an old habit of mine to juxtapose photographs with ‘accepted knowledge’ and put wacky captions to them. It's great fun.
Kathryn Johnston:
How far have you got with it? What are the themes you see emerging?
Bruce Wang:
I don't know if I'll ever publish it, it's just a journal that goes on and on and on. It's like a blog that's a newspaper. After a couple of days, the news is dead.
Kathryn Johnston:
I remember you saying that before in an interview, that is what your mother said to you about headlines in papers.
Bruce Wang:
Yeah.
Kathryn Johnston:
And then, the next day, the previous day's paper, that was all dead news.
Bruce Wang:
It was all dead news, yeah. There are a few themes that run through it, and things progress or regress, but they usually progress. It's not depressive and it's certainly not introspective, not suicidal, it's not goodbye cruel world. I really hope for a wonderful world.
Kathryn Johnston:
So it's reflective more than anything?
Bruce Wang:
It's self reflective, projected onto world events and world leaders and politicians who I never met, I have no intention of meeting. It is my... This is a Pepy's diary, you know? A Pepy's diary.
Kathryn Johnston:
Like the Great Fire of London?
Bruce Wang:
Yeah, the Great Fire of London, before that. It's just a diary. Anne Frank's diary. Instead of hiding in the attic, I'm in my second floor maisonette in total luxury without fear of Nazis arriving and taking you away…
Kathryn Johnston:
And how's it made you feel when you've been doing this book?
Bruce Wang:
It makes me satisfied, it's immensely satisfying.
Kathryn Johnston:
Both books?
Bruce Wang:
Yeah.
Kathryn Johnston:
But the way you're talking at the minute, you're not thinking about this latest book ever being published, necessarily?
Bruce Wang:
Possibly posthumously. I get intimations that I could live quite a few more years, so...
Kathryn Johnston:
So there's no rush.
Bruce Wang:
There's no rush.
Kathryn Johnston:
You'd be better not publishing it posthumously so you can get all the praise and recognition for it, wouldn't you?
Bruce Wang:
I don't need praise and recognition, I know it's good. I want pirate versions of it to come out so that people can get their dirty little hands on it, but I'm not going to personally kill hours and...
Kathryn Johnston:
Seek publication.
Bruce Wang:
... sell it to them. No. The more pirate versions there are of it, that will be a gauge of my worldly success. I'm not interested in Booker Prizes or book sales. That really doesn't interest me, I just enjoy doing it.
Kathryn Johnston:
You're interested in noting down your thoughts, reactions, your analysis?
Bruce Wang:
Yeah.
Kathryn Johnston:
Your comments.
Bruce Wang:
I find so many books are just aimed at getting an income, which...
Kathryn Johnston:
You couldn't be referring to Jeffrey Archer there, could you?
Bruce Wang:
No, just books in general. Books in general. Let's just get an income and be famous, go on talk shows. That doesn't interest me.
Kathryn Johnston:
So you did it more so as a form of creativity, self expression?
Bruce Wang:
Or self abuse. It's a form of...
Kathryn Johnston:
It's a form of communication primarily, isn't it?
Bruce Wang:
What does expiation mean?
Kathryn Johnston:
Oh, atonement?
Bruce Wang:
Yeah. It's a form of expiation. Noting down all who have done me wrong, done me good, all the harm I've done.
Kathryn Johnston:
Well, we'll call a halt there and we can go-
Bruce Wang:
No way-
Kathryn Johnston:
Yeah, yeah. Call a halt temporarily but keep the tape on, and just say whatever else you want to say, Bruce.
Bruce Wang:
Well, I really think money's just printed toilet paper. And the more I conceded to the circulation of printed toilet paper, the worse the world would become. The clever bit is that we can sell this interview, or use this interview to promote...
Kathryn Johnston:
Promote sales?
Bruce Wang:
Yes. I hate to be thought of as some sort of hermit in a two roomed flat, typing his heart out to some fantasy audience. I live my amusement. I think it would be a good book. I'll be damned if I'll go through the publishing process again after Ways of Showing book.
Kathryn Johnston:
It was very stressful for you, wasn't it?
Bruce Wang:
Oh, Jesus.
Kathryn Johnston:
But at the same time it only took you about, what, two, three weeks. The publishing process, I don't mean doing the work on it.
Bruce Wang:
Yeah.
Kathryn Johnston:
But the actual publishing process itself.
Bruce Wang:
Well, I could do so, I suppose. I'll publish it, yeah. I'll publish it. But I'm more interested in writing a novel under the name of Dulcimer Dewdrop. It'd be called The Adventures of a Nazi Jew Headmaster.
