***REGION 12: Asia II

If you have not read the information on the master thread regarding the intent of these regional threads, please do this first.

***12. Asia II: China, Mongolia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, Tibet,

Stories from Contemporary China, 3 novellas by Bei Cun, Xu Yigua, and Li Er

I have waited too long after finishing this book to comment as the three novels are starting to fade in my memory. The three short novels presented here were all written in the last 20 years and are said to reflect various aspects of Chinese society. "The authors are representative of contemporary writers, as well as being young and active new stars," says Sun Yong in a one-page preface.

After reading the entries by Chinese authors in the very fine anthology Speaking for Myself: An Anthology of Asian Women's Writing, I have been casting about for more writing by contemporary Chinese author, so I admit I was drawn to this collection for the very reason the collection was put together - to introduce Westerners to contemporary Chinese literature, culture and people. The first story "Zhou Yu's Train" by Bei Cun is a tale of love, one woman's grief, and the difference being delusion and truth. In "The Sprinkler" by Xu Yigua tells of a story of the young Hehuan, a sprinkler truck driver (wets down the roads) and the mysterious disappearance of her husband. And lastly, in "The Crime Scene" by Li Er , a journalist interviews a gang of bank robbers and we hear the story of their crime from their points-of-view.

I enjoyed each of these stories finding the translation quite readable, the stories complex and certainly successful in their aim to show us the internal lives of a variety of Chinese people. A worthy read for those interested in Asian literature on any level.

Death of a Red Heroine by Qiu Xiaolong

Chen Cao wanted to be a literary scholar and poet but his assigned role in life was to the police force in Shanghai. Through political manoeuvrings he has risen to the rank of Chief Inspector in only a very short time and some of his colleagues resent his burgeoning career. He is in charge of the Special Cases unit so when an opportunity arises to head up the homicide investigation of a national model worker he feels a responsibility to his job to solve the case no matter where it leads.

The main reason for reading this book is not the murder/mystery however, but the description of life in post-Cultural Revolution China and the struggles of everyday living as the people come to terms with the new political ideas that are shaping the country. Very evocative of the place and time as well as the way of varying levels of life for the people.

CHINA

Half of Man is Woman by Xianliang Zhang

This is a semi-autobiographical novel about an intellectual sent to a work camp. At the time it was released in China, the book was considered shocking, since it raised sexual issues (impotence), which it tacitly linked to the emasculation of the intelligensia during the Cultural Revolution. The position of the intelligensia is illustrated by this description:

'At the beginning, the nickname people gave him was 'stupid.' Unfortunately, at that time, the adjective 'stupid' had taken on a complimentary character, and was used as a term of commendation. For example, the person who came daily to clean the Headquarter's toilets--this person was encouraged and praised as being 'stupid.' He had previously been a hydraulic engineer, and had with some difficulty overcome the appellation 'intellectual.' Now after much work, he had obtained the glorious status of 'stupid,' and been allowed to enter the Party.'

The story is the simple depiction of day-to-day life on the labor farm. Most of the inhabitants feel themselves lucky to be beyond the notice of the excesses of the Cultural Revolution. With few exceptions (the loudspeaker announcing communal meals, the broken-down tractor), the laborers could be living and working in the 19th century. As a former member of the intelligensia, the protagonist feels alone and isolated. He discusses political issues and his personal problems with a talking horse.

The book is poetically written, and I recommend it. However, I have yet to read any work about China as lyrical and as informative as Wild Swans by Jung Chang.

MONGOLIA

Teal of Ulaanbaatar by Christopher R. Howard



I read this as an Early Reviewer book and thoroughly enjoyed it. Here is my review:

Tea of Ulaanbaatar provides a stark and unforgettable look at Mongolia in the late 1990s, a nation suffering through the transition from Soviet communism to Western materialism. It is a virtually lawless nation where decay, disease, corruption and violence coexist with fashionable restaurants and trendy night clubs.

The principal character, named Warren, is a disillusioned American Peace Corps volunteer. Joining the Peace Corps merely to escape unemployment, his goal is simply to endure his tenure in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar where he teaches English. His routine forever changes when he is introduced to "tsus," a drug taken in the form of tea that is unknown outside Mongolia.

Tsus not only provides immediate euphoria, but prolonged use makes the user assertive, immune to physical suffering, and subject to hallucinatory dreams of future events. It is the ancient secret behind the Mongol's startling success in conquering almost all of Asia in the Middle Ages. It is also, metaphorically, a symbol of the dangers of cultural contamination.

Author Christopher R. Howard's prose is fluid, eschewing quotation marks yet effortless to read. I found Tea of Ulaanbaatar a fascinating and thoughtful novel. It would especially appeal to anyone interested in modern Asia or the problems of globalization.

Tibet:
Stick Out Your Tongue by Ma Jian, 1987



Stick Out Your Tongue is a set of five linked short stories incorporating material gathered in the author's travels in Tibet. The first story describes a "sky burial" in which the body of the deceased is dismembered into bite-sized pieces and fed to wild birds. (You can see some rather gruesome pictures of this in the Wikipedia article on the topic.) The second tale takes place on the desolate shores of a salt lake high in the Himalayas. Next comes the tale of a Tibetan herdsman who, while dining on a dish of yak blood, begins with "I drank from my mother's breast until the age of fourteen. Her milk never ran dry.... I was sixteen when I first slept with my mother." The remaining stories are no less shocking.

The Chinese government allowed Stick Out Your Tongue to be published, only to ban it later as "pornography." In an afterword written from exile in 2005, Ma Jian says that his stories depict the way Tibet has been impoverished and its culture warped by Chinese domination. I find it difficult to see the connection. Neither poverty nor communism created the "sky burial," nor were either responsible for the bizarre and inhuman rituals practiced in a Buddhist monastery as depicted in the final story. While I can't see the political statement the author says he is making, this is still an unforgettable book that makes me see Tibet in a new, unflattering light.

China:

Raise the Red Lantern: Three Novellas by Su Tong, 1990



The three novellas in this collection take place in southern China in the first half of the 20th century. They are not directly linked to one another, though two of them take place in the same fictional village. The first and longest story was originally given the English title "Wives and Concubines," but after a movie was made from it titled "Raise the Red Lantern," the publisher adopted that title for the novella as well as the collection.

"Raise the Red Lantern" is the story of Lotus, a college student, who comes home one day to find that her father has killed himself because the family business has collapsed. Her family decides to sell her to a wealthy man to be his concubine. The story opens with Lotus arriving at her new home, where she will be the master's fourth wife. What is immediately shocking about this story is how well and quickly Lotus adapts to her new situation, taking pride in becoming the master's favorite bed partner. She is prepared for a jealous reaction from the other wives, but not for the direction from which it comes, its intensity, or the dark secrets that will be uncovered.

"The Nineteen Thirty-Four Escapes" is a family saga in miniature of the Chen family as it disintegrates during a year of famine. The author uses magical realism in this story to good effect to encapsulate the emotions, traditions and superstitions that are invoked in a series of tragic events. It is a grim story in which the central character realizes "that evil is a large part of the original nature of the human race; it is as natural as the movements of the sun and the moon."

"Opium Family" is also the story of a family, this time headed by wealthy landlord. It begins in 1930 as the fortunes of Liu Laoxia are on the rise due to his decision to make opium his principal crop. But Liu is fated to be less successful in family matters, with a series of stillborn or defective children. He is secretly aware that his only healthy son was actually fathered by one of his laborers. The family's moral decay is almost complete when the Communist Revolution comes in 1949 to sweep away what's left in a series of bizarre and violent events.

These are bitter and savage stories of the darker side of human nature and a social system in its death throes. Through the symbolic devices of magical realism, Su Tong makes you feel the weight of centuries of injustice and oppression.

China:

137. Rickshaw by Lao She
First published in Chinese 1936 as Lo-t'o Hsiang Tzu



Hsiang Tzu is an orphaned village boy who has come to Beijing, as so many millions have done before and since, looking for work. In the 1920's the rickshaw is still the primary means of urban transportation, and Hsiang Tzu's great size and strength, youth and good health, make him a natural for the job of rickshaw puller. He both enjoys and excels in his work and dreams of the day when he will own his own rickshaw.

