Zhou Guoping

In this Chinese name, the family name is Zhou.

Zhou Guoping (Chinese: 周国平; pinyin: Zhōu Guópíng; born July 25, 1945), is a modern Chinese author, poet, scholar, translator, philosopher, and research fellow at the Institute of Philosophy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Zhou Guoping 周国平
Zhou in 2019
Born	(1945-07-25) July 25, 1945 (age 79)
Nationality	Chinese
Education	Peking University Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Occupation	• Writer • Scholar • Philosopher
Spouse	Minzi (?-1980) Xiang Lingyu (divorced) Guo Hong (1997-present)
Children	Niuniu (deceased) Jiujiu

As of 2017, Zhou had published more than 20 books, some in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea.^[which?]

Biography

Zhou was born in Shanghai, where he grew up and attended Shanghai High School. After he graduated from Peking University in 1967, Zhou worked on a Hunan farm for one and a half years. He was later relocated to work in the Tzeyuan town in Guangxi, where he married his first wife, Minzi (Chinese: 敏子).

In 1978, he left Guangxi and attended the Institute of Philosophy of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, where he received a masters degree and a PhD.

In the spring of 1980 Zhou’s first marriage ended. He then married Xiang Lingyu (Chinese: 项灵羽). When Zhou was 43, he had his first daughter Niuniu (Chinese: 妞妞), who was diagnosed with and died from a rare cancer, Retinoblastoma. His second marriage ended soon after Niuniu’s death.^[1]

In September 1997, Zhou married Guo Hong (Chinese: 郭红), who was twenty years younger than him. Together they had a daughter, Jiujiu (Chinese: 啾啾).^[2]

Zhou caused controversy in 2015 by a Weibo post which said that women were beautiful when cleaning the house or feeding babies, which led to him being accused of having straight man cancer.^[3]

Selected publications

• Niuniu: the Reading Notes of a Father (Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2006)^[4] was written after the death of Niuniu (Zhou's first daughter) from retinoblastoma.

• Men and Eternity (Shanghai People's Publishing House, 1987)^[5] is a book of short essays.

• The Starry Sky of Thoughts (People's Literature Publishing House, 2009)^[6] is a book of essays.

• Souls Only Walk Alone (People's Literature Publishing House, 2009)

• Freestyle (People's Literature Publishing House, 2001) is a book of dialogues between Zhou and rock musician Cui Jian.

Controversy

In the Starry Sky of Thoughts, Zhou states that from his viewpoint, the beauty of a woman will inevitably be compromised if she fails to become a good lover, wife, and mother.^[7] His words lead to criticisms from numerous feminists.^[8] Lu Ping (Chinese: 吕频), a feminist activist, argued that Zhou’s words were "not only ignorant about women, but also contained an arrogant attitude from his ivory tower.”^[9]