Kathryn Johnston:
That sounds as if it's more of a personal experience.
Bruce Wang:
Oh yes. My old prep school headmaster was a borderline..
Kathryn Johnston:
How do you mean borderline?
Bruce Wang:
Well, he never actually crossed the line but he totally fucked the brains of all the boys in the school.
Kathryn Johnston:
They must've all felt very vulnerable.
Bruce Wang:
Oh yeah. Some of the boys, it just went over their heads, but for some, the headmaster, he became a father figure. As a father figure, he was not professional. He didn't abuse me or touch me or anything, he just totally fucked my brain over. This is the age of 11, 12, 13. Totally fucked my brain over. But then, I let him.
Kathryn Johnston:
Well, what else could a 10, 11, 12 year old do?
Bruce Wang:
Exactly. I do know one Singaporean guy who flew over to England, from Singapore, to, I think, a prep school, public school. He decided he didn't like it and he took it upon himself to leave the school, travel to London, get a flat, and go to tutors. I wonder what the course of my life would've been had I done that.
Kathryn Johnston:
How did he manage to subsist? Did he have family wealth?
Bruce Wang:
He had relatively wealthy parents. I had relatively wealthy parents, but I didn't realize he was a millionaire till he was dead.
Kathryn Johnston:
Who, your father?
Bruce Wang:
Yeah. I was always constantly trying to economize and saving money.
Kathryn Johnston:
That's probably why he was a millionaire, Bruce?
Bruce Wang:
Well, yeah. I was always constantly trying to economize and save money on his behalf.
Kathryn Johnston:
What did he do?
Bruce Wang:
Huh?
Kathryn Johnston:
What did your father do?
Bruce Wang:
Oh, he had 30,000 acres of rain forest in the South Pacific. How he got an income out of them, I just don't know. Now, there's a tale of a money tree. A magic money tree that existed for my father. You've got 30,000 acres of rain forest. How do you extract £500 a month in 1962 to send to your five children and wife? In 1962, £500 was half of a year's wages for the average worker. Somehow from those trees, with his copra sales, which is extract from coconut: that couldn't have been enough to remit £500 a month.
Kathryn Johnston:
Have you tried to look into his commercial history? His life? Have you tried to work it out?
Bruce Wang:
It's just a mystery.
Kathryn Johnston:
What was his name?
Bruce Wang:
James.
Kathryn Johnston:
James Wang?
Bruce Wang:
Yeah. James Koh Sing Wang. If I had 30,000 acres of rain forest now, I'd be blowed if I could figure out how to earn the equivalent of £500 a month now, in 2022, from rain forest.
Kathryn Johnston:
But wasn't it very rich in natural resources? Wasn't there some copper?
Bruce Wang:
No, mainly mosquitoes and cockroaches.
Kathryn Johnston:
And did you ever live out there with him?
Bruce Wang:
Yeah. I went there for a month and talked to him, and realized we had nothing in common, nothing to say to each other. Yeah. I was only 30 and I was pretty naïve even at 30. This is 1984, I was 30 years old. I didn't ask the obvious thing, How did you get your money? The average plantation worker only worked when he saw the boss man coming, and while boss man was there. As soon as the boss man left, he'd stop working. How could he motivate them? Even though he was paying them albeit a small wage, it was the going rate. I didn't ask him that.
Kathryn Johnston:
But he managed to do it, obviously?
Bruce Wang:
He did it, yes. That's the amazing thing.
Kathryn Johnston:
And your mother worked too.
Bruce Wang:
For a while, as a journalist, but then she gave it all up to look after us.
Kathryn Johnston:
Would've been hard in those days doing anything else with five kids.
Bruce Wang:
Yeah. Yeah. But we had a good life. We had the best meat, the best veg, the best toys. We had the best of everything.
Kathryn Johnston:
And you were happy?
Bruce Wang:
Well, I had my “hormonal insurgencies”, but they weren't terminal.
Kathryn Johnston:
Obviously not.
Bruce Wang:
We had the best of everything. Yeah, we did.
Kathryn Johnston:
And you lived in Surrey?
Bruce Wang:
Oh God, Surrey. Yes, stockbroker belt. Oh Jesus. Boring. Nothing happens. Absolutely nothing.
Kathryn Johnston:
Did you live in the country or the town?
Bruce Wang:
Suburbia. Esher, Small town for stockbrokers. Jesus Christ. We just had, next door to us, this guy, who developed his own house and moved in with his family. They had built the house right up to our fence at the back, where we ecologically burnt all the newspapers, and he was very annoyed because he had the house painted white. And we burnt...
Kathryn Johnston:
And you blackened his house.