But fate has many lessons in store for Hsiang Tzu. Renegade soldiers, corrupt police, and the seductive boss's daughter will have their turn at confounding the young man's ambitious plans. Gradually beaten down, Hsiang Tzu nonetheless clings to his belief that honesty, clean living, and hard work will bring rewards.

Lao She was a champion of left-wing causes in nationalist China. In Rickshaw he repeatedly deplores capitalist greed and "Individualism's blind alley," implying that China's poor can only receive justice through collective action. He would seem to have been a natural prophet for the Communist revolution. Tragically, though, he was either murdered or forced into suicide during the Cultural Revolution. Nonetheless he provides an exceptionally vivid, yet balanced, picture of urban poverty.

The novel has been translated into English under three titles. The first translation, by Evan S. King in 1945 under the title Rickshaw Boy is heavily modified and bowdlerized. The James translation, which I read, is beautifully rendered and claims to be faithful to the original. It does, however, use the now-discarded Wade-Giles romanization. There is a newer translation, published in China, using Pinyin and titled Camel Xiangzi.

Lao She was an admirer of Charles Dickens, but I find his more explicit and humorless brand of realism closer to that of Émile Zola. Highly recommended.

CHINA:

Red Sorghum: A Novel of China by Mo Yan
First published in Chinese 1987
English translation by Howard Goldblatt 1993



"Over decades that seem but a moment in time, lines of scarlet figures shuttled among the sorghum stalks to weave a vast human tapestry. They killed, they looted, and they defended their country in a valiant, stirring ballet that makes us unfilial descendants who now occupy the land pale by comparison. Surrounded by progress, I feel a nagging sense of our species' regression." Thus the narrator of Mo Yan's novel states the theme of Red Sorghum.

The setting for the novel is the author's native village of Northeast Gaomi Township in the province of Shandong near the tip of the Chinese peninsula that points toward Korea. Most of the events in the novel take place between 1923 and 1941. During the first part of that period the region was loosely governed by one of China's many warlords. In 1937 the Japanese occupied the province, leading to years of violent repression and resistance.

The narrative timeline is complex. The first-person narrator revisits his home town in the 1980s to construct his family's history. He begins his account in 1939 as his father, a teenage boy at the time, is preparing to participate in a partisan ambush of a Japanese convoy. This battle will be the central event in the novel. The story then shifts back to 1923 for the marriage of the narrator's paternal grandmother. These shifts in time occur frequently throughout the novel as though the principal characters are remembering their past, with the 1939-1941 timeline being the principal one.

Though the characters' proper names are given, they are chiefly referred to by relationship as "Granddad," "Grandma," "Father," "Little Auntie," etc., thus reaffirming the narrator's invisible presence. Grandma, a remarkably strong and free-spirited woman, inherits a distillery while still a teenage girl and proves more than equal to the task of managing it. Granddad, a large and violent man, begins his career while still a boy by murdering his mother's lover, then alternates between manual labor and banditry until emerging as a feared guerrilla warrior after the Japanese invasion. The relationship between these two is both passionate and tempestuous.

Violence and passion prevail in this story of remarkable heroism, brutality, treachery and suffering. When the Chinese partisan bands aren't fighting the Japanese, they are fighting each other for control of weapons and food supplies. The primitive, defiant individualism and amorality of Granddad and his contemporaries brings to mind the Old West of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian.

Mo Yan's style of writing verges on magical realism, with its sensuality and capriciousness, but there is nothing disarmingly "magic" about it. The environment is a real as it can be, with every scene oozing blood, sweat, mud, pus, sap or semen. Red Sorghum is a harrowing, earthy and unforgettable immersion in the violent and tragic lives of its characters.

CHINA:

Selected Stories of Lu Hsun
Eighteen stories first published 1918-1926
Translation by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang 1972



Lu Xun was the most prominent Chinese writer of the first half of the 20th century. His writings reflect a time of transition between ancient traditions and modern ways and the political turmoil following the final collapse of dynastic rule. Lu's beliefs were progressive and socialist, but with strong sympathy for the common person trapped in the values and practices of an archaic tradition.

There is considerable variety in the stories this collection, ranging from light political satires, to dark cultural allegories, and to poignant personal tragedies. The settings also vary: urban-rural, past-present, realistic-imaginary. The collection is arranged chronologically, and the general trend is from the general and political to in the earlier stories to the intimate and personal in the later ones.

The opening selection, "A Madman's Diary," is an allegorical depiction of feudalism through the thoughts of a man obsessed with cannibalism. Like many of Lu's stories it shows the influence of Nikolai Gogol in its use of the absurd and fantastic.

Lu's most famous story, and the longest in the collection, is "The True Story of Ah Q." Ah Q is a shiftless simpleton who gets caught up in the political rivalries between nationalist and socialist factions in rural China. He's only looking for his next meal, but he finds himself one day a pariah, the next a hero, the next a criminal depending on how the political winds are blowing. This is a superb double-edged satire, both showing the need for social reform and poking fun at the selfish motives of the supposed reformers.

Several of the stories focus on the status of women in China. It was a time when girls in rural areas were still having their feet bound and might be sold as concubines, while women in urban China attended college, wore Western dress and started careers. Institutions and attitudes were slow to adapt. "Regret for the Past" depicts the struggles of a couple who--for reasons never given--decide to live together unmarried. The strain of society's disapproval eventually drives them into poverty and dooms their relationship. In "Divorce," a woman with modern attitudes is forced to go through an archaic divorce process by submitting her case to the village sage.

The final story in the collection, "Forging the Swords," is an allegorical attack on aristocratic tradition in the mode of (and referencing) Hans Christian Andersen's tale "The Emperor's New Clothes." It has a macabre twist to it, however, featuring two severed heads fighting one another in a cauldron of boiling water as a third man beheads himself so his head can join the fray. This is one of several stories in which Lu Xun resembles his European contemporary Franz Kafka.

This collection was published in 2003, but the translations are not new. They were first published in Beijing in 1972 before the use of the new Pinyin system of romanization became standard. Thus the author's name is given as "Lu Hsun" rather than "Lu Xun," and the names of characters and places are similarly spelled under the old Wade-Giles system. This is the only drawback to the translation, which I found perfectly readable. The 2003 edition includes an introduction by Ha Jin which provides useful biographical information and an assessment of Lu Xun's place in Chinese literary tradition.

CHINA:

Heavy Wings by Zhang Jie
First published in China 1980 as Chenzhong de chibang
Also published as Leaden Wings
English translation by Howard Goldblatt 1989



China in 1980 was in a difficult period of economic and social transition. Zhang Jie described it as it was happening in her novel Heavy Wings. The setting is Beijing, and the principal characters are mostly workers or executives with either the Morning Light Auto Works or the Ministry of Heavy Industry which oversees it. The key conflict is a dispute in management philosophy which basically boils down to the question: "Does the worker serve the state, or does the state serve the worker?"

Chen Yongming, the manager of Morning Light Auto Works, believes that happy workers are better workers, and that giving employees some autonomy improves production and quality. He has taken risks like diverting funds to build housing for his employees, and those risks are paying off. A cadre member of the Ministry of Heavy Industry named He Jiabin, excited about what Chen has done, collaborates with a journalist to publish an article praising Chen's new philosophy. The publicity generated by the article soon pits two senior members of the ministry against each other, with each attempting to represent his views as the proper expression of Marxist doctrine. He Jiabin's superior and supporter, Vice-Minister Zheng Ziyun, bears the brunt of the power struggle and emerges as the novel's chief protagonist.

The conflict reverberates up and down the management chain and into the personal lives of those involved. Zheng's opponents attempt to slander him by implying an illicit relationship between Zheng and the female reporter who co-authored the infamous article. At the same time, Zheng is having trouble at home with his callous, unloving wife, and his rebellious daughter. The role of women is a major theme in the novel, with the puritanical ideals of officialdom coming under heavy criticism as well. An unmarried couple seen together is a scandal, and a successful woman is sneeringly assumed to have used sex to achieve her position. And where did Marx write, wonders one character, that a man may not kiss his wife in public?

That Heavy Wings was published in China in 1980 to wide acclaim shows that Zhang Jie caught the mood of the moment quite accurately and at a time when China's leaders were open to the ideas represented in the novel. The sense of the uncertainty about the future that the populace and its government must have felt is expressed in the following passage when He Jiabin comforts a woman he has loved secretly for years but has never been able to marry, or even dared to kiss, because of political issues in her past:

"Oh Jiabin, Jiabin, why has everything turned out so badly?"

He pats her on the back. "Because we're living in a society that's neither capitalist nor communist, neither fish nor fowl, neither this nor that, neither hot nor cold, always at odds, up and down, where nothing is as it should be, and everything can be interpreted one way or the other. No one ever knows which way to go, and nothing's ever made clear. So why should your own agony be more important than the agonies of an entire society?... It's not the fault of any one person. These are the pains that come during a time of transition."

Zhang Jie is obviously at pains herself not to imply any criticism of Chairman Deng Xiaoping or the Communist Party in her novel. It does not promote capitalism, just a reform of management practices and social attitudes under communism. Obviously China was soon to evolve in ways that vastly exceeded the reforms promoted in the novel.

While Heavy Wings is a very rewarding and informative novel, it is anything but lively. There are so many characters introduced in successive chapters that the novel at first reads like a series of loosely linked short stories. And the lengthy discussions of management practices often make it seem more like a case study in a textbook on organizational psychology. The more human side of the story only comes to the fore in the last third of the novel when the philosophical cases have all been made and the effects of conflict and stress take their toll on the rivals and their families. I would recommend it especially to those with an interest in recent Chinese history and not just looking for entertainment.

Normally I race to read anything Japanese (I'M JAPANESE!) but I'd like to read anything I can about China's terribly great human rights record. Thank You.

China:

Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en
16th century



Journey to the West is an epic fantasy adventure compiled in the 16th century by Wu Cheng’en from a body of oral and written sources. The setting is the Tang Dynasty (7th to 10th centuries), and the novel depicts in allegorical form the growing influence of Buddhism on China and its fusion with Taoism and Confucianism.

The novel begins with the birth and early history of its principal character, Monkey. He is a creature of divine origins born from a sacred stone on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit many thousands of years ago. Not content with being king of a nation of monkeys, he seeks out a Taoist master from whom he learns magical powers so potent that Monkey dares to defy Heaven itself. For this he is imprisoned by the Tathagata Buddha under a mountain for five hundred years.

Next we have the background of the Buddhist priest Sanzang, himself once an immortal but banished to mortal life as punishment for a careless misdeed. He has now purified his soul through ten reincarnations. He is chosen by the Tang Emperor for a monumental task: Sanzang is to journey from China to India where he will find the Tathagata Buddha atop Vulture Peak. He is to obtain copies of the holy Buddhist scriptures so that the people of China may improve their conduct and well-being.

Sanzang is, frankly, a rather pathetic creature, pure though he may be, and could not get across town on his own, much less across a continent. Fortunately he has the divine aid of the Bodhisattva Guanyin, who frees Monkey and converts him to Buddhism so that he can be Sanzang’s guide and protector. Later he is joined by two other reformed immortals: Pig and Friar Sand.

The great majority of the novel’s 100 chapters are devoted to the journey itself and the series of adventures that befall the four monks. Most of the adventures follow the same format: They come to a particularly dangerous-looking mountain, forest or city. Sanzang quails in fear, but Monkey reassures him, but provides some prudent warning. Sanzang then ignores Monkey’s warnings, blunders right into the danger and gets himself captured by some evil spirit. Monkey fights a mighty battle to recover his master, but eventually must either resort to trickery or summon divine aid to save the day.

Most of the demons and monsters they face are supernatural creatures that have escaped from their heavenly masters and assumed human form. They are particularly eager to capture Sanzang because he is so pure that his flesh has special properties. The male demons will gain immortality by eating him, the female demons by mating with him.

Chinese culture has for centuries been built upon a fusion of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, and Journey to the West, while it is most favorable to Buddhism, reflects that fusion. Monkey calls upon Taoist deities as frequently as he does Buddhist ones, and recommends the study of Confucius as well as the Buddhas and Laozi. The particular Taoists represented in the novel, however, are mostly (and spectacularly) evil, as was Monkey himself as a Taoist before his conversion to Buddhism.

Though many abridgements have been published over the centuries, the 100 chapter version of Journey to the West is the authoritative one. It is delightfully easy to read, with some very inventive situations and plenty of humorous banter between the clever Monkey and the selfish, simple-minded Pig. With only three characters of any consequence, it is not only an easy book to digest but one that is easy to put aside and pick up days or weeks later. This may be inevitable as some of the adventures do begin to be a bit repetitive, and the novel, in the excellent 4-volume Foreign Language Press edition, is over 2300 pages long. Journey to the West is a cultural treasure that anyone with a serious interest in Chinese literature should read, but it is also an entertaining and amusing adventure story.

CHINA

Turbulence by Jia Pingwa
First published in Chinese 1987
English translation by Howard Goldblatt 1991

 

Turbulence takes place in rural China during the post-Mao years. The title stands for the economic and political turmoil of the time. It also refers to the dangerous waters of the Zhou River, the setting for most of the book. And it represents the confused emotions of its principal characters, Golden Dog and Water Girl.

Golden Dog is the son of a simple sign painter in a little village known as Stream of Wandering Spirits. A stint in the army has given him an awareness of the outside world and taught him how to express himself in writing, but he begins his career as many local men do: poling a raft taking small cargoes from the mountain villages down the river to market. Water Girl is an orphan who lives with her uncle Han Wenju, the local ferryman. She and Golden Dog have grown up almost as close as brother and sister, so they are very awkward about the affections they feel for one another. Unable to understand, much less express, his love for Water Girl, Golden Dog is easy prey for the seductive wiles of Yingying, the step-daughter of a local official. "Water Girl was a bodhisattva, Yingying was a wild animal. People revere bodhisattvas, but they fall in love with wild animals; the holiness of the bodhisattva had steered him clear of wicked thoughts, but the seductiveness of the wild animal had forced him into a quagmire from which there was no escape."

Ironically, Golden Dog does escape from the quagmire, at least temporarily: His application for a job as a newspaper reporter is accepted, and he is whisked off to Zhou City, leaving Water Girl hurt and Yingying frustrated. In the city, Golden Dog learns the harsh political realities that dominate this socialist country struggling to implement capitalism. And he learns that no one exposes corruption without himself becoming the target of retribution.

Jia portrays a China still steeped in ancient traditions and beliefs, overlaid with the teachings of communism and the bitter experience of the Cultural Revolution, and now struggling to implement reforms that few fully understand. Feudal structures remain in the form of clans which dominate local party offices. Bribery is an indispensable part of any business enterprise.

But Jia sees China's problem as something even deeper, for "no sooner do some people set themselves up in business than they're rolling in money, and most of the new wealth has come through business practices that would give you the creeps." He sees "serious graft and corruption, and a deterioration of public morality the result." The author blames this loss of public morality on the character of the Chinese people. "After a major upheaval, changes in social attitude invariably occur: the people grow agitated, begin to lose their sense of public morality, shun discipline, and grow more complacent about violence." And further: "Our race is beset by an inherent failing, that of invariably transforming normal enthusiasm into abnormal stimulation, and of turning confidence into irrational fanaticism."

Turbulence is a memorable portrayal of a land of changes and contrasts, where a semi-literate peasant can become a millionaire almost overnight through pure speculation. The people are wrenched from their traditional occupations by the temptation to follow get-rich-quick schemes. A mountain is deforested for the making of walking sticks that are soon nothing but firewood. A fad for pig raising results in such overproduction that the swine are soon worth less than the grain they consume in a single day. And the great river, as treacherous and unpredictable as history itself, is always there to remind the villagers that all gain is fleeting.

The love story of Water Girl and Golden Dog takes a back seat to the author's portrayal of a nation in a period of difficult transition as China struggles to achieve socialist ends through capitalist means. Turbulence is a slow-paced novel that provides valuable insight but requires some patience on the reader's part, so I would recommend it most to those with a particular interest in recent Chinese history.