Bruce Wang:
Covered in soot all the white paint. Anyway. And then I had a room where I'd open all my windows and have my... Chicago, the band, they'd had their first and second album come out, and I used to play it full blast on my stereo every single day.
Kathryn Johnston:
25 or six to one, or something, wasn't it?
Bruce Wang:
25 or six to four.
Kathryn Johnston:
Oh.
Bruce Wang:
(sins it). And he'd come storming round. And how old would my sister have been? I would be about 14, my late oldest sister would've been about 19. And she just marched him up our drive and told him not to come back.
Kathryn Johnston:
Good for her.
Bruce Wang:
And shut the gate on him. Happy days.
Bruce Wang:
Yeah, so I continue to do my journal, and I do it so that, at the end of every day, it's ready to go to press. But lo and behold, the BBC AM team see to it that there's more to come. They have a talent for that.
Kathryn Johnston:
Well, it's a never ending project, isn't it, if you're doing a daily journal? But it's supposed to be very helpful and very beneficial.
Bruce Wang:
Yeah.
Kathryn Johnston:
Do you find it like that?
Bruce Wang:
Well, I see my role as helping, informing, guiding people. In the past, I used to go through a hell of a lot of A3 size paper, writing gibberish. But in 1979, I did tiny detailed drawings with pen and ink. It hasn't really changed since 1979, only I do it with digital photographs and...
Kathryn Johnston:
I just think it's interesting. The reason I was smiling there, Bruce, was I just think it's interesting, since 1979, which was the very year that Margaret Thatcher came to power.
Bruce Wang:
I know, I know. Yeah. That's when I had the calling.
Kathryn Johnston:
Yeah.
Bruce Wang:
Suffice it to say that the 1979 bout of reportage had me in an oppressive insane asylum for about two months.
Kathryn Johnston:
What year was that?
Bruce Wang:
'79.
Kathryn Johnston:
Mm-hmm.
Bruce Wang:
Yeah. In fact, most bouts of reportage have ended in insanity. This time it seems to be under control.
Kathryn Johnston:
It seems to be clarifying things for you.
Bruce Wang:
Yeah. That's what's so fascinating and exhilarating about it. I'm just more confident. I'm more confident and 40 years older. Nowadays I only get sick from my cancer or exhaustion, rather than delusions of grandeur and paranoia, which could have been partly there in the past.
Kathryn Johnston:
You don't strike me as somebody that would be subject to delusions of grandeur or paranoia.
Bruce Wang:
I was so grandiose anyway, man.
Kathryn Johnston:
But you know what I mean? I mean, you seem fairly self confident?
Bruce Wang:
I know. That's what public school gives you. I only had two and a half years of public school but that was enough to give me a confidence and a belief in myself And this confidence was enough to power me through two years in Communist Leeds University campus, Leeds Polytechnic.
Kathryn Johnston:
Those must've been good days.
Bruce Wang:
They were great days, yeah. When young women bought men drinks.
Kathryn Johnston:
They still do.
Bruce Wang:
They do? I was so poor, this impoverished art student offered to buy me a beer. It was only 25p a pint, but 25p was a lot of money in those days. Yeah. £10 a week in Leeds, I lived on. Rent was £3, food was £3.
Kathryn Johnston: ?
It was 25p for a beer
Bruce Wang:
25p and then-
Kathryn Johnston:
And books and clothes. Huh?
Bruce Wang:
Cigarettes and clothes, yeah.
Kathryn Johnston:
Did you smoke much?
Bruce Wang:
I did, yeah. But the cigarettes are very bad. About 50p for 20, something like that.
Kathryn Johnston:
I remember years and years and years ago, 10 Players No6 being five bob, maybe? 25p or something?
Bruce Wang:
Yeah, yeah. Well, 1973, a university graduate with a good degree started on £25 a year in accountancy. And the dole was £23 a week.
Kathryn Johnston:
A week, yeah. So there wasn't much of a conflict there, was there?
Bruce Wang:
Not much. A lot quit and went on the dole and work on the black.
Kathryn Johnston:
That's an expression that I haven't heard for a long time. Working on the black.
Bruce Wang:
Yeah, so carpentry, therapy, working for People's News Service.
Kathryn Johnston:
As a photographer?
Bruce Wang:
No. That's how I met Jo Spence. We got a press release from them, asking for volunteers, and I went round and met her. And she takes these amazing photographs of casual kids having a good time. Really reacting unselfconsciously to her camera. How did she get these pictures, yeah? How did she get in there and get the pictures? Anyway, that's another story. Another story.
Kathryn Johnston:
Well, let's call a halt there.
Bruce Wang:
Okay.