CHINA



In the Pond by Ha Jin

first published 1998

Pity Shao Bin. After six years at the Harvest Fertilizer Plant, he has not advanced at all. He lives in one room in a workers' dormitory with his wife Meilan and baby daughter Shanshan. This year he has been passed over yet again for an apartment in the Workers' Park, much to his wife's disgust. Ever the pragmatist, she feels some small gifts from Bin to his superiors would not have been out of line.

An idealist at heart, Bin tries to subdue his rage and disappointment at this slight by retreating to his beloved writing brushes and art books. Seeking advice in the texts, he reasoned he must use writing and painting to expose corruption and strike back at Liu and Ma, whom he blames for his misfortune. After all

Who were Liu Shu and Ma Gong? Two small cadres with glib tongues, uncouth and unlettered. They were wine vessels and rice bags, their existence only burdening the earth, whereas he had read hundreds of books and was knowledgeable about strategies.

That night he produced a cartoon mocking them and accusing them of corruption. Next day he sent it off for publication.

So begins a struggle between worker and employer, powerless and powerful. Anyone who has worked in a large organization will recognize the machinations. Bin's coworkers initially side with him and urge him on, although some are doing this only for the joy of seeing someone fall. As Bin's fortunes wane, many of these coworkers distance themselves from him. Bin, reluctant to accept his minor role in life, escalates his behaviour after each round. Assumptions are made on both sides, leading to completely unanticipated acts after each skirmish.

Although a universal story, this tale is told from a uniquely Chinese perspective. Shao Bin is ordered to write a self criticism. He is belittled openly at a production meeting by his superiors. When a scuffle breaks out, he is labelled a lunatic. His family background is investigated for bad class elements. His bosses consider vandalism against his home. All this would be familiar to Chinese workers.

Serious as the themes are, they are all presented as a very funny slapstick satire. At one meeting Liu addresses the accusation of accepting gifts:

Shao Bin painted that we each received a bag of pineapples. That's a lie. To be honest, I've never seen a fresh pineapple. I don't know how big it is. I've only eaten canned pineapple once and have no idea how people eat a fresh one. Do you peel it, or cut it, or boil it, or pickle it? Tell me how. Come on, some of you are from the south and must know how to handle a fresh pineapple.

Food is both a constant metaphor and a constant presence. Almost every meeting has food lovingly described. If it is absent, that is noted too. At one stage, Liu and Ma, trying to decide how to handle the situation, decide to keep Bin "in the pond"; a small fish feeding their enterprise, rather than letting him go and possibly having the enterprise devoured. The emphasis on food is not accidental. Ha Jin was born in 1956 and grew up through the famine years. Food plays a role in all his writing.

This is a first novel, published after books of short stories and of poetry. Ha Jin has lived in the US since 1985. He writes in English, so nothing has been lost in translation. No time frame is given for this novel, but based on references to the four pests campaign, the anti capitalist roader campaign and the mention that Chairman Mao is dead, I would put the events somewhere in the region of 1977. It doesn't really need a defined time though, for as long as there are workers and bosses, his novel will find an appreciative audience.

CHINA

This next is a very long discussion, but I think the book merits it. This is one of the most excruciatingly painful books I have read. If you have read The Gulag Archipelago or The Rape of Nanjing, you will know what I mean.



Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962 by Frank Dikötter
first published 2010

In 1996, Jasper Becker published his groundbreaking Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine. Becker's work was received with widespread scepticism and even downright disbelief in many western circles, where academics and government agencies found it difficult to believe that thirty million people could die of starvation in just four years without their knowledge. Becker's methodology was sound, however. In the mid nineteen eighties he studied population statistics released by the newly resurrected Chinese State Statistical Bureau for the years 1953, 1964 and 1982, and interviewed people in and out of China who had survived the famine. Becker's work is now accepted, so when Frank Dikötter started writing about the famine, he did not have to prove it actually happened, instead he could look at the why and how of it.

Dikötter contends that the famine is best understood as the direct result of the Great Leap Forward, which he considers to be the pivotal event of the People's Republic of China. Much of his book deals with this era, setting up the necessary conditions for the famine. Although access to party archives has relaxed somewhat and records are now open in theory for events that happened more than thirty years ago, full access is almost impossible to obtain. Dikötter got around this to a large extent by using provincial, county and local Public Security records. Reasoning that information was a two way flow, he found much valuable material outside Beijing. He also trained interviewers fluent in local dialects to gather first hand information. This book is filled with numbers and should probably be read at least twice: once for content and once for numbers. Data and claims are backed up with extensive references and bibliography.

The Great Leap Forward, launched in 1957-58, was Mao's effort to 'walk on two legs', in other words to radically overhaul both agriculture and industry at the same time. The goal was to transform China from a backward country using outmoded methods to a modern country where citizens would not want. Along the way, he would one up the rival Soviet Union, which was focussing heavily on industry only in its own effort to outstrip the USA. Economic planners who opposed the scheme, including Zhou Enlai, were subjected to self criticism sessions at best and many were purged in a massive anti rightist campaign.

Irrigation was first on the list of projects, as both agriculture and industry rely on steady reliable supplies of water. The Yellow River was dammed at the Three Gate Gorge Dam. A huge reservoir was built by the Ming Tombs. Tens of thousands of smaller projects were started all over the country. Lacking capital in the from of technology, work was done by hand with primitive tools. It was estimated that out of a population of 650 million, one in six people was involved in working on an irrigation project by January 1958.

Naturally with these numbers, many of the conscripted workers were farmers. Taken from fields and villages, people were put into worker camps with inadequate shelter, clothing, sleep and food. Work was often conducted around the clock. By February, early symptoms of starvation started to appear. With farmers employed on irrigation projects en masse, crops already in the field rotted in the ground without being harvested and new crops were not planted.

At the same time, the process of collectivization began. Farms where amalgamated into huge entities owned and controlled by the state. All domestic farm animals and tools were to be turned over to the commune. Some farmers protested by killing and eating their own animals before they could be expropriated, but this provided only short term relief. Household cooking implements were also to be turned over. In some villages, domestic fires were forbidden. All this was done in an effort to centralize and control food ownership and distribution on the collective, where all meals were doled out in community kitchens. 'From each according to his ability to each according to his need' had nothing to do with how many calories an individual might need. Instead it became a measure of how much the most productive work units needed to keep going, even if it meant sacrificing others.

Ever escalating production targets which reached ludicrous proportions resulted in agricultural experiments doomed to failure. Crops were planted on land and environments that wouldn't support them, intensive planting produced nothing, attempts were made to produce more than one harvest a season where it couldn't be supported, and deep digging resulted in lost soil bases. At the same time, China was exporting existing wheat, pork, seed oils and other foodstuffs to East Germany, Albania and the USSR, to name a few. Highly inflated crop estimates from all levels of administration resulted in ever higher production quotas.

Mao's goal in technology was that steel production reach one hundred million tonnes by 1962, up from just over five tonnes in 1957. This steel would be produced locally by individual communes without the help of 'rightist' experts. Every bit of metal, often including farm implements, was rounded up to be melted down. Trees, straw, feathers, even beams from villagers' huts were used to feed the fires needed to produce what in the end was mostly slag and pig iron.

By 1959 food shortages extended to the cities. Transportation infrastructure for moving food was almost nonexistent, as before collectivization and centralized storage, locally produced food had been stored and marketed in the region, containing any regional famines in the process. Food rotted waiting for transportation. The great farming and steel schemes had failed. Many of the irrigation projects had collapsed. Foreign customers were complaining about the quality of goods. The rift with the Soviet Union, previously a major supplier, was almost complete.

The first real public opposition to the impact of the Great Leap Forward came at the Lushan Conference in the summer of 1959. Peng Dehuai, Minister of Defence and a hero of the Long March, spoke against Mao. Mao was supported by Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi and Lin Biao. Peng was forced to confess to being anti Party and anti people, saying he had made "anti socialist mistakes of a rightist opportunist nature". He and the army were purged.

The spirit of fear and terror at the top that followed the conference ensured that no one would speak out further. Over the next two and a half years, the countryside would be stripped of vegetation and wildlife as people desperately searched for food. Seed stocks were eaten. Production plummeted everywhere as starving workers collapsed at their posts. Traditional family roles were smashed by resettlement and collectivization, and violence increased dramatically. Workers and peasants alike were beaten for shirking. People at all levels were charged with theft of state property for offences as minor as eating straw. Suicide rates increased. The medical system collapsed without adequate resources. Children were sold in the hope they would survive. Dikötter's final estimate is that at least forty-five million people died from starvation, suicide, incarceration, beatings, cold, exhaustion, industrial accidents and illness during those four years.

During the summer of 1961, Liu Shaoqi toured the countryside. As a result of what he and others found, some of the regulations governing collectivization were relaxed. In January 1962, he presented his report to the 7000 Cadres Conference in the Great Hall of the People. Mao was enraged. It was the beginning of the end for Liu, but finally the Party was forced to take action despite Mao's denials. Help was on the way, including international aid. The inner Party turmoil created by the Great Leap Forward would continue though, exploding into the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in 1966.

CHINA:

To Live by Yu Hua
First published in Chinese 1992
English translation by Michael Berry 2003



The American folk song "Old Black Joe" was the unlikely inspiration for this excellent modern Chinese novel. It begins with a narration by a carefree young student wandering the Chinese countryside in the 1970s collecting folk music for a culture study. He meets an old man working his rice field with an equally aged ox. While man and beast take a break, the researcher starts up a conversation. Over the course of the day, the old man tells the student his life story.

Xu Fugui was born to an old family of prosperous landowners in the southern part of China. He begins his story in the 1930s, during the Japanese occupation of China, and admits to having been a spoiled young man. He was carried everywhere on the back of a servant and learned nothing of work and responsibility. Instead he took to gambling and whoring, and continued even after his marriage to the beautiful and patient Jiazhen. Eventually Fugui gambles away not only all his cash, but his family's land as well. They must face the disgrace of moving out of their beautiful home and into the thatched roof shack of a common peasant. Fugui and Jiazhen must learn to labor for meager wages in the rice fields he formerly owned. Not long after this--in 1945 after the Japanese surrender--Fugui is pressed into service in the Nationalist army. He is unable even to let his wife know what has happened; for all Jiazhen knows, Fugui has abandoned her and their two children.

Fugui's experiences include the Chinese Civil War, the famine years of the Great Leap Forward, and the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. He survives all of this, but other family members are not so lucky. One by one, Fugui must bury those he loves most. He owes his survival to his unpretentious simplicity as well as blind luck. Had he not gambled away his inheritance he would have been executed in the purge of landlords in the wake of the Communist victory. He eventually develops a simple philosophy, devoid of ideology: to live.

Yu Hua vividly portrays the consequences of war, economic failure, and social upheaval, but does not dwell on them. This is more a personal story than a political one. The simple villagers are largely unaware of the goings on at the national level. Their concerns are centered on providing food and clothing for themselves and their children. To Live is an engrossing, poignant, and often heartrending tale of love, loss, and patient endurance.

CHINA
Red Sorghum by Mo Yan
1987, English translation 1993



adeAt the end of this grim book, which jumps back and forth in time but mainly focuses on the period just before and during the Japanese invasion and occupation of the Shandong area (and more) of China, the essentially contemporary narrator, who has barely intruded himself into the story, mourns the loss of the past, as epitomized by the now hybrid sorghum covering the area where his family used to live.

As I stand amid the dense hybrid sorghum, I think of surpassingly beautiful scenes that will never again appear. In the deep autumn of the eighth month under a high, magnificently clear sky, the land is covered by sorghum that forms a glittering sea of blood. If the autumn rains are heavy, the fields turn into a swampy sea, the red tips of sorghum rising above the muddy yellow water, appealing stubbornly to the blue sky above. When the sun comes out, the surface of the sea shimmers, and heaven and earth are painted with extraordinarily rich, extraordinarily majestic colors." pp. 385-359

Although, as here, Mo Yan beautifully captures the magnificence of the natural world, as well as (elsewhere) the animals that inhabit it, the preceding 358 pages tell a story of trickery, rivalry, violence, and atrocities that show the depths of what human beings are capable of. Essentially, the narrator is telling the story of his grandparents and his father; throughout the novel they are referred to as Granddad, Grandma, Father, Little Auntie, Second Grandma, etc., so the reader is always aware of the family connections, even though the narrator is largely invisible. The reader first encounters Father as a teenager in 1939, about to follow his father, Granddad, a leader of one of several private armies in the area, into battle against the Japanese invaders, and ultimately also against some of the other armed groups . But soon the story flashes back to Grandma's journey as a teenaged girl to the man she is being forced to marry, rumored to be a leper like his father. The story of how she falls in love with Grandpa instead (he is one of the men carrying her traditional sedan chair to her new husband's home, although also sometimes a bandit) and what ensues, leading her to become the owner and manager of a prospering sorghum wine distillery, is both funny and violent. As the novel continues, it jumps back in forth in time, and includes the stories of a variety of other characters; the reader has to pay attention to keep track of who's who and when events are happening.

Throughout the novel, Mo Yan illustrates Chinese village life in the era of warring bandits, which includes both horrifying and humorous events, as well as the atrocities of war, especially those perpetrated by the Japanese who employed a scorched earth policy in the region known, according to Wikipedia, as the "Three Alls" policy -- "kill all, burn all, loot all." Some of the details are hard to read.

This is not only a very earthy book, with a variety of sexual relationships and jealousies, lots of blood, graphic injuries, mud, animal activities and wastes, and more, and a very violent book, but also a book with many lyrical passages like the one quoted above and in some ways a mythical one, with animals both helping and demonically possessing people, and even fighting people as an organized army. The red sorghum itself is almost a character, shielding lovers and warriors, providing sustenance, symbolizing the natural order of the region as it resists invaders. This is a difficult book to read, but one well worth reading.

As a final note, I was interested to read a translator's note, especially in light of some discussions here on LT about English translations of Chinese novels generally being abridged, that said that the translation was based on a Taipei edition, "which restores cuts made in the Mainland Chinese edition" and that also "some deletions have been made, with the author's approval."

TAIWAN:

The Butcher's Wife and Other Stories by Li Ang
Novella and stories first published in the 1980s
Translated from Chinese by Howard Goldblatt

 

This collection consists of a short novel and five stories, all set in Taiwan and dealing with the complexities of gender issues.

The Butcher's Wife begins with the end of the story: Lin Shi murders her husband, the pig butcher Chen Jiangshui, with his own butcher knife. Despite knowing that Chen brutalized his wife, neighbors and authorities automatically assume that Lin Shi had an adulterous relationship and condemn her.

The story is set in a Taiwanese fishing and farming community at an unspecified time, probably mid-20th century. Lin Shi is a painfully shy girl who has known nothing but abuse and neglect since her mother was taken away on similar charges of presumed adultery. Her uncle gives her in marriage to Chen Jiangshui, the butcher. Chen is a man who can only be sexually aroused by women who scream in pain as the pigs do when he slits their throats. But this, ironically, isn't Lin Shi's greatest woe. She suffers even more from the pain of rejection by the vicious women of her village who support the patriarchal system with even more fervor than their husbands.

Aside from being a painful story of domestic abuse and social pressure, The Butcher's Wife contains a vivid, if gloomy depiction of impoverished village lives dominated by fear, fatalism and superstition.

The five short stories are all set in modern Taiwan. In "Flower Season" a young woman is so dominated by her fear of male sexual aggression that she can't recognize a simple act of generosity for what it is.

In "Wedding Ritual" a young man is taking a gift from his grandmother to a woman he doesn't know named Auntie Cai. He goes through a Kafkaesque ordeal in just finding Auntie Cai, only to discover that even stranger things are about to happen to him.

"Curvaceous Dolls" is the bizarre tale of a young woman suffering from strange and increasingly sinister dreams that reawaken in her the yearning she felt as a girl for the comforting touch of the breasts of the mother she never knew. She becomes obsessed--in an entirely asexual way--with breasts.

The final two stories, "Test of Love" and "A Love Letter Never Sent," are both about unrequited love and, in very different forms, demonstrate the frustrating complexities of relationships involving conflicting demands of romantic love, morality, sexuality, devotion and domesticity.

The Butcher's Wife and Other Stories is recommended as both entertainment and for a balanced and insightful look at gender in traditional and modern Asian cultures.

CHINA:

The Song of Everlasting Sorrow by Wang Anyi
First published in Chinese 1995
English translation by Michael Berry and Susan Chan Egan 2008

 

The Song of Everlasting Sorrow is a novel equally about a woman and a city. The city is Shanghai, and the story opens in its last days of decadent opulence in the 1940s. The woman is Wang Qiyao, as a teenager a striking young beauty who has been raised on Hollywood movies and a mix of Chinese and Western fashions. Her life is that of a typical Shanghai girl until, with the help of a friend, Wang Qiyao gets a glimpse at the world of her dreams backstage at a Shanghai film studio. This leads to her being noticed by an amateur photographer who makes her his lifetime obsession. His photos of Wang Qiyao catapult her to local fame and a place in the 1946 "Miss Shanghai" beauty pageant.

Wang Qiyao's feminine world is echoed in the author's descriptions of Shanghai itself:

"Shanghai's splendor is actually a kind of feminine grace; the scent carried by the wind is a woman's perfume.... The shadows of the French parasol trees seem to carry a womanly aura, as do the oleanders and the lilacs in the courtyard--the most feminine of flowers. The humid breeze during the rainy season is a woman's little temper tantrum, the murmuring sound of Shanghainese is custom-made for women's most intimate gossip. The city is like one big goddess, wearing clothes plumed with rainbows, scattering silver and gold across the sky."

Wang Qiyao lives in a "longtang," the traditional Shanghai residential block consisting of a group of connected houses fronting a single narrow alley. There are detailed descriptions of the longtang and changes that both it and Wang Qiyao undergo over time as history sweeps across Shanghai.

But the tumultuous events of Chinese history from the 1940s to the 1980s are seen only indirectly. The name of Mao Zedong is never mentioned, nor that of any other public figure. Instead what we see through Wang's eyes are the changes in fashions, in music, and in the menus of restaurants. We see the city slowly darken and decay, then burst back into life again in 1976, but only in a cheap imitation of its former glory. Observing the sudden explosion of gaudy but poorly made and ill-fitting clothes, Wang Qiyao observes that "nothing could escape the prevailing crudeness and mediocrity in the general rush to produce instant results."

Wang herself has friendships with a number of women and affairs with several men, but never commits herself emotionally. Always seeking to recapture the glory of her youth when all of Shanghai was her admirer, she keeps others at arm's length. She is a creature of a Shanghai of the past, but when that Shanghai finally tries to recreate itself, Wang Qiyao discovers that "her world had returned, but she was now only an observer."

The characters in most of the Chinese fiction I have read are notably plain-spoken, thick skinned, and wear their emotions for all to see. The Song of Everlasting Sorrow is quite different. The language is lyrical, poetic, and at times almost magical. The characters are complex and subtle, reluctant to show their true feelings or to take action. Emotions are suggested by a single tear or a sharp turn of the head. In the same way, sweeping historical and social changes are only hinted at by the accumulation of dust on a window sill or the gradual fading of a treasured but never worn silk dress.

This is a beautifully written and intimate novel with subtle patterns and ironies. It offers a unique urban and domestic perspective on modern China that both contrasts and complements the more masculine perspective of most Chinese novelists.

CHINA

Lust, Caution and Other Stories by Eileen Chang, individual stories translated from the Chinese by Julia Lovell, Karen S Kingsbury, Janet Ng with Janet Wickeri, Simon Patton and Eva Hung
This collection first published 2007



The short stories in Eileen Chang's Lust, Caution take place in the 1930s and 1940s during one of the most tumultuous periods in Shanghai's history, yet with the exception of the title story, the outside world barely intrudes into these sketches of daily life. This has been used by some as a criticism of her work, however, it serves to remind us that although Shanghai was filled with intrigue and revolution, people continued with their routines in much the same way they always had. Change does not impinge here.

In the Waiting Room, middle aged women are lined up on benches, waiting in turn for their massage. At a stage in life where their children and husbands no longer need them, they compete with each other for maladies and injustices.

Mrs Bao was quite ugly; she had a long winter-melon face and strangely ringed, cartoon-like eyes with a fleshy, drooping nose. Because she'd never been good-looking, she'd always been consigned to the role of female companion, forever sympathizing with others. Feeling Mrs Bao's warmth, Mrs Tong started in, right away, on her sorrows.

Yet even in this world of shared misery there is a hierarchy of barbed insults, spoken and otherwise. A woman tells Mrs Xi, whose husband is with the army in Chongqing, "I've heard that your husband is doing very well up there in the interior...Maybe... your husband has another woman there!" People tire of waiting and pay extra to move up the queue, bumping those of lower status. The wait seems eternal, the room oppressive, until closing time shuts down one more bleak day.

Great Felicity sardonically details preparations for a dutiful wedding, about which no one is particularly enthusiastic. The family of the bride, Yuquing, is of higher social status than that of the groom. In comparison, the groom's sisters, Erqiao and Simei "were simply young ladies of the nouveau riche." However, each of the sisters

felt that hers was the most important role in the wedding. For Erqiao and Simei, Yuqing was the dazzling white caption to appear on the silver screen at the end of a movie -- 'The End'--, while they were the exciting previews...

Yuqing spends and spends for her wedding, while her future in-laws criticize. This frenzied acquisition is a desolate consolation for getting married. The wedding itself is business like in execution. The next day, as the groom's family sit around looking at pictures, his mother thinks back to the excitement and joy that accompanied the weddings of her youth, but has no idea why her son's didn't measure up.

Steamed Osmanthus Flower: Ah Xiao's Unhappy Autumn gives a look at the life of a domestic and the mutual obligations of employer and employee. In a rare reference to the outside, rationing is in effect in Shanghai. Ah Xiao's employer Mr Garter, sees her small son eating bread in the kitchen. Although she had bought the bread with her own coupon, she immediately knows her employer suspects her of using his. She flushes red, appearing guilty. He mentally calculates whether or not he should fire her. Just one more entry in the balance sheet between them.

These three stories have no definitive end. Come back tomorrow and life will still go on the same; nothing will have changed in the waiting room, the sisters will continue to carp at their brother's bride, Ah Xiao will still be struggling. What the reader is left with is a sense of mood and setting, of stages waiting for action.

The other two stories have more emphasis on character and plot. This collection has stories from 1944 when Chang was a young woman in Shanghai, to 1979, when she had been living in the US for almost twenty-five years. Unfortunately, other than the title story, the date of each is not given, so it is difficult to trace the development of style.

Traces of Love sees Mr Mi, an older man, explain to his younger second wife/concubine with whom he now lives, that he wishes to visit his dying first wife. Her imminent death has him sensing his own mortality. Still, however, he has time and the innate consideration to fulfill all the familial obligations of his second family.

Lust, Caution is a superb synthesis of mood, plot and setting. Jiazhi, a beautiful university student, is involved with a group plotting to assassinate a highly placed official collaborating with the Japanese occupiers. She has spent considerable time insinuating herself into the official's family as a companion to his wife. When the time comes to get him to the chosen location for the attack, she second guesses herself.
In the Editor's Afterword, Julia Lovell says Chang wrote and rewrote the ending over three decades. Chang's first husband had been a Japanese sympathizer and there are echoes of her ambivalence here. Whatever her doubts were, this ending is taut and final.

Even if you never read this story, I can't recommend enough Ang Lee's film version. Casting, cinematography and direction all combine to immerse the viewer in the languid world of the upper classes and the dangerous world of the student activists.

CHINA

Dream of Ding Village by Yan Lianke
Translator: Cindy Carter

Bitingly satirical and bleak, this book describes the death of a village from AIDS, acquired from dirty needles and equipment during the blood selling boom in China. It's a harsh portrayal of China through the microcosm of the village of Ding and its inhabitants but it is also a damning indictment of human nature at its worst, potentially applicable to all nationalities. Yan Lianke has faced some criticism for the self-censorship he employed (futilely it would seem) to ensure that his work was not banned in China on first publication. A quick search around the internet for interviews shows that he made a conscious choice to narrow his focus to the level of the individual village rather than the whole blood selling system and its international connections. I would disagree with the criticism levelled at him for that decision because I think a thoughtful reader can see the broader criticism in the text. Fiction is not an academic history book and sometimes intelligent fiction can lead the reader to independently dig deeper in a topic. I don't read in Chinese so I can't compare this translation to the original, however, it reads very well and the translator's style seems well-matched to the text - it's not stilted or clunky. Definitely well worth reading if you haven't already.

CHINA

Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw

Shanghai is a beautiful place, but it is also a harsh place. Life here is not really life, it is a competition.

Shanghai is the world's largest city, with a total population of over 23 million. It can arguably claim to be the city of the 21st century, similar to 19th century London and 20th century New York, as it is a booming financial, commercial and entertainment center that attracts emigrants and visitors from every continent, and it is the leading symbol of the new China and its growing influence on Asia and the rest of the world.

Tash Aw was born in Taipei to Malaysian parents, grew up in Kuala Lumpur, was educated in the UK, and lived in London before he moved to Shanghai after he was chosen to be the first M Literary Writer in Residence in 2010. In this superb novel, he portrays five Malaysian Chinese who have moved to Shanghai to seek the wealth and prestige that the city seems to offer to each of its newcomers.

Phoebe is a naïve and uneducated young woman from the Malaysian countryside, who emigrates illegally to China on the suggestion of a friend, but soon after she arrives she finds that the dream job she was promised has suddenly vanished. Justin is the eldest son of a wealthy real estate tycoon, charged with purchasing a property in Shanghai that will save his family from ruin in the face of the Asian financial crisis. Gary is a pop mega-star who performs in front of thousands of adoring fans, while battling internal demons that threaten to destroy his career. Yinghui is the daughter of a prominent family in Kuala Lumpur who transforms herself from a left wing political activist into a hard nosed and successful businesswoman. Finally, Walter is a secretive and shadowy figure who has risen up from the ashes of his father's ruin to become a prominent developer and the anonymous author of the best selling book "How to Become a Five Star Billionaire". The first four characters are all interlinked with Walter, the only person given a voice in the first person in the book, in an intricately woven web that slowly tightens around each of them.

Through these characters, Tash Aw provides a fascinating internal glimpse into modern Shanghai, a city filled with ambitious but often lonely and desperate people from all over Asia whose singular focus on material goods and wealth outweighs love and personal happiness. Anything and anyone is fair game for exploitation and deceit, and the widespread availability of counterfeit watches, purses and clothing mimics the superficiality of the city's high stakes capitalist culture. Self help books such as the one written by Walter are the bibles of the young up-and-comers, and traditional Chinese culture is viewed as outdated and stifling to young people like Phoebe.

Each one attains some degree of success, but several meet with sudden and spectacular failure, in the matter of a climber that reaches the summit of a mountain only to be blown off of it entirely by a sudden gust of wind.

The city held its promises just out of your reach, waiting to see how far you were willing to go to get what you wanted, how long you were prepared to wait. And until you determined the parameters of your pursuit, you would be on edge, for despite the restaurants and shops and art galleries and sense of unbridled potential, you would always feel that Shanghai was accelerating a couple of steps ahead of you, no matter how hard you worked or played. The crowds, the traffic, the impenetrable dialect, the muddy rains that carried the remnants of the Gobi Desert sandstorms and stained your clothes every March: The city was teasing you, testing your limits, using you. You arrived thinking you were going to use Shanghai to get what you wanted, and it would be some time before you realized that it was using you, that it had already moved on and you were playing catch up.

Five Star Billionaire is a captivating work about Shanghai and the new China, and the lives of five talented and determined people who seek wealth and fulfillment but find loneliness and misery instead. I read nearly all of this novel in a single sitting, and I was quite sorry to see it end. I also loved Tash Aw's previous novel Map of the Invisible World, and I look forward to reading The Harmony Silk Factory later this year.

CHINA

Bi Feiyu : De la barbe a papa un jour de pluie (Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day)
4/5 stars

I don't often read Chinese books but this beautiful title drew me in: Cotton candy on a rainy day. It immediately leaves an impression of youthful innocence quickly ruined by the imminent summer afternoon storm. The narrator of this story recounts the story of his friend Hongdou, a young man who should have been born as something else; should have been brought up as someone else; should have tried to become anything else. Instead he lets himself be taken into a world which is not his own and instead belongs to his father: war. Hongdou, son of a hero of the Korean war, enrolls himself in the Sino-Vietnamese conflict of 1979 and comes back broken. We are first introduced to the dead Hongdou and see quickly how the young man of 28 succumbed to the horrors of his destiny. As the summary on the back of the book so beautifully writes: "The deeply moving story, which we could interpret as anti-war, is foremost a tribute to those who don't have the force to live outside the paths created for them."

I'm currently reading Red Sorghum by Mo Yan (in French).

I'm about halfway through and so far I love it (though I have to admit that I'm starting to be a bit fed up with his sorghum). IMO the fact that the storyline goes back in forth in time both helps to maintain the reader's interest and to allow him/her to digest the horror of some war scenes better. I feel that it would have been a very difficult book to read if all the scenes happening during the japanese invasion had been in a sequel.

The House of Eight Orchids by James Thayer was delightful reading. This story actually begins in 1912 when William and his brother are kidnapped off the streets of Chunking by Eunuch Chang, a mastermind criminal. Fast forward to 1938 ….John and his brother are now con-men, master forgers, assassins, whatever is needed by the Eunuch. The eunuch, who carries around his severed parts in a golden urn is aided and abetted by Madame Tuon; a footbound, razors for fingernails sadist. All is well until the Eunuch kidnaps Tsingtao Lily , a beautiful young actress who bats her eyes at the boys and pleads for them to rescue her.

Thayer paints a detailed picture of the Chinese countryside and enlivens the story with Chinese legends. Contained within are feats of daring and acts of grace. Like most legends, some parts are bigger than life.
One of the most interesting parts of the book for me was the bombing of Chunking by the Japanese. They had already occupied Manchuria and were moving inland down the Yangtze. Several times Nationalist soldiers and are involved ever so slightly in the story and General Chiang Kai-Shek is mentioned half a dozen times.

Thayer’s writing is efficient and borders on graceful—pages fly by as the action moves along throughout the book. This is a historical fiction thriller that worked extremely well for me. 281 pages 5 stars

CHINA

The Incarnations by Susan Barker

This novel takes place in modern day Beijing, but is also interspersed with vivid chapters describing the various lives of a reincarnated soul (hence the book's title) throughout Chinese history. Quite good all in all. Not only are the "past lives" stories well written and compelling, but I felt that the sounds and smells and stresses of life in today's Beijing are extremely well invoked, as well. The chapter the plunges the reader into the horrors of the Cultural Revolution is harrowing, indeed.

Barker is English but lived in Beijing while researching Chinese history for this book.

CHINA



Buying a Fishing Rod for my Grandfather by Gao Xingjian, translated from the Chinese by Mabel Lee
Published 2004, 172 p.

This collection of six short stories by Nobel Laureate Gao Xingjian were tied together by their sense of impending doom and loss.

"The Temple" is the story of a couple on their honeymoon who impulsively get off the train in a village and hike up to an old temple. There, a man approaches them while ominous music played in my head. Although nothing untoward happened, the story ends with a loose tile hanging overhead about to fall.

"In the Park" is a conversation between a man and a woman who are meeting after a long separation. There is attraction between them, but the woman is married. Before long the repressed emotions come out as frustrated anger. In the background a woman has clearly been waiting for someone, but when he fails to appear, she bursts into tears.

"Cramp" begins with a man swimming in the ocean at night. He gets a cramp and worries that he won't make it to shore. Does anyone see him out there? The story ends with a woman on crutches watching two friends swimming.

"The Accident" begins almost in slow motion, with a man on a bicycle pulling a child in an attached carrier passing in front of a bus. As a crowd gathers around the accident, the language speeds up until all we hear are snippets of conversation. The story ends with the narrator (author?) saying,

I have been discussing philosophy again, but life is not philosophy, even if philosophy can derive from knowledge of life. And there is no need to turn life's traffic accidents into statistics, because that's a job for the traffic department or the public security department. Of course, a traffic accident can serve as an item for a newspaper. And it can serve as the raw material for literature when it is supplemented by the imagination and written up as a moving narrative: this would then be creation. However, what is related here is simply the process of this traffic accident itself, a traffic accident that occurred at five o'clock, in the central section of Desheng Avenue in front of the radio repair shop.

The title story, although it sounds prosaic, is actually a confused narrative that mixes memories with a dream state while a soccer game plays on tv in the background. It's about lost childhoods, lost family, and the drastic changes brought to a village by modernization.

"In an Instant" begins with a man in a deck chair looking out at the ocean. But this narrative is broken, with paragraphs about a woman and her sexual proclivities interspersed. Each time the story reverts to the man in the chair, the water is higher, until only the chair is floating. Then it gets weird.

I'm glad I read this collection, because I had been wanting to read something by Gao Xingjian, and his Soul Mountain is intimidating. But I'm not sure I liked it. I found the stories difficult without being rewarding. A big caveat, however: First, it is hotter than Hades here, and second, I'm not a huge short fiction aficionado. Could be wrong book for the weather or my own shortcomings. For these reasons, I would not dissuade you from reading this collection, but I can't wholeheartedly recommend it either.

Edited to add part of review that had been left out when I copied it.

MONGOLIA


The Blue Sky by Galsang Tschinag, translated from the German by Katharina Rout
Published 1994, English translation 2006, 159 p.

Dshurukawaa is a young Tuvan shepherd boy growing up in the Altai mountains of Mongolia. Life is hard, but he has a loving family and a loyal dog. His adopted Grandmother is his favorite person in the world, and she dotes on him. When his brother and sister go off to boarding school, Dshurukawaa takes on more responsibilities for the lambs and bonds even more with Aryslan, his dog.

I loved this story, based on the author's childhood as a Tuvan nomad. The descriptions of life in the ail, or settlement of his extended family's yurts, were fascinating, and the story is told with warmth. The author uses dialect for certain objects and concepts, and there is a helpful glossary at the end (which I wish I had known about sooner). I also enjoyed the translator's introduction where she discusses how she took on this project and her trip to Mongolia to stay with Galsang. I do wish there had been a map in the edition of the book that I read. It's the first in a trilogy of autobiographical novels, and I have already ordered the next one.

>28 labfs39: You've given us a nice summary of the stories, but as someone who read this recently, I am also interested in knowing what you thought of the book. Did you like it? Did it impress you? Do you think the author's books are worth reading based on this one?

>30 Gypsy_Boy: Thank you for asking. I went back and looked at my review in >28 labfs39: and realized I had left off the final paragraph! I've added it in, but no I didn't particularly care for it and will not tackle Soul Mountain anytime soon, despite owning it. I wonder that he won the Nobel Prize.

>31 labfs39: Thanks. Your thoughts are similar to mine but I find you more generous. Here is the review I wrote some time ago:

Two days ago I started Buying A Fishing Rod For My Grandfather.
It is 121 pages long and contains six stories. I have completed five stories and have begun the last one. I made it to page 93. I will not finish this book.
The first five stories were okay, but nothing making me to want to read anything else he's written. He may have won the Nobel Prize. I don't care. I don't care if he is a six-time winner of the Ham-and-Eggs Prize. This is the sentence that made me stop:
"'What' is not to understand and 'what' is to understand or not is not to understand that even when 'what' is understood, it is not understood, for 'what' is to understand and 'what' is not to understand, 'what' is 'what' and 'is not' is 'is not,' and so is not to understand not wanting to understand or simply not understanding why 'what' needs to be understood or whether 'what' can be understood and also it is not understood whether 'what' is really not understood or that it simply hasn't been rendered so that it can be understood or is really understood..." and so on for another six lines.
To be fair, most of his prose is completely comprehensible even if not engaging in the least. This is goobledygook. Or, perhaps more precisely, crap. I have absolutely no doubt there are those out there in the world--and likely even on this board--who will defend the writing, the writer, and the book. If I--a fairly well-read, literate person--cannot even begin to parse his sentence, I am too lazy to bother with this.
Best of all are the blurbs on the back: "For all their elusiveness, these impressionistic sketches have an austere power." "Close observations concisely rendered." "Stands shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the foremost fiction of the moment." "Worth the close attention of any serious reader."
Sorry, but (apologies to Hans Christian Andersen) the emperor has no clothes.
P.S. I wonder, in the end, whether he (and others, of course) is writing for himself, for readers, or for both. That, it seems to be, is a very difficult question: who should a writer be writing for and, of course, what gives readers any right to presume to answer!
P.P.S. I did finally go back and finish the book. It changed my mind not a whit.
P.P.P.S. I do own Soul Mountain and do, notwithstanding this screed, have every intention of reading it.

>32 Gypsy_Boy: Lol. I think I skimmed the ending of that last story too. I hesitate to write him off completely, because he's not known for his short stories. Perhaps he is better/different in longer form and particularly as a dramatist. I think I read somewhere that he was experimenting with these stories. Also, I tend not to enjoy absurdist or avant garde works so much, so perhaps it would appeal more to someone who does. My desire to be fair to him does not extend to the point where I am running to the shelves to read Soul Mountain, however. I hope you post your thoughts here after you read it. Perhaps you will sway me.

MONGOLIA



The Gray Earth by Galsan Tschinag (Irgit Schynykbai-oglu Dshurukuwaa), translated from the German by Katharina Rout
Published 1999, English translation 2010, 303 p.

This is the second in Galsan's autobiographical fiction trilogy, picking up where The Blue Sky left off. Dshurukuwaa is eight (not an adolescent as the book flap mistakenly says) and on his way to the state boarding school where his siblings are. There he must leave behind his language, customs, and beliefs and become a communist Pioneer. Most difficult, he must suppress his shamanizing or face dire consequences.

I enjoyed this book as much as the first. Whereas The Blue Sky dealt with Dshurukuwaa's childhood on the steppe and life with his nomadic family, The Gray Earth has a larger scope as his world expands to include the district school in the regional center. Two themes run throughout: the inner tension for Dshurukuwaa at having to suppress his shamanistic tendencies and the outer conflict between the communist government imposed from the Soviet Union and centuries of nomadic tribalism. Highly recommended.

Taiwan

Der Mann mit den Facettenaugen by Ming-Yi Wu

A political book which, however, does not deal with the Chinese-Taiwanese conflict.

The book is set in the not too distant future, about the indigenous people and the changes in landscape and customs brought about by Han Chinese settlement and the ubiquitous pollution of the seas and the environment.
The book is written in warm and compassionate language, enriched with fantastic/magical elements.

Although I learned a lot about the sea, land and people, the book does not come across as instructive.

I liked it.

CHINA

A Single Swallow by Ling Zhang

The story of three men and their relationship to one woman during the Japanese invasion of China and during the civil war that followed. It is uniquely told in that the three men are dead and they met at a pre-arranged place. One of the problems I had with this book is that two of the main characters were Americans and the third, a native Chinese, worked on the military base as a translator/teacher. I feel that the perspective of the book is very anglicized. The form of the book is creative, although the story lagged in places. This book won the Best Novel China in 2017. I listened to this on audio. 9 hours 17 mins= 299 pages



The author, Zhang Ling, was born in China, but moved to Canada to continue her education. It is unclear where she now resides. She has written several works of Chinese historical fiction, including Mountain Blues and Aftershock.

CHINA



Grass Soup by Zhang Xianliang, translated from the Chinese by Martha Avery
Originally published 1992, English translation 1994, Godine Publishers

Xianliang Zhang was 21-years-old when he was first sent to a forced labor reeducation camp during the Anti-Rightist Campaign. His poetry had been deemed counter-revolutionary and he would spend a total of 22 years in the camps and prisons over the course of his life. This book is based on scraps of a diary he kept and covers a relatively short amount of time: June 11-September 8, 1960. Each chapter begins with a few diary entries, usually only a sentence or two per entry, and then the author describes all that he could not say about what happened on those days. Because his diary was subject to confiscation and reading by the censors at any time, he had to be extremely circumspect about what he said. But now the author is able to reconstruct the past from the clues in what was said, and equally important what was not said, as well as reflect on the experience from a point decades in the future. The result is a fascinating diary/memoir/history of the day-to-day life of an intellectual struggling to survive famine, but also of the mental gymnastics required to "rehabilitate" oneself when accused of wrong thoughts